The document describes the ASTUTE project which aims to develop context-aware and proactive applications through context modeling and reasoning. It discusses conducting field studies to understand user needs and build ontologies to formally represent context. An emergency response ontology is presented with generic and application-specific layers. The context model is deployed across different user devices and handles high event volumes asynchronously through distributed reasoning on the model.

1. CONTEXT MODELLING & REASONING IN
SUPPORT OF PRO-ACTIVE & CONTEXTAWARE APPLICATIONS
Wim Boffé – IOS International
Anna Hristoskova – IBCN, iMinds

2. ASTUTE APPROACH
Large industrially-driven EU
project
Development of
• pro-active decision support
• for data intensive environments
• supported by HMI interfaces &
reasoning engines.
Focus on seamlessly accessing
• relevant multimodal information
• in a context-sensitive way
• improving the way users deal
with complex situations and
huge information quantities
• during real-time operations.
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies
for pro-active, context-aware and data-intensive applications
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3. ASTUTE RA
GENERAL
Users
Environment
VERTICAL STRATEGY
Physical world
Context Engine
Proactive Decision Support Engine
Adaptive HMI Engine
Cross Domain Applications
SPECIFIC
COMMON
POINTS
Smart
emergency
dispatching
system
Intelligent
cockpit: support
for anticipation
Embedded
driver
infotainment
system
HORIZONTAL STRATEGY
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies
for pro-active, context-aware and data-intensive applications
Virtual control
room: process
management
COMMON
PLATFORM
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4. SITUATIONAL AWARENESS
DURING EMERGENCY RESPONSE
WHAT?
HOW?
Toxic smoke
formation
WHO?
Fire Commander
WHERE?
WHAT?
Site on fire
Coordination of
Evacuation
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies
for pro-active, context-aware and data-intensive applications
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5. CONTEXT MODELLING METHOD
Context definition by domain experts
• Field studies execution
• Mental models creation
• Goal-directed task analysis
Formal translation into an ontology & rules by ontology
engineers in collaboration with domain experts
• long track record of developing ICT solutions for
emergency management
• accurate and complete reflection of the daily work
practices
Deployment of the architecture by domain experts
Processing of usability feedback
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies
for pro-active, context-aware and data-intensive applications
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6. FIELD STUDIES
What are the users’ goals?
What information is
needed?
In what environment do
the users work?
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies
for pro-active, context-aware and data-intensive applications
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7. TASK ANALYSIS RESULTING IN
MENTAL MODELS
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies
for pro-active, context-aware and data-intensive applications
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8. ONTOLOGY DEVELOPMENT
METHODOLOGY
5 life cycle stages
• Specification – define scope through various
scenarios based on the input from the field studies
• Conceptualization – construct conceptual model
through extraction of concepts, relations and
properties from scenarios
• Formalization – translate into a formal model
through addition of rules and axioms restricting the
possible interpretations
• Implementation – translate conceptual graphs and
rules into a formal ontology language
• Maintenance – continuous evaluation, update and
correction
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies
for pro-active, context-aware and data-intensive applications
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9. EMERGENCY RESPONSE
ONTOLOGY
Identification of knowledge within multiple context-aware
application domains capturing generic data on devices, sensors,
companies, people and the roles they perform.
Modeling of dedicated ontologies consisting of two layers:
• 8 High-Level application-independent ontologies

Generic definition of persons, roles, scenarios, locations, medical parameters.
• 6 Low-Level emergency response specific ontologies

Application-specific extension of the generic ontologies consisting of a
definition of firefighters, equipment, tasks, dangers, risks.
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies for pro-active, context-aware and
data-intensive applications
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10. EMERGENCY PLAN LOW-LEVEL
ONTOLOGY
Defines the specific emergency incident and
corresponding scenario including assignment of the
required team having specific roles and competences.
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies for pro-active, context-aware and
data-intensive applications
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11. CASE: INITIALIZATION OF AN
EMERGENCY INCIDENT
Emergency Incident at a Location with assigned Team and required
Roles.
Corresponding Emergency Scenario has required assets such as
Equipment, Vehicles, Devices, Roles and Competences to accomplish
tasks.
Automatic match between the assigned Team with the required assets.
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies for pro-active, context-aware and
data-intensive applications
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12. CASE: INITIALIZATION OF AN
EMERGENCY INCIDENT
Link search & rescue incident to a predefined search
& rescue scenario with specific competence
requirements.
Select qualified team with roles supporting these
competences.
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies for pro-active, context-aware and
data-intensive applications
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13. CASE: INITIALIZATION OF AN
EMERGENCY INCIDENT
Additional semantic rules state
Scenario
hasApplicableScenario
Incident
then
requiredCompetence
Competence
Incident
hasCompetence
hasAssignedRole
Role
Role
Emergency incident and scenario
• describe emergency situation and available
resources,
• track the progress of the emergency situation,
• are used to assign tasks requiring specific
competences to people disposing of these
competences.
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies
for pro-active, context-aware and data-intensive applications
13

14. CONTEXT MODEL DEPLOYMENT
Fire fighters
On-sleeve HMI
Commander
Tablet-size HMI
Server inside
fire truck
Crisis team
Web-based HMI
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies
for pro-active, context-aware and data-intensive applications
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15. REQUIREMENTS
Multiple emergency response teams
A multitude of sensors & devices
Safety critical situation
High sample rate
 Asynchronous processing of events
 Distributed reasoning on the context model
 Orchestration by the context engine
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies
for pro-active, context-aware and data-intensive applications
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16. ARCHITECTURE
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies
for pro-active, context-aware and data-intensive applications
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17. ASYNCHRONOUS EVENT PROCESSING
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies
for pro-active, context-aware and data-intensive applications
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18. IN CONCLUSION
1
Field studies are a valuable tool for the identification of the users’ needs
that can be used to build a formal context model.
2
Definition of an Emergency Response ontology
divided into several application-independent ontologies,
which are extended with emergency response specific ontologies.
3
Given the high number of input events the context model & decision engines
need to work asynchronously to provide real-time responses to the user.
ASTUTE Symposium - Human factors and technologies
for pro-active, context-aware and data-intensive applications
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19. THANK YOU!
QUESTIONS?