1 Ontology Applications in ERS Management The Role of Decision Supporting Ontologies for Implementing Effective Solutions to All-Hazard Danger Zones Ontolog Forum Ontology Applications in Emergency Response Planning and Emergency Medical Response January 25, 2007 Bob Smith, Ph.D. CSU/Tall Tree Labs

2 Premises and Promises Premises: –Audience experience and interests/needs and expectations; –Reasonable agreement about The Problem; Situational Awareness of Sea Change in need to improve information/knowledge exchange and proper timely use; A Window of Opportunity to make needed changes now exists; Needs for conceptual clarity about existing domain complexity and evolving semantics ( Kinds of hazards; Categories of Preparation & Preparedness). Promises: –Initial start at redefining Decision Support Systems as DSO; –Initial start at building a research funding knowledge base; Reusable digital ERS_M components and registry/repository Conclusions: –Found no clear Ontology Applications other than in Situational Awareness areas –High potential applications for migrating the 230+ specific Bioterrorism and Emergency Response applications from current point in Ontology Spectrum forward on the Spectrum –Primary stimulus for building prior Applications was legislated requirements

3 Danger Zones Where you live and where you work and play (and your travels between them) Largely unmarked and hidden to you, but digitized for various purposes by some responsible Agent (or Agency) within a legislated/document context at LEVEL 1.OMB GIS Initiatives and related SDO 2.Fed Agencies 3.State Agencies 4.Regional Agencies 5.Municipal Agencies 6.Private Agencies See: Reference Tracking Unit at SUNY Buffalo (Werner Ceusters Real, Belief Network, Artifacts) See: Barry Smiths Document Ontology presentation

4 Decision Supporting Ontology (DSO) Recent Forum use of Clinical Vs Administrative; Balance Ontology Engineering with Ontology Management; DSO More than Decision Support Systems; Ontology Teams and their specialized Methods and Skill- sets with industrial applications in Emergency and Normal Conditions; Team Roles: Onto Engineers; Onto Mgmt; Onto Liaison; Onto Programmers; Onto SOA Platform; XML Wizards: Re-defined DSS Position Functions –Project Planning and Business Process Management Network Theory Critical Path Analysis Task Logic and Process/Knowledge Management

5 Our Approach to identifying Ontology Application Use and Potential Use in Emergency Response Systems We analyzed existing document collections for purposes of categories and terms used to characterize Applications, Problems, and Funding ( Reserved policy gap analysis and process improvements for later: –Documents Collected from: Ontolog Forum, GAO, OMB, HHS, HLS, UN, W3C, OASIS, Key projects tools –Taxo-Thesaurus Project (Denise Bedford & Bob Smith, Co-Organizers): –Kayvium Architecture ( and SemTalk Process/Project tool suite ( –Process improvement using ontology-based (OWL-BPMN) simulation tools Ontology Issues exposed by prior Ontolog Sessions, especially for from: –Alan Rector –Chris Chute –Barry Smith –York Sure –Leo Obrst –Peter Yim –Werner Ceusters –Duane Nickull and Kurt Conrad –Eliza Kendall –Many others

6 Starting Definition of Terms and their Status 1. DSO evolving from [ Decision Support Systems + Ontology + Situational Awareness + Information Operations + Process Analysis Modeling] Informal & Immature 2. Network Theory & Critical Path Analysis: Project planning and Enterprise Project Models; Formal & Mature 3. Business Process Management & Knowledge Management evolutionary path over time & domain space; Informal & Mature 4. Research on the Context of Decision Analysis and Systems Analysis [ Cohen & March, 1972, GarCorg ] Informal & Immature 5. ERS and ERS_M Domain integration potentials ??

7 Example Business Process Model showing phase 1 of 3 phased All Threats Ontology

8 Future Tasks and Questions Future Work –Rules and Rules for Rule Making –Validate All Threats in SOA-RR Pilot –Update liaisons Questions ?