Presentation at Dagstuhl Workshop on Physical-Cyber-Social Computing, Sept/Oct 2013

1. Institute for Web Science & Technologies – WeST
Semantics Perspective
on
Physical-Cyber-Social
Computing
Steffen Staab,
With research work from WeST Team

2. Steffen Staab 2Semantics Perspective
Prelude: Web Observatory
Collect PCSC data & ground truth!
Where is our PCSC observatory?
Understanding
 Collecting
 Describing
 Analyzing
 Modeling
 Predicting
 Repeating!

3. Steffen Staab 3Semantics Perspective
And now for something completely different...
Where is our PCSC observatory?

4. Institute for Web Science & Technologies – WeST
Semantics Perspective
on
Physical-Cyber-Social
Computing
Steffen Staab,
With research work from WeST Team

5. Steffen Staab 5Semantics Perspective
Physical-Cyber-Social Computing
Physical
Sensors
Social
Computing
Cyber
Understanding
And here some miracle M occurs!
Let‘s analyse this in more detail!

6. Steffen Staab 6Semantics Perspective
Physical-Cyber-Social Computing
Physical
Sensors
Social
Computing
Cyber
Understanding
And here some miracle M1
occurs
Another miracle M2 occurs

7. Steffen Staab 7Semantics Perspective
Physical-Cyber-Social Computing
Physical
Sensors
Social
Computing
Cyber
View
Semantic integration Semantic interfaces
Integration Model Understanding
Semantic

8. Institute for Web Science & Technologies – WeST
Semantic Integration

9. Steffen Staab 9Semantics Perspective
Semantic Integration
 Ontology definition
 Ontology mapping
 Programming with ontologies! (often forgotten part!)
 Established, but still not known too well
 Too much myth?

10. Steffen Staab 10Semantics Perspective
Semantic Integration: refering to a story by Alan Rector

11. Steffen Staab 11Semantics Perspective
Semantic Integration: refering to a story by Alan Rector
FeverElecHeatElemmeasuringTempPhysSensor
Complex concept

12. Institute for Web Science & Technologies – WeST
Semantic Models
Also a way to do integration!!!!

13. Steffen Staab 13Semantics Perspective
Person sensors
Physical
Sensors
Situational
Context
Environment s.
Tool (car...)
Group
Social
Computing
Social
Context
Role
...
Cyber

14. Steffen Staab 14Semantics Perspective
Person sensors
Physical
Sensors
Situational
Context
Environment s.
Tool (car...)
Group
Social
Computing
Social
Context
Role
...
Text
Cyber Networks Media
Actions/Transactions
Semantic
Represen.
Pragmatic
interpretat.

15. Steffen Staab 15Semantics Perspective
Meaning: Contextualization of Topics - MGTM
 Flickr photos of food, having tags
 Geographical Topic Models
 Spatial context improves content analysis

16. Steffen Staab 16Semantics Perspective
Neighbour Topic Exchange

17. Steffen Staab 17Semantics Perspective
Neighbour Topic Exchange

18. Steffen Staab 18Semantics Perspective
Neighbour Topic Exchange
Can be generalized to other features than geolocation:
• Time (also cyclic time)
• Temperature
• ....

19. Steffen Staab 19Semantics Perspective
Meaning: Understanding Context – EU Live+Gov
Urban Maintenance (Buitenbeter)
 Citizens reporting infrastructure damages
 Text+Image+Sensor readings submitted by citizen
• Activity recognition: walking, cycling,..
• Higher level context: shopping, commuting,...

20. Steffen Staab 20Semantics Perspective
Meaning: Linking of content - EU EPPICS
Use Case: Water management
 Floods of the river Po (Italy)
 Observations:
 Physical:
• Water level sensors
• Smartphone geo positions (where do people drive?)
 Social & content
• What do people tweet
(„road blocked“, „went there and there“)
 Challenges:
 Linking data
 Correlating data („level X blocks road Y“)

21. Institute for Web Science & Technologies – WeST
Semantic Views

22. Steffen Staab 22Semantics Perspective
Relevance in "typical" social network graph

23. Steffen Staab 23Semantics Perspective
Relevance: Retrieving Node A's news stream

24. Steffen Staab 24Semantics Perspective
Relevance: Retrieving Node A's news stream

25. Steffen Staab 25Semantics Perspective
Meaning: Turning sensing of attention into
semantics
 Tagging by sensing
 Interestingness
 Content tags to
regions

26. Institute for Web Science & Technologies – WeST
Conclusion

27. Steffen Staab 27Semantics Perspective
Challenges in Semantics4PCS-computing
 Sensor ontology (SSN)
 Better understanding of what does not work
 Better understanding of whether the problem is in the
ontology or in the modeling!
 Abstraction and contextualization from
 lowest level interpretation („34734893“)
 to mid level interpretation
• „deviating from the norm by twice standard deviation“
• „cycling“ „running“
 To high level interpretation
• „broad flooding“
• „shopping“ „commuting“

28. Steffen Staab 28Semantics Perspective
Conclusion: Semantics in PCS-Computing
 Representing contextualized facts
 Extended provenance
-> who, where, when,...
 Understanding context
 More than sensor readings
-> Reporting
 Using context
 Influences semantics
 Influences use of semantics (pragmatics)
-> Actions!

29. Steffen Staab 29Semantics Perspective
Some of many open questions
 Which context is most useful when?
 What are good models for higher level interpretations?
 Notion of pragmatics?
Which data is good for which purpose?

30. Institute for Web Science & Technologies – WeST
Thank you!

31. Steffen Staab 31Semantics Perspective
References
1. R. Pickhardt, T. Gottron, A. Scherp, S. Staab, Jonas Kunze. Efficient Graph Models for Retrieving Top-k
News Feeds from Ego Networks. In: SocialCom 2012 – Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE Fourth
International Conference on Social Computing, Amsterdam, NL, September 3-6, 2012.
2. Tina Walber, Chantal Neuhaus, Ansgar Scherp, Steffen Staab, Ramesh Jain. Creation of Individual
Photo Selections: Read Preferences from the Users' Eyes. In: Proceedings of ACM Multimedia 2013,
Barcelona, October 2013.
3. C. Kling et al. Detecting Non-Gaussian Geographical Topics in Tagged Photo Collections. Tech Report.
4. http://liveandgov.eu/