Research in
Knowledge Representation,
Reasoning, and Acting
Stuart C. Shapiro
Professor, CSE
Affiliated Professor, Linguistics, Philosophy
Director, Center for Cognitive Science
Director, SNePS Research Group
ACM Distinguished Scientist
Fellow, AAAI
Faculty Member:
Interdisciplinary MS in Computational Linguistics
Center for MultiSource Information Fusion
National Center for Ontological Research
National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis
Long-Term Goal
• Theory and Implementation of
Natural-Language-Competent
Computerized Cognitive Agent/Robot
• and Supporting Research in
Artificial Intelligence
Cognitive Science
Computational Linguistics.
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Cassie
• A computational cognitive agent
– Embodied in hardware
– or software-simulated
– Based on SNePS and (M)GLAIR.
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MGLAIR Agent Architecture
Mind
Body
KL (SNePS)
Independent
of lower-body
implementation
PMLa
PMLb
I/P s o c k e t s
Dependent
on lower-body
implementation
PMLc
Proprioception
Speech
W
O
R
L
D
Hearing
SAL
Vision
Motion
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SNePS
SNePS is a
Logic-Based
Frame-Based
Network-Based
knowledge representation, reasoning,
and acting system.
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Some Important SNePS Features
• First-person beliefs
– Not third-person “truth” about agent or world
• Beliefs are current beliefs
– Even if about the past
• On-line acting
• Reified propositions as well as acts & …
• Neither states nor times are privileged
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Some Recent & Current
Research Projects
• A General Characterization of Answers to Questions
• KRR for Information Fusion for Cyber Security
• Information Extraction for Soft Target Exploitation and
Fusion
• Ontological reasoning for GeoCLEF: multilingual
geographic information retrieval
• Intermedia Performance Studio
– Actor-agents in VR drama
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A General Characterization of
Answers to Questions
• Every clause descended from a query clause in resolution theorem
proving is an answer to the query.
• General form of an answer:
[H ] [G ] Q
H is Hypothetical component (optional)
G is Generic component (optional)
Q is Question component (either generic or specific)
• Example:
{~Cat(Boots), ~Tuna(x), Answer(Likes(Boots, x))}
Cat(Boots)  x (Tuna(x)  Likes (Boots, x))
If Boots is a cat, then Boots likes to eat any tuna.
[D. T. Burhans & S. C. Shapiro, Defining Answer Classes Using Resolution Refutation, Journal of
Applied Logic 5,1 (March 2007), in press.]
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KRR for
Information Fusion
for Cyber Security
• Use SNePS to reason about computer networks,
and about potential, and actual attacks.
• Provide ontology-oriented SNePS GUI
• A task of the National Center for Multisource
Information Fusion
• With Moises Sudit (IE & CMIF) & Michael Kandefer (CSE: RA)
• Funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)
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SNePS Ontology GUI
• SNePS GUI
supports the
loading and
exporting of
SNePS files in
several formats.
• Allows the display of binary predicates as a tree
hierarchy
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Selecting a Predicate
for the Tree View
• The user
selects a
predicate
from the
drop down
menu, after
which the
tree is
generated
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Class Hierarchy
• This view shows a small class hierarchy for hosts on
a network
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Part Of
• This view shows a part of hierarchy.
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Network View
•
•
•
•
Shows the network
representation (drawn
using the JUNG network
visualization tool) of a
SNePS belief base
User can zoom, move
nodes, and save images as
JIMI supported file types
(jpg, bmp, png)
Tooltips provide
information about the
propositions expressed by
the nodes in the network
Ex. This view shows
assertions about the
connectivity of various
hosts (h0-h4)
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Information Extraction
for
Soft Target Exploitation and Fusion
• Review relevant NLP tools.
• Translate unstructured text messages to structured summaries.
• E.g.
From
03/17/07
Sabah Dulaimi arrived at 1035.
To
(m2 (date (m1 (day 17) (month 03) (year 07))))
(m3! (act arrive) (agent Sabah Dulaimi) (time 1035))
•
•
With Shane Axtell (CL: RA)
Funded by the US Army CERDEC (Communications-Electronics Research,
Development and Engineering Center)
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Ontological Reasoning
for GeoCLEF
• Provide additional search terms to retrieve
articles for queries such as
International sports competitions in the Ruhr area
and provide means of eliminating irrelevant
answers.
• With Miguel Ruiz (LIS), June Abbas (LIS), Thomas Bittner (PHI &
GEO), & David Mark (GEO).
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Intermedia Performance Studio
• Buffalo-Region resource focusing on the
integration of live actors, virtual avatars,
intelligent actor-agents, dynamic sets and
live, mobile audience members.
• With Sarah Bay-Cheng (THD & DMS), Josephine Anstey (DMS),
David Pape (DMS), & Jon Bona (CSE: RA)
• Funded by UB Provost’s Interdisciplinary Research Development
Fund (IRDF)
• See http://vrstudio.buffalo.edu/ips/wiki/
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The Trial The Trail
• Virtual Reality Drama with SNePS/GLAIR
agent-actors.
• With Josephine Anstey (DMS), David Pape (DMS), and CSE grads:
Jon Bona, Albert Goldfain, Mike Kandefer, Vishwac Sena Kannan,
Madhumitha Nagarajan
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The Trial The Trail
Bad guy agents hassling a human participant
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For More Information
• Shapiro:
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~shapiro/
• SNePS Research Group:
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/sneps/
– Meets Tuesdays 10-12, 242 Bell Hall
– Join us!
• Register for CSE563 in Spring, 2007
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