Context-based Modeling of Activity in Real-World Projects presents a synthesis of 25 years of research on modeling and using context in real-world applications in a very large spectrum of domains, which allows us to illustrate the keystone aspects of context from an initial operational definition; this opens up a four-level framework under conceptual, operational, implementation and environment aspects of activity modeling.
The result is the Contextual-Graphs (CxG) formalism, thanks to strong connections between context and an actor’s focus of attention, leading to a uniform representation of knowledge, reasoning and context for actor and group activity. The results of this research constitute the building blocks for designing future types of AI systems, namely the context-based intelligent assistant systems.
This book presents the proceduralized context as a new definition of context, that is a real-time definition, which is then applied to context modeling for actor or group activity – before finally elaborating the two versions of the CxG formalism including uses in different modeling.
Table of Contents:
Preface ix
Acronyms xiii
Introduction xv
Chapter 1 Theoretical and Pragmatic Basis of Our Context Modeling 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Theoretical basis 2
1.2.1 Model and representation 2
1.2.2 Concepts used 11
1.2.3 The proposed scientific approach 22
1.3 Projects and applications 28
1.3.1 Introduction 28
1.3.2 The SEPT project (1986–1995) 29
1.3.3 The SART project (1996–2002) 31
1.3.4 The FlexMIm project (2012–2015) 34
1.3.5 The TACTIC project (2013–2015) 35
1.3.6 The ACA project (2005–2009) 38
1.3.7 “Contextualizing scientific workflows” project (2009–2011) 40
1.3.8 The MICO project (2011–2014) 43
1.3.9 The winemaking project (1997–1999) 44
1.3.10 The OSSMOSE project (2009–2011) 46
1.3.11 “Computer-mediated collaborative work” project (1997–1999) 48
1.4 Review of the chapter 50
Chapter 2 Context Modeling for Actor Activity (CxG_1.0) 53
2.1 Introduction 53
2.2 Conceptual level 55
2.2.1 Contextual knowledge and external knowledge 55
2.2.2 Conceptual elements used in the research 57
2.3 Operational level 63
2.3.1 Operational knowledge and context 63
2.3.2 Contextual elements 68
2.3.3 Mental models and mental representations 69
2.4 Implementation level 71
2.4.1 The CxG_1.0 formalism 71
2.4.2 Modeling tools 72
2.4.3 Exploitation tools 79
2.4.4 Review on the CxG_1.0 formalism 88
2.5 Environment level 89
2.6 Variants of the context modeling 91
2.6.1 Introduction 91
2.6.2 The COM 92
2.6.3 Parallel with BPEL for workflows 95
2.6.4 Comparison with two other context-based formalisms 98
2.7 Review of the chapter 103
Chapter 3 Context Modeling for Group Activity (CxG_2.0) 109
3.1 Introduction 109
3.2 Conceptual level 110
3.2.1 Introduction 110
3.2.2 Concept of activity for a group 111
3.2.3 The shared context 113
3.2.4 The turn 117
3.2.5 CxG-based simulation 118
3.3 Operational level 121
3.3.1 Introduction 121
3.3.2 The notions of group activity and interaction 121
3.3.3 The CxG_2.0 formalism 123
3.4 Implementation level 124
3.4.1 Introduction 124
3.4.2 From actor activity to group activity 124
3.4.3 Reserved contextual elements 125
3.4.4 Mechanisms of the CxG-based simulation 128
3.5 Environment level 136
3.6 Two examples 137
3.6.1 “Submission management” example 137
3.6.2 The TACTIC project 146
3.7 Review of the chapter 152
Chapter 4 The Two Versions of the CxG Formalism 157
4.1 Introduction 157
4.2 The key points of the research 158
4.2.1 Discussion on key concepts of the approach 158
4.2.2 Definition of the context of an activity 166
4.2.3 Contextual reasoning 167
4.2.4 Global and local contexts 175
4.3 The “Internship-offer analysis” example 186
4.3.1 The actors 186
4.3.2 Conditions of the experiment 187
4.3.3 Development of the experiment 188
4.3.4 Interpretation of the results 192
4.3.5 Comparison with the “DVD-reader diagnosis” task 199
4.4 CxG formalism for CIAS Design 204
4.5 Review of the chapter 214
Chapter 5 Use of the CxG Formalism in Different Modeling 221
5.1 Introduction 221
5.2 Breast cancer diagnosis 223
5.3 Hierarchical task analysis (HTA) 229
5.4 The ACA project 237
5.4.1 Introduction 237
5.4.2 The ACA method 237
5.4.3 Application in road safety 240
5.5 Workflow modeling in an ACP Department 249
5.5.1 The initial work 249
5.5.2 Contextual modeling of the workflow 252
5.5.3 Discussion on context-based modeling of workflow 257
5.6 Context modeling and semiotics 258
5.7 Review of the chapter 266
Conclusion 271
References 285
Index 297
