[Fwd: Re: Disaster management ontologies?]

For archival

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:  Re: Disaster management ontologies?
Date:  Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:37:39 -0400
From:  kathconnolly@aol.com
To:  ivan@w3.org, bob.bellhouse@gmail.com, jane_nelson@ksg.harvard.edu,
iatsenia@un.org, Alyson.Warhurst@wbs.ac.uk
References:  <50407f50704130646m219d88b7k7ea00a883babe183@mail.gmail.com>



Hello Ivan,

I also saw your posting on humanitarian-ict@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:humanitarian-ict@yahoogroups.com>, so am quite sure you're
familiar with these groups.

http://www.nethope.org/about.html
http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=3253&language=1
<http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=3253&language=1>
(www.hisg.org <http://www.hisg.org/>)
http://www.humaninet.org/index.html
http://www.globalknowledge.org/
http://www.techtionaryna.com/horizonhouse/disaster/index_in.html
http://www.tiaonline.org/policy/initiatives/safety/index.cfm


*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*
*Semantic Wikis and Disaster Relief Operations*
by Soenke Ziesche <http://www.xml.com/pub/au/296>
December 13, 2006

Access to timely information is critical for relief operations in
emergency situations. Over the last years social-networking web systems,
such as wikis, have become more and more sophisticated and can also be
applied fruitfully in humanitarian information management. However, a
major drawback of the Web currently is that its content is not
machine-readable, a shortcoming that is addressed by the Semantic Web
approach.

In this article, I'll first propose using wikis to share information
faster and more easily during emergencies, and secondly, I'll introduce
a way to enhance them semantically. It is particularly promising to
create a Semantic Web extension for wikis, i.e., to provide them with an
underlying model of the knowledge described in their entries.

*2.0 Humanitarian Information Management*
There are a number of websites where information on humanitarian
emergencies and disasters can be found, e.g., ReliefWeb
<http://www.reliefweb.int/> and AlertNet <http://www.alertnet.org/>.
Moreover, there are sites dedicated to specific disasters, e.g., the
Humanitarian Information Centres <http://www.unhic.org/> sites. A wiki
related to the South Asia earthquake from October 2005 can be found here
<http://quakehelp.asiaquake.org/qh/index.php/Main_Page>.
However, most of those sites rarely use the social-networking concept of
fast and massive user participation. This becomes apparent when listing
the information products: situation reports, press releases, contact
lists, databases of assessments, who-does-what-where, etc. Certainly,
those products are produced by or based on the input of the concerned
community. But with wikis, information can be provided much quicker and
more directly, which is critical in humanitarian disasters --
particularly in the early stages.

Situation reports are a common format for reporting in emergencies. They
are usually produced daily at the onset of a disaster, later less
frequently. Typically, a reporting officer, who collects the information
from various colleagues (and other sources), writes the reports. By
contrast, wikis enable the persons providing the information to publish
it directly, thus skipping the reporting officer. They can publish
immediately and, with the adequate device, from anywhere and up to
several times per day.

To classify content, the cluster and the location concerned are
essential pieces of information. /Cluster/ is the term used to refer to
the nine areas of response -- including shelter, water, food, and health
-- during an emergency. For specifying the location, the P-code system,
which is similar to a common zip code system, is recommended and is
usually introduced by Humanitarian Information Centres in disaster
areas; see here
<http://www.unhic.org/usr/ShowContents.aspx?I=1&h=11&sh=-1> for Pakistan.

*2.1 The Sphere Project*
An essential and widely acknowledged tool during emergency operations is
the Sphere handbook [1
<http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2006/12/13/?page=2#ref-1>] issued by the
Sphere project. It declares minimum standards for the level of disaster
assistance to which all people have a right, regardless of political,
ethnic, or geographical specificity. For example, for the cluster
"shelter and settlement," the third standard for covered living space
states: People have sufficient covered space to provide dignified
accommodation. Essential household activities can be satisfactorily
undertaken, and livelihood support activities can be pursued as
required. One indicator that this standard is fulfilled is: "The initial
covered floor area per person is at least 3.5m2."

*3.0 Semantic Enhancements for Wikis*
The Semantic Web approach addresses the shortcoming that the machine
itself does not understand the content of the Web, nor of wikis. For
example, it is not easy to get the answer to the following question from
a wiki about the South Asia earthquake, although it might exist:

Which relief organizations can provide how many tents for the
earthquake-affected region Bala Kot in Pakistan?

The information required to find this answer cannot be readily retrieved
because the information is hidden in the text of wiki articles;
automatic retrieval of the required data is just impossible. So far, the
only way to deal with such an issue is to provide the required data sets
manually, as is done in Wikipedia with articles that basically consist
of a listing only. However, this method is prone to errors and needs
much maintenance.

In [2 <http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2006/12/13/?page=2#ref-2>], an approach
to enhance wikis semantically is introduced by adding "typed links" and
"attributes" as new features. While links within a wiki — and also
anywhere in the Web — do not normally state the way in which linked
entities are related, typed links between articles are classified
according to their meaning. The other addition is attribute-value pairs,
a fundamental data representation in many computing systems. These pairs
declare a relation between an article and a data value.

It is essential, especially in the field of disaster management, that
these enhancements don't require much additional or even technical work,
as time is crucial. Yet, the approach in [2
<http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2006/12/13/?page=2#ref-2>] is based on an
easy-to-learn syntax and leaves the user freedom to pick arbitrary names
according to the folksonomy idea. The following scenario illustrates
that by applying this method, the problem above can be solved with
simple queries.

Pages: *1*, 2
<http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2006/12/13/semantic-wikis-and-disaster-relief-operations.html?page=2>


*Semantic Wikis and Disaster Relief Operations*
by Soenke Ziesche | Pages: 1
<http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2006/12/13/semantic-wikis-and-disaster-relief-operations.html?page=1>,
*2*

*4.0 Scenario for a Disaster*
The information management of a complex humanitarian disaster can be
handled by taking advantage of these new services. Immediately after the
disaster occurs, a wiki would be created (ideally facilitated by the
UN), powered by Semantic MediaWiki
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki>, an extension of
MediaWiki providing semantic technology and thus turning it into a
semantic wiki. Let's look at the South Asia earthquake in Pakistan on 8
October 2005 as an example.

One requirement is that the minimum standards of the Sphere handbook,
introduced earlier in this article, are already available in this wiki
while it is otherwise blank.
A field of application for the typed links would be the administrative
structure of locations, since exact localizations are crucial in
disasters. For example, in Pakistan there are the provinces on the top
level, which consist of districts, while districts themselves consist of
tehsils, etc. If the wiki article for the Pakistani district Mansehra
contains a linked phrase like "One of the tehsils most affected by the
earthquake is _Bala Kot_," the machine doesn't understand what the
relation between "Mansehra" and "Bala Kot" is. However, if the link gets
the annotation "is part of" or "is tehsil of," the relationship could be
determined and would look as follows, using the syntax of [2
<http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2006/12/13/semantic-wikis-and-disaster-relief-operations.html?page=2#ref-2#ref-2>]:

/Source of a clipping of a wiki article about Mansehra (including a
typed link):/
One of the most affected tehsils by the earthquake is [[has tehsil::Bala
Kot]].
Attribute-value pairs can be adopted to formalize one of the essential
questions at the onset of a disaster, "Who, i.e., which organization, is
doing what, where?" For example, the entry for the UN refugee agency
UNHCR would provide the information that the agency currently works in
the district of Mansehra and has 3,000 16m2 tents available.

/Source of a clipping of a wiki article about UNHCR (including a typed
link and an attribute-value pair):/ UNHCR arrived on the ground after
the earthquake in [[district of organization::Mansehra]] and has
[[number of 16m2 tents:=3,000]] 16m2 tents available.

This assumes that a needs assessment for the tehsil of Bala Kot reveals
that 20,000 people still need shelter. Moreover, the indicator from the
Sphere handbook is formalized as follows: /Source of a clipping of a
wiki article about shelter and settlement (including an attribute-value
pair):/ The initial covered floor area per person is at least [[required
space per person:=3.5m2]].

While conventional wikis offer only a full-text search of their content
as well as a categorization of articles, a semantic wiki would provide a
query opportunity based on an RDF query language such as SPARQL
<http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query>. However, for relief workers
under extreme time pressure, a convenient interface is necessary, such
as that provided by [2
<http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2006/12/13/semantic-wikis-and-disaster-relief-operations.html?page=2#ref-2#ref-2>]
in their implementation
<http://ontoworld.org/wiki/Special:SearchTriple>. Queries regarding
typed links can be reduced to three tuples (subject article, typed link,
object article), where one or two fields are left empty while
attribute-value pairs are two tuples. The results are given by two- or
three-column tables, respectively.

Now, given that there are further articles containing this information,
as well as typed links and attribute-value pairs, you can now find, with
only a few queries, that there are 5,300 tents provided by the
organizations UNHCR and CHF available in Bala Kot's district.
UNHCR
 
3000
IOM
 
2500
CHF
 
2300
Medair
 
800


Figure 1. Query: (Attribute: number of 16m2 tents, Value: ?)
UNHCR
 
district of organization
 
Mansehra
IOM
 
district of organization
 
Muzaffarabad
CHF
 
district of organization
 
Mansehra
Medair
 
district of organization
 
Batagram


Figure 2. Query: (Subject article: ?, Typed link: district of
organization, Object article: ?)
Mansehra
 
has tehsil
 
Bala Kot

Figure 3. Query: (Subject article: ?, Typed link: has tehsil, Object
article: Bala Kot)
* *
*5.0 Conclusion*
I have proposed here that an extensive use of semantic wikis would
provide enormous benefits for the exchange of information in
humanitarian emergencies, as they provide, without redundancy, a
combination of a repository of articles and a database that can be queried.

*References*

    * [1] Sphere Project. 2004. The Sphere Handbook: Humanitarian
      charter and minimum standards in disaster response
      http://www.sphereproject.org <http://www.sphereproject.org/>
    * [2] M. Völkel, M. Krötzsch, D. Vrandecic, H. Haller, and R.
      Studer. 2006. Semantic Wikipedia. In Proceedings of the 15th
      International Conference on World Wide Web (Edinburgh, Scotland,
      May 23 - 26, 2006). WWW '06. ACM Press, New York, NY, 585-594.
      http://www2006.org/programme/files/pdf/4039.pdf

* *
*Related Links*

    * AlertNet <http://www.alertnet.org/>
    * Humanitarian Information Centre <http://www.unhic.org/>
    * P-codes <http://www.unhic.org/usr/ShowContents.aspx?I=1&h=11&sh=-1>
    * ReliefWeb <http://www.reliefweb.int/>
    * Semantic MediaWiki
      <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki>
    * Semantic search interface
      <http://ontoworld.org/wiki/Special:SearchTriple>
    * SPARQL <http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query>
    * Wiki for the South Asia earthquake from October 2005
      <http://quakehelp.asiaquake.org/qh/index.php/Main_Page>

------------------------------------------------------------------------


Kathleen Connolly
Associate Director
Disaster Resource Network
An Initiative of the World Economic Forum
connolly@drnglobal.org
http://www.drnglobal.org
646-584-0056 cell
212-334-1123 alternative


-----Original Message-----
From: bob.bellhouse@gmail.com
To: jane_nelson@ksg.harvard.edu; kathconnolly@aol.com; iatsenia@un.org;
Alyson.Warhurst@wbs.ac.uk
Sent: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 9:46 AM
Subject: Fwd: FW: Disaster management ontologies?

FYI.  Does anyone know of related work?

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-ac-members-request@w3.org <mailto:w3c-ac-members-request@w3.org>
[mailto: w3c-ac-members-request@w3.org
<mailto:w3c-ac-members-request@w3.org>] On Behalf Of Tim Berners-Lee
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 5:05 PM
To: w3c-ac-members@w3.org <mailto:w3c-ac-members@w3.org>
Cc: Ivan Herman
Subject: Disaster management ontolgies?


I had an exciting visit from the students in Sri Lanka who had just
received an award for their open source disaster management system,
Sahana.
http://www.sahana.lk/

Discussing their system, which has just received a Free Software
Foundation award, I remembered many conversations about the desirability
for wide interoperability in emergence and disaster situations.

I suggested the Sahana folks provide RDF feeds of, for example, missing
persons, found persons, shelters, relive groups and resources on the
ground, and other things they track.

I started a wiki page to capture a little of this
http://esw.w3.org/topic/DisasterManagement

If you know of activity around disaster management technology which
could possible be involved in or shed light on this, then please mail
ivan@w3.org <mailto:ivan@w3.org> or add it to the wiki.

A possible next step would be an Incubator Group (XG) for a diaster
management ontology development.  Those interested in sponsoring the
creation of such a group, also please get in touch.

Disaster response is much about preparedness. If much relevant data is
available in RDF, when a disaster strikes, those on the ground and
across the world will be able to use it to know what best to do to
respond.

Tim Berners-Lee

------------------------------------------------------------------------
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-- 

Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
URL: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
PGP Key: http://www.cwi.nl/%7Eivan/AboutMe/pgpkey.html
FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf