Copyright 2009 David Dodds
One example of a Situation Awareness system is the Multi-Agency
Situational Awareness System (MA SAS) Architecture Model (AM). [MA
SAS] If you are interested in reading their paper about it you can
see it here:
http://www.geoconnections.org/developersCorner/situational_awareness/MASAS_Archi\
tecture_V1.pdf

Such systems are not aware in the sense that you and I are aware, it
is more of a (military) euphemism for a report of information based on
sensor readings and a particular context of interpretation placed upon
that constellation of readings to produce the report. Business
Information (BI) systems sometimes have a Situation Awareness (SA)
system, whose context is the domain of the business world instead of
military equipment and such. It is more than a truck delivery
monitoring and GPS (vehicle) positioning system. We will return to the
inner workings of SA systems, as seeing what they do to achieve their
situation awareness plays a role in the gain of 'awareness' in
non-biological systems. It will also be useful for you to have a look
at the OGC's SensorML system. We will see some discussion of that
system in this series as well. Using GML and other XML namespaces
SensorML can be operated in such a way that not only is syntactic
usage (via XML schemas)
employed but also there is facility in SensorML to utilize
contributions from semantic (web) technologies as well.

Story boards, such as are used to make animations and movies, are
sequences of static visual depictions, which relate the sequence of
flow of the work. They are usually schematic and not fully coloured
or otherwise fleshed out. The technology of 'in-betweening' can input
two such boards and use them as start-finish versions of a sequence of
frames. This process is called key-framing.

These story board sequences are like a process specification chain,
except that rather than specifying the process at each node it is the
desired end result that is shown at each node (instead). In the
environment in which story boards are typically used it is implied or
known what the collection of available processes are which can be used
to effect the generation of the needed outputs.

SVG, for example, may be used to produce diagrams and drawings, maps,
etc. which can be viewed by humans and also used by machines via their
XML. It is possible to design and store diagram elements or SVG
picture-subparts in a cataloged library and use them to create whole
things via an editor.

As in CAD-CAM systems these elements can be meaningful (a bolt,
bracket, window, door, etc ) or just flourishes and decoration as
might be seen in a simple animated-cartoon background. (My favourite
is Rocky and BullWinkle.)

SVG is an XML namespace, which means that it may have IDs for its
elements and these IDs may be used like 'plugs for patch cables to be
plugged into'. In a way that is the whole point of the Xpath /
Xpointer system.

The placement and assembly of the SVG items can have a meaning itself.
A room is a closed set of walls, where some walls have windows and
some have doors, and the entire room has a floor and a ceiling. That
description of components (ie walls, windows, doors, floor, ceiling)
and their relationships is the meaning of 'room'. By using a taxonomy
/ ontology of things , such a 'room', 'house', 'yard', etc it is
possible for the computer to check to see that all required
constituents are present and located correctly in the output.

With such a system in place it would be possible to make use of
eidochronic story boards which depict end result sequences and the
system 'figures out' how to achieve these end results. There are a
number of ways to do this including genetic algorithms and expert
system based 'planning' systems.

Now we have arrived at the point where the book of instructions for
the man in the Chinese room can be made. Furthermore we have shown a
way that the man's instruction book could be made. There is still a
regression still further back in time. Where did the knowledge which
constitutes the book-generating computer come from? It didn't just
pop into existence. [continued next posting]