Linked Ontologies for Knowledge Interoperability Navy SBIR FY2006.2 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2006.2 Topic No.: N06-148 Topic Title: Linked Ontologies for Knowledge Interoperability Proposal No.: N062-148-0662 Firm: Aptima, Inc. 12 Gill Street Suite 1400 Woburn, Massachusetts 01801 Contact: Webb Stacy Phone: (781) 496-2437 Web Site: aptima.com Abstract: When team members collaborate to solve a problem, each brings his or her own set of experiences, beliefs, assumptions, and cultural tenets. This is especially apparent when members come from diverse cultures, e.g., in Joint or Coalition mission planning. Training, doctrine, and leadership can help, but differences and potential for misunderstandings will remain, especially when members are spatially separated, time constrained, or cognitively overloaded. We propose to address this problem by developing and using shared, adaptive ontologies to identify and resolve culture-based misunderstandings. Our Linked Ontologies for Knowledge Interoperability (LOKI) technology will monitor communications among team members, translate between concepts, identify differences among ontologies, and annotate areas present in one ontology but missing from another. The product of our research will be a system containing ontologies for each team member, for the mission planning domain, and for effective teamwork in a multicultural setting. The system will facilitate collaboration by alerting information producers to words and concepts likely to be misconstrued by other team members, and by translating words and concepts into a format more useful to information consumers. Benefits: The proposed work promises to add a critical item to the military planner's toolkit. During the quick-response cycle of mission planning and execution that characterizes asymmetric warfare, spatially and temporally dispersed, networked team members must maintain a shared understanding of the battlespace as events unfold. By eliminating a key root cause of misunderstandings among team members, the LOKI technology will enable networked warfighters to communicate and collaborate more effectively, thus maintaining better shared situation awareness of, and response to, dynamic events. The LOKI technology will also provide a useful means of monitoring and improving team performance in training and mission rehearsal environments. Return