A CHRONOBOT FOR TIME AND KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE

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A CHRONOBOT FOR TIME AND KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE

• Shi-Kuo Chang
• Department of Computer Science
• University of Pittsburgh
• chang_at_cs.pitt.edu

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What is a Chronobot?

• A device for storing and borrowing time.
• Using the Chronobot one can borrow time from
  someone else and/or return time to the same
  person or a different person. (One can also
  borrow time from oneself.)
• Website chronobot.itri.org.tw

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Why Chronobot?

• The main idea of the chronobot is flexible
  allocation of ones time and knowledge to achieve
  the best match for time and knowledge exchange.
  Such idea is gaining popularity in recent years
  due to advances in information technology. For
  example at Nashoba Valley Medical Center
  registered nurses can bid on working shifts that
  have openings. Chronobot will make this possible
  at the personal level in all works of life.

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Our VisionAge of Software and Knowledge

• Age of Soft Computing
• Age of Knowledge Media

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Knowledge Media

• Chronobot BBS
• BLOG
• Time exchanger

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BBS

• BBS Exchange of individualized information
• BBS master reactive rather than active

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FROM BBS TO BLOG

• BLOG Exchange of individualized knowledge
• BLOG master actively contributing individualized
  knowledge
• The result is a global accumulation of wealth of
  knowledge

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Blog Growth Statistics from Technoratihttp//joi.
ito.com/archives/2004/07/07/technorati_tracks_3m_b
logs.html
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FROM BLOG TO CHRONOBOT

• BBS Exchange of individualized information
• BLOG Exchange of individualized knowledge
• CHRONOBOT Exchange of individualized time
• Dynamic and timely knowledge

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Next Big Thing After BLOG

• CHRONOBOT!

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Methodology for Time Exchange

• Identify a slice of time or knowledge for
  exchange
• Search for exchange partner or partners
• Perform time or knowledge exchange through
  bidding and negotiation
• Manage the exchanged slice of time or knowledge
• Evaluate the results

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Example Team Working
I need help!
schedule
George
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Example Team Working
I need help!
schedule
Bill
Interact in the Virtual Classroom
George
Suzie
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Example Team Working
Previously Organized Knowledge of Bill
Bill
George
Suzie
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Time Exchange System

• A time exchange system consists of agents such as
  persons, computer programs and chronobots. Each
  agent u is defined by
• (user-model, relation-search-mechanism,
• negotiation-protocol, time-schedule,
• knowledge-base, operations)

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Characteristics of Experimental Chronobot

• The Chronobot is a time manager
• to manage not only ones own time but also other
  peoples time
• to manage not only the present but also the past
  and the future
• through suitable time/knowledge exchange
  protocols
• The Chronobot is a knowledge manager
• to store, organize, and retrieve knowledge
• to perform information fusion to produce new
  knowledge
• The Chronobot offers a versatile virtual
  classroom
• for e-learning and distance education
• for distributed collaboration
• The Chronobot can interactively provide timely
  knowledge to user

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Learner/ Worker
VirtualClassroom
DigitalContent
Chronobot
Time/Knowledge Exchanger
Searcher
Time/Knowledge Exchanger
Bid Manager
Informationquery
Visualizer
Time/ KnowledgeManager
Relation Miner
timelyKnowledge
Communicator
Teacher/Administrator
Co-worker
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Virtual Classroom as communicator
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Visualization FaceAlive Icons replace emoticons
in the Virtual Classroom

• Facial expressions can be synthesized from known
  person in training set (above).
• Facial expressions can also be synthesized from
  unknown person not in training set (below).

• Known person in training set

• Unknown person not in training set

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Learner/ Worker
VirtualClassroom
DigitalContent
Chronobot
Time/Knowledge Exchanger
Searcher
Time/Knowledge Exchanger
Bid Manager
Informationquery
Visualizer
Time/ KnowledgeManager
Relation Miner
timelyKnowledge
Communicator
Teacher/Administrator
Co-worker
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A User Profile is the realization of the User
Model. User Profile for George

• (First_NameGeorge,
• Last_NameDuncan,
• ProfessionMedia Artist,
• StateNew York,
• SkillsMedia Design, Web Design,
• Preferences 3D graphics)

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A sample transcript

• George Do you think we need to add 3D graphics
  to the presentation?
• Suzie No, I dont think so. But the layout can
  be improved.
• George That is good, because I still cannot find
  a person to do 3D graphics.

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The Relational Index

• 3D graphics George 2
• 3D graphics George Suzie 1
• layout Suzie 1
• layout George Suzie 1

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The keywords are first specified by the user. The
Relational Index is either created or updated
when the user exits from the Virtual Classroom.
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Searching the Relational Index Suppose
the Relational Index contains the following
databasejim clause1
accessjames bond2
databasejames bond3
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Search Results
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Identify Problem Low Grades
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Search for student helper by relation mining
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Output from the searcher
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Learner/ Worker
VirtualClassroom
DigitalContent
Chronobot
Time/Knowledge Exchanger
Searcher
Time/Knowledge Exchanger
Bid Manager
Informationquery
Visualizer
Time/ KnowledgeManager
Relation Miner
timelyKnowledge
Communicator
Teacher/Administrator
Co-worker
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BIDS ARE HANDLED BY BID
MANAGER Example Bill clicks on Place Bid now
from the menu.
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Bill wants to place a 1 hour bid. He fills in
the information and presses the Place a Bid
Now button.
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Quality of Bid (QoB)

• When there are competing bids, the Bid Manager
  determines the winner(s) based upon the QoB of
  the bids.
• QoB combines various factors such as matching
  skills, skill levels, reliability of service
  provider to provide an overall measure for the
  quality of a bid.

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Negotiation Protocol

• Negotiation is needed to determine the exchange
  rate acceptable to the buyer and seller.
• Negotiation protocol is the conversation to carry
  out the negotiation.
• Negotiation protocol relies upon user profiles to
  estimate the exchange rate.

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Exchange Rate

• It is difficult to quantify knowledge
• Exchange of knowledge is done through the
  exchange of time
• Exchange rate is 1 when information distance is
  large
• Exchange rate is first estimated, then
  negotiated, when information distance is small

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Learner/ Worker
VirtualClassroom
DigitalContent
Chronobot
Time/Knowledge Exchanger
Searcher
Time/Knowledge Exchanger
Bid Manager
Informationquery
Visualizer
Time/ KnowledgeManager
Relation Miner
timelyKnowledge
Communicator
Teacher/Administrator
Co-worker
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Time and Knowledge Management

• A time schedule TSv of an agent v is an
  assignment from the time line T to the state
  space S where each state is a pair (location,
  task).
• A life time schedule LTSu, or simply a life, is a
  time schedule of a person u where LTSu(t)
  (no-where, no-task) if ttu-birth or ttu-death.

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Compatibility Conditions

• Two locations are compatible if either both are
  real locations and they are identical, or both
  are virtual locations and they are compatible
  according to a location compatibility matrix.
• Two tasks are compatible if task1 and task2 are
  compatible according to a task compatibility
  ontology.
• Two states s1 and s2 are compatible if both
  locations and tasks are compatible

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Supportability and Life Models

• A time schedule TSv is supported by a life time
  schedule LTSu in the interval ta, tb if TSv(t)
  is compatible with LTSu(t) for any t ? ta, tb.
• A time schedule TSv is feasible in the interval
  ta, tb with the support of G if for any
  sub-internval tc, td of ta, tb there exists a
  u ? G such that TSv is supported by a life time
  schedule LTSu in tc, td.
• A life model LM is an approach to generate a
  certain type of feasible life time schedules.

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Time and Knowledge Managers

• The Knowledge Manager checks the compatibility of
  time schedules and life time schedules with
  respect to a knowledge base.
• The Time Manager checks whether a time schedule
  is feasible. If it is not feasible, the Time
  Manager attempts to revise the time schedule and
  out-source certain tasks by revising the life
  time schedules of agents in G to make the revised
  schedules feasible.

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An Example the knowledge-base KB is an ontology

• Visual Art
• Graphics
• 2D graphics
• 3D graphics
• ..

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Georges Time Schedule for today

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Bills Time Schedule for today

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How George and Bill exchange time and knowledge

• George opens a Bidding Room.
• Bill uses Virtual Classrooms Searcher to find
  out from the Relational Index that George may
  need his help. So Bill enters the Bidding Room
  opened by George.
• Bill uses Chronobots Time Manager and Knowledge
  Manager to check his TS can support Georges TS.
• Bill places a bid, or Bills chronobot can help
  Bill place a bid.
• Bill and George negotiate a mutually acceptable
  exchange rate using the Negotiator and conclude a
  deal through their Chronobots Bid Manager, which
  also keeps track of the deal. If George fails to
  pay back, the case will be handled by the
  Exception Handler.

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ITRI Spice Girl and the Chronobot

• Our spice girl has a smart wireless phone,
  context-aware necklace and H-watch. The smart
  phone has a chronobot engine and a virtual
  classroom for e-learning and time/knowledge
  exchange. The context-aware necklace supports
  situated computing by query morphing. Knowledge
  is exchanged using roaming knowbots or adlets,
  and the H-watch with its multiple sensors
  provides information fusion capabilities. In what
  follows, several scenarios will be presented.

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CVC conceptual architecture
Chronobot
Virtual Classroom
Web Services Interface
Speechbot (Cricketbot)
Context-aware Workbot
Multi-sensor Healthbot
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CVC System Architecture
Chronobot
Virtual Classroom
Bid manager
Exception handler
Searcher
Communi- cator
Visualizer
Time/Knowledge manager
Transaction DB
Session DB
Relation miner
Web Services Interface
Speechbot
Client Smart Phone
Client PC/Notebook
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An Example of Nurse Scheduling for Senior Citizen
Care

• Professional nurses must all bid
• Volunteer nurses can bid as they choose
• Those who bid are rank-ordered by QOB and serve
  as input to scheduler
• Scheduler applies genetic algorithm and heuristic
  algorithm to find best itineraries for the
  selected nurses

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An Example of Nurse Scheduling for Senior Citizen
CareGenetic and heuristic algorithms are used
for scheduling. Each colored route is the
itinerary of a nurse. Each point on the route is
a senior citizens home.
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The Future

• Just-in-time (JIT) e-learning
• Timely knowledge exchange
• Time warp as a new life style

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Just-in-time e-learning

• Train the unemployed and socially
  disadvantaged so that they can acquire new skills
  quickly. In JIT e-learning, a number of
  instructors each with certain skills volunteer to
  donate time. When a client requires assistance,
  the volunteers use the chronobot to respond to
  the request. Since the client must acquire
  certain job skill by a certain date, one-on-one
  e-learning is the preferred solution.

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Timely knowledge exchange

• Context-Aware chronobot for mobile workers
• Query morphing to transform query according to
  the context
• Adlets or Knowbots travel from site to site to
  find matching seller and buyer for time/knowledge
• Workflow manager to customize workflow
• Workflow analyzer
• Sensor information fusion
• SigmaQL query language
• Multi-sensor query processing
• Imprecise and fuzzy information

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Time Warp as a new Life Style

• Time warp is the exchange of time with oneself.
  It is a variation of time management. In a
  front-loaded career a person may concentrate on
  one career for the first twenty years of his/her
  professional life in order to have a second
  career for the next twenty years. Similarly in a
  deferred life a person may choose to have a
  career first and later consider marriage and
  child bearing. Chronobot can help a person plan
  for time warp.

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Conclusion

• Chronobot incorporates soft computing and
  knowledge media in its design
• Chronobot supplies dynamic, timely knowledge
• It may be the next big thing after the Blog

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Q A