IKRIS

MITRE Report on IKRIS Technology Transfer - John F. Sowa
From: http://www.jfsowa.com/ikl/IKLmitre.doc

According to The MITRE TECHNICAL REPORT  MTR060158,
MITRE Support to IKRIS Final Report by Brant A. Cheikes, Ph.D. from November 2006

Sponsor:	Disruptive Technology Office	Contract No.:	W15P7T-05-C-F600
Dept. No.:	G062	Project No.:	FY05: 0705N7KZ, FY06: 0706N7KZ
Derived By:	N/A	Downgrade To:	N/A
		Declassify On:	N/A

The views, opinions and/or findings contained in this report are those of The MITRE Corporation and should not be construed as an official Government position, policy, or decision, unless designated by other documentation.	Approved for public release; Distribution unlimited. MITRE Public Release Case #07-1110.
© 2006 The MITRE Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

In November 2004, the Intelligence Community’s Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA), which subsequently became the Disruptive Technology Office (DTO), requested that the Northeast Regional Research Center (NRRC) hosted at MITRE provide technical oversight and management of a newly-funded “Challenge Workshop” called  IKRIS:  Interoperable Knowledge Representation for Intelligence Support. 
The IKRIS workshop was chartered to address the following challenge problems: 
(1) how to enable interoperability of knowledge representation (KR) technology developed by multiple organizations in multiple ARDA programs and designed to perform different tasks, and
(2) how to practically represent knowledge that is relevant to intelligence analysis tasks in a form that enhances automated support for analysts. 
This is MITRE’s final report on its activities and accomplishments as NRRC Program Manager for IKRIS.

The major accomplishments of the IKRIS Challenge Workshop are summarized as follows:

• IKL—the IKRIS Knowledge Language. This is the key technical result of the IKRIS Challenge Workshop. IKL is a formally-specified language, based on an emerging ISO standard called Common Logic, into and out of which a variety of distinctly different knowledge representation (KR) formalisms can be translated.
• ICL—the IKRIS Context Logic. ICL is a logic formalism for representing and reasoning about context-dependent knowledge, including alternative hypotheses, points of view, world states and scenarios.
• ISIT—the IKRIS Scenarios Inter-Theory. The Scenarios Inter-Theory specifies an approach to translating among the principal formalisms in current use for declaratively representing processes.
• Evaluation Report. The Evaluation Working Group has produced a report showing that IKL is a sound and effective mechanism for knowledge interchange.
• Capstone Demonstration. The Capstone Demonstration serves both as an evaluation of knowledge interchange using IKL, and as an illustration of the potential Intelligence Community impact of the IKRIS-developed approach to interoperability.
• IKL translators. IKRIS participants at Stanford University implemented a set of software tools for building automated translators into and out of IKL.

• Chapter 1 of this report documents the workshop’s milestones, participants, accomplishments and impact.
• Chapter 2 describes MITRE’s support activities and accomplishments, and
• Chapter 3 presents conclusions, recommendations and lessons learned.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction pg 1

In November 2004, the Intelligence Community’s Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA), which subsequently became the Disruptive Technology Office (DTO), requested that the Northeast Regional Research Center (NRRC) hosted at MITRE provide technical oversight and management of a newly-funded “Challenge Workshop” called IKRIS:  Interoperable Knowledge Representation for Intelligence Support.  The IKRIS workshop was chartered to address the following challenge problems:  (1) how to enable interoperability of knowledge representation (KR) technology developed by multiple organizations in multiple ARDA programs and designed to perform different tasks, and (2) how to practically represent knowledge that is relevant to intelligence analysis tasks in a form that enhances automated support for analysts.

According to ARDA’s workshop plan, MITRE was to serve as prime contractor for the effort, and was to subcontract with an approved team of scientists and engineers who would produce and deliver the desired technical products.  MITRE nominated Dr. Brant A. Cheikes to serve as the NRRC Program Manager for IKRIS.  Prof. Richard Fikes of Stanford University and Dr. Christopher Welty of IBM Corporation (who together conceived and proposed the original idea for IKRIS) were to serve as the IKRIS Technical Leads (TLs), and would be responsible for guiding the technical efforts of the IKRIS workshop team.

Beginning in December 2004 and continuing through early January 2005, MITRE worked with the TLs and ARDA to define a Statement of Work (SOW) for IKRIS.  ARDA identified two roles for MITRE: (1) to oversee the production of tangible deliverables from the IKRIS program, and (2) to facilitate technology transfer.  MITRE conveyed the revised and coordinated SOW to ARDA on 26 January 2005.  ARDA then released the funds and the IKRIS effort proceeded.  The overarching Project Work Statement (PWS) covering IKRIS was subsequently approved by the Government on 17 February 2005, allowing the official Period of Performance (POP) for IKRIS to run from 14 February 2005 through 1 October 2006 (nearly 20 months).  In mid-September 2006, a no-cost extension to 31 December 2006 was approved, to permit Prof. Fikes, Dr. Welty, and MITRE to prepare IKRIS deliverables and other reports for transfer to the DTO.

This is MITRE’s final report on its activities and accomplishments as NRRC Program Manager for IKRIS.  In this report we will only summarize the technical objectives and accomplishments of the IKRIS workshop team; details of the technical results will be provided in a separate report being prepared by Prof. Fikes and Dr. Welty.  This report will instead document MITRE’s supporting efforts.  In the remainder of this chapter, we document the workshop’s milestones (§1.1), participants (§1.2), accomplishments (§1.3) and impact (§1.4).  Chapter 2 describes MITRE’s support activities and accomplishments, and Chapter 3 presents conclusions, recommendations and lessons learned.

1.1 IKRIS Milestones pg 1

The IKRIS Workshop achieved several milestones during its 24-month lifespan:

• Project planning—December 2004 thru April 2005
• Kickoff meeting—25-28 April 2005
• Execution of technical program—May 2005 thru March 2006
• Community meeting—3-6 April 2006
• Capstone Demonstration—December 2005 thru September 2006
• Completion of technical work—30 September 2006
• Production of final products and reports—October 2006 thru December 2006

The IKRIS Challenge Workshop officially began at a face-to-face meeting held 25-28 April 2005 at the Columbia Hilton (Columbia MD). 
In attendance were 34 scientists from industry and academia (most of whom were coming under MITRE subcontract to execute the IKRIS technical program), plus 12 representatives from ARDA and the Intelligence Community. 
At this meeting, the basic organizational structure for IKRIS was established.
It was agreed that IKRIS technical work would be performed by five relatively autonomous Working Groups (WGs), each with a designated WG Leader and with a membership chosen by the TLs based on their assessment of each participant’s unique skills and interests.  

The WGs and WG Leaders were:

• Interoperability: Pat Hayes (Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition)
• Contexts: Selene Makarios (Stanford University)
• Scenarios: Jerry Hobbs (University of Southern California, Information Sciences Institute)
• Evaluation: Dave Thurman (Pacific Northwest National Lab)
• Technology Transfer: Paula Cowley (Pacific Northwest National Lab)

During the period May 2005 through March 2006, the five WGs conducted their activities independently, coordinating and collaborating using MITRE-furnished e-mail distribution lists, document-sharing services, and teleconferencing systems.
The IKRIS Executive Team—the NRRC PM for IKRIS and the IKRIS TLs—established a policy of meeting every two weeks (by teleconference) to review technical progress and discuss project finances and other management issues. 
Also on a biweekly schedule, MITRE hosted “All Leads” telecons (bringing together MITRE, the IKRIS TLs, and the Leads of each of the five WGs) to discuss technical activities, schedule, and related issues.
By March 2006, the Interoperability, Contexts, and Scenarios WGs had each completed drafts of their respective technical products.  A second IKRIS community face-to-face meeting was held 3-6 April 2006 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. 
The leader of each WG presented the group’s technical results in plenary, allowing peer review by the entire IKRIS community. 
The ensuing discussions motivated revisions and enhancements to the draft technical specifications, which were then refined over the period May thru September 2006.
In parallel with the core technical development efforts, a “Capstone Demonstration” effort took shape. 
Initiated by the joint efforts of the Evaluation and Technology Transfer WGs, and ultimately directed by Dr. Welty, the Capstone Demonstration sub-project put the fundamental IKRIS-developed interoperability approach to the test. 
Three analyst-support prototype systems—KANI, by the Stanford University, IBM Corporation, and Battelle/PNNL team, Nooscape, by the Cycorp team, and Slate, by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) team—were selected from the suite of tools that had been developed under the auspices of ARDA’s NIMD (Novel Intelligence from Massive Data) program. 
Common to these three systems was their use of sophisticated knowledge representation and reasoning technologies to assist analysts with various aspects of intelligence reasoning and decision making.

The Capstone Demonstration team developed a realistic intelligence-analysis scenario based on a case study, called “The Sign of the Crescent”, obtained from Prof. Frank Hughes of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) Joint Military Intelligence College (JMIC). 
The Capstone team then showed how the IKRIS interoperability solution enabled the three NIMD systems to work together, under guidance from an analyst, to formulate and test several hypotheses that are central to the DIA/JMIC case study.
The Capstone Demonstration activity was originally conceived in late 2005.  It took concrete form in February 2006 when the team was formally established and the broad outlines of the demonstration scenario were defined.  Significant progress was made during the April 2006 IKRIS community meeting, and the Capstone team continued to work with increasing intensity over the summer of 2006, coordinating their efforts with frequent teleconferences. 
A Capstone-specific face-to-face meeting was held on 13 September 2006, at the IBM facility in Hawthorne NY.  During this single focused workday, the Capstone demonstration reached a state of near-completion. 
The team continued to work through September to tie up loose ends and complete the project. 
The Technology Transfer WG delivered a briefing package documenting the demonstration storyboard and illustrating key examples of IKRIS-enabled interoperation among the three systems.
The IKRIS Challenge Workshop completed its technical work by 30 September 2006.  Wrap-up reporting work is expected to continue through December 2006.