MODIFICATION
A -- Semantic Interoperability
- Notice Date
- 8/15/2006
- Notice Type
- Modification
- NAICS
- 541710
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences
- Contracting Office
- Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL - Rome Research Site, AFRL/Information Directorate 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, NY, 13441-4514
- ZIP Code
- 13441-4514
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-BAA-06-08-IFKA
- Description
- The purpose of this modification is to update the funding opportunity description, including revisions to: (a) technical focus area for the submission of white papers in FY07, and (b) white paper submission instructions. This modification also adds Ombusman information. All other information remains the same. FUNDING OPPORTUNITY FOCUS AREA DESCRIPTION: Semantic interoperability is becoming an increasingly important problem as user communities seek to interoperate within and between information spaces such as those that ride on the Global Information Grid (GIG). Semantic interoperability can be defined as the ability of two (or more) systems (services) to exchange data on the basis of an agreed vocabulary (ontology) that guarantees the same interpretation (semantics or meaning) of notions (concepts and their interrelationships) for the users of the interoperating systems. An ontology can be defined as a specific vocabulary and relationships between terms (words) used to describe certain aspects of reality, and a set of explicit assumptions regarding the intended meaning of the terms and relationships of the vocabulary. Ontologies are often viewed as allowing more complete and precise domain models, and the support and use of multiple, independently-developed ontologies is important to support multiple Communities of Interest (COIs), information producers, and information consumers. Information transformation can be defined as a facet of information management that involves the processing of elementary forms of information into rich interoperable decision making knowledge structures for human, enterprise, and machine learning and growth. Semantic interoperability is considered an important foundation for increasingly effective information management and transformation capabilities that accommodate cross-domain information sharing and understanding. Semantically-aware information management services are needed to support information sharing between producers and consumers of information who belong to different COIs which prescribe to different ontologies. FY07: Ontological Interoperability. Important to information transformation is gaining an understanding of the context of an information request (e.g., so that an information system can distinguish between whether the term "Predator" refers to an unmanned aerial vehicle, an animal, or a movie). A context contains metadata relating to its meaning, properties (such as its source, quality, and precision), and organization. Modeling and representing context can lead to several benefits in dealing with information overload by transforming information from its source context into the context of another user or system domain. This in turn promotes interoperability at the semantic level. Several approaches for representing context can be found in the literature. One suggests bringing together metadata, user profiles, information modeling abstractions, and ontologies to construct a model of the application domain and user needs.(1) Another proposes emergent semantics where the meaning of information is extracted from the manner in which they are used.(2) Many suggest using agent technology to gather context information and negotiate contexts(3), as well as rule-based(4), classification-based(5), pattern-based(6) and heuristics-based(7) methods to perform context characterization that would enable mediation between contexts. The primary goal is not to develop new reasoning methods and techniques, but rather to apply known approaches from the fields of knowledge representation and reasoning to provide context modeling and transformation solutions. In FY07, this solicitation seeks innovative approaches and technologies for achieving ontological mediation between different domains, vocabularies, information sources, and services. Capabilities of particular interest include ontological interoperability technologies which contribute to our ability to: (a) provide a coordinated view across multiple data sources and knowledge representations, (b) mediate over mappings between multiple data sources and formats into a format conducive to knowledge-based analytical tools and intelligence analysts, (c) consolidate, disambiguate and normalize multi-source data into concrete knowledge representations, and (d) exchange and reuse inference-capable knowledge representations across differing contexts. FUNDING OPPORTUNITY WHITE PAPER SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS: This announcement constitutes the only solicitation. Do not submit a formal proposal at this time. Offerors are required to submit a white paper no longer than seven (7) pages in length. The purpose of the white paper is to preclude unwarranted effort on the part of an offeror whose proposed work is not of interest to the Government. The white paper will be formatted as follows: Section A: Title, Period of Performance, Cost of Task, Name of Company; Section B: Task Objective; and Section C: Technical Summary. Multiple white papers within the purview of this announcement may be submitted by each offeror. If the offeror wishes to restrict its white paper/proposal, they must be marked with the restrictive language stated in FAR 15.609(a) and (b). In addition, respondents are requested to provide their Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) number, a fax number, and an email address with their submission. All responses to this announcement should be electronically mailed to James.Milligan@rl.af.mil and reference BAA-06-08-IFKA in the subject line. To be considered for potential awards in FY07, white papers must be received before the end of 15 Sep 2006. Those white papers found to be consistent with the intent of this BAA may be invited to submit a technical and cost proposal. Notification by email or letter will be sent by the technical POC. Such invitation does not assure that the submitting organization will be awarded a contract. Those white papers not selected to submit a proposal will be notified in the same manner. Prospective offerors are advised that only Contracting Officers are legally authorized to commit the Government. The cost of preparing proposals in response to this announcement is not considered an allowable direct charge to any resulting contract or any other contract, but may be an allowable expense to the normal bid and proposal indirect cost specified in FAR 31.205-18. In accordance with AFFARS 5315.90, an Ombudsman has been appointed to hear and facilitate the resolution of concerns from offerors, potential offerors, and others for this acquisition announcement. Before consulting with an ombudsman, interested parties must first address their concerns, issues, disagreements, and/or recommendations to the contracting officer for resolution. AFFARS Clause 5352.201-9101 Ombudsman (Aug 2005) will be incorporated into all contracts awarded under this BAA. The AFRL Ombudsman is as follows: Amy Smith AFRL/PK Building 15, Room 225 1864 Fourth Street Wright-Patterson AFB OH 45433-7132 (937) 255-3079 (1) Amit P. Sheth , "Changing Focus On Interoperability In Information Systems: From System, Syntax, Structure To Semantics", Available at: http://lsdis.cs.uga.edu/library/download/S98-changing.pdf (2) K. Aberer, T. Catarci, P. Cudr?-Mauroux, T. S. Dillon, S. Grimm, M.-S. Hacid, A. Illarramendi, M. Jarrar, V. Kashyap, M. Mecella, E. Mena, E. J. Neuhold, A. M. Ouksel, T. Risse, M. Scannapieco, F. Saltor, L. De Santis, S. Spaccapietra, S. Staab, R. Studer, O. De Troyer: "Emergent Semantics Systems", (invited paper) ICSNW 2004: 14-43. Available at: http://lsirpeople.epfl.ch/aberer/PAPERS/ICSNW-2.2004.pdf (3) Mohamed Khedr and Ahmed Karmouch, "Negotiating Context Information in Context- Aware Systems", University of Ottawa, Available at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/9670/29878/01363730.pdf?isnumber=&arnumber=1363730 (4) Holger Wache, "Toward Rule-Based Context Transformation in Mediators", University of Bremen, Available at: http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/cache/papers/cs/9658/http:zSzzSzwww.informatik.uni-bremen.dezSz~wachezSzPaperszSzefis-99-wache.pdf/wache99towards.pdf (5) Robert MacGregor, William Swartout, "Using a Description Classifier to Enhance Knowledge Representation," IEEE Expert: Intelligent Systems and Their Applications, vol. 06, no. 3, pp. 41-46, Jun., 1991, Available from: http://www.computer.org/portal/site/ieeecs/index.jsp (6) Steffen Lamparter, Marc Ehrig, and Christoph Tempich, "Knowledge Extraction from Classification Schemas", Institute of Applied Informatics and Formal Description Methods (AIFB), University of Karlsruhe, Germany, Available at: http://www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/WBS/sla/paper/ODBASE04_Lamparter.pdf (7) Aris M. Ouksel, "In-Context Peer-to-Peer Information Filtering on the Web", The University of lllinois at Chicago, Dept. of Information and Decision Sciences, Available at: http://www.sigmod.org/record/issues/0309/C12.ouksel.pdf
- Record
- SN01115389-W 20060817/060815220855 (fbodaily.com)
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