We describe on-going work on IAO-Intel, an information artifact ontology developed as part of a suite of ontologies designed to support the needs of intelligence community. IAO-Intel provides a controlled, structured vocabulary for the consistent formulation of metadata about documents, images, emails and other carriers of information. It will provide a resource for uniform explication of the terms used in multiple existing military dictionaries, thesauri and metadata registries, thereby enhancing the degree to which the content formulated with their aid will be available to computational reasoning. Presented at the 2013 STIDS (Semantic Technology for Intelligence, Defense and Security) conference: http://stids.c4i.gmu.edu/

1. IAO-Intel
An Ontology of Information Artifacts
in the Intelligence Domain
Barry Smith Tatiana Malyuta
Ron Rudnicki
CUNY, NY, USA
Data
Tactics, McLean, V
A
CUBRC, Buffalo
NY, USA
University at
Buffalo
NY, USA
William Mandrick David Salmen
Data Tactics
McLean, VA, USA
Data Tactics
McLean, VA, USA
Peter Morosoff
Danielle K. Duff
James Schoening
Kesny Parent
E-Maps, Inc.
Washington, DC, USA
I2WD
Aberdeen, MD, USA
I2WD
Aberdeen, MD, USA
I2WD
Aberdeen, MD, USA
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2. Military Doctrine and Standardization
of Terminology
3rd Century BC
Standardized beacon signals used by Chinese military
along Great Wall
1792
Drill manual for the units of the Continental Army to
respond uniformly to commands during the
Revolutionary War
1943
General James Gavin’s Training Memorandum on the
Employment of Airborne Forces
2

3. General James Gavin, On to Berlin: Battles
of an Airborne Commander 1943-1946
for success of the D-Day invasion
‘one of our most critical needs was to standardize the
operating practices of our forces. … even simple
terminology had to be agreed upon. … British flew in
what they called “bomber stream” formations, We
preferred troop-carrier group formations of 36 planes
that flew in a V ... We referred to landing area as the
“jump area,” the British called it “drop zone,” …’
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4. 4

5. 5

6. Current state
• DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated
Terms (Joint Publication 1-02)
• New military dictionaries and terminology
artifacts continue to be developed
• Dominant ethos: Library Science (all
terminologies are equal), Lexicography (logical
consistency of definitions is not important)
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7. Goals of Doctrinal Documents
• Advance consistency in communications
• Facilitate consistent interpretation of
commands
• Compile lessons learned (outcomes
assess-ment)
• Provide controlled vocabularies for official
reporting
Nowadays
• Enhance discoverability and analysis of data
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8. Problems of Doctrinal Documents
• Little aid to computation
• Developed independently in divergent and nonprincipled ways
• Low possibility of aggregation causing failures
of data integration initiatives
• New approaches needed that can enable
computational discovery, retrieval, integration
and processing of data
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9. Two kinds of data
1. Data about entities in the world (topics,
subject-matters)
standard ontologies
2. Data about the information artifacts in
which these entities are represented (=
metadata)
Information Artifact Ontology and extensions,
including IAO-Intel
9

10. Information artifact
• (roughly) an entity created through some
deliberate act or acts by one or more human
beings, and which endures through time,
potentially in multiple (for example digital or
printed) copies
Examples: a diagram on a sheet of paper, a video
file, a map on a computer monitor, an article in a
newspaper, a message on a network, the output of
some querying process in a computer memory
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11. IAO
• IAO-Intel – to provide common resources for
the consistent description of information
artifacts of relevance to the intelligence
community in a way that will allow discovery,
integration and analysis
– compare Dublin Core (brought to you by Library
Science)
http://stids.c4i.gmu.edu/presentations/tutorial2013
.php
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12. What IAO is for
• IAO is not designed to replace existing doctrinal
or other standards
• lots of documents exist conforming to lots of
different standards
• purpose of IAO is to allow generation of the
needed metadata in a uniform, non-redundant
and algorithmically processable fashion
12

13. Sample terms in IAO
Report
Summary
Diagram
Overlay
Assessment
Estimate
List
Order
Matrix
Template
13

14. Strategy of Building IAO-Intel
IAO
IAO-Intel (examples)
Report
Summary
Intelligence Report (FM 6-99.2, 126)
Electronic Warfare Mission Summary (FM 699.2)
Diagram
Network Analysis Diagram (from JP 2-01.3)
Overlay
Combined Information Overlay (JP 2-01.3)
Assessment Assessment of Impact of Damage (FM 6-99.2)
Estimate
Adversary Course of Action Estimate
List
List of High-Value Targets (JP 2-01.3, II 61)
Order
Airspace Control Order (FM 6-99.2, 17)
Matrix
Target Value Matrix (JP 2-01.3, II-63)
Template
Ground and Air Adversary Template (JP 2-01.3)
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15. IAO-Intel
The IAO-Intel
terms on the top
are defined by
using terms from
the ontologies on
the bottom with
the help of
relations such as
is-about, createdby, derives-from
and so forth
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16. Attributes of Information Artifacts
• Examples
–
–
–
–
–
–
Purpose
Life-cycle Stage (draft, finished version, revision)
Language,
Format
Provenance
Source (person, organization)
• These are generic attributes, common to all areas
• IAO will contain a Low-Level Ontology module for
each dimension
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17. Generic Purpose Attributes
– Descriptive purpose: scientific paper, newspaper
article, after-action report
– Prescriptive purpose: legal code, license, statement
of rules of engagement
– Directive purpose (of specifying a plan or method
for achieving something): instruction, manual,
protocol
– Designative purpose: a registry of members of an
organization, a phone book, a database linking
proper names of persons with their social security
numbers
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18. Attributes Specific to Intelligence IAs
Role in the Intelligence Process (JP 3-0, III-11)
Priority Intelligence Requirement (PIR)
Commander’s Critical Information Requirement (CCIR)
Essential Element of Information (EEI)
Essential Element of Friendly Information (EEFI)
Confidence Level (JP 2.0, Appendix A)
Highly Likely
Unlikely
Likely
Highly Unlikely
Even Chance
Discipline (JP 2.0, I-5)
Intelligence
Legal
Signal
Ideology
Human
Religion
Rumor intelligence
Propaganda
Web intelligence
Intelligence Excellence (JP 2.0, II-6)
Anticipatory
Complete
Timely
Relevant
Accurate
Objective
Usable
Available
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19. Use of IAO-Intel – Example:
Digitalizing an MCOO
• IA #1 - Modified Combined
Obstacle Overlay (MCOO) - a
joint intelligence preparation
of the operational
environment product used to
portray the militarily
significant aspects of the
operational environment, such
as obstacles restricting military
movement, key geography,
and military objectives.
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20. Digitalizing an MCOO
• Annotations to the attributes of IA#1
– ICE: MCOO
– IBE: Acetate Sheet
– uses-symbology MIL-STD-2525C
– authored-by person #4644
• Annotations relating to the aboutness of IA#1
–
–
–
–
Avenue of Approach
Strategic Defense Belt
Amphibious Operations
Objective
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21. Computational Support for Process Planning
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22. 22

23. Use of IAO-Intel – Example 2
Digitalizing U.S. Army Report and Message Formats
(FM 6-99.2)
Standard templates for
– Intelligence Report [INTREP]
– Intelligence Summary [INTSUM]
– Logistics Situation Report [LOGSITREP]
– Operations Summary [OPSUM]
– Patrol Report [PATROLREP]
– Reconnaissance Exploitation Report [RECCEXREP]
– SAEDA Report [SAEDAREP]
defined in free text
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24. Digitalizing FM 6-99.2
• formulate FM 6-99.2 definitions
computationally
• enable computational cross-reference FM 699.2 documents with comparable sets of
documents prepared by other commands.
• use results for computer-aided aggregation of
the represented data, cross-checking for
mismatches, identifying suspect sources, and so
forth.
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25. DoD Instruction 8320.02, August 5, 2013
Sharing Data, Information, and Information Technology
(IT) Services in the Department of Defense
• requires that ‘all salient metadata be
discoverable, searchable, and retrievable’ through
use of the DSE
• Even if all authoritative sources are registered at
DSE, it does not achieve its goal because
– Heterogeneous definitions and descriptions
– No benefits of inferencing and of rapid introduction
and definition of new terms
• IAO will go some way to solving these problems
through semantic tagging
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26. top level
mid-level
(generic hub)
Basic Formal Ontology (BFO)
Information Artifact Ontology(IAO)
IAO-Science
domain level
(spokes
populating IAO- IAOdownwards) Biology Physics
IAO-Intel
IAOIntelNavy
IAOIntelArmy
IAO-Computing
IAOIntelFBI
IAOSoftware
EMOEmail
Ontology
Each module built by downward population
from its parent
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27. BFO
Continuant
IAO
Independent
Continuant
Material
Entity
Information
Bearing
Entity
Specifically
Dependent
Continuant
Quality
depends_on
Information
Quality
Entity
Generically
Dependent
Continuant
Information
Content
Entity
concretized_by
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28. Independent
Continuant
Material
Entity
Information
Bearing
Entity
this hard drive,
that book
Specifically
Dependent
Continuant
Quality
depends_on
Information
Quality
Entity
this excitation
pattern,
that pattern
of piles of ink
Generically
Dependent
Continuant
Information
Content
Entity
concretized_by
universals
this pdf file,
that Target Value Matrix
instances
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29. IAO and BFO
BFO:
Independent
Continuant
Information
Bearing
Entity (IBE)
BFO:
Generically
Dependent
Continuant
Information
Content
Entity (ICE)
Information
Structure
Entity (ISE)
BFO:
Specifically
Dependent
Continuant
Information
Quality Entity
(Pattern)
(IQE)
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30. Example of IAO-Intel Organization
Information Artifact
IBE
MS Word file (.doc, Hard drive (magnetized
.docx)
sector)
Hard drive (magnetized
KML file
sector)
Hard drive (magnetized
JPEG file (.jpg)
sector)
Hard drive (magnetized
Email file
sector)
A specific government
USMTF Message file
network
Paper document; (may
Passport
include photographs,
RFID tags)
Title Deed
Official paper document
Report
Varies
Overlay Sheet
( e.g. Map Overlay Acetate sheet
Sheet)
ISE
ICE
MS Word format
Varies
KML
Map overlay
JPEG format
Image
Internet Message Format
Message
(e.g., RFC 5322 compliant)
USMTF Format
ID formats, security
marking formats …
Message
Name, Personal
data, Passport
number, Visas …
Varies
Varies
Varies
Varies
MIL-STD-2525 Symbols;
Map overlay
FM 101-1-5 Operational
Terms and Graphics
30

31. DSGS-A Ontologies
• US Army’s Distributed Common Ground System (DCGSA) Standard Cloud (DSC) initiative as part of a strategy
for the horizontal integration of many different types of
warfighter intelligence data
DSGS-A Ontologies providing a common framework for
• Explica-tion of general terms used in source intelligence
artifacts and in data models, terminologies and doctrinal
publications which provide typo-logies of intelligencerelated IAs to semantically enhance data in a way that
enables computational integration and reasoning
• Annotation of the instance-level information captured
by such IAs to aid retrieval of information about specific
persons, groups, events, documents, images, and so
forth
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32. Acknowledgements
Thanks are due also to Mathias Brochhausen,
Werner Ceusters, Mélanie Courtot, Janna
Hastings, James Malone, Bjoern Peters, Jonathan
Rees, and Alan Ruttenberg for their work on IAO.
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