The Prajna ProjectUtilities for Understanding

Edward Swing

Why Another Toolkit?

• Most toolkits focus on Information Control• Information retrieval (databases)• Information presentation (displays)• Linking to other information (cross-referencing)• Less emphasis on information understanding

• Prajna: Sanskrit for “Wisdom”• Provide tools and capabilities to enhance the user’s understanding

Knowledge Engineering

• Involves Developer and User• Steps for understanding and applying the knowledge

• Explicit and inherent structures of data• Identify secondary sources of information• Add reasoning components

Prajna Design

• Java Utility Library• Extensible Classes

• Allow developers to integrate specific features

• Integration Points for other Software Libraries, Products, and Utilities• Still Evolving

Prajna

Conceptual Design

Data Source Data Source

Data Accessor

SemanticReasoning

Data Fusion

Data Accessor

FutureCapabilities

Databases, Data Files, Other Content

Retrieves Data, Assembles Structures(Trees, Graphs, Grids, Datasets)

Reasoning Layer: Augments Data

Visualization Display Data Export Representation Layer

Core Components

• Data Structures• Trees, Node-link Graphs, Grids (Volumes)• Geographic, Temporal Data

• Semantic Content: Data Accessors• Common representation of data• Access data from a variety of sources

• Semantic Reasoning• Ontologies• Intelligent Fusion

• Visualization Displays

Data Accessors

Data Source

Data Accessor

Tree Graph GridDataSet

Data ElementsStrings EnumsIntegers MeasuresLocations DateTime

Data ConfigurationStructuresFieldsReasoners

Representation Components

Visualization Display

Data Export

PrefuseVisualization

PrajnaVisualizations

KML GraphML

JFreeChartCharts

Serialized Objects(Servlet)

Data AccessorUpdate

GeographicDisplay

Advantages

• Easy Extensibility• Configurable Data Accessors

• Regardless of underlying data• Use data where it exists

• Uses other toolkits where appropriate• New toolkit interfaces • No reinventing the wheel

• Integrates easily into larger projects

Integration Points

• Data Accessors• Endeca, XML formats, JDBC, SOLR, …• Streaming Data (in development)

• Data Generation• Common data formats: SVG, GraphML, …

• Visualization Displays• Prefuse toolkit for visualizations• JFreeChart for charting

• Geographic Data• ESRI shape files• Google Earth KML

Demo: Fusion with Reasoning

• Core data: CSV file of wine data• Fields include cost, winery, region, flavors, vintage year, review score and date,

etc.• 57000+ records• Not clean data• Some fields with multiple values (e.g., flavors)

• Additional information:• Dbpedia access to determine grape species• GeoNames access to determine region location• Wine Ontology for additional information

• Display data in List, Map or Chart

Demo: Wine Data WebApp

• Core Data: Wine data, accessed from Endeca Information Access Platform• Faceted Navigation Web Interface

• Allows easy search, filtering• Standard Endeca capability

• Augmented Data• Wine Ontology, GeoNames• Food Ontology for matching Food to Wine

• Displays• Google Maps display• Simile Timeline

Demo: VAST Cell Phone Challenge

• Scenario: Phone network analysis of Paraiso leadership over 10-day period• Data Provided: cell phone call records (CSV)

• Fields included ID of caller, receiver, cell phone tower, time and duration of call• Auxiliary data:

• Map with estimated locations of cell towers• Goal: identify key personnel, changes to the social network over time period• Displays: Network, Map, Statistical Charts, Prefuse Force-directed display

Further Information

• Other Applications• Other VAST contest entries• Data Fusion & Visualization applications

• Prajna released to SourceForge:• http://sourceforge.net/projects/prajna• Includes various demonstration projects

• Contact Information• edswing@comcast.net or deswing@vsticorp.com