4.3.8. Crisis management, emergency preparedness and Semantic Web
The need to align terminology in the step of processing information during crisis management has been recognized as being of high relevance: “In crisis management, different domain vocabularies are used by different crisis information systems. This presents a challenge to exchanging information efficiently since the semantics of the data can be heterogeneous and not easily assimilated. For example, the word ‘Person’ can have different meanings — a ‘displaced person’, ‘recipient of aid’, or ‘victim’.
Semantic interoperability is a key challenge to interoperability” [51].
Several publications show that using an ontology helps in sharing and interoperating between several sources of information in crisis management. Still, the question has to be resolved as to which ontologies might be useful in emergencies, as there are no officially registered or recommended ontologies [52].
In the specific case of a nuclear emergency, a KOS would have to be developed by the stakeholders involved. Some additional ontologies in the fields of health care and pathology can then be linked to access additional important information.
Appendix
LIST OF AVAILABLE SKOS THESAURI
This is a non-comprehensive list of available SKOS thesauri from various organizations and domain areas.
Agrovoc (UN): Multilingual agricultural thesaurus:
http://aims.fao.org/vest-registry/vocabularies/agrovoc-multilingual-agricultural-thesaurus Canadian subject headings (CA):
http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/services/canadian-subject-headings/Pages/canadian-subject-headings.aspx Common procurement vocabulary (EU):
https://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/public-procurement/rules- implementation/common-vocabulary_en
Courts thesaurus (DE):
http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/court
Eurovoc (EU): Multilingual thesaurus of the European Union:
https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/
GEMET (EEA): General multilingual environmental thesaurus https://www.eionet.europa.eu/gemet/
The general Finnish thesaurus (FI)
http://www.nationallibrary.fi/libraries/thesauri/ysa.html
GeoThesaurus (AT): Thesaurus of the geological survey Austria https://www.geologie.ac.at/en/services/thesaurus/
Getty vocabularies (USA):
http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/
Google product taxonomy (USA):
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/1705911?hl=en IPTC NewsCodes (UK):
http://www.iptc.org/site/NewsCodes/
IVOA astronomy vocabularies (UK):
http://www.ivoa.net/documents/WD/Semantics/vocabularies-20080320.html Jurivoc (CH): Swiss federal court thesaurus:
https://www.bger.ch/index/juridiction/jurisdiction-inherit-template/jurisdiction-jurivoc-home.htm LCSH (USA): Library of Congress subject headings
http://www.loc.gov/library/libarch-thesauri.html
MeSH (USA): Medical subject headings:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh
NAICS 2012 (USA): North American industry classification system https://www.census.gov/naics/
NAL Thesaurus (USA): The National Agricultural Library’s agricultural thesaurus http://agclass.nal.usda.gov/
NASA taxonomy (USA):
http://sbir.nasa.gov/topic-taxonomy/52896
ScoT (AU): Schools on-line thesaurus Australia:
http://scot.curriculum.edu.au/
SITC-V4 (UN): The Standard International Trade Classification http://datahub.io/dataset/sitc-v4
TheSoz (DE): Thesaurus for the social sciences http://lod.gesis.org/thesoz/de.html
STW Economy (DE): Thesaurus for economics:
http://zbw.eu/stw/versions/latest/about UKAT UK Archival thesaurus (UK):
http://www.ukat.org.uk/
UNESCO thesaurus (UN):
http://databases.unesco.org/thesaurus/
WAND taxonomies (USA)
http://www.wandinc.com/taxonomies.aspx World Bank taxonomy (WBG):
http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-and-lending-groups
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Annex
USE CASES IN THE NUCLEAR DOMAIN
A-1. USE CASE 1: IT ENABLED NUCLEAR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AT THE INDIRA GANDHI CENTRE FOR ATOMIC RESEARCH (IGCAR)
A-1.1. Summary/abstract
A knowledge management (KM) system for codification, preservation and utilization of all multidisciplinary knowledge assets accumulated over several decades of nuclear research, development and operation at IGCAR is essential for improved organizational productivity, new insights and high levels of innovation. Realizing the significance of a KM system, an implementation roadmap addressing various challenges related to people, process, technology and resources was formulated and a structured approach was followed for building the system. IGCAR’s nuclear KM system, deployed with IT-as-enabler, is built on a federated model consisting of a primary gateway server and a number of secondary level servers having distributed knowledge repositories. A dynamic KM portal with advanced features has been developed and deployed at each organizational entity (group) to acquire, store, share and utilize the organizational knowledge assets in the explicit form of publications, technical design reports, presentations, projects, activities, facilities and so on, along with the tacit knowledge of multimedia modules. The KM portal is designed as a generic, customizable framework and developed fully in house using an open-source platform and application programming interfaces (APIs). The following are the salient features of the portal, which are realized by applying various semantic technologies and standards:
— Taxonomy based controlled vocabulary for knowledge organization;
— Multiformat document upload and conversion facility;
— Automatic extraction of metadata (title, authors, abstract, keywords, etc.);
— Enhanced access control with multilevel rights management;
— Generic keyword based and advanced metadata based search facility;
— Dynamic viewing of metadata and full text of documents;
— On-line analytics and graphical reports generation;
— Customizable menu and contents and interactive user interface.
A-1.2. Organizational context
IGCAR was established in Kalpakkam as a premier research and development (R&D) organization with a mission to conduct a broad-based multidisciplinary programme of scientific research and advanced engineering development, directed towards the establishment of the technology of sodium cooled fast breeder reactors (FBRs) and associated fuel cycle facilities in India. The activities IGCAR carries out include basic and applied research, design, development and applications of materials, techniques, equipment and systems related to fast reactor technology. It is actively engaged in operation and maintenance of the FBRs and design and development of prototype/commercial FBRs to meet the energy needs of the country. At IGCAR, vast knowledge has been accrued from reactor operating experience, engineering experiments, technology development, basic research, modelling and simulations and so on.
The requirement for a robust KM model for leveraging the collective knowledge of the organization to improve its productivity was foreseen some years back at IGCAR. A strategic action plan was devised and an implementation roadmap for a KM system was drafted with a holistic approach to cover people, process, technology and resources, and address the challenges associated with each. A comprehensive
IT enabled KM system has been put in place to cover the various KM processes such as identification, acquisition, creation, storage, retrieval, transfer, sharing, and utilization of knowledge available in explicit and tacit forms.
A-1.3. Main stakeholders/departments
With IGCAR being a multidisciplinary R&D organization, diversified activities are carried out by different organizational entities (groups). The knowledge flow to the repository originates from these groups, which are involved in multidomain activities, as shown in Fig. A–1.
The KM section (falling under the IT group) executes the mandate of devising a strategic action plan and implementing an organization wide IT enabled KM system. The responsibilities of the KM team include promoting a knowledge sharing culture; developing tools and techniques required for effective content management and search; providing a technology platform to facilitate codification, preservation and dissemination of multidisciplinary knowledge assets; and assessing the effectiveness of the KM system.
A-1.4. Organization’s KM system
Recognizing the importance of KM, IGCAR has formulated and adopted a policy to create, share, utilize and leverage its organizational knowledge to achieve higher quality, increased productivity and better collaboration through the synergy of knowledge, resources, facilities and employees. The policy states that “IGCAR will consistently endeavour through concerted efforts of all its employees to generate, archive, manage and disseminate the valuable knowledge for improving its productivity and achieve and sustain world class leadership in all its scientific & technological research and development activities.”1 The KM policy is implemented with the complete participation of all employees and with guidance
1 http://www.igcar.gov.in/lis/nl92/igc92.pdf
IGCAR Knowledge
Repository
Reactor Operation
& Maintenance Reactor Physics Design
& Engineering Fuel & Material Chemistry Studies
& Experiments
Materials Development
& Characterization
Engineering Development
Experiments Experimental Fuel
Reprocessing Facilities
High-Performance Computing:
Modelling/Simulation Design & Development
of I&C Electronics Radiological & Safety
Eng. Studies
Knowledge Management System
Knowledge sharing platform (provided by KM section)
FIG. A–1. Organizational knowledge sources.
and support from the management at different hierarchies. The KM policy is periodically reviewed to strengthen the activities towards achieving the desired goals.
A knowledge management maturity (KMM) model provides a roadmap for implementing a KM system of an organization in a structured way. A KMM model was developed for IGCAR with six maturity levels, five key areas, twenty key parameters and key maturity indicators. A detailed study was conducted based on the model to assess the current maturity levels for different groups and for the whole organization, identify prominent inhibiting factors and find ways to improve the maturity level of the organization.
A holistic approach for KM implementation covering various dimensions like people, process, technology and resources (knowledge assets) has been adopted with clearly defined deliverables and time frames.
(a) People
KM roles have been defined and responsibilities have been assigned to take care of different aspects like technology development, content creation and management, authentication, monitoring, awareness creation and so on. KM awareness programmes have been conducted to motivate employees and help them to understand the importance of knowledge sharing and thereby build a knowledge sharing organization culture.
A high level committee for information and KM at IGCAR comprising representatives from all groups was constituted to oversee the process of collecting, storing and updating various authentic explicit knowledge assets in the organizational knowledge repository. The committee also monitors the implementation mechanisms and reviews the policy periodically. In addition, group level subcommittees were formed with knowledge officers to manage the acquisition and storing of documents in respective group repositories and keep the contents up to date.
(b) Process
The knowledge life cycle describes the process involved in KM at an individual and organization level. The KM process framework actually defines the different stages of setting up a KM centre. The KM system has been designed to address all micro processes, namely ‘identification’ (determining core competencies and related strategic knowledge domains), ‘acquisition’ (collecting existing knowledge, skills and experiences), ‘selection/store’ (assessment and selection of knowledge for storing), ‘sharing’
(retrieving and making accessible to users), ‘creation’ (uncovering new knowledge) and ‘application’
(using the needed knowledge). Knowledge creation and applied KM revolve around the interplay of tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge and hence the system should support this conversion process.
(c) Resources/knowledge assets
Organization knowledge is the collective sum of infrastructural assets, intellectual capital and personal knowledge. It generally resides in employees’ brains, paper documents, electronic documents and knowledge bases. IGCAR’s explicit knowledge is predominantly available in the form of:
— Technical reports;
— Drawings;
— Manuals/guides;
— Software codes;
— Journal and conference publications;
— Presentations and articles;
— Project progress/review reports;
— Minutes of meetings.
Legacy hardcopy documents were converted into electronic form to enable storing in the knowledge repository. Tacit knowledge is the perceptive/dormant knowledge embedded in contexts and actions.
The organization’s implicit knowledge is available in the forms of individual/collaborative experiences, perceptions, bodily skills or mental models. Various avenues are employed to capture individual knowledge and promote creation of organizational knowledge, which include codification and verification
of explicit knowledge with domain experts; tacit knowledge elicitation through structured interviews and/or interactive Q&A sessions; discussion forums and technical lectures, colloquiums and/or training.
(d) Technology
The goal of KM technology infrastructure is to facilitate the collection, organization, transfer and sharing of various types of knowledge (explicit and tacit) in secured ways for application or reuse. Information and communication technology is a great enabler in successful implementation of a KM system.
Technology related activities include analysing and evaluating the existing infrastructure, designing the KM architecture, developing the KM system with supportive technologies and tools and deploying the system using results driven incremental methodology. The Web portals provide an easy to use, interactive interface to the users and hence they are commonly used in collecting and disseminating knowledge and information in organizations. Controlled vocabulary like taxonomy is one of the important building blocks of a KM system and it helps to systematically organize the information along with meta knowledge. Application of semantic technologies and standards enhances the features and interoperability of KM portals.
A-1.5. Objectives of the KM initiative
The motivation for the KM initiative at IGCAR comes from a desire to achieve the following objectives:
— Knowledge accumulated over decades of nuclear research, development and operation (organizational memory) has to be preserved and used for the future design, innovations and continued safe operation of nuclear power plants (NPPs).
— Existing skills and competencies have to be retained for a longer period considering the extended time scales of commissioning, service life and decommissioning of NPPs.
— Acquired knowledge has to be transferred to the successors (considering employee attrition) for sustained benefits.
— Organizational learning has to be enabled and knowledge synergized from multidomain R&D activities carried out in the organization to improve its productivity.
IGCAR initiated its KM programme to cater to the knowledge needs of the organization in diverse activities such as research, design, development, project execution and support services by providing the right knowledge to the right person at the right time. The goal is to evolve a KM centre to achieve the organization’s mission and vision by effectively utilizing existing knowledge related assets.
A-1.6. Description of the KM initiatives
The IGCAR KM system is designed as a two tier architecture with a federated model of distributed knowledge repositories. It consists of a central gateway server at the primary level and a number of group servers at the secondary level (as shown in Fig. A–2). The structured and unstructured knowledge assets from diversified sources are captured, organized and stored in knowledge repositories distributed across multiple group level servers. The scientific and engineering knowledge repositories maintain explicit knowledge in digital forms of technical reports, journal and conference publications, manuals, drawings, presentations and articles, activities and facilities, project proposals, progress/review reports, software codes, minutes, FAQs and tacit knowledge elicited in the form of audio/video modules. The gateway server maintains the centralized authentication credentials to enable users to access any group level knowledge repository. It also provides a scientific search platform for navigation, efficient retrieval and sharing of knowledge assets distributed across the organization.
A web enabled, taxonomy based KM portal with advanced features was designed, developed and deployed. The KM portal is a generic, customizable framework developed in house fully using
open-source technologies and APIs. It is flexible to cater to the requirements of managing content from the diverse knowledge domains of different groups.
The portal provides an interactive and convenient user interface for individual users to upload, organize, list, search, view and share the knowledge assets in different forms and in different file formats with security measures. Also, it enables administrators to carry out tasks associated with content management, user management and rights management with ease of use. Figure A–3 depicts the salient features of the KM portal. The advanced features that are incorporated in the KM portal are highlighted in the following sections.
(a) Taxonomy based KOSs
Hierarchical taxonomy is adopted as a controlled vocabulary in the KM portal and the topics of knowledge assets are organized in an expandable tree structure. Taxonomy provides classification, navigation support, and search and retrieval support. Building taxonomy involves defining the structure for organizing information, specifying individual terms used for classification, and defining the relationships among terms. It is done with due consultation of the domain experts and considering different entities such as scientific processes, products, projects and applications. The taxonomy administration module of the portal facilitates building and maintaining the knowledge taxonomy/map in a consistent way.
Presently, the categorization/classification of documents using the taxonomy is done manually and an auto-categorization/tagging module is under development.
(b) Automatic extraction of metadata
An intelligent machine learning algorithm has been developed and implemented in the KM portal to extract the metadata details automatically from the PDF content of publications during the upload.
This algorithm performs PDF to text/XML conversion, font analysis, regular expression parsing and pattern identification and filtering to extract metadata details, namely titles, authors, keywords, abstracts, journal/conference names, volumes and dates of publication. The module also applies optical character
FIG. A–2. Organizational knowledge sources.
recognition (OCR) and image processing techniques to extract limited metadata from the scanned PDF content (raster images) of legacy technical reports prepared using predefined templates.
(c) Auto-extraction of index keywords
This feature of the KM portal selects prominent phrases appearing in the document(s) automatically and stores these key phrases as index keywords. Index keywords, in addition to author provided keywords, help improve the accuracy, relevance and speed of the search results. An enhanced rapid automatic keyword extraction algorithm has been used to extract the key phrases, with ranking based on computed weights.
(d) Advanced search engine
An advanced search engine based on an extended Boolean retrieval model has been implemented to perform extensive keyword based searches of the knowledge repository to identify, rank and display the list of relevant documents. It also supports more focused concept based searches based on the subject domains using a taxonomy tree. An advanced option allows one to perform a search based on specific or any combinations of available metadata and produce best or exact matches. Custom filters are provided to narrow down the searches and retrieve the appropriate information quickly.
(e) Enhanced multilevel authorization
The rights management module of the KM portal provides extensive access control over the documents in the knowledge repository. For any document uploaded to the portal, an access control list can be created based on different categories of users (owner/author, group, others) to permit or restrict different operations (list, view, download). The group can be an administrative entity or a customized logical group of members. To protect the confidential information in the repository additional data security and authentication mechanisms are put in place.
(f) On-line copy-safe viewing of documents
FIG. A–3. IGCAR KM portal — salient features.
The on-line viewing module of the KM portal enables authorized users to view the metadata and full text of the documents. The full text view module converts the PDF pages into lightweight images on-line and displays the page images with scroll, zoom and shrink options. The copy-safe viewing restricts users from saving or printing the documents and also eliminates the need for a PDF viewer (browser plugin).
(g) Dynamic analytics and reporting
This module aids users in performing bibliographic analysis of knowledge assets from different dimensions and generates various textual/graphical reports dynamically. The live statistical reports can be generated based on different parameters such as users, sections, divisions and groups. The analytics module is also provided with drill down features and custom filters to narrow down specific details.
A-1.7. Major achievements and benefits derived
KM is the process of creating value from an organization’s tangible and intangible assets.
IGCAR has embraced KM as a key strategic initiative to enhance the performance of the organization by leveraging its core competencies. IGCAR has explained its vision and KM strategy in clear terms to all stakeholders. The KM policy was framed and implemented and suitable mechanisms have been established to periodically review the activities to make them more effective.
At IGCAR, knowledge resources are known and needs are well understood. An advanced IT enabled KM system has been successfully put into operation to deal with information flow from distributed sources to a reusable repository. The documented and digitized explicit knowledge assets are acquired, preserved and disseminated using this system. Also, specific solutions have been found to capture tacit knowledge.
The major benefits derived through effective KM include:
— Creating organizational memory and enabling organizational learning with the participation of all members of the organization;
— Converting knowledge into intellectual capital and leveraging it to realize the organization’s objectives and mission;
— Improving productivity and innovation capabilities through reuse of knowledge;
— Improving team communication and collective problem solving to enhance work quality;
— Reducing design cycle time and improving the efficiency and safety of NPP operations;
— Reducing the impact of employee attrition and nuclear knowledge loss.
A-1.8. Challenges addressed and knowledge derived from experiences
Developing organization culture: Building knowledge compatible human culture in the organization is one of the foremost challenges in making the KM system successful; this cannot be achieved with technology and tools as it depends on people and their relationships with one another.
An organization must build an environment that motivates people to learn, share, change and improve with knowledge; rewards active participants and contributors; and makes people realize that knowledge sharing empowers the organization as well as individuals.
Determining the technology infrastructure requirements: Evaluating the existing infrastructure, and sizing and selecting technology infrastructure in terms of tools, techniques, hardware and software resources is a challenging task. Up to date content, standards, interoperability and support are key concerns in determining technology components.
Data relevancy and accuracy: The available data and information in the knowledge repository should provide relevant and accurate answers to the queries made by the users. The information generated by different groups within the organization may need to be validated before being harvested and distributed. Keeping the contents current by adding new data and eliminating outdated data is a continuous process.
Enabling secured access to knowledge resources: Providing the right level of security for KM is a key issue. Classified information should be protected, and knowledge assets should be accessed with