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Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence XVII pp 145–170Cite as

Situation Theory, Situated Information, and Situated Agents

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((TCCI,volume 8790))

Abstract

Situation Theory is mathematical modelling of concepts such as information, information units, situations, states, events, context, agents, and agent perspectives. We introduce major type-theoretical objects of Situation Theory, which model situated, partial, and parametric information. The system of situated objects is defined by mutual recursion. The main contribution to Situation Theory in this article is the distinction between situated propositions, as contents of statements and intentions, and situated factuality of the verified propositions. We use this distinction to define complex, propositional types. Another contribution is that we define complex, restricted parameters by using propositional types. The article demonstrates potential applications of the introduced complex, situation-theoretical objects. Among the many applications of Situation Theory are developments of intelligent language processing and user-computer interfaces, by integrations of human and computer languages. We focus on modelling major objects that have potentials in such applications, e.g., contexts, situated agents, and usage of names to designate objects depending on agents and information available to agents.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The set-theoretical meta-theory of Situation theory, including representation of \(\mathcal {A}_{ REL }\), is not the subject of this article.

  2. 2.

    In what follows, we shall follow a practice of naming the argument role of the object that is read, by the “misspelled” notations \(\textit{read-ed}\) and \(\textit{readed}\).

  3. 3.

    Another option, “intermediate” between the above two, is to accept a relatively small set of common, abstract roles, which are similar to those used by traditional grammarians, and reintroduced in linguistics by the so-called \(\varTheta \)-theory of the Government and Binding Theory (GBT).

  4. 4.

    Note that \(\xi _{i}\) may fill more than one argument role in \(\varTheta \).

  5. 5.

    Note that \(\xi _{i}\) may fill more than one argument role in \(\rho \).

  6. 6.

    Note that \(\xi \) may fill more than one argument role in \(\varTheta (\xi )\).

  7. 7.

    Such reference expressions include many noun phrases (NPs) in human languages, e.g., names, pronounce, and definite descriptions.

  8. 8.

    In order to keep the article into its major topic, we present the denotation function \({{\mathrm{\mathsf {den}}}}\) without diverging to more theoretical technicalities, which are subjects to other ongoing and future work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Independent Research, Uppsala, Sweden

    Roussanka Loukanova

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  1. Roussanka Loukanova
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Correspondence to Roussanka Loukanova .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Informatics, Wrocław University of Technology, Wrocław, Poland

    Ngoc Thanh Nguyen

  2. Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia and Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland

    Ryszard Kowalczyk

  3. Technical University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Ana Fred

  4. Polytechnic Institute of Sétubal, Sétubal, Portugal

    Filipe Joaquim

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Loukanova, R. (2014). Situation Theory, Situated Information, and Situated Agents. In: Nguyen, N., Kowalczyk, R., Fred, A., Joaquim, F. (eds) Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence XVII. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8790. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44994-3_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44994-3_8

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-44994-3

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