Network composition for situation assessment: A “trusted meeting” case study

Nowadays situation assessment in various scenarios depends on communication networks, information stored in various data stores (information networks), and knowledge of the roles and relations that particular people are involved in (social networks). In order to come up with a high-fidelity situation assessment, information from these three networks must be integrated consistently into a coherent situation model. This is a difficult task for humans to perform due to various reasons, e.g., interruptions, stress (emergency, war) and complexities of social relationships (trust). A tool (Network Composer) that would support people in assessing situations is desirable, but non-existent. In this paper we analyze the behavior of a Network Composer on a scenario in which two types of network are involved. The scenario deals with organizing a “trusted meeting” (treated as a situation) over a communication network, following some rules of trust. Information about the status of the meeting and the various people is stored in data stores associated with communication nodes. In this scenario, Network Composer would support a human in answering the question whether the preconditions for such a meeting have been satisfied, i.e., whether it is possible that the meeting will happen. To assess the concept of Network Composer we represent information flowing though these networks in the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and rules, and emulate the inferential behavior of the tool using a generic inference engine. The tool is analyzed using various scenarios of information flow in the different types of network.