The semantics of history as a model for historical archives applied to the Rijksmuseum collection Submitted as Camera project Piek Vossen Computational.

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1 The semantics of history as a model for historical archives applied to the Rijksmuseum collection Submitted as Camera project Piek Vossen Computational Lexicology & Terminology Lab LCC, Taal & Communicatie Faculteit der Letteren Seminar over Semantisch Netwerk Technologie January 22 nd, 2009, VU University Amsterdam

2 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 2 Semantic disclosure and retrieval Text to concepts, many-to-many mappings: –genocide, massacre, ethnic cleansing  Killing –ethnic cleansing  Deportation Concepts to meta data –create structure and models from textual data, which involves inferencing: time periods, political roles, nations, alliances –use normalized meta data and structure to interpret text: genocide takes place in a particular period of time Queries to concepts –handle unseen words and phrases: systematic violence to minorities –apply inferencing when needed/requested –sensitive to communicative perspective Model diverse and distributed multimedia data collections in a uniform way to enable consistent and flexible retrieval and structuring: –Berlin as the capital of Germany & pictures of Berlin when it is the capital of Germany

3 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 3 The semantics of history Camera project involving 1 AIO from the Faculty of Arts and 1 AIO from the Faculty of Exact Science, collaboration with Rijksmuseum Goal: an ontology and lexicon for a historical multimedia archive of the Rijksmuseum. Applied to an innovative information system for accessing the historical archive.

4 Semi Structured Data Free Text Data model Structured Data Event Ont. Historic Ont. Terms & Relations Term Extraction Data Conversion Lexicon Lexicalization Ontology Ontolization Alignment Lexical mapping ObjectsEventsLocationsPeople Smart Retrieval Rijksmuseum Wikipedia Historische Canon Validation Historians Knowledge engineer Language engineer Smart Indexing Software engineer Multimedia objects, data

5 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 5 Changing realities & perspectives History is a chain of realities: how do we cut up continuous time? All is finite but some things are more stable than others: –Geographical regions –Nations and countries –Regimes –People life and die –Politicians come and go –Interpretation of roles for the same period changes in each period

6 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 6 West Germany East Germany news Wars InternationalWarCivilWar Disasters Floodings WOIIWatersnoodramp Struggle for Srebrenica sub-event Installation of DutchBat massa- graven parlementaire enquête Val enclave EventsPersonsCountriesRegions Historical ontology 1953 1989199319951999 1945 2002 YugoslaviaBosnia and Herzegovina Germany Hist. doc Hist. doc Hist. doc Hist. doc

7 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 7 The semantics of history = semantics of change Represent different realities: –related through causal changes over time in regions –what remains stable and what changes –representing different views or perspectives on the same reality, e.g. form a different historical angle or from different geographical or social parties. Changes are typed as events

8 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 8 Events as key notions Historical events: –events considered from a distance in time and abstraction of detail. –referenced by names (WOII, de Val van Srebrenica), nouns (war) or nominalizations (violation of human rights) News events: –Reports on (the same) reality but more in the active verbal form: US soldiers shoot Iraqi citizens. –Closer to the actual event –Lacking a historical abstraction and filtering. News becomes history over time, and we therefore expect a smooth transition in the use of language to refer to the same events, adding more and more historical perspective.

9 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 9 News classification International Press Thesaurus Committee (IPTC, http://www.iptc.org/) 16000000 unrest, conflicts and war –Acts of socially or politically motivated protest and/or violence. 16001000 act of terror –Act of violence, often deadly, designed to raise fear and anxiety in a population 16002000 armed conflict –Disputes between opposing groups involving the use of weaponry, but not formally declared a war 16003002 rebellions –Armed uprising by citizens of a nation with the intent to overthrow the government, without necessarily achieving social change 16006000 massacre –The death of a large group of people over a brief period of time 16006001 genocide –Systematic killing of one clan, tribe or ethnic type by another

10 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 10 “Val van Srebrenica” in Wikipedia with historical perspective Na het uiteenvallen van de Republiek Joegoslavië en de burgeroorlog die daarop volgde werd de stad, evenals Tuzla, Sarajevo, Gorazjde en Zepa, door de Verenigde Naties tot veilige enclave voor moslims verklaard, binnen een door Bosnische Serviërs beheerst gebied. uiteenvallen Republiek  ceases to exist verklaren tot enclave  role for a region de stad (Srebrenica), evenals Tuzla, Sarajevo, Gorazjde en Zepa  role fillers and parts that make up the region

11 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 11 “Val van Srebrenica” in Wikipedia with historical perspective Op 11 juli 1995,(…), forceerden Bosnisch-Servische troepen onder bevel van generaal Ratko Mladic zich met tanks de stad binnen en deporteerden en vermoordden ca. 8.000 moslimmannen en -jongens. Het wordt gezien als de ergste daad van genocide in Europa sinds de Tweede Wereldoorlog. forceerden de stad binnen  take control wordt gezien als genocide  role deporteren en vermoorden  role fillers of genocide

12 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 12 News letter from the Dutch minister of defense with little historical perspective De afgelopen zes maanden werd de uitvoering van deze taken aanzienlijk bemoeilijkt door de Bosnisch-Servische weigering de enclave voldoende te laten bevoorraden. Door een gebrek aan brandstof moesten patrouilles te voet worden uitgevoerd. Ook blokkeerden de Bosnische Serviers sinds mei jl. de rotatie van het personeel van Dutchbat, waardoor de bezetting werd teruggebracht van 630 naar 430 blauwhelmen. De vijandelijkheden namen geleidelijk toe, waardoor op 3 juni jl. een observatiepost in het zuidoostelijke deel van de enclave moest worden opgegeven Verb phases: bevoorraden, blokkeren, opgeven Potential historical terms: blokkade, val, drama, opgave, overgave

13 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 13 Lexicon versus Ontology Events Conflicts International Wars Civil Wars Ontology Disasters Struggle Genocide Actions Qualifies as enclave vechten schieten onder vuur liggen beschieten gevecht tankvuur raken Regions inname overgave opgave innemen overgeven opgevenval veroveren verovering bezetting vermoordendeporteren wegvoeren Subevents qualified as Deportation Killing Shooting Take-over Surrender Bosnisch-Servische troepen deporteerden en vermoordden Gezien als een daad van genocide Suriname wordt gezien als corrupt en crimineel land “wordt gezien als”, 313,000 google-hits, October 14th, 2008

14 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 14 Lexical ontological structure Regions: –Yugoslavia (x), Bosnia (y), Serbia (z), hasPart (x, y), hasPart (x, z), period (t) Roles, e.g. enclave(y): –protect (x,y,z), region (y), authority (x), threat (z), inhabit (v, y), period (t) Events: –kill, deportation Roles, e.g. ethnic cleansing(x): –event(x), agent (x, a), cause(x, y), move_from(y, z, r), inhabit (z, r), region (r), kill(v, a, z), deport(w, a, z), hasPart (x, v), hasPart(x, w), period (t)

15 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 15 “Val van Srebrenica” in Wikipedia with historical perspective Headings: –1992 ethnic cleansing campaign –The conflict in eastern Bosnia –Struggle for Srebrenica Text: –A fierce struggle for territorial control then ensued among the three major groups in Bosnia: Bosniak (commonly known as 'Bosnian Muslims'), Serb and Croat. In the eastern part of Bosnia, close to Serbia, conflict was particularly fierce between Serbs and BosniaksBosniakSerbCroat Serbia –Serb military and paramilitary forces from the area and neighboring parts of eastern Bosnia and Serbia gained control of Srebrenica for several weeks in early 1992, killing and expelling Bosniak civilians. In May 1992, Bosnian government forces under the leadership of Naser Orić recaptured the townparamilitarySerbiaNaser Orić –thus proceeded with the ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks from Bosniak ethnic territories in Eastern Bosnia and Central Podrinjeethnic cleansing

16 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 16 What kind of questions can be answered? Definition of time frames: –Historical events on a time axis –Listings of all low-level subevents within time frames –Mappings of role-events to subevents Changes: –Changes within time frames, involving particular participants, in certain regions –Changes in roles of participants, causal associations Similarities: –Varieties of labeling and naming schemes of events –Matches between multimedia objects: audio fragments, movies, art, & text archives (across languages)

17 Thank you for your attention

18 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 18 AIO at FdL Lexical framing of events in news reporting and historical descriptions. Use historical thesaurus to group all the words and expressions in a lexicon relative to the same events Differentiate implications of lexical variation: packaging of events

19 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 19 Op dinsdag 11 juli jl. werd Srebrenica door de Bosnische Serviers ingenomen. Hieraan ging een week vooraf waarin de gevechten in het zuidoostelijke deel van de enclave en de Bosnisch-Servische beschietingen van de enclave heviger werden. Ook Dutchbat kwam daarbij onder vuur te liggen….Op vrijdag 7 juli werd de in het zuidoostelijke deel gelegen observatiepost Foxtrot door Bosnisch-Servisch tankvuur herhaaldelijk geraakt. Hierbij vielen geen slachtoffers. Op zaterdag 8 juli namen de gevechten verder toe en werd Foxtrot door Bosnisch- Servische infanterie ingenomen…. De regering is zeer bezorgd over het lot van de mannen die door de Bosnische Serviers naar Bratunac zijn weggevoerd (News) Letter from the Dutch minister of defense with little historical perspective

20 Seminar Semantisch Netwerk Technologie, 22-Jan-2009, VU University Amsterdam 20 News classification International Press Thesaurus Committee (IPTC, http://www.iptc.org/) 03000000 disaster and accident –Man made and natural events resulting in loss of life or injury to living creatures and/or damage to inanimate objects or property. 03001000 drought –A severe lack of water over a period of time 03002000 earthquake –The shifting of the tectonic plates of the Earth, creating in some cases damage to structures 03003000 famine –Severe lack of food for a large population 03004000 fire –Ignition and consumption of materials through a combination of high heat and oxygen 03005000 flood –Surfeit of water, caused by heavy rains or melting snow, usually in places where it's not wanted 03006000 industrial accident –A mishap in a factory, a shop or an office, potentially harmful to humans 03006001 structural failures –When a building, bridge or other structures collapse because of unexpected forces or poor design 03007000 meteorological disaster –A weather-related disaster 03007001 windstorms –A storm of high velocity but non-hurricane force movements of air with little or no rain or hail. Often highly destructive