Introduction

For an event such as the Carnival in Rio, who would be a good speaker to introduce it to Canadians? Given a sports event such as a baseball game, what’s the best day in August to hold it? Knowing a list of songs I enjoy, what other songs would I like? These are functions that programs have difficulty implementing. Such functions have unbounded requirements due to subjective data, impractically large quantities of information, inherent unreliability and such.

This is a critical problem to solve because the world is analog and fuzzy yet ultimately we must make critical decisions. To solve this problem a solution called Contributional Implementation (CI) has been proposed which makes use of various Internet sources such as systems (e.g. algorithms running on servers), people (e.g. task outsourcing) and information (e.g. online databases and text) [1].

In the CI model the opinion of each source is aggregated with others generating a final answer. Much like human decision-making, consulting multiple sources compensates for the weaknesses in specific opinions. However, the satisfaction achieved is heavily dependent upon the aggregation. One must know which sources to value more highly and how to combine the different opinions to arrive at a meaningful answer. This task becomes particularly difficult as the Internet is dynamic and sources increase and decrease in reliability over time.

Although difficult, this type of problem is ideally suited for machine learning (ML). Firstly, we require known examples and the sources’ opinions on them. Given this information, a ML algorithm can be trained to aggregate these opinions, implicitly determining how much to trust each source. Should the reliability of a source change then the ML algorithm can be retrained, thus adjusting its confidence in the source as needed.

In line with this idea the research work was mainly directed at improving the existing CI Java library (CI Framework). Improvement was done by incorporating ML algorithms into the aggregation stage, and implementing new features. Specifically, ML was incorporated into the CI Framework, a new type of source was added to the framework, and access to search engines was standardized. Finally, an existing function of the EventPlanner program was re-implemented, and a new function was added. The EventPlanner was a pre-existing program that used the CI framework to implement functions with unbounded requirements dealing with the organization and planning of events.

Approach

ML was introduced into the CI Framework by incorporating ML algorithms from the WEKA project [2]. A standardized mechanism to manipulate these algorithms within the CI Framework was implemented. Additionally, data management tools such as specialized file creators and loaders, a training data generator and an interface into WEKA’s cross-validation testing functions were created.

Also, a standard source was added to the CI Framework. This source is a simpler version of the OpenEval algorithm [3] (SOE) used to answer predicates. This source must be trained before evaluation. During the training stage a user selects a predicate with a binary answer, e.g. “Is event X real” and provides positive and negative examples. The source then uses a search engine to determine word frequencies in related website contents for these examples. A ML classifier is trained on these so that future frequencies can be classified as true or false. Once trained, the source can then be used to answer the initial predicate for new and unknown inputs, e.g. “Is the event Comicon real”?

Additionally, standardized means to access Internet search engines were incorporated into the CI Framework, allowing code to be independent from the underlying search engine used. Furthermore, search engine output can be cached and reused if desired. Also, a pre-existing EventPlanner function was re-implemented with the improved version of the CI Framework. This function dubbed “FakeEvent” determines whether a given event is real or not. In addition, a new EventPlanner function dubbed “MonthSuggestion” recommending the best month to hold a specific event in a specific country is in development.

The “MonthSuggestion” function will answer the question “What is the best month to hold event X in?” It will work by aggregating the opinions of fifteen sources; each of these sources answering the same question with either a recommended month or “unknown” (the source is unable to recommend a month). Of these 15 sources, 3 sources recommend a month based on temperature, precipitation and relation to national holidays respectively. The remaining sources each represent a month. Consider the source that deals with January, it returns either January (if the event X is a good event to hold in January), or “unknown” (the event X is not a good event to hold in January). It does this by first extracting the keywords of event X (e.g. keywords Z~1~,Z~2~,Z~3~…). Each of these keywords is then passed to a previously trained SOE which answers the predicate “Is the keyword Z~n~ related to January?” If most of the keywords are related then the source recommends January, otherwise it returns “unknown”. The other eleven sources have the same behaviour, but for a different month.

Once all fifteen sources are implemented, the aggregator that will combine the 15 unique opinions into a single opinion will be trained using a list of known events with optimum months, and the implemented sources. After training, the “MonthSuggestion” function will be able to suggest the best month for a given event, ZZ. The function does so by asking each of the fifteen sources about ZZ, and then using the trained aggregator to produce a single final result.

Analysis

All improvements to the CI Framework were tested and operate satisfactorily. The re-implemented “FakeEvent” function operates equivalently to its original performance, with the added advantage that the ML algorithm and search engine used can be easily changed. Regarding the “MonthSuggestion” function, three sources recommending month based on temperature, precipitation and relation to national holidays have been implemented. The twelve remaining sources have been implemented, but their underlying SOE has not yet been trained.

Conclusion

The work performed in this research highlights the viability and desirability of the CI approach to implement functions with unbound requirements. The CI Framework in its current state is fully operational and allows for a modular approach while providing a simple interface that conceals the underlying complexity.

Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge the support and encouragement received by Professor Dr. M. Chechik and Dr. R. Salay in this project.

References

  1. Chechik M, Dalpiaz F, Salay R “Integrating Crowd Intelligence into Sofware” Proceeding CSI-SE ‘15 Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on CrowdSourcing in Software Engineering, IEEE Press Piscataway, NJ, 2015

  2. Frank E, Hall M, Holmes G, Pfahringer B, Reutemann P, Witten I “The WEKA Data Mining Software: An Update” in SIGKDD Explorations, Volume 11, Issue 1, 2009.

  3. Blum M, Samadi M, Veloso M “OpenEval: Web Information Query Evaluation” in AAAI’13 Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Palo Alto, California, 2009.