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NORTHCENTRAL UNIVERSITY

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Learner: Mark Crayton

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RSH9101

Research topic, problem, purpose, and questions

Activity 8: Topic Paper

Learner Comments:

Faculty Use Only

Running head: SOLVING BLACK INEQUALITY USING ONTOLOGIES

Information Scientist’s View of Solving Black American Racial Inequality

Using Ontological Modeling

Topic Statement

Submitted to Northcentral University

Graduate Faculty of the School of Business and Technology Managementin Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPY

by

Mark Crayton

Prescott Valley, ArizonaFeb 2011

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SOLVING BLACK INEQUALITY USING ONTOLOGIES

Table of Contents

Proposed Topic................................................................................................................................7

Introduction......................................................................................................................................8

Project execution.........................................................................................................................9

Abridged Literature Review..........................................................................................................11

Problem Statement.........................................................................................................................14

Past studies.................................................................................................................................15

Solving the problem through research.......................................................................................16

Importance of research problem................................................................................................16

Knowledge, skills and project time...........................................................................................17

Ontological technology..............................................................................................................17

Sufficient data............................................................................................................................19

Purpose Statement.........................................................................................................................19

Explanation of approach............................................................................................................20

Justification of purpose statement.............................................................................................22

Research Questions........................................................................................................................23

Summary........................................................................................................................................29

References......................................................................................................................................30

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Proposed Topic

This proposal is presented to support a Doctor of Philosophy with a concentration in the

area of Management Information System. This proposal will create a baseline for evaluation of

the Black American inequality in America. Using ontological model and semantic technology,

this study will describe Black American inequality measures and factors from an information

scientist’s viewpoint. The question for this study is, can an information scientist using

ontological modeling help solve the problem of Black American racial inequality in America?

Introduction

Social change in United States (U.S.) for Black Americans (or African Americans) could

not be more hopeful after the election of a black president in the 2008 election . So far, the facts

are much different. Black unemployment in September 2000 was 7.3%, a figure that was the

lowest in ten years. During that same timeframe, unemployment for all groups was

comparatively, 3.9%. Six months later in March 2001 Black unemployment rate rose to 8.3%

while the overall rate inched up to 4.0% . In December 2010 a year after the election of a Black

president, Black unemployment was 15.8% while the overall percentage was 9.4%, and drilling

down White and Hispanic/Latino unemployment was 8.5% and 13.0% respectively.

In the area of U.S. education testing, in 2009 for grades 4, 8 and 12, the comparative

results for racial groups National Assessment of Educational Proficiency (NAEP) were:

Whites scored 163 for 4th grade, 162 for 8th grade and 159 for 12th grade

Blacks scored 127 for 4th grade, 126 for 8th grade and 125 for 12th grade

Hispanics scored 131 for 4th grade, 132 for 8th grade and 134 for 12th grade

Asian scored 160 for 4th grade, 160 for 8th grade and 164 for 12th grade

Native Americans scored 135 for 4th grade, 137 for 8th grade and 144 for 12th

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grade.

The mean score for the NAEP is a 150. Black Americans score below every racial category in

the U.S., and this group’s score represents a significant level below the test average .

The problems for Blacks exist in a number of key places. Black (2007), gives a few

examples: “Black on Black” crime is virtually out of control, Black husbands and Black wives

have the highest divorce rate, Black males still have the highest unemployment rate and Black

youth under perform in education and 5 million Black males (of 40 million blacks) are now

actively involved in American criminal justice system . Further evidence of Black racial disparity

is shown in recent studies of underachievement of Black youth compared to Whites, Asian and

Native American youth . In a study, using cultural intervention as a new approach, Black

America youth closed the gap with other racial groups. However, using generic cultural

intervention techniques i.e. a normal school setting, no appreciable impact was seen in the

closure of the underachievement gap for this Black American study groups. Adding parental

management training to the study showed an impact on African Americans and Latino youths in

effectively showing scores that equaled White youths with similar intervention. As a universal

solution, these studies identify the problem and allude to a solution; however, more scientific

rigor is required to make an impact on the racial disparity problem by a truly integrated final

approach .

Project execution

Psychologists, social scientists, anthropologist and doctors have studied the problem but

yet the Black American underachievement trend continues. An information scientist view point

may yield results that are trend changing. The basis for an information scientist view of solving

the problem comes from our current approach in the global war on terror . The intelligence

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community for both military and civilian sectors use semantic technology and the initial step of

ontological modeling to catalog, track, resource and determine program effectiveness in their war

against global terrorism . Turning this type of technology towards the Black American problem

may prove invaluable for a nation struggling to compete. The application of a comprehensive

analysis using ontological methods to link exoteric facts may accomplishment a business focus

and metrics based model that begins to identify ways to change the Black American plight.

The approach for this project resides in the power of data linking that an ontological

model exhibits. In a project for the U.S. government, semantic web data using a set of

ontological models revealed a new IT spending profile from a business reference model . Using

the ontological building blocks of objects-attributes-value (O-A-V) triplets knowledge

representation techniques can be used to represent new complex facts and infer cognition . This

proposal will leverage the power of semantic technology using the framework that ontological

modeling provides. Using the models, a semantic inference can draw cognitive inference and

new relationship resultants that describe the Black American underachievement problem.

Changing the course of Black American underachievement, high incident of crime and

unequaled unemployment to name a few requires analysis that can find new relationships

between observed facts. This first study will establish the foundation for follow on research that

may include group intelligence, fuzzy logic and theoretical weighting algorithms . The key for

this study is to explore and establish clear knowledge representation of the Black American

problem and clear relationships that may show inferences not considered by other professional

disciplines. With definitive new inferences, using semantic technology through ontological

modeling, hope may exist for solutions to Black American’s racial disparity problem. Putting the

foundation for Blacks, Whites, Asian and Native Americans on an equal footing will help

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America remain prosperous and competitive internationally because less drag will be on its

government to provide for underachieving segments of its population

Abridged Literature Review

The abridged literature review provides a framework for establishing the importance of

the study and a benchmark for comparing results with other findings . This paper will frame the

problem and note literature available to support the various theories, questions, dependent

variables, constraints and independent variables. As a mixed method study, the abridged

literature review will search for integrated approaches to Black Inequality problem. For

continuity, the topic and purpose statements follow as a review to highlight the fundamental

premise of this study.

The mixed method study requires the integration of sources that reveal concrete, abstract

and control data sets. The main approach of this paper will be to critically review reference

sources in relation to theories, questions and variables. The cited work will largely be less than 5

years; however, a large portion of this study is historical in nature and therefore dated references

form a significant part of determining independent variables.

There are three theories that apply to this study as noted in Figure 1 below. The first

theory the study will address is the fact that Black American inequality factors and measures

consist of 6 major items. This theory states that measuring the state of employment, education,

income, family togetherness, crime involvement and housing, for Black Americans compared

with other racial groups will yield a conclusion of how equal this racial group is with their

counterparts. The second theory is that counter-forces like criticism, which is a term used to

represent racial prejudice, racism, limiting opportunities based on race, or insensitivity are

factors in the overall effect of Black Inequality. Included in the counter-forces criticism would be

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the effect of slavery and Jim Crow era events that have cultural and personality shaping impacts

in the Black community. The final theory is that behavioral sciences, specifically psychology and

sociology may actually hold independent variables that are causative factors to Black inequality .

Figure 1: A detailed review of Black Inequality initial casual factors

The role of anthropology is not diminished by this statement since a final model may determine

that anthropological factors have a heavier weight on the final inequality issue than first

expected. As an initial position, the study will target learning, motivation, training, and traditions

in the overall effect, which are primarily social science and psychology behavioral science

contributors.

The literature supporting each theory comes from sources in journals and books. There

are a plethora of activism studies; however, in short W.E.B. Dubois, Alfred Young and Deskins

Donald, provide a similar theme to other authors on the subject . A collection of works in edited

books support cultural variables, slavery and Jim Crow impacts . Early sociological thoughts

cover a view of early Black sociologist evaluating various independent variables as noted in

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Figure 2.

Figure 2: Theory to Questions to Variable Mapping of the Black Inequality Model

Thoughts from these early science professional are reflected in racially active period of Black

awareness in the 1970’s and 1980’s where a group self evaluation across all variables was

occurring .

The bulk of literature in support of the dependent and controlling variables in Figure 2 is

available from the US Census Bureau and Data.gov . The content on the sites are selectable to

cover both historical and current statistics across a wide range of government organizations and

statistics bureaus. This straight line data from government sources will be undisputable as an

authoritative source and other references should compare to the listed values within. Other

sources of Black Statistical data supporting dependent, control and some independent variables

comes from the American Profile Series on Black Statistics and the Journal of Blacks in Higher

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Education .

Capturing authoritative sources for the independent variables is an area where the study

will need to validate and justify the findings. Many of the independent variables are subjective in

nature and various author conclusions may differ and shift the focus, quantitatively, when

attempting to model the abstracting in a relationship model. The Furstenberg (2007) article holds

promise in addressing culture related issues . Wise (2010) provides a unique perspective as a

White American author who notes key findings about racism and quantitative information on

observed bias by Whites . Sykes (2008) focuses on housing related issues and perceptions of

Black American internal issues . The technology on ontology models is sufficient, current and

detailed . Once the independent variables can be quantified in the form of a relationship or

comparative statement it can be modeled. Overall, the main point is for the study to carefully

document the independent variables so that scholars and businessmen can venerate the study and

promote the outcomes.

Problem Statement

Black Americans have not achieved racial equality in America in the areas of economics,

business, employment, competitiveness and family . Psychologists, social scientists,

anthropologists and medical comparative studies address problems and trends however a

comprehensive solution or segment focused papers have not shown national promise for Black

Americans. As a universal solution, these studies identified the problem but achievement of

Black racial parity requires further scientific rigor to make nationwide impact . Black

unemployment in September 2000 was 7.3%, a figure that was the lowest in ten years. During

this low point for Blacks comparatively, unemployment for all groups was 3.9%. The problem of

inequality continued in 2010 where Black American unemployment was 15.8% while the overall

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unemployment percentage was 9.4%, and drilling down White and Hispanic /Latino American

unemployment was 8.5% and 13%, respectively. In the area of U.S. education testing Black

youths in grades 4, 8 and 12 under-achieved their White, Hispanic, Asian and Native American

counterparts in 2009 . Black (2007), states “Black on Black” crime is virtually out of control,

Black husbands and Black wives have the highest divorce rate, and 5 million Black males (of 40

million Black Americans) are now actively involved in the American criminal justice system .

Inequality unchecked may lead to political instability because of the economic difference

between one group in society and another group . Racial inequality illustrated across American’s

history has been a catalyst for unrest and as such provides a significant driver to justify going

forward with this study .

Past studies

African American studies can be traced back to starting with Frederick Douglass in the

1854 on racial determinism and significant work followed by W.E. B Du Bois in the 1915’s on

industrialization, collectivism and the new intellectuals . Until the 1960’s, White archaeologists

and anthropologists had not published any articles on the subject even though slavery was first

introduced in America of Virginia in 1619 . Studies from Franz Boas in the 1972 discussed

cultural issues while Aufderheide and Rodreguez-Martin study on demographics in 1998 opened

additional approaches to the problem . As Black colleges flourished in the 1970’s, 1980’s and

1990’s studies of historical and modern day inequality focused on discrete inequality areas of

interest. As example, Smith and Wells-Chunn (1989) republished a number of journal articles on

education discussing equity and excellence in the area of African American education however,

much more needs to be done across the larger scope of national Black American inequality .

Solving the problem through research

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Understanding the environment and cognitive issues influencing Black Americans gives

current and follow on research a chance to provide success factors, evaluate equality efforts and

coordinate mitigating strategies. Black American inequality represents individual decisions of

the nearly 40 million U.S. citizens . Individuals and industry recognize the need to improve

Black American inequality gap while improving the country at large. For example, Tabula

Digiti’s produced a video game that has improved math scores 20% to 30% in 50 school

districts. Leshell Hatley received a grant for a Washington D.C. based Youth Application Lab

(YouthAppLab) to help African American children began to create iPhone applications .

Overarching research of Black inequality issues can expand upon the successes above by

generalizing the problem through a cognitive map set as a baseline to begin the process of a

comprehensive solution. If the scope of the study limits remains focused on a useful cognitive

map on new relationships and strategies, the previous project success in the use of semantic

technology may occur in this project .

Importance of research problem

This research problem may potentially be the catalyst for a regionally or nationally

sensitive roadmap for the success of a large majority of 40 million Americans who are

underachieving as a group in American society. Additionally, this study may garnish grant

money, government contracts and marketing dollars if it shows potential for increasing a

company’s market basis, lowers government social costs, expands the knowledge of racially

disparate employees or creates a stable cultural/political environment. Appling technology to an

old problem may allay calls from those continuing to demand compensation or reparation for

slavery, mid-1900 Jim Crowe laws of injustice, and discrimination in general .

Knowledge, skills and project time

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Sufficient material, time and ability exist for this research to be performed. Semantic

technology is well known and additional training is available from Top Quadrant Semantic team.

The same team that executed the study of the Data.gov site and subsequent government

comparative study . Limiting the research study to foundational solutions and a cognitive

learning model for the initial phase of achieving parity gives hope for a successful conclusion of

the study in a reasonable period of time.

Ontological technology

It is appropriate to baseline the understanding of ontology modeling for the purposes of

going forward with the study. Ontology defines the basic terms and relations comprising the

vocabulary of the topic area as well as the rules for combining terms and relations to define

extensions to a new vocabulary. Ontologies are formal specification of a shared

conceptualization. The ontology may be of a variety of forms but in general it is a vocabulary of

terms and some specification of their meaning. The ontology includes definitions and an

indication of how concepts are inter-related, which collectively imposes a structure on the

domain being mapped and constrains of the possible interpretations of the terms and meaning

(Gomez-Perez, 2004).

Linking ontologies to universal modeling language (UML) terms requires understanding

of entity relationship and the expression of how these relationships between entities are noted.

An entity is a thing, person or object. A class is similar to an entity and is the basic unit of

ontology model allowing for an expression of the entities including the definition of relationships

between entity groups. Attributes expand the knowledge of a particular entity. Using an example

within a department store, the term shoe references to an object (or class) called shoe (footwear)

i.e. any shoe in the store. An attribute could be shoe color represented in modeling terms as

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shoeColor. To further define a shoe class or entity other attributes can be assigned like

shoeGender, or shoeStyle. Going further the modeler can express a relationship between the

various entities. As such, adding to the example the modeler can add a class or entity called

location. Now the modeler can express a relationship between the entity of shoe and location.

The shoe is placedOn a location which could be a floor, shelf or bench. The location of where a

particular shoe is placed depends on the attributes of the location i.e. shelf, aisle, etc. For the

department store when these entities are fully mapped a model then exists where each shoe is

located and the store owner knows the relationship between each shoe and its location. In our

simple example the shoe was placed on the shelf but the shoe could also be hanging from the

shelf which drives another use of the model. In that case the model will drive a supply chain to

make sure there are enough hangers for shoes to hang on shelves in a particular location.

For the ontological modeling of Black American inequality, first this model has to

establish the vocabulary of the entities. An expansion of each entity via attributes builds out the

knowledge vocabulary of the various racial objects. Going further the modeler than determines

the relationships between the entities or classes and for this particular problem an ontological

vocabulary is available for use by an application. The power comes when two or more

vocabularies are combined to form another vocabulary that has its own properties and conditions

based on the relationships of original vocabularies and so on. This technology will form the basis

of the ontological mapping of the Black American inequality model.

Sufficient data

In the area of Black inequality, individual studies are numerous. Government and private

sources exist showing demographic break outs. Books and journal articles discuss education,

unemployment, and financial disparate statistics. The key will be limiting and removal of

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nonrelated data sets. Additional semantic technology requires a representative model which is at

the heart of a useful cognitive solution. Nevertheless, exploring the solution and the cross-

functionality of a semantic model may lead to paring down of the information and unrelated data

by the very nature of the subject verb object ontology representations of qualitative and

quantitative facts on the racial demographic data.

The Black American inequality problem has a large scope from the perspective of a

research problem. Limiting this research to establishing an ontological baseline for explaining

the Black American inequity problem allows for the possibility that a cognitive model will serve

as a generalized approach to this multi-segmented problem. Evaluation of the semantic model

and its conclusions require significant level of effort to align the facts to a consistent ontological

approach. In solving the problem the cognitive model should converge however what if the

model diverges and the researched cognitive model shows Black American inequality is

unachievable . That possibility creates an even greater challenge to a final study dissertation

defense.

Purpose Statement

The intent of this two-phase, sequential mixed methods study is to determine Black

American racial determinates that allow for use of ontological modeling and semantic

technology to determine equality models. The first phase will be a qualitative exploration of

authoritative attributes and entities that describe Black American issues. The data will consist of

social science, anthropology, psychology and medical observations. Participant data will cover

all major racial categories and represent observations on individual groups. Research data from

universities and corporate databases will provide the foundation for the qualitative study .

Findings from the qualitative phase will then drive the tests, inferences and semantic

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comparisons that will relate qualitative data. Data from World Wide Web registered links of

several case studies and use cases will provide a large pool of resource data. Authoritative data

from Data.gov, economic, financial, geographic and education combined in a collaborative

model set as dependent variables against independent variables of the qualitative phase.

The reason for collecting qualitative data prior to a quantitative approach is that

demographic attributes must form some basis of fact in observed behavioral science for the

ontological model to be accepted. The ontological model and the follow on inference need an

initial foundation to compare results. Without an initial baseline of independent variables, the

model and any inference would need extensive testing to prove. The mixed approach is a means

tightening the scope of the study and coping with a large data set without exhaustive simulations

to eliminate erroneous initial ontological models.

Explanation of approach

The method of using model driven architectures begins the ontology development and

allows for a concept model that addresses the true relationship between seemingly diverse racial

data sets . Depending on the final application, the ontology enables Web-based knowledge

processing, sharing and reuse between applications. By sharing common concepts and the

specialization of the concepts and vocabularies the model enables reuse across multiple

applications. The model is an abstraction of things in the real world, but is simultaneously a thing

of the real world. It provides a means to add meta-modeling concepts both formally and

informally. Proper modeling can be considered an art form because of the informal nature of the

sub-model concepts.

The coordination of facts describing real world events in a model allows for a new

ontology inference model from the base model. Unlike the standard unified modeling language

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(UML), as noted in the ontological technology baseline section, an ontological model can work

with individuals, statements or objects within a model structure. This fact allows for the abstract

representation of individual facts as provided by a social science survey or objective facts from

government data on groups or organizations. Establishing relationships between real world

events, objects, and individuals leads to a new model learned from the previous set. An upper

level graph of the ontology provides and insight into the need to start with qualitative data and

then add the quantitative data in support of the rest of the model.

The visualization of a high level model as noted in Figure 3 shows physical entities that

represent objects and processes combined with abstract entities formulated in sets, classes,

relations to include propositions, quantity and additional attributes. As discuss, the ontological

model can then introduce factual universal data from additional databases and other web data

resources. In the third portion of the model architecture relationships between various data,

abstractions, universal facts formulate additional exists to give the model additional semantics.

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Figure 3: Top Level Concept of the Upper Level Ontology as an example of data representation.

Justification of purpose statement

Use of a mixed modeling study of qualitative and quantitative methods is driven by the

real possibility that the learning ontology forms collaboration of a new class of information not

previously observed. Use of the ontology model to describe the African American problem

originates in the complex nature between objects, individual and relationships and the need to

assimilate the data. The driving force behind first using qualitative methods, emanates from the

real concern that inconsistencies may exist with new inference classes and relationships.

Expounding on the inconsistencies of ontologies, there are two ways to deal with

inconsistency in the ontologies. The first method is to fix each occurrence as encountered. For

small models this represents a useful method for the architect. The second method to use requires

a defensible argumentation on the front end of the ontology architecture to minimize

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inconsistency of the sub-model groups. Use of real world attributes from social scientists,

anthropologist, economist, psychologists and universal data sets is the method to minimize errant

data relationships.

The purpose of the new ontology model is a description of the Black American inequality

in a manner not previously observed by individual studies. The new model relationships

contained in XML technologies, specifically resource descriptive framework (RDF) and web

ontology language (OWL) eases further processing of a new ontology model and the possible

application of comparative data sets as an adjunct to the new concepts and conclusions. The

resulting model would save time to any downstream development and allow for the extension of

the conclusions experienced during this study .

Research Questions

The research questions and hypotheses combined in a question bank are broken out by

behavioral, technical and general areas. Creswell (2009) recommends a combined question bank

when using a mixed method study to support the writer’s intent to integrate or connect between

the quantitative and qualitative phases of the study . Since the study is highly dependent on the

integration of the qualitative and quantitative questions, an integrated approach is appropriate.

The major question of each major subcategory group is indicated as an APA heading level 3.

Subsequent lower level questions shall seriate and provide an explanation in body style text.

Q1. What factors are necessary for Black American’s to claim racial equality.

The question requires the study to determine and adjudicate variables of success or

failure of Black American equality. The follow-on questions must express the support of some

empirical evidence and independent variables as measures.

Q2. Is there still an impact of slavery, servitude, Jim Crowe laws or lack of civil rights?

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The impact of historical factors may contribute to modern day events. Cultural and

historical force effects may linger across years of history and need some consideration of

whether to include in the ontological model. Although difficult because of the lack of early

comprehensive data, correlating and relating current observed facts to past facts might prove an

important step in identifying causes of Black American inequality.

Q3. What criteria will be used to determine if observed behavioral science facts are

independent, dependent or a control variable?

Using ontological methods require independent, dependent and control variables existing

with a range of values necessary to support expression of subject-verb-object (S-V-O) statement.

Because of the nature of the resource descriptive framework (RDF) model, it may be more

important to graph only collaborated data so as to minimize inconsistent ontological

representations in the final inference model . The other methodology concern is accounting for

multiple RDF expressions that require graphing the facts in both S-V-O directions. The

combinations of these multiple inferences allow the establishment of new facts. For example,

given a discussion of the state of Black American men, is it criminal activity in the community or

the poor economic state of that community that causes poor performance in schools. Would the

independent variable be the criminal activity level or the poor family economic situation that

impacts the dependent variable called school performance? Using resource descriptive

framework, I would set the S-V-O notation for both independent and dependent variable sets in a

bi-direction web ontology language relationship and determine from other facts which one is a

downstream force in the model of Black Inequality. Control variables of age brackets add

additional breakouts. This is a critical question to the modeling effort since behavioral science

data may be expressed in correlation statistic and not in actual exact numbered sets.

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Q4. Will modernity be the guiding principle of how much, when and what data will be

modeled to give authenticity to the new ontological representations?

Modernity is a concept that sociologists have applied to a wide range of social conditions

and circumstances in the post-Enlightenment era (after the 1930’s) which includes exploration of

the proliferation of bureaucracy and formal institutions designed to help regulate social life,

urbanization, capitalism, industrialization and other social developments associated with these

occurrences and transformations . Limiting the input data set will help reduce the scope of the

study. Also, it will eliminate the need of adding data from an era where formal Black

sociological scientific discipline did not exist. In making this distinction, historical information

tagged to geographical locations or to individuals is a fair representation of the facts. For

example, the fact that Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia were slave states and fought on the side

of the Confederacy is a fact. This statement of fact is not a behavioral science issue and therefore

does not falls under the criteria of modernity. If post-enlightened observations are not available

then those facts would not be relevant to the study as it relates to the model.

Q5. What are the critical breakouts of the behavioral science variables?

The behavioral areas selected in the initial breakout of variables are education, income,

labor, family, sports and housing. There is no hard and fast rules from sociologist; however,

Jackson (1986), gives a number of interesting facts that support this break out of behavioral

variables . The breakout proposed is education, housing, employment, income, crime, family (i.e.

divorce, kids, single family etc) and location. These breakout categories form the traditional

independent variables; however, additional variables may need to be included. Drug usage,

health rates, video games usage, teacher quality, gangs, morality, religion and extracurricular

activities to name a few may have significant impact into the independent variables for this

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study.

Q6. Is it important from a behavioral science perspective that the model needs to show

convergence of various inference facts as a criterion of success?

The convergence of the ontological model is a desired end point for the study .

Inconsistency may invalidate the final model and its usefulness to other researchers who may

want to use the findings of this study. Inconsistencies cause serious concerns for potential users

especially if the inconsistencies are random or unpredictable. Trusting an ontology model is as

important as the information being conveyed. Rework of each and every inconsistency shown in

the final semantic execution is a necessity, especially since some aspects of this discussion carry

emotional responses by individuals and groups.

Q7. Can Black inequality factors be modeled to obtain useful information.

This question and the subordinate questions drive at the capability of the ontological

model to actual solve the problem being proposed for the study. This is a critical

necessity of the study and an important going forward position.

Q8. Can resource descriptive framework (RDF) and web ontology language (OWL)

capture abstract facts of data, information and knowledge of a cognitive nature?

Cognitive science has the view that mental states and processes actually mediate between

input stimuli and output responses. The science suggests that information in the mind is encoded

into chunks, mental procedures that allow for encoding and decoding of information . Commonly

used types of human knowledge are procedural, declarative, metaknowledge, heuristic,

structural, inexact and uncertain, commonsense and ontological. Procedural knowledge is about

how to do something. Declarative knowledge describes what is known about a topic or a

problem. Metaknowledge is knowledge about knowledge. It is used to decide what other

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knowledge is best suited for solving the current problem. Heuristic knowledge includes rules and

guidelines that help the problem-solving process. Heuristics is not strict; however there is basis

for use of past experience to interpret the future knowledge solution. Structural knowledge

describes mental models and the organization of problems and solutions in a certain space.

The type of knowledge called inexact and uncertain, characterizes problems, topics and

situations in which information is imprecise, unavailable incomplete, random and ambiguous.

This kind of knowledge representation carries the greatest risk for this project. Commonsense

knowledge has a root in commonly held human knowledge that contains no precise theories or

format. Finally, ontological knowledge represents knowledge with a certain domain construct. It

is knowledge that describes the terms necessary to express the items within the domain.

Understanding the types of knowledge will aid in the representation of the knowledge facts and

figures .

Q9. What criteria will be used to determine if the model is complete?

The process for constructing the ontology will be first to analyze the input sources and to

develop baseline taxonomy. The next step is consultation with experts and expert sources to

develop a baseline authoritative taxonomy. The addition of relations and axioms complete a

refinement process. The last step will be determining the opportunity areas and identifying the

most promising focus areas and target solution for the ontology. The end goal is the expression

of the model across the behavioral science success factors .

Q10. What are the tools necessary to complete this project?

The anticipated software products for this project include TopBraid Composer and

Ensemble from Top Quadrant, Microsoft Visio, and Altova Enterprise MissionKit 2011 Suite.

Top Braid Composer and Ensemble provide a powerful set of tools for managing the model and

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the semantic engine for executing the final ontological inference model once the initial

taxonomy, universal variables, control variables and relationships are added . Microsoft Visio

provides a powerful graphics tool to construct visual graphs, flowcharts and presentations.

Lastly, use of the Altova Enterprise MissionKit 2011 Suite give a complete integrated

development environment of tools from the UML diagrams, schemas, RDF, and OWL

integration . These are the main tools for modeling the ontology models. Likely separate

database software like Microsoft SQL or Microsoft Access depending on the size of the triplet

stores is needed to complete the model technical implementation.

Q11. What is the usefulness of the Black Inequality ontological model?

On the World Wide Web there are a number of unique ontology models on a number of

subjects . There are vocabularies or models for radiological procedures, automotive repair, portal

service for academic research, drug ontology project for Elesevier (Netherlands) and digital

music archive (DMA) for Norwegian National Broadcaster. With the wide range of linked

models on the W3C.org (World Wide Web Symposium international organization) today, a

Black American Inequality ontology model would be a candidate for linking and possibly

publishing to a W3C organization or similar.

Q12. Who would use a Black Inequality ontological model?

All research to date shows that a combined RDF/OWL model for Black Inequality does

not exist. It is a good assumption that the current producers of statistics may be candidates to

consume the data and information results. A significant user is the U.S. Government and Military

especially the minority affairs offices . Accurate information would be useful in the comparison

of diversity statistics and best use of minority recruiting assets. Other anticipated users are

commercial marketing organizations that consume demographic information for a targeted select

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group of product owners. Accurate demographic data could be sold as part of a service to those

users.

Summary

Changing the course of Black American underachievement, high incident of crime and

unequaled unemployment to name a few requires analysis that can find new relationships

between observed facts. This first study will establish the vocabulary for follow on research that

may include input from group intelligence, fuzzy logic and theoretical weighting algorithms .

The key for this initial study is to explore and establish clear knowledge representation of the

Black American problem and clear relationships that may show inferences not considered by

other professional disciplines. With new vocabularies and inferences drawn from the mapping of

discrete and abstract Black American’s racial disparity problem, maybe a clear linkage between

independent and dependent may occur.

The impact of older controlling variables may be the most difficult to map. Early

sociologist study with discrete data was difficult to obtain and further, it is not necessarily

verifiable and quantitative in nature. Nevertheless, the power of ontological modeling and the

subsequent running on an inference engine allows for mapping of the imprecise information and

then reviewing the model to determine the inconsistencies of the final vocabulary. Additional

iterations and model revisions during research and design phases can allow convergence of this

unrelated data into a meaningful end product.

The technology is well documented and a number of helpful sources both in print and

knowledgeable scholars provide a confidence that both the initial and final vocabularies are

possible given authoritative data is available for mapping. The artful nature of this study will be

the abstract data representation and selecting the right data relationships to use in the model.

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Exploration of statistical surveys and regression data to narrow abstract facts into a meaning

entity-attribute-relationship (formally noted above as S-V-O) is imperative to moving this study

forward. The review from experts in the field of social science and psychology of the final

product can ensure the final technological product makes sense to observed real world events.

If the question of this study is answered, then the business community would have a

powerful tool to build upon to justify racially targeted programs, grants and initiatives. Clear

relationships between the expenditure and return on investments may occur. Like the work in the

intelligence community noted above, this study can provide a powerful baseline in which other

applications can build upon. The work from this study can also be published with the W3C

international organization in its many linked ontologies library for business and academia users.

Follow on research to expand the applications into prediction and leading metrics are follow-on

projects to add additional worth to this study.

26


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