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Studies in Systems, Decision and Control 176
Edy Portmann
Marco E. Tabacchi
Rudolf Seising
Astrid Habenstein Editors
Designing
Cognitive
Cities
Studies in Systems, Decision and Control
Volume 176
Series editor
Janusz Kacprzyk, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
e-mail: kacprzyk@ibspan.waw.pl
The series “Studies in Systems, Decision and Control” (SSDC) covers both new
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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13304

Edy Portmann Marco E. Tabacchi
•
Rudolf Seising Astrid Habenstein

•
Editors
Designing Cognitive Cities
123
Editors
Edy Portmann Rudolf Seising
Human-IST Institute Deutsches Museum München
University of Fribourg The Research Institute for the History
Fribourg, Switzerland of Science and Technology
Munich, Germany
Marco E. Tabacchi
Istituto Nazionale di Ricerche Astrid Habenstein
Demopolis Transdisciplinary Research Centre Smart
Demopolis, Italy Swiss Capital Region (TRCSSCR)
University of Bern
Bern, Switzerland
ISSN 2198-4182 ISSN 2198-4190 (electronic)

Studies in Systems, Decision and Control
ISBN 978-3-030-00316-6 ISBN 978-3-030-00317-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00317-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018955174
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019, corrected publication 2019

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Foreword
It is not easy to write a meaningful preface to a book which is as ambitious and as

unconventional as this book is. Its focus is cognitive science and soft computing—a
sphere of human cognition which was born with the computer age. Around the middle
of last century, I witnessed the birth. The source of excitement was Artificial
Intelligence (AI). There were many exaggerated expectations which were promoted
by the AI leaders John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Allen Newell, and others. I was
just beginning my teaching career and was enthuse by what I saw and heard. My first
paper was “Thinking machines—a new field in electrical engineering” published in
January 1950 (Zadeh 1950), in Columbia Engineering Quarter. In this paper, I started
with a list of headlines which appear in the popular press at that time, for example, “An
electrical machine capable of translating foreign languages is being built.” What is
remarkable is that today, many years later, we still do not have machines which are
close to delivering, close to human quality machine translation. Exaggerated
expectations were fueled by quest by financial support. It was a game which AI paid
dearly with many long month of winter from which it is beginning to emerge.
In my view, the pioneers of AI made a major mistake. They put all of the AI’s
eggs into the basket of classical logic and turning away from anything that was not
logic base. What they overlooked was that much of everyday human reasoning—the
reasoning which underlies cognitive science and soft computing is not based on
classical logic. In particular, fuzzy logic on approximate reasoning plays essential
roles in human reasoning and human cognition. For many years, the AI community
took a very skeptical position on anything that was not based on classical logic—
fuzzy logic numerical computations. Neurocomputing, evolutionary computing, and
probability theory—methodologies which are at the center of what successful AI is
today. For me, the best example of successful AI is the “smart” phone. The smart
phone is indeed a remarkable product which was science fiction not that long ago.
Approximate reasoning underlies much of human reasoning, cognitive science,
and soft computing. In approximate reasoning, the optic of reasoning and com-
putation are for the most part is fuzzy sets, that is, classes which unsharp (fuzzy)
borders. This is what traditional AI overlooked. It will take many Ph.D. theses on
over a long period of time to develop what could be justifiably called a unified
v
vi Foreword
theory of inexact and approximate reasoning. Today, all we have are fragments.
The mathematics of approximate reasoning is much more complex than the
mathematics exact reasoning. In fact, the mathematics of inexact and approximate
reasoning will be a new kind of mathematics. It would be much more
computer-oriented than what mathematics is today.
I should like to put on the table a new concept—invaluent variable. In large
measure, computation involves assignment of values to variables. In realistic settings,
there are many situations in which we cannot assign a value to a variable X because we
do not know what the value is and do not have a clear idea how it can be define, for
example, variables which related to fairness, rationality, beauty, and relevance.
Variables of this kind are invaluent variables, and the underlying issue is invaluence.
Invaluence is pervasive in cognitive science, cognitive computer, and approximate
and inexact reasoning. In the context of invaluency in large measure, we are dealing
with perceptions rather than measurements. If X is an invaluent variable, a value
which can be assign to X is a Z-number (Zadeh 2011). A Z-number is a construct with
three components. The first component is the name of the variable. The second
component called “value” is an estimated value of X, based mostly on
perception-based information. The third component called “confidence” is a fuzzy
number which is an estimate of the goodness/correctness/reliability of A as an esti-
mate of X, for example, first component: projected deficit; second component: about
$ 5,000,000; third component: high is a linguistic description of a fuzzy number. For
simplicity, linguistic fuzzy numbers are assumed to be high, medium, and low. Fuzzy
numbers can be computed with a recent groundbreaking monograph by Rafik (2016).
In coming years, I envisage that theories of fuzzy numbers and their applications
will grow invisibility and importance. It may turn out that the concept of a
Z-number is what is needed to develop cognitive science, cognitive computer, and
inexact and approximate reasoning. The importance of Z-numbers derives from the
fact that they can be computed with and reason with logically.
Berkeley, CA, USA Lotfi Zadeh

October 2016 Professor emeritus and Director
Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing (BISC)1
References
Rafik A (2016) Arithmetic operations and fuzzy numbers. World Scientific, INC
Zadeh LA (1950) Thinking machines—a new field in electrical engineering. Columbia Eng Q
12–30
Zadeh LA (2011) A note on Z-numbers. Inf Sci 181(14):2923–2932
1
The author of this Foreword, Professor emeritus Dr. Lotfi A. Zadeh, world-renowned computer
scientist and source of the author’s and editor’s curiosity, died on September 06, 2017, at the age
of 96. He will be greatly missed. His obituary at UC Berkeley may be found at: https://engineering.
berkeley.edu/2017/09/remembering-lotfi-zadeh. Accessed March 01, 2018.
Contents
Part I Introduction
Designing Cognitive Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Marco E. Tabacchi, Edy Portmann, Rudolf Seising
and Astrid Habenstein
Part II Concepts
Cognitive Cities: An Approach from Citizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Alejandro Sobrino
Possibilities for Linguistic Summaries in Cognitive Cities . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Miroslav Hudec
An Exploration of Creative Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Enric Trillas, Sara D’Onofrio and Edy Portmann
Using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps to Arouse Learning Processes
in Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Sara D’Onofrio, Elpiniki Papageorgiou and Edy Portmann
The Role of Interpretable Fuzzy Systems in Designing Cognitive
Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
José M. Alonso, Ciro Castiello and Corrado Mencar
Part III Use Cases

Towards Cognitive Cities in the Energy Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Javier Cuenca, Felix Larrinaga, Luka Eciolaza and Edward Curry
A Conceptual Model for Intelligent Urban Governance: Influencing
Energy Behaviour in Cognitive Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Mo Mansouri and Nasrin Khansari
vii
viii Contents
Extending Knowledge Graphs with Subjective Influence Networks

for Personalized Fashion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Kurt Bollacker, Natalia Díaz-Rodríguez and Xian Li
A Dynamic Route Planning Prototype for Cognitive Cities . . . . . . . . . . 235
Patrick Kaltenrieder, Jorge Parra, Thomas Krebs, Noémie Zurlinden,
Edy Portmann and Thomas Myrach
Correction to: Possibilities for Linguistic Summaries
in Cognitive Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E1
Miroslav Hudec
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Edy Portmann is a researcher and scholar, specialist and consultant for semantic
search, social media, and soft computing. Currently, he works as a Swiss
Post-Funded Professor of Computer Science at the Human-IST Institute of the
University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He studied for a B.Sc. in Information Systems
at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, for an M.Sc. in Business
and Economics at the University of Basel, and for a Ph.D. in Computer Sciences at
the University of Fribourg. He was a Visiting Research Scholar at National
University of Singapore (NUS), Postdoctoral Researcher at University of California
at Berkeley, USA, and Assistant Professor at the University of Bern. Next to his
studies, he worked several years in a number of organizations in study-related
disciplines. Among others, he worked as Supervisor at Link Market Research
Institute, as Contract Manager for Swisscom Mobile, as Business Analyst for PwC,
as IT Auditor at Ernst & Young and, in addition to his doctoral studies, as
Researcher at the Lucerne University of Applied Science and Arts. Edy Portmann is
repeated nominee for Marquis Who’s Who, selected member of the Heidelberg
Laureate Forum, co-founder of Mediamatics, and co-editor of the Springer Series
“Fuzzy Management Methods,” as well as author of several popular books in his
field. He lives happily married in Bern and has three lively kids.
Marco E. Tabacchi is currently the Scientific Director at Istituto Nazionale di
Ricerche Demopolis, Italy. He is a transdisciplinary scientist, with interests in
cognitive science, computational intelligence applied to IoT, and philosophy and
history of soft computing.
Rudolf Seising obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy of Science and his Habilitation in
History of Science from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany,
after studies of Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy at the Ruhr-University
Bochum, Germany. He has been Scientific Assistant for Computer Sciences (1988–
1995) and for History of Sciences (1995–2002) at the University of the Armed
ix
x Editors and Contributors
Forces in Munich. From 2002 to 2008, he was with the Core unit for Medical
Statistics and Informatics at the University of Vienna Medical School, Austria. He
acted as Professor for History of Science at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena,
Germany, and at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany. He
works now at the Research Institute for the History of Science and Technology at
the Deutsches Museum in Munich and is Lecturer at the Faculty of History and Arts
at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He was Visiting Researcher
(2008–2010) and Adjoint Researcher (2010–2014) at the European Centre for Soft
Computing in Mieres (Asturias), Spain, and he has been several times Visiting
Scholar at the University of California in Berkeley, USA. He is Chairman of the
IFSA Special Interest Group “History” and of the EUSFLAT Working Group
“Philosophical Foundations.” He is member of the IEEE Computational
Intelligence Society (CIS) History Committee and of the IEEE CIS Fuzzy Technical
Committee. His main areas of research comprise the historical and philosophical
foundations of science and technology.
Astrid Habenstein leads the Transdisciplinary Research Centre Smart Swiss
Capital Region (TRCSSCR) at the University of Bern, Switzerland. She graduated
at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, in History and Philosophy (2005) and
received her Ph.D. in Ancient History at the University of Bern (2012). Astrid
Habenstein worked as Research Assistant at the University of Bern and as Lecturer
at the Universities of Bern and Basel. She was member of Edy Portmann's project
on Smart and Cognitive Cities at the Institute of Information Systems, University of
Bern (2016–2017). Her main interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research
interests include Smart and Cognitive Cities, sociological theory formation
(knowledge research, theories of design, systems theory, theories of interaction),
and research development.
Contributors
José M. Alonso Centro Singular de Investigación en Tecnoloxías da Información

(CiTIUS), Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Rúa de Jenaro de la Fuente
Domínguez, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Kurt Bollacker Stitch Fix Inc, San Francisco, CA, USA
Ciro Castiello Department of Informatics, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari,
Italy
Javier Cuenca Faculty of Engineering, Mondragon University, Arrasate-Mondragon,
Spain
Edward Curry Insight Centre for Data Analytics, National University of Ireland
Galway, Galway, Ireland
Natalia Díaz-Rodríguez Stitch Fix Inc, San Francisco, CA, USA
Editors and Contributors xi
Sara D’Onofrio Human-IST Institute, University of Fribourg, Fribourg,

Switzerland
Luka Eciolaza Faculty of Engineering, Mondragon University, Arrasate-Mondragon,
Spain
Astrid Habenstein Transdisciplinary Research Centre Smart Swiss Capital
Region (TRCSSCR), University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Miroslav Hudec Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade,
Belgrade, Serbia
Patrick Kaltenrieder University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Nasrin Khansari Electrical & Systems Engineering Department, University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Thomas Krebs University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Felix Larrinaga Faculty of Engineering, Mondragon University, Arrasate-Mondragon,
Spain
Xian Li Stitch Fix Inc, San Francisco, CA, USA
Mo Mansouri School of Systems and Enterprises, Stevens Institute of
Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA
Corrado Mencar Department of Informatics, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”,
Bari, Italy
Thomas Myrach University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Elpiniki Papageorgiou Department of Electrical Engineering, University of
Applied Sciences (TEI) of Thessaly, Larisa, Greece
Jorge Parra University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Edy Portmann Human-IST Institute, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
Rudolf Seising The Research Institute for the History of Science and Technology,
Deutsches Museum München, Munich, Germany
Alejandro Sobrino University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela,
Spain
Marco E. Tabacchi Istituto Nazionale Di Ricerche Demopolis, Demopolis, Italy
Enric Trillas University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain
Noémie Zurlinden University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Part I
Introduction
Designing Cognitive Cities
Marco E. Tabacchi, Edy Portmann, Rudolf Seising

and Astrid Habenstein
Abstract The following text intends to give an introduction into some of the basic
ideas which determined the conception of this book. Thus, the first part of this
article introduces the terms “City”, “Smart City” and “Cognitive City”. The second
part gives an overview of design theories and approaches such as Action Design
Research and Ontological Design (a concept in-the-making), in order to deduce
from a theoretical point of view some of the principles that needs to be taken into
account when designing the Cognitive City. The third part highlights some concrete
techniques that can be usefully applied to the problem of citizen communication for
Cognitive Cities (namely Metaheuristics, Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Logic, Computing
with Words, Computational Intelligence Classifiers, and Fuzzy-based Ontologies).
Finally, we introduce the articles of this book.
Keywords Action Design Research (ADR) · Cognitive city

Collective intelligence—urban intelligence · Computational intelligence
Citizen communication · Computing with words · Fuzzy logic
Ontological design · Smart city
M. E. Tabacchi
Istituto Nazionale Di Ricerche Demopolis, Demopolis, Italy
e-mail: marcoelio.tabacchi@unipa.it
E. Portmann
Human-IST Institute, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
e-mail: edy.portman@unifr.ch
R. Seising
The Research Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Deutsches Museum München,
Munich, Germany
e-mail: r.seising@deutsches-museum.de
A. Habenstein (B)
Transdisciplinary Research Centre Smart Swiss Capital Region (TRCSSCR), University of Bern,
Bern, Switzerland
e-mail: astrid.habenstein@histdek.unibe.ch
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 3

E. Portmann et al. (eds.), Designing Cognitive Cities, Studies in Systems,
Decision and Control 176, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00317-3_1
4 M. E. Tabacchi et al.
1 From Smart to Cognitive Cities
1.1 The City in the Age of Globalization
The city is (and always was) a complex, multifaceted phenomenon. There are numer-
ous scientific approaches and disciplines dealing with its dimensions and, accord-
ingly, widely varying ideas about what constitutes the city (Mieg 2013). Not least
due to this fact, it seems almost impossible to give the term “city” one universal,
scientifically substantiated and comprehensive definition—and perhaps it does not
even make sense to try to find one as this would be rather superficial (Eckardt 2014).
However, most definitions and description have in common that they usually asso-
ciate or postulate two general perspectives as central to describe the city appropri-
ately, thus describing the reference framework and fields of action for a sustainable
urban development: the spatial-material and the social-cultural dimension. In a very
general sense, cities are almost always considered as topographically describable
and geographically definable places with characteristic, condensed settlements and
infrastructures, which separate the city from the non-urban surrounding area (with
fluent transitions); they are places where a large number of different people live, work,
create specific forms of life and, despite all heterogeneity, also develop a common
identity (Mieg 2013).
In this sense, the city has been for millennia a settlement structure and way of life
which is typical and of great importance to mankind. And it gets even more important:
Since the beginning of the 20th century, the world population has quadrupled to about
7.4 billion people in 2015, and in its most recent population report, the UN estimates
that in 2030 ca. 8.5 billion and in 2050 ca. 9.1 are going to live on planet Earth
(United Nations 2015). This development is accompanied by a process of accelerated
urbanization: In 1950 more than 70% of the world’s population still lived in rural
regions. In 2007, for the first time the urban population was larger than the rural
population, and the UN’s latest estimates assume that in 2050 66% of all people
are going to be inhabitants of cities. The regional differences here are sometimes
immense: in North and Latin America already 84%, in Europe 73%, while in Africa
and Asia still less than half of the population live in cities (United Nations 2014).
But the general trend is tangible everywhere.
Sometimes this is regarded as sign of progress, as life in the city can allow more
spiritual, cultural and social growth, as well as better living conditions and levels of
care. But as we all know this does not necessarily hold true everywhere: Today’s cities
struggle with the repercussions of the rapid growth of population (and simultaneously
decreasing availability of living spaces) as well as globalization, climate change, the
increasing scarcity of natural resources and the so-called Third (or Fourth) Industrial
Revolution. So-called megacities (with more than 10 million inhabitants, such as New
York, Tokyo, Manila, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro or Mumbai), whose number has risen
from 10 to 28 since 1990 (United Nations 2014), are symbols of the consequences
of an urbanization that is barely controllable under the conditions of globalization.
And these trends are also tangible in the relatively small cities of Western Europe,
Designing Cognitive Cities 5
though not nearly as bad as in the megacities of Asia and Latin America. European
cities become larger and more complex, too, and their heavily used infrastructures
are increasingly coming up against their load limits. Environmental issues; the inte-
gration of different cultures and traditions; healthcare and quality of life, especially
for the elders and disabled; pollution; eco-compatible transport and working poli-
cies—these are but some of the problems modern cities have to deal with worldwide.
These developments are going to change the relationship between citizen and city
immensely. Therefore, it is more important than ever before to think about how cities
have to be shaped to provide their inhabitants with the means and resources for a
good life. One approach to deal with the challenges of modern cities is associated
with the buzzword “Smart City”.
1.2 Smart City–Cognitive City
There are a lot of perspectives, research approaches and, subsequently, lots of def-
initions and conceptions of the term “Smart City” (Albino et al. 2015). But all of
them have in common the basic idea that the enrichment of city-relevant functions
with ICT can contribute to develop efficiently and sustainably the socioecological
design of the urban space (Portmann and Finger 2015). The collection and analysis
of city-related data as well as the coordination of their use by means of internet and
web-based services are intended to help to develop cities into better, more beautiful,
more viable places.
The challenges cities have to deal with and for which smart solutions proved to
be especially suitable are often very similar, albeit with different focuses, depending
on the specific character, problems and needs of the city in question. In general,
smart solutions are applied to subjects such as smart mobility, smart energy, smart
environment, smart economy, smart living, and smart governance. Hereby, Smart
City-concepts and -projects tend to focus on the enhancement of efficiency and
sustainability. Especially with respect to transport and mobility, (public) security,
environmental and climate protection (waste management, resource-efficient use
of energy and water), and municipal administration services there are impressive
possibilities to make use of ICT to meet the challenges in the city (Townsend 2013).
Nonetheless, there are also critics with well-founded demurs against the Smart
City. Recently, the discussion turns towards two aspects: Firstly, critics point out the
problem that Smart City-initiatives are too often planned “top-down” (Cohen 2015;
Dyer et al. 2017). Secondly, it becomes apparent that the focus on efficiency and
sustainability is expedient and very important in many respects, but in certain cases
not the best way to deal with the needs of the individual (Finger and Portmann 2016).
Therefore, the legitimate claim of the citizens to participate in shaping their cities
and communities and the human need to be perceived as individuals attracts more
and more awareness (Dyer et al. 2017; Beinrott 2015). The Cognitive City-approach
is supposed to address these requirements.
Fig. 1 Connectivism
(following Siemens 2006)
The main-characteristic of smart cities is the collection, analysis and preparation

of data to obtain information that can be used to address specific problems or needs
in the city (Finger and Portmann 2015). A city can become smarter by collecting
high-quality data made available to the various stakeholders of a city (Hurwitz et al.
2015). Thus, they are able to better deal with specific problems or needs in the city.
Therefore, it is imperative to build up and to make use of the “urban intelligence”,
the collective intelligence of the city.
Collective intelligences consist of individual intelligences: more or less intelligent
human beings as well as more or less intelligent objects such as Artificial Intelli-
gences (AI) or electronic devices. They form a network that is more than the sum of its
elements and contributes to problem solving differently than individual intelligences
would (Malone and Bernstein 2015). The “glue” that connects them can be described
best as “connectivism”, in reference to the eponymous learning and cognition theory
by Siemens (2006). In contrast to conventional theories such as behaviorism, cog-
nitivism and constructivism, the “Connected Learning Theories” (Caine and Caine
2011; Ito et al. 2013) and the “Incidental Connectivism” (Siemens 2006) understand
learning as a process in which the learning subject—or object!—forms networks by
linking to nodes. Nodes can be other people, but also databases, apps, the Internet,
smartphones, books, images, etc., which have their own networks that the learning
subject/object also accesses by connecting to the corresponding node (Fig. 1). Their
diversity and the diversity of their networks help to generate knowledge that extends
the original knowledge, or even goes beyond it (Siemens 2006). The linking of nodes
occurs by interaction and communication.
Cognitive City-approaches focus on the last aspect. The term refers to a continually
interconnecting and exchanging web of information and communication hubs that
lies at the core of tomorrow’s (and today’s) cities. In the Cognitive City the human
factor is added to the communication loop, and communication between persons

and persons, persons and machines and machines and machines constantly happens
through any available means. The technical basis are cognitive computer systems,
which are capable of recognizing patterns in the huge amounts of data and learn by
interacting and communicating with the people who use them (Hurwitz et al. 2015;
Wilke and Portmann 2016). At the same time, they are able to learn more about what
we feel, want, and need, from the constant interaction with the people who use it. In
this way, new data are collected and processed. Developments such as cloud-based
social feedback, crowdsourcing, and predictive analytics allow cities to actively and
independently learn, build, search, and expand when new information is added to the
already existing ones.
Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT), a network of objects that are equipped
with sensors, software and network connectivity, are going to play an increasingly
important role here (Townsend 2013). The objects are capable to collect and for-
ward large amounts of data cost- and energy-efficiently, as well as exchanging them
autonomously among themselves. Furthermore, the objects are capable of cooperat-
ing with existing Internet infrastructures. The entire urban environment is equipped
with sensors that collect data which are made available in a cloud. Thus, every public
implement is at the same time a useful fixture per se, and a fast, cheap and ubiquitous
mean of data gathering, based on sensors and integrating actuators and distributed
intelligent components via an extended mesh of mobile and static sharing points.
This creates a permanent interaction between urban residents and the surrounding
technology.
Cognitive City-concepts are not supposed to and cannot replace Smart City-
approaches but complement them by focusing on a specific aspect of the Smart
City: interaction and communication between the stakeholders and the city. Thus,
the Cognitive City is not merely another topic such as smart mobility or smart energy,
but another perspective that affects the Smart City as a whole: Cognitive City prin-
ciples (as well as techniques resp. technologies) are applicable to all issues of the
Smart City if it concerns aspects of interaction and communication. As said before,
Cognitive City aims to answer demands of the future cities that cannot be met by
the means of efficiency and sustainability only, but also address resilience as well as
the citizens need for participation and individualism. Therefore, designing cognitive
cities means designing the reciprocity of communication resp. interaction between
city-related ICT and the citizens.
2 Designing Cognitive Cities
2.1 Theories of Design
No other species shaped planet Earth as much as humans did. The ability to trans-
form and thus to “design” our natural, material and social environment according to
our needs is not always positive but seems to be an essential part of human nature.
Marx (1867) spoke of the “toolmaking animal”, a conception that Bergson (1907)
and Scheler (1926) transformed in the famous phrase “Homo faber”, which has since
found its way into philosophical anthropology (Ropohl 2010). However, the ideas on
how to define the term “design” vary widely (Mareis 2014). It was not until the nine-
teenth century that it gained the basic semantic content it has today: the preparatory,
modelling process and its result, the designed artefact (Walker 1989; Hirdina 2010).
Ever since, a vivid theoretical discussion emerged that is characterized by expand-
ing the object of designing processes far beyond the traditional meaning of design
as professionalized forms of handicraft, respectively technical drafting. Currently,
the concept encompasses a general understanding of technical and organizational
planning, conceptualizing and problem solving, too (Mareis 2014). Already at the
end of the 1960s, Herbert A. Simon declared in his renowned book “The Science of
the Artificial”: “Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing
existing situations in preferred ones” (Simon 1969). This assertion is cited in virtu-
ally every publication on design theory and expresses that design can be everything
that changes an instantaneous, unsatisfactory state for the better (Mareis 2014). In
this sense, design is the practice of transforming the present and shaping the future.
One of the earliest debates in design theories about what design is (or should be),
its purposes and principles as well as social, economic, scientific, philosophical or
pragmatic implications started from the question what constitutes “good” design.
The debate concentrated on the relationship between form and function; distancing
from traditional concepts of aesthetics as measurement of the quality of design, it
was argued that the design of an object is “good” (even beautiful), if it is functional.
But since the 1960s, the technocratic and rationalistic tendency of this point of view
was increasingly scrutinized. Critics argued that the rather lopsided orientation of
design to questions of usefulness and functionality does not necessarily correspond
to man’s need. As a consequence, they called for human centered design. The focus
shifted from the categories of usefulness and functionality to the perception, reception
and usage of design artefacts as well as their role as carriers and intermediaries
of meaning. Subsequently, theorists of design got interested in the actors of the
design process as well as the impact of their social, cultural, economic or political
environment (Mareis 2013). An important contribution to these discussions provided
the so-called “semantic turn” in design theory (Krippendorff 2006). Emphasizing the
significance of the users as active participants in the design process, Krippendorff
pointed out that designers should not only reproduce their own concepts of design,
aesthetics and usability, but also respect the conceptions, values and knowledge of all
who are affected by the artefacts. Human centered design requires an understanding
that integrates recursively the understanding of others into one’s own.
And who designs? Simon (1969) declared that everyone could be a designer,
not only scientists and engineers. Today, researchers go some steps further: To
Rittel (1987) design is goal-oriented and reason-based problem-solving resp.
decision-making. In this view, planning and thus designing is supposed to be an
argumentative process that should not be conducted as closed scientific expert
discourses, but participatory. Therefore, Rittel proposes—at least regarding “wicked
problems” (very complex problems in the field of sociopolitical planning)—to

replace the “expert model” with a “conspirative planning model” (Rittel 2013). In
addition to the traditional view on designers and users as actors in design processes,
theories of design that were influenced by the Actor-Network-Theory suggest taking
into account the impact of inanimate artefacts as non-human actors, too (Mareis
2013). These concepts assume that artefacts have their own forms of material-visual
communication and interaction that enables human and non-human actors to develop
networks and thus to generate meaning and knowledge together.
Another important matter of subject in the theoretical debates is the relation-
ship between design and knowledge, respectively the notion of design as epistemic
practice. This aspect was discussed intensively since the 1960s, when Simon real-
ized that artificiality was a prominent feature of modernity: “The world in which
we live today is far more of a man-made or artificial than a natural world” (Simon
1969). Therefore, he called for the establishment of a new “science of the artificial”
to deal adequately with artificially created objects and phenomena of information
technologies. He regarded design as a scientific method of practical thought, plan-
ning, decision-making and anticipated that the production of scientific-technological
knowledge necessarily and increasingly would take place in application- and design-
oriented contexts, thus overcoming the borders between “science” and “practice”. In
this view, design produces specific forms of knowledge that are different from the
conventional forms of knowledge production in the natural sciences or the humani-
ties. Today, design research does not mean to explore design practice with scientific
methods, but to generate new knowledge with the means and methods of design prac-
tice itself. The interplay of implicit, objectified and technical forms of procedures
and knowledge forms an “epistemology of design” that focuses on design practices
themselves (Mareis 2011).
To sum it up, debates on design theory are strongly influenced by the following key
points: (1) technology-driven design principles versus the ideal of human centered
design; (2) design as a sociocultural process; (3) the actors (the users as active partic-
ipants in the design process; designing as argumentative practice that should not be
conducted solely by experts; the impact of inanimate artefacts as non-human actors);
(4) the ‘epistemology of design’ (designing produces specific forms of knowledge).
All of these aspects are also relevant for designing the future city and should be part
of concepts for smart und cognitive cities, too. Some of this is already discussed
in information systems research, especially but not exclusively regarding design as
epistemic practice. An important approach is Design Science Research (DSR), a set
of synthetic and analytical techniques helping researchers to create new knowledge
through designing respectively building (“knowledge through making”) and analyz-
ing the use and/or performance of artefacts along with reflection and abstraction. The
aim is “to improve and understand the behavior of aspects of Information Systems”
(Vaishnavi and Kuechler 2015). An interesting advancement and concrete proposal
how to implement the principles of DSR is Action Design Research (ADR).
2.2 Action Design Research and Ontological Design
ADR is appreciated as a concept that tries to bring research and practice into the
best possible exchange and combines design science with action research (Sein et al.
2011). In this view IT-artefact are “ensemble artefacts” originating from the interplay
of design and the context in which design takes place (Gregor and Jones 2007). Thus,
a research method is required that explicitly regards artefacts as ensembles “emerging
from design, use, and ongoing refinement in an organizational context”, which are
shaped by the “interests, values and assumptions of a wide variety of communities
of developers, investors and users” (Orlikowski and Iacono 2001, p. 131; Sein et al.
2011, p. 38). Building and evaluating ensemble IT artefact culminate in prescriptive
design knowledge.
ADR-projects consist of four stages encompassing principles and specific tasks
for every stage (Fig. 2). In Stage One (“Problem Formulation”) the research question,
methodology and research design are developed. Stage One is characterized by two
principles: “Practice-Inspired Research” and “Theory ingrained artefact”. The com-
bination of these principles enables to connect better research and practice: By the
means of scientific theory formation the solution for a concrete field-problem that
is regarded as “knowledge-creation opportunity” can be described exactly and an
appropriate prototype can be developed, providing the basis for cycles of “Building,
Intervention and Evaluation” (BIE) in Stage Two. In Stage Two this initial design is
further shaped by organizational use and subsequent design cycles. The elements of
the iterative process are intertwined with constant evaluation. Reciprocal shaping,
mutually influential roles, and evaluation are the leading principles of this stage to
ensure this and to intensify the mutual learning of the ADR-partners.
Stage Three is about “Reflection and Learning”. This phase represents the step
from building a solution for a particular problem to apply the results of the research
process to a broader class of problems, an important characteristic of ADR: ADR-
teams do not intend to solve only one specific problem, or to intervene within the
organizational context of the problem, they aim to generate knowledge that can
• P1: PracƟce-Inspired Research

• P2: Theory-Ingrained Artefact
S1 Problem
Formulation
S4 Formalization P7: Generalized

of Learning Outcomes
S2 Building, S3 Reflection
Intervention, and Learning
• P3: Reciprocal Shaping and Evaluation
• P4: Mutual InfluenƟal
Roles
• P5: AuthenƟc and P6: Guided Emergence
Concurrent EvaluaƟon
Fig. 2 Stages (S) and Principles (P) of ADR (following Sein et al. 2011, 41)
be applied to the class of problems that the specific problem exemplifies. Hereby,
the ensemble artefact “will reflect not only the preliminary design created by the
researchers but also its ongoing shaping by organizational use, perspectives, and
participants” (Sein et al. 2011; Iivari 2007). Any Observations, changes to the artefact
or anticipated as well as unanticipated consequences during the BIE iterations needs
to be reflected. These observations are the basis to “Formalize the Learning” and
to derive “Design Principles” in Stage Four. This phase draws on the principle that
generalized outcomes are a critical component of ADR. The researchers outline
the accomplishments realized in the IT-artefact and describe their results on three
levels: generalizing the problem, generalizing the solution, and deriving the Design
Principles that connects the generalized outcomes to a class of solutions and a class
of problems.
Currently, ADR gains more and more attention and proponents, and there are
first (more or less theoretical) attempts, too, to apply the idea to Smart City-projects
(Maccani et al. 2014a, b; Ståhlbröst et al. 2015a, b). There are several reasons that
makes ADR interesting for the Cognitive City. On the one hand, this applies to the
point of view of creating a methodological and organizational framework in which
different groups of vehicles are linked. A similar framework is also needed for the
development of the smart and cognitive cities. There are numerous stakeholders
that want to take part in the project of designing their cities. In addition, principles
of transdisciplinarity could be better implemented, thus ensuring that new insights
from research and development are better being disseminated and applied in the “real
world”. Simultaneously, the data base increases, which in turn can be used for new
developments. In addition, action research elements appear particularly promising
in such an application-oriented area of development and research as the Smart City.
However, there remain also some difficulties, especially if ADR should be applied
to Cognitive Cities.
A research approach is needed to adjust the basics of ADR to the framework
that characterizes the Cognitive City. Therefore, we want to outline first theoretical
considerations on principles for Ontological Design Research (ODR), a research
method in the making which is based on ADR, but focusses on the particularities
regarding the user, the context and the artefact in sociotechnical systems like the
Cognitive City. Hereby the notion “We shape our world as this world affects and
shapes us” (Willis 2006) can be considered as the basic idea of ontological design.
1. The user and the context: The primary goal of ADR is not to integrate the user into
the design-process in the sense of human-centered design. ADR was originally made
to improve the cooperation between research and practice by implementing design
knowledge methods and focusing on the artefact and its context. This does not mean
at all that the (individual) human beings are unimportant to ADR, on the contrary. But
the human factor appears as one aspect among others which belong to the context of
an IT-artefact. However, to retrieve the full potential of the user as co-researcher and
co-designer something more needs to be done especially as the call for IT-projects that
take the user into account und ask them what they want gets louder. Furthermore, it is
relatively difficult to capture the so-called ADR-team in the concept. This is plausible
insofar as it is difficult to generalize the composition, roles and tasks, for this may
differ very much from project to project. Unfortunately, it is even harder to capture
the roles and functions of the end-user in ADR-projects. Of course, they appear in
Seins BIE-schemata, but not as member of the ADR-team (Sein et al. 2011), and the
description of their role and functions stays rather superficial. Next to this, it remains
somewhat unclear what constitutes an “organizational context” and how to deal with
the differences between the various possible contexts.
All of it is less problematic in small, well-defined organizational contexts, espe-
cially if practitioners and/or researchers are simultaneously the end-user. However,
in the complex situation of a Cognitive City with lots of subsystems and -contexts,
stakeholders, interest groups and individuals this will not work. It is paramount to
address explicitly the end-user in concepts for designing Cognitive Cities as this
aspect touches one of its main promises: the involvement of the citizen in shaping
the city, and it is necessary to sharpen the ADR-concept as it is to be expected that
different organizational contexts need different ADR-concepts.
2. The artefact: Traditionally, artefacts are thought to be relatively passive in the
process of development and design. However, as mentioned above, recent theories
of design that were influenced by the Actor-Network-Theory suggest taking into
account the impact of inanimate artefacts as non-human actors, too. This idea helps
to conceptualize the role of artificial intelligence in human-centered systems like the
Cognitive City: The Cognitive City-concept refers to the reciprocity of communica-
tion resp. interaction between city-related ICT and the citizens and can encompass
all aspects of life in the city. The instrument to implement this idea are self-learning
cognitive systems. Here, the artefact supposed to develop action-impulses by its own
by collecting information and processing them independently to new knowledge.
Regarding the Cognitive City, it is necessary to include in ODR the idea that arte-
facts are not only designed in an iterative process, but that they also have a creative
effect in said process—and vice versa.
3 Designing Citizen Communication
3.1 Computational Intelligence and Citizen Communication
In the present volume the reader will find a number of contributions, both theoretical
and practical, toward the successful building of a Cognitive City using techniques
and methodologies from computational intelligence. The technical and theoretical
aspects of such research are paramount toward the objective of a Cognitive City,
but as important is the human dialogue factor: for the foreseeable future, and up
to the eventual singularity (Tabacchi 2013), humans will continue to dialogically
negotiate many of the aspects related to social life, in cities and elsewhere, using
written and oral language and expecting as well to interact with the same means in
the public discourse. As such, one important element of the development of cognitive
cities will be related to automatic speech and written language recognition, on the
models with which such semantization will represent the respective ontologies, as
well as on the constant connection and correlation between the data captured from
ubiquitous sensors and the legitimate requests for participation in the decisional
process expressed through natural language. All these processes go under the name
of citizen communication (Perticone and Tabacchi 2016; D’Asaro et al. 2017), and
in our opinion they will be fundamental in the attainment of the main goals of all the
projects in the general area of Cognitive Cities.
The ability of cognitive systems to deal with verbal and non-verbal forms of human
communication is essential in the Cognitive City. Building the ‘smart’ components
of a Cognitive City, e.g. the network of sensors, actuators and the communication
infrastructure that presides to them, requires a number of advancements in elec-
tronics, miniaturization and big data handling. The problem of dealing with human
communication, however, pertains more to Artificial Intelligence, and especially with
methods that can handle naturally flowing information. Speech and writing recogni-
tion, in order to interface with any method of communication chosen by the citizen
will be of paramount importance to bypass other, less natural input methods; lin-
guistic register recognition, aiming at being able to interpret the non-verbal part of
the discourse according to the tone and rhythm of conversation; ontology dynamical
creation and update, in order to have a constant and accurate description of ‘the world
out there’ that could be employed to direct information to the relevant parties; the
informal use of formal structures (i.e. argumentation), at the aim of better under-
standing the kind of problems that elicit communication and to identify the actors
that should play a role in the resulting conflict.
All of these tasks have in common that, as in any context where a natural lan-
guage takes a predominant part, it is necessary to deal with incomplete, imprecise
and missing information, uncertainty, heavy dependence from the context, an exact
solution is not necessary or required (as sometimes it is even difficult to exactly pin-
point the originating problem). At the moment many of such kind of task are usually
tackled by the use of a mix of brute force, statistical analysis and big data. While such
approach has shown success in some research topics (speech recognition, personal
digital assistants) and promising results in others (the first approaches to autonomous
drive comes to mind), there are at least two obstacles to its widespread adoption. One
of practical nature: some tasks, such as the understanding of the intricacies, anoma-
lies and indeterminisms of human language, still seem out of reach such. The other,
probably more important, goes at the nucleus of the problem. By using statistics and
big data, introspection becomes difficult, if not impossible. And this fact is not a
detail, as more often than not one of the principal reasons for AI application is not
just the ‘solution’ of a problem by itself, but also a reflection on the way humans (and
nature) tackle, solve and internalize problems. If we want to approach the problem of
Citizen Communication toward a development of Cognitive Cities with the human
factor in mind, we also have to look elsewhere: to Computational Intelligence.
Computational Intelligence (CI) is an umbrella term coined in the 00’s to regroup
all the methodologies and techniques that try to solve problems in contexts of
ambiguous, incomplete, missing or vague information using approaches that are
often derived from ‘natural’ methods, such as the ones devised by human minds or
evolved in nature from animal behavior (Kacprzyk and Pedrycz 2015). In such con-
text, algorithms derived from classical logic may be able to give an exact solution,
but their requirements in time or space may be unfeasible for present and future
technology, even more when the solution required has to be found in severe time
constraint, such as in dynamically changing environments. CI methods are generally
aimed at sub-optimal solutions that can nonetheless be achieved in a reasonable time-
frame, and that are “good enough” for the intended problem (Seising 2010, 2012). A
number of CI methods are directly inspired by human reasoning, especially among
the earliest instances (such as Fuzzy Logic, Soft Computing and the likes), and as
such are naturally matched with cognition and ideal to afford IA problems, insofar
they distance themselves by grammars and inference rules.
3.2 Some Techniques
A number of articles in this book have been devoted by the authors to foundations
of fuzziness, the founding father of CI (Seising and Tabacchi 2013; Termini and
Tabacchi 2014; Tabacchi and Termini 2014). In this context, however, we deem
appropriate to highlight some of the techniques that can be usefully applied to the
problem of Citizen Communication for Cognitive Cities: Metaheuristics, Computing
with Words, Computational Intelligence Classifiers, and Fuzzy-based Ontologies.
The aim is not to give a detailed technical exposition of such methods, neither to
review all the applicable technologies, but to give the reader the gist of the ways
in which CI can be employed to implement Citizen Communication, and why this
will be paramount for the functional development of Cognitive Cities thought by
and for humans. Other techniques from Computational Intelligence may be usefully
employed in designing Cognitive Cities (one glaring example is Fuzzy Cognitive
Maps). In the rest of this volume some of such methods will be more thoroughly
theoretically discussed and implemented.
3.2.1 Metaheuristics
Metaheuristics is an umbrella term designed to cover a group of ‘smart’ strategies

to sub-optimally solve (within a certain, accepted degree of perfection) problems
that are by their same nature intractable. This includes both general problems that
are unsolvable due to their complexity increasing exponentially at the increase of
the problem size (the so-called NP problems of the theory of computation), as well
as optimization problems for which the difficulty lies in the inherent uncertainty,
incomplete or imperfect information. Metaheuristics are based on the observation of
ways in which nature (Evolutionary Computation, Ant colonies, Particle Swarms, and
Genetic Algorithms) or humans (Simulated Annealing, Tabu Search, Local Search,
Variable Neighborhood Search) solve in satisfactory ways problems that are appar-
ently too complex to grasp, and are generally based on two assumptions: the first is
that while a ‘perfect’ (in the computational, mathematical sense of the word) solution
may not be attained, it is usually possible to find an alternative solution that satisfies
the constraints put on the problem, and that is sufficiently similar, both in terms of
time and space, to be acceptable. The second is that the usual way of solving a prob-
lem algorithmically—devise a number of steps that solve the problem, demonstrate
the correctness, improve and repeat—can be replaced with a much more ecological
procedure that explores the space of the problem in search of solution, often helped by
the power of big data and high computational availability that characterizes today’s
computing. This exploration is often helped by sampling subsets of the problem, the
use of casual choices and continuous trial and error.
There is clearly a vast space for metaheuristics in designing cognitive cities:
such methods echo the way humans reason, and by mimicking human and natural
strategies in solving problems they both value practical requirements over theoretical
aspects, as well as promoting exploration, multiple tries, trial and error, collaboration
and cooperation, further refinements as means to succeed. Furthermore, the ample
availability of computing power and of graphical tools that help both experts and
novice to implement metaheuristics, as well as the innate nature of such techniques
for being represented as visual abstractions, may represent a way of including in the
design of cognitive cities also experts from the humanities, that are usually wary of
classical computation techniques.
Metaheuristics have been recently used to improve urban transportation (Nha et al.
2012): a variation of the classical Travelling Salesman problem (finding shortest
routes between a number of points in a city) is extended to a number of vehicles,
and a dynamical situation where traffic conditions rapidly change. One advantage
of metaheuristics is that by selectively choosen subsets of the problems they can
make sense of big data, especially when dynamically captured through sensors, e.g.
geographic information (Cosido et al. 2013). A review of methods from agent and
multiagent systems, another offshoot of metaheuristics, shows that they have been
applied to many aspects of traffic and transportation systems in dynamic changing
environments (Chen and Cheng 2010), as well as planning the adoption of strategies
to promote sustainability in cognitive cities (Juan et al. 2011).
3.2.2 Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Logic
The electrical engineer and professor at the University of California Berkeley Lotfi
A. Zadeh (1921–2017) used to say, “Everything is a matter of degree!” (Fig. 3).
This is the insight behind his introduction of the linguistic approach to fuzzy sets
and systems, and, to appreciate it, we simply have to acknowledge that we name
“everything” by words. In his editorial to the first issue of the International Journal
of Fuzzy Sets and Systems, he wrote that “it has become increasingly clear” that
“classical mathematics—based as it is on set theory and two-valued logic—is much
too restrictive and much too rigid to serve as an effective tool for the understanding
Fig. 3 Lotfi A. Zadeh giving an interview in his office, Soda Hall, University of California at
Berkeley, summer of 2012 (photocredit: Fuzzy archive Rudolf Seising)
of the behavior of humanistic systems, that is, systems in which human judgment,
perceptions and emotions play an important role” (Zadeh 1978).
In order to provide a mathematically exact expression of experimental research
with real systems, it was necessary to employ meticulous case differentiations, differ-
entiated terminology and definitions that were adapted to the actual circumstances,
things for which the language normally used in mathematics could not account.
The circumstances observed in reality could no longer simply be described using
the available mathematical means. Therefore, in the summer of 1964, Zadeh was
thinking about pattern recognition problems and grades of membership of an object
to be an element of a class as he returned to mind almost 50 years later (Zadeh
2011; Seising 2007). Zadeh submitted his seminal article “Fuzzy Sets” to the journal
Information and Control and it appeared in June 1965 (Zadeh 1965).
He introduced new mathematical entities as classes or sets that “are not classes or
sets in the usual sense of these terms, since they do not dichotomize all objects into
those that belong to the class and those that do not” (Zadeh 1965). He introduced
“the concept of a fuzzy set, that is a class in which there may be a continuous
infinity of grades of membership, with the grade of membership of an object x in a
fuzzy set A represented by a number f A (x) in the interval [0,1].” He generalized the
concepts, union of sets, intersection of sets, etc. He defined equality, containment,
complementation, intersection and union (Fig. 4) relating to fuzzy sets A, B in any
universe of discourse X as follows (for all x ∈ X):
Fig. 4 Zadeh’s Illustration of Fuzzy Sets in R1 : “The membership function of the union is comprised
of curve segments 1 and 2; that of the intersection is comprised of segments 3 and 4 (heavy lines)”
(Zadeh 1965)
• A B if and only if µA (x) µB (x),

• A ⊆ B if and only if µA (x) ≤ µB (x),
• ¬A is the complement of A, if and only if µ¬A (x) 1−µA (x),
• A ∪ B if and only if µA∪B (x) max (µA (x), µB (x)),
• A ∩ B if and only if µA∩B (x) min (µA (x), µB (x)).
At Berkeley, Zadeh’s efforts to use his fuzzy sets in linguistics led, in the early
1970s, to an interdisciplinary exchange between him and the linguist George Lakoff.
The latter, referring to the accepted opinion “that sentences of natural languages (at
least declarative sentences) are either true or false or, at worst, lack a truth value, or
have a third value”, argued “that natural language concepts have vague boundaries
and fuzzy hedges and that, consequently, natural language sentences will very often
be neither true, nor false, nor nonsensical, but rather true to a certain extent and false
to a certain extent, true in certain respects and false in other respects” (Lakoff 1973).
In this paper, Lakoff considered fuzzy sets appropriate for dealing with degrees
of membership and with (concept) categories that have unsharp boundaries. Thus,
Lakoff introduced the term “fuzzy logic”.
Inspired and influenced by many discussions with Lakoff “concerning the mean-
ing of hedges and their interpretation in terms of fuzzy sets”, Zadeh contemplated
“linguistic operators”, which he called “hedges”: “A basic idea suggested in this
paper is that a linguistic hedge such as “very”, “more”, “more or less”, “much”,
“essentially”, “slightly” etc. may be viewed as an operator which acts on the fuzzy
set representing the meaning of its operand.”
However, based on his later research, Lakoff came to the conclusion that fuzzy
logic is not an appropriate logic for linguistics: “It doesn’t work for real natural
languages; in traditional computer systems it works that way”, he said years later. For
Zadeh, fuzzy logic was the basis for “computing with words” instead of “computing
with numbers” (Zadeh 1999). Later he said “the main contribution of fuzzy logic is a
methodology for computing with words. No other methodology serves this purpose”
(Zadeh 1996). For the new millennium, he proposed “A New Direction in AI. Toward
a Computational Theory of Perceptions” (Zadeh 2001). He explained that this new

approach was inspired by the human capability to operate on, and reason with,
perception-based information, such as time, distance, form, and other attributes of
physical and mental objects: “Everyday examples … are parking a car, driving in city
traffic, playing golf, cooking a meal, and summarizing a story. In performing such
tasks … humans base whatever decisions have to be made on information that, for the
most part, is perception, rather than measurement, based.” He assumed, however, that
“progress has been, and continues to be, slow in those areas where a methodology
is needed in which the objects of computation are perceptions” (Zadeh 2001).
3.2.3 Computing with Words
As we have discussed in the previous section, most activities in cognitive cities must
be intermediated by language in order to be effective. As well, it is undenieble that
a lot of the computation going on in human brains is somehow directly connected
with the use of language. Computing With Words (CWW) is a recent and innovative
development of Fuzziness whose aim is to replace the intermediate step of symbolic
logic to offer a perspective of computation that is more directly linked to the way
humans do their internal reasoning: in the words of its instigator Lotfi Zadeh “the
role model for CWW is the human mind” (Zadeh 1996).
CWW offers a fusion between natural language, and specifically its verbal char-
acteristics, and computation by standard fuzzy variables. Basic information manip-
ulated in CWW is a collection of propositions expressed directly in words from a
natural language, as a human would do. This is in contrast with classical compu-
tation, which is based on a three-steps model of transforming input into numbers
or logic predicates, operating on such abstract objects and then transforming back
the output of computation on something meaningful for humans. Conclusions are
as such derived from premises by a double-translation procedure that introduces
unwanted problems and oversimplify concepts. The principles of CWW subvert this
well-established models, and put back words where they belong: as the main tool
for reasoning and computing. Again, with Zadeh (1996), “in coming years, com-
puting with words is likely to emerge as a major field in its own right. In a reversal
of long-standing attitudes, the use of words in place of numbers is destined to gain
respectability. This is certain to happen because it is becoming abundantly clear that
in dealing with real-world problems there is much to be gained by exploiting the
tolerance for imprecision. In the final analysis, it is the exploitation of the tolerance
for imprecision that is the prime motivation for CWW.” In CWW our basic units
are called granules, and are fuzzy constraints of a variable, describing premises,
some fuzzy constraint propagation, and conclusions. From the premises answers to a
query expressed in a natural language are to be inferred. Computation in this instance
consists in deriving such conclusions starting by the premises and using propagation.
In a Cognitive City one of the serious issues is to connect huge volumes of data
that are continually and dynamically produced by ubiquitous sensors with something
that can be approached by humans using natural language. The original work of
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person than by letter. After a little talk it was arranged that as soon as the
boys were off I might have you. The method of taking possession was left to
myself. I might write for you and enclose this, or do as I chose about
communicating your mother's consent to my plan."
Mrs. Worsley handed a note to Nettie, and the girl exclaimed, "How kind of
you, aunty! To think of you travelling so far out of your way on my account, first
to Scarborough, then to this place! How can I thank you?"
"Do not try, dear. Read your mother's note," said Mrs. Worsley. "But please do
not put me down as another sham, because I asked you so many questions
when I already knew the answer to some of them. I wanted to have a peep
into your mind. As to Bolton, I inquired after her in all good faith, for neither
your mother nor Laura told me that she was with them, or how very much you
had been left to yourself."
Nettie gave her godmother a girlish hug and a shower of kisses, then applied
herself to the letter, whilst the boys expressed their delight at her improved
prospects, after the manner of their kind.
They repeatedly embraced their sister, showered thanks on Mrs. Worsley in

rather slangy English, and finally gave relief to their exuberant spirits by
dancing round the den in a sort of wild Indian style, which was not calculated
to render the reading of the letter an easy task to Nettie. The purport of it was,
however, soon mastered. Mrs. Clifford wrote warmly of Mrs. Worsley's
kindness, and told her daughter that she must consider herself at liberty to
leave Hoyden Hill as soon as Williams returned and the boys were gone.
There were loving messages and a promise of another letter to follow by post,
and that was all.
Annette's dreams were pleasant ones for that night, but the waking was less
agreeable. The morning brought the promised letter, with detailed instructions
as to certain matters for the house and the boys, and a cheque to meet the
expenditure involved by their coming journey, and the domestic supplies
alluded to. But for Annette herself there was nothing, not even a hint as to
possible wants. The girl thought she must be mistaken, that there must be
another enclosure; but a further examination revealed the fact that the
envelope contained nothing more.
"How can I go?" she exclaimed. "Mamma knows that I need at least a couple
of new gowns to make me fairly presentable, and it would be a dreadful
scramble to get one in the short time there is. Besides, Laura's last are unpaid
for, and I will not go for more on credit, though I suppose that is what she must
have meant me to do. Mamma must feel that I cannot go away without even
the means to pay my travelling expenses, or a spare pound in my pocket."
Annette's self-communings had reached this point when Mrs. Worsley entered
the den, where breakfast awaited her coming.
"I thought you were still asleep, aunty," said the girl. "I have been twice to your
door, but everything was so quiet that I stole softly down again. The boys had
to go, you know, to be in time for school, so I shall have you all to myself.
Have you rested well?"
"Delightfully, Nettie, and I am quite ready for breakfast, and work to follow, for
we must begin our preparations for the journey without an hour's delay."
Annette's face flushed and paled as she turned her mother's letter round in
her fingers in an absent fashion. Then she said, "I am afraid I can make none.
Mamma has written about everyone but me. She must know that I need more
than her permission to go with you."
"My dear, I am sorry that you have had a moment's anxiety on that score,
which I might have prevented by a word. Your mother and I arranged
everything on your behalf when we met at Scarborough. This is for you,
Nettie, to meet any minor expenses, and after breakfast we will see what sort
of a substitute for the fairy godmother I shall make in providing the more
substantial portion of your outfit." Mrs. Worsley handed Annette an envelope
addressed in her mother's handwriting, and on opening it she found, to her
utter amazement, a ten-pound note.
"For me, aunty? How has mamma spared it? Did she really send it?" asked
Annette, half ashamed of her question.
"I saw Mrs. Clifford place the note in the envelope, which she addressed, and
then handed to me, for your sole use, my dear, if that is what you mean. And
she sent her love, and hoped you would spend it judiciously."
The young face brightened again at these words.
"Mamma is very kind; I did not expect this," she said. "Now I can manage
quite nicely; but how disgracefully selfish I am to keep you talking about my
concerns when you must be famishing for your breakfast!"
"Not famishing, dear, but with a good healthy appetite to enjoy this tempting
breakfast," replied Mrs. Worsley. "But, Nettie, you have not asked whither we
are bound when we leave Heydon Hill."
"I thought I was going home with you, aunty."
"Home, in one sense, dear, but not to the one I call my very own. We are
going to my brother's."
"To Broadlands! You cannot mean it?"
"I am quite in earnest. My brother and his wife have given you a warm corner
in their warm hearts, Nettie; your last year's visit established you as first
favourite with them and the children, and I believe if I were to make my
appearance alone, I should be sent back to fetch you. The people at Ferndene
are having a large party of young guests, too. I believe almost the same who
were there twelve months ago, so you will meet a host of old young
acquaintances."
Mrs. Worsley was looking straight at Nettie as she spoke, and, lo! Across the
girl's face stole a look of indescribable gladness, along with a rich rosy glow
that spread from cheek to brow; a sort of dancing, happy light, the reflex of
some deep-seated joy, brought to the innocent young heart by her friend's
words.
Nettie turned away quickly and shyly, as if afraid that secret of hers should be
read, and she could not have borne a significant look just then, much less a
jesting word. That expression, however, set Mrs. Worsley thinking and
wondering whether, amongst the guests at Ferndene, Cinderella might have
met her prince. Truly the girl was very young in her ways and simple in her
tastes, as innocent of flirting and coquetry as the most loving mother could
desire her child to be. But time had not been standing still with Nettie any
more than others; she would keep her nineteenth birthday during the visit to
Broadlands.
CHAPTER III.
BREAKFAST was over, and Nettie was standing in Mrs. Worsley's bedroom,
speechless and overwhelmed at the sight which met her view. Spread around
her were the contents of one of those large boxes which she had assisted
Sarah Jane to carry up-stairs on the preceding evening. There were braveries
of all kinds suited to a girl like herself, and fit for wear in such a home as
Broadlands. Nothing very costly, but all beautiful, dainty, and suggestive of
refined taste and a sweet, pure-minded girl wearer.
It was not the first time that Mrs. Worsley had supplied deficiencies in Nettie's
wardrobe, and the measures taken a year before would, she knew, still be
near enough to go by. She shrewdly suspected that her request for the girl's
company would be cheerfully acceded to if no demand were made on the
mother's purse to furnish the needed outfit. Even that ten-pound note which
had called forth such fervent gratitude, though nominally sent by her mother,
had first been given to Mrs. Clifford by Mrs. Worsley for the purpose.
"She is rich, and has neither chick nor child. All her own relatives are richer
still, so why should not Nettie be the better for having a wealthy sponsor?"
said Mrs. Clifford to her eldest daughter. "Besides, by having nothing to buy
for Nettie, I shall be able the better to supply your wants."
So Laura, too, had cause to rejoice, for she benefited indirectly by Mrs.
Worsley's gifts, in having money spent upon her wardrobe, some of which
must otherwise have gone for Nettie's.
Standing amidst a wealth of pretty things, Nettie said—"These are all far too
handsome, and you are much too kind, aunty, darling. I cannot thank you as I
ought. I feel that I shall be a grand sham myself amongst the dear friends at
Broadlands—'a daw with borrowed feathers.'"
"Not borrowed, Nettie; these things are truly your own. Not shams any more
than you are, my dear, honest-hearted lassie. They are fashioned by human
fingers, not transformed by the touch of a fairy's wand, so you can wear them
without fear that they will resume some uncanny shape. And they come from
one who loves you dearly, Nettie, and who has too much of this world's gear,
and no kindred of her own who need to share it. I settled about these trifles
before I even saw your mother. I never dreamed that I might find you too
proud to accept at once, and without misgivings, your godmother's little gift."
Nettie burst into tears, and flinging her arms round her friend's neck, begged
to be forgiven.
"Of course it is hateful pride and horrid ingratitude," she cried. "But I did not
see it in that way before; I only felt overwhelmed with your kindness, and that
it was all too much for you to do for my sake. I have had shamefully ungrateful
thoughts about being left here, and have felt angry at mamma and Laura, and
generally rebellious on account of my lot, instead of just accepting it as from
God's hand, and making the best of it. And all the while He was ordering
everything for my good, putting it into your heart to be so kind to me, and
planning that I should be invited to the place I longed to visit above every
other in the world. I am ashamed of myself."
"That is right, darling," replied Mrs. Worsley. "Now you are looking at things in
a proper light, and there is nothing to be done but to continue our
preparations."
After this the hours seemed to fly, so much had to be done; but further help
was obtained to sustain the "reed." Williams returned in due time, the boys set
out for Cumberland in the highest of spirits, and a couple of hours later Mrs.
Worsley carried off Nettie, and arrived in the early afternoon at the station
nearest to Broadlands.
On the platform were three or four of Mrs. Worsley's nephews and nieces, wild
with delight at seeing her with Nettie in charge, and at the cry of the first,
"Here's Nettie! Hurrah!" The shout was taken up by the others, who each
cheered in a different key, and made the station resound with their shrill young
voices.
There was another person who met the train, and handed the ladies out, and
who, though he did not join in the cheer raised by the juniors, managed to
express his pleasure at sight of the travellers in no less eloquent language.
Truly if ever eyes spoke of gladness, the fine grey ones of Arthur Boyd told
Nettie Clifford that the sight of her bright, blushing face had vastly increased
his present feeling of happiness.
What halcyon days followed! Broadlands itself, with just its regular inmates,
would have been a paradise to Nettie, nestling, as it did, among glorious
woods which sheltered without hiding it, and yet within walking distance of the
sea on one side and a lovely undulating country on the other three. There
were endless drives and plenty of pleasant neighbours within reach, nearest
of all Ferndene, the residence of old Sir Henry Boyd, Arthur's uncle, with
whom Nettie was a prime favourite. He and his dear old wife were deeply
attached to their nephew and heir, very anxious for him to marry, and yet in
great dread lest he should fall a victim to a mere pretty face.
They had a horror of fastness and flirtation. They believed in one true, ever-
growing holy love which should become stronger and more self-devoting
through each year of wedded life, as theirs had done. Their nephew would be
independent of money considerations; they wanted him to have a fortune in
the wife herself; and so, when twelve months before they thought their
nephew was learning to care for Nettie Clifford, they were ready to give their
hearty consent if he would only ask it.
"Just the girl for Arthur," they had said to each other. Well born and educated,
with good health, good looks, a pure mind, and habits untainted by fashion
and folly, yet as bright as a bird; one in whose society young and old found
pleasure. What could they desire better? Yet the girl's visit had come to an
end, and Arthur had not spoken. The hopes of the old couple had died away,
and twelve months had come and gone in the meanwhile.
Now Nettie was again at Broadlands, and day by day she and Arthur met.
Lookers-on began to whisper, and some that had hoped Sir Henry's heir
would seek a wife in a different direction lost hope.
At last a day came when the young man opened his heart to the relatives who
had been as father and mother to him, and asked their consent and blessing
on his union with Nettie Clifford, provided he could win hers.
They answered him together: "May God bless you as we do, and speed your
wooing! 'A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.' We could desire no
better fortune for our boy than to win such a wife as Annette Clifford."
With a light heart Arthur set out for Broadlands. There was to be a garden
party in the lovely grounds that afternoon, and he had no doubt that he should
find an opportunity of telling Nettie all that was in his mind. He did not,
however, see her immediately on his arrival. The grounds were extensive, and
before Arthur Boyd made one amid the crowd of guests who kept pouring
through the wide gateway, Nettie had been pounced upon and carried off to
take part in a game at tennis.
The decisive set was just at an end when he caught sight of her, flushed and
smiling, after a hard-won victory. But bright as was the colour on the girl's
cheek, it deepened at his approach, and it was with a look of frank pleasure
that she laid her hand in his and bade him welcome.
But while Nettie's roses deepened, those on Arthur's face died away, and he
became deadly pale as he glanced at the girl's extended hand, for there,
glittering on her "engaged finger," was a superb diamond, a beautiful single
stone of bluish white, a stone of great value, as the merest ignoramus could
tell. Surely the presence of such a jewel in such a place could have only one
meaning.
Arthur hardly knew what he said. He knew that Nettie looked half frightened,
and asked if he were ill, and that he had answered in the negative, and got
away out of sight. True, she seemed to look wistfully after him, and her lips
moved, as if she were begging him to stay. Probably she was shocked at what
she had done, and wished to deprecate the grief and resentment his face
must have expressed.
All their happy hours, all her sweet girlish ways, all the tell-tale blushes at his
coming, all that he had thought he read in the shy eyes that were wont to
droop when he looked too steadily in their direction, all these things were as
nothing to him any more than others. Someone—Arthur thought he knew who
—had offered, and been promptly accepted by the portionless girl, who was
bound to marry well, whether true love were included in the bargain or not.
Arthur could not leave Broadlands at once, as he longed to do, for his aunt
and uncle, with other friends, were to come later, and he had promised to wait
for and return with them. So he strolled away to a lonely part of the grounds,
and having passed a miserable hour there, once more bent towards the
entrance-gates, where he met Nettie.
Surely the girl must have been miserable too, for she looked pale and
troubled, and there were signs about her usually bright eyes that were
suggestive of recent tears. And lo! As he glanced at her hand which hold up a
parasol, he saw that it was unadorned. The ring was gone.
"There must have been some stupid mistake," he thought. "I have taken for
granted what had probably no reality. Only Nettie's own lips shall convince me
that she is other than the pure, true-hearted girl I have ever judged her to be."
To think was to act. There was no one else very near, so Arthur joined Nettie,
and a new light came to her sweet face, and new roses sprang into being on
her cheeks. He began to tell his tale, strolling the while into a by-path, and had
got as far as the ring.
"I came on purpose to speak to you to-day, Nettie, bringing with me the
blessing and approval of my dear aunt and uncle, who would welcome you
with open arms as my wife," he said. "There was only one person for me
amongst all the guests, and when I saw you, darling, sweet, and fair, and true,
I longed to clasp you to my heart and tell you that I gave you my whole best
love a year ago. And then I looked at something sparkling on your finger, and
saw a ring, and feared that someone had been beforehand with me, so went
away miserable, without a word. What did the ring mean, dear, for you wear it
no longer?"
Nettie glanced at her hand as Arthur alluded to the ring, and gave a cry of
horror.
"What shall I do?" she cried. "I did not know it was gone. I would not lose it for
anything. Please do not stop me!"
Away fled Nettie towards the house, leaving Arthur with his love story
unfinished, and to put what construction he chose upon her precipitate retreat.
To pursue the girl would have been to cause remark, and Arthur went more
slowly in the direction taken by Nettie, his mind full of half-formed plans for an
immediate voyage to the Antipodes.
Mrs. Worsley was sitting on the terrace, and Annette must have passed her on
her way to the house. Arthur stood by her for a little while, talking of the party,
the lovely weather, and the manifest enjoyment of the guests, but his manner
was constrained, and his answers often irrelevant. He was on the point of
turning away, when Annette once more appeared, tripping lightly towards
them, with a radiant face.
"Aunty, dear aunty, please take this back with my best thanks, and never, if
you love me, ask me to wear borrowed feathers again. I have been in dreadful
trouble. I missed it from my finger, or rather Mr. Boyd did, and I thought I had
lost it in the park. Then I remembered I had been to my room to wash my
hands after preparing some fruit for the children, and I left Mr. Boyd very
unceremoniously, to see if I had laid it on the dressing-table. It was not there,
and I was almost in despair, when where do you think I found it? Exactly fitted
into the centre hole of the drainer which covers the sponge bowl. How glad I
was! I am not fit to be trusted with valuables, you see, for, being
unaccustomed to them, I forget that I have them. Thank you a thousand times
for the loan of the ring, aunty, and most of all for freeing me from the awful
responsibility of having valuables not my own to take care of. I will never wear
borrowed feathers again as long as I live."
As Nettie spoke, she placed the ring which had caused Arthur's misery in Mrs.
Worsley's hand, and then gave a sweet, shy, upward glance at the young
man, which seemed to say that the story he had begun to tell would now find
an attentive listener.
Mrs. Worsley, with a laughing face, told Arthur how she had insisted on
Nettie's wearing one of her rings because the girl possessed scarcely any
ornaments of her own. "It will be hers some day," she added, "but I must take
care of it until she is fit to be trusted with the custody of valuables."
Arthur mentally dissented from Mrs. Worsley's statement that Nettie

possessed few ornaments. He thought that truth, modesty, unselfishness, a
pure, tender nature, and a warm, faithful heart were better adornments and
possessions than all the jewels in the world. But he did not trouble to tell her
so, for some friends were approaching, whom Mrs. Worsley joined. And Arthur
told his thoughts to Nettie instead, and completed the story begun a little while
before.
He must have had faith, too, in Nettie's powers to take care Of a ring, for when
the young people met the party from Ferndene, there glittered on the girl's
engaged finger a most beautiful specimen of the jeweller's art, the diamonds
in which were worthy to follow the borrowed gem.
Thus Arthur Boyd won Nettie for a wife; and the dear old couple at Ferndene
rejoiced that their adopted son would soon give them the daughter they
coveted above all others. And there was rejoicing at Scarborough, and Mrs.
Clifford wrote that her darling Nettie had more than fulfilled her most cherished
hopes by making so wise a choice.
That Mrs. Worsley played the true mother's part to her goddaughter need
hardly be told, or that it was on her breast that the girl shed the glad tears
which came from a heart almost too full of happiness as she said, "How can I
be thankful enough for God's great goodness to me? How be ashamed
enough of my old want of faith, my repinings, and discontent?"
Mrs. Arthur Boyd has no lack of jewels now, and has long since been
accustomed to the charge of articles of value of her very own. But if she had
never possessed any, her friends think that those better ornaments which her
husband valued most would have been conspicuous in her life and actions.
Also that the one lesson would have sufficed to prevent her from ever making
a second appearance in "borrowed feathers."
A STORY OF AN ANGLE WINDOW
CHAPTER I.
"STEPBROTHER DICK."
"You will have to be father, mother, and brother to the girls, Dick. It is a great
charge, but you will not shirk it. I know what you are, dear boy, and now, more
than ever, I thank God, who took my only son, that He left me you."
The speaker had not long to live, and she knew it. She had four girls to leave
motherless, and she had been ten years a widow. He to whom she spoke was
her stepson, Richard Maynard Whitmore, who was sitting by her bed and
looking in her wan face with loving, troubled eyes. His answer was not long in
coming. Holding the invalid's thin hand in a gentle, caressing clasp, the young
man replied, "As you have been a true mother to me, so will I be to the girls all
you say, as God shall enable me."
A beautiful glad light overspread Mrs. Whitmore's face as the words fell on her
ear. Dick's honest eyes were turned towards her, and though he spoke quietly,
his tone was solemn and earnest, as befitted the occasion and the
responsibility he was taking upon himself.
"Kiss me, dear Dick."
Richard rose and bent his tall figure until his lips touched those of his
stepmother. She made an effort to clasp her thin arms round his neck, and
after kissing him again and again, she held him for a few moments in a close
embrace. Thus was the compact sealed.
Mrs. Whitmore knew well what a noble nature was covered under Dick's quiet,
undemonstrative manner. The few words he had just spoken were quite
enough to remove every anxious thought from her mind—save one.
Even before they were spoken the mother had said to herself, "The girls will
be safe so long as they are sheltered by Dick's roof. He will be a true
guardian, and will watch over and guide them aright, if they will be guided. He
is good and wise beyond his years, and so unselfish."
"The three will be manageable enough, for they love him. My only fear is for
Gertrude, and I dread her influence over the rest."
It seemed strange and sad that at such a time Mrs. Whitmore's thoughts
should be disturbed by anxiety about her eldest daughter, and that her whole
trust should be placed on the only one of her husband's children who was not
also her very own son.
It was evident that Richard Whitmore read a story of hidden trouble in his
mother's face, for, after her arms released him, he noted that the glad look
called forth by his assurance had faded, and given place to a different
expression. There was something yet unsaid, and he asked her, gently, "What
is it, dear mother?"
"You read me like a book almost, Dick. I have been hesitating whether to say
any more or no, but it is due to your goodness that I should withhold no
thought from you which has relation to your sisters. Indeed, I have no wish to
do it. My anxiety is on Gertrude's account. She has never been like the rest,
especially to you, and never treated you as she ought to have done since that
miserable visit. When I am gone it may be that she will try to prejudice the
younger ones, and that they will listen to her, and then—"
Tears began to flow down the wan cheeks, and the speaker was unable to
continue.
"I know all, and I have no fear. We will not trouble ourselves about 'maybes,'"
returned Richard, in a cheery, hopeful tone, though he was not wholly without
forebodings on the same account.
"Do not think I have made my promise to you without asking for help to enable
me to keep it. That is enough for to-day. As future days pass one by one into
the present, I shall seek strength for each as it comes. Let this thought comfort
you, dear mother, when you are inclined to remember how young I am to
undertake such a responsibility. Say to yourself, 'Dick does not stand alone.
His father's God is his God also, and trusting in Him for strength according to
his day, he can never be desolate or in doubt as to the course he should
take.'"
"May that God bless you abundantly, my dear boy!" replied Mrs. Whitmore,
fervently. "As I lie here weak and helpless, I feel that if I had only you to thank
Him for, my heart would be filled with gratitude. He took my only boy, but left
me one of the best of sons in you. I cannot fret or trouble about the future. It
seems to me that in the solemn last days of life a clearer understanding of our
Father's dealings with us is vouchsafed, to make up for the fading away of
earthly interests. I see how kindly I have been dealt with through ten years of
widowhood, and how I have been spared till the youngest of the girls is past
mere childhood, and you are grown old enough for them to look up to as
brother, guardian, friend."
Richard answered by a few more loving words, and then, after tenderly kissing
his stepmother, left her to rest.
Mrs. Whitmore might well think much of Dick, and he of her in return. She was
the only mother he could remember, having become his father's second wife
when the boy was barely three years old.
She had come to the home a fair young creature, who had, happily for herself
and the child, been brought up in an atmosphere of love, and was ready to
pour a whole wealth of affection upon little Dick.
From the very day that she entered Mr. Whitmore's house as his wife, she
brightened the life of her tiny stepson in every possible way. She was so
young herself—very little over twenty—and to Dick, who had been under the
charge of a faithful but somewhat prim nurse, her lovely face was like that of
an angel.
The loss of her first baby, the only boy born of this second marriage, drew the
loving bonds between her husband's child and herself closer still. It was such
a comfort to feel his little arms round her neck, to have him for her companion,
and to hear his childish prattle as he coaxed her out into the garden and
fields, and persuaded her to join again in his baby games, as she did before
the little one came and went.
Dick was only six years old when Gertrude, the eldest of the girls, was born,
so that there was no great difference between his age and theirs, and all
seemed to belong to one family on both sides. A looker-on could not have
distinguished which of the five was Mrs. Whitmore's own child, either when all
were little ones, or when they were comparatively grown-up.
Before Mr. Whitmore brought his second wife home, he had wisely explained
to her his position and that of Dick with regard to the property on which they
lived.
"Most of it came with my wife," he said, "and will eventually go to the boy,
though while I live two-thirds of the income from the estate will be mine. Until
he is of age, the whole of it passes through my hands, though, of course, a
liberal portion is to be expended on his maintenance and education. When
Richard is twenty-one, he will have a third for his own absolute use and until
my death, when all his mother's property will be his. As his future is thus
amply provided for, all that I have shall be yours for life, if you survive me, and
afterwards go to our children, if we have others beside Dick. It will not be
much in comparison, but would keep you in a modest way."
Pretty Amy Christie had been accustomed to simple surroundings, and was
willing to trust her future in the hands of Mr. Whitmore. She was transplanted
to a luxurious home, but as she looked around her, from the first she
accustomed herself to think, "We owe the greater part of the good things we
enjoy to little Dick's mother, and they are really held in trust for the boy."
There was no envious feeling in Mrs. Whitmore's mind as she thought of this.
On the contrary, she rejoiced that the boy whom she had been privileged to
train was daily developing into a noble character: true, loving, brave, unselfish.
A little too quiet if anything, save to those who had the key to his inmost heart;
and perhaps even more than to the father whom he loved and reverenced, did
Richard Whitmore reveal it to his stepmother.
He was only sixteen when his father died, and the four girls were mere
children: Gertrude ten, Mina (short for Wilhelmina) eight, Josephine six, and
Florence Mary, or Molly, as everybody called her, only four.
With Mr. Whitmore's death went a large portion of the income, to accumulate
and make Dick richer still, when he should come of age. What the husband
had the power to bequeath to his widow seemed a mere pittance in
comparison with what had been spent on the household, though he had saved
out of it and left a little nest-egg, in the shape of ready money thus
accumulated, absolutely to his widow.
The father had faith in Dick, though he was but a lad of sixteen, and to him, he
commended his still young stepmother and the girls.
The trustees consented that Dick's home should still be shared by them, and
made a liberal allowance. The ready money alluded to helped to tide over the
time until he came of age, so that the interval was passed without much
change in the surroundings of Mrs. Whitmore and her children. Only there was
one unfortunate incident, which helped to spoil the perfect unity which had
hitherto subsisted in the little family.
When Gertrude was about seventeen, she paid a visit to the home of a
schoolfellow who lived at no very great distance. Whilst there, and as the girls
strolled in the sweet spring sunshine, exchanging confidences, Gertrude's
friend began to talk to her of the home she had lately left.
"I think Mere Side is just the most charmingly-situated house, and altogether
the loveliest spot I ever saw. I always envied you your home until I knew."
"Knew what?" asked Gertrude, turning sharply round with an expression of

utter astonishment on her handsome face. It was reflected on that of her
friend, Pauline Tindall, who had spoken without having an idea that she was
trenching on forbidden ground.
"You must know what I mean, dear," she replied, "and surely you are not
angry at me for alluding to it. I would not pain or annoy you for the world," and
she clung coaxingly to Gertrude, who was a full head above her in height.
"I do not understand you. I was surprised, not angry, when you said those
words, 'until I knew,' and I want to know the meaning of them also. Tell me,
Pauline, if you are really my friend!"
"If! Oh, Gertrude, can you doubt me? I am and shall always be your true
friend, I hope. It is impossible that you should not know already far more than I
can tell. I was only thinking that if Mr. Richard—I should say Mr. Whitmore
now, as he is the only gentleman in the family—were to marry, how sad it
would be for you all. If I lived at Mere Side on the same terms, I should be
haunted with a perpetual dread of receiving notice to gait, and should feel as if
a sword were hanging over my head whenever my brother spoke to a girl."
Still there was a look of perplexity and bewilderment on Gertrude Whitmore's

face, and at last it dawned on her friend's mind that facts which were known to
all the country round must be unknown to her.
It was perfectly true. No outsider had ever spoken to these Whitmore girls
about the difference between Dick's worldly circumstances and their own.
Everybody knew that the main portion of the money and the whole of the
estate had come by Dick's mother, and that Mr. Whitmore had only a life
interest in these. Of course, all had belonged to the young man himself since
he came of age, and that was two years ago, when Gertrude was fifteen.
And everybody took it for granted that what was so generally known outside
was equally so to the young people who lived so comfortably with stepbrother
Dick. It was of no use alluding to such matters. The girls were happy and well
cared for, and Richard Whitmore was the best of sons to his charming
stepmother, and of brothers to the quartet of bonnie lasses at Mere Side. No
doubt they would marry in good time, or if he married, he would do something
towards increasing the slender income of one to whom he gave a son's
affection.
If outsiders failed to speak of the position, Richard Whitmore was still less
likely to name it. It was this lad of sixteen, who, when his father died, had
gone quietly to the trustees, that father's old friends, and pleaded with them
for the largest allowance that they dared take the responsibility of granting
during his minority. Not for himself, but that Mrs. Whitmore might not want any
luxury to which she had been accustomed, or the girls feel that a needless
shadow had fallen on their young lives.
It was Richard who had said to the mother, "Do not be afraid of spending from
your own store. It will be replenished in due time," meaning when he should
have legal power to do what he chose with his own. And, lastly, it was he who
had persuaded Mrs. Whitmore to keep the girls in ignorance of what they
owed to him.
"We are children of the same parents, for you are the only mother I can
remember," he said to her. "Do not let them think that Fortune has made any
difference in the shares she has severally allotted to us. Why should they
know? I am not likely to marry for years and years to come, if ever, and what
would my home be, without the girls and you?"
So it was Dick's doing that Gertrude first listened in such amazement to

Pauline Tindall's sympathetic remarks, and then insisted on an explanation.
"Then, from what you tell me, I am to understand that my sisters and I are to a
great extent dependent on Richard. That, but for him, we must live in some
little poky place with one, or at most two servants, if indeed we could afford so
much. That I, but for my—" she had always said brother before
—"stepbrother's generosity—is that the right word, Pauline?—would have to
go out as a governess, or companion, or something of the kind."
"I did not say so, dear Gertrude. I never dreamed of such a thing. I only
alluded to what I thought you knew as well as myself. Mr. Richard is good and
generous, splendidly generous. Everybody says so, and I should think that the
very fact of your having no knowledge of what he has done, will show you
what a delicate mind he must have."
There was a hard, set look on Gertrude's face as she answered, "True,
Pauline, you said nothing of the going out as a governess, or the
consequences which might follow if Richard Whitmore were to marry. But you
showed me plainly enough that, were he to bring home a wife, there would no
longer be room for the rest of us under his roof. The remainder of the blanks
were easy to fill in, and my imagination did that quickly enough."
Again Pauline spoke soothingly and tenderly to her friend. She felt that she
had unwittingly done mischief, and was distressed beyond measure at the
impression produced on Gertrude. She pleaded again that she could not have
imagined that she was touching on a forbidden subject, when it was one so
well-known. That it was her own enthusiastic admiration for Mere Side, which
had made her express what would be her feelings were she in Gertrude's
place, at the very possibility of having to leave it.
Then she added, "Knowing how often you have spoken of your brother in such
affectionate terms, and that he is honoured and respected by everyone, I
thought you would love to know how his beautiful unselfishness is spoken of."
"I suppose I should appreciate it too in somebody else," replied Gertrude,

trying to repress her angry feelings, or to prevent their being noticed. "But it
has been a rude awakening for me. I have lived in a dream of comforts,
luxuries, beautiful surroundings, to a share of which I thought I had as good a
personal right as anyone who enjoyed them with me. I have been shaken out
of my pleasant sleep to find that I can claim only a share in a mere pittance,
and that I am a species of genteel pauper—a dependant on the charity of my
stepbrother."
Poor Pauline! She attempted no further explanations. She was a little, tender,
clinging creature, but withal an enthusiastic admirer of all that was generous
or noble. Richard Whitmore's had seemed to her one of the most beautiful and
unselfish of characters—a hero to be worshipped, though he was not
externally suggestive of one.
Now she had done harm, both to Gertrude and to him. She was overwhelmed
with distress, and, unable to think of anything else to say or do, she sat down
and cried bitterly.
This was more than Gertrude bargained for when she used such harsh words,
and now she found herself compelled to try and comfort Pauline.
"Dry your tears, you dear little thing," she said. "Pray do not take my hasty
words for more than they are worth. Of course I was annoyed at first. Who
would not be when they felt what they had looked on as firm ground crumbling
away beneath their feet? It was a shock to me to hear such news for the first
time, but no doubt Dick is the finest, dearest old darling in the world, and the
best of brothers. Have I not cause to say so?"
"Oh, I am so glad you are not angry, and that you are taking things rightly,
Gertrude. You make me quite frightened. But I understand. It was likely you
should feel surprised, even angry, at the first look, as it were. Promise now
that you will not repeat what I have said, but let all pass as if you had never
heard it."
The childlike pleading tone and tearful eyes drew a smile from the stronger-
minded girl. She put her arm caressingly round Pauline, and said, "I will
promise not to say a word more about this matter until to-morrow morning,
and then only to you. And you must promise that you will not repeat either my
hasty expressions or anything that we have been talking about, until the same
time."
Pauline promised gladly enough, and then retreated to her own room to try
and remove the traces of tears, which were only too visible.
Gertrude walked slowly backwards and forwards in the grounds for some time
before she returned to the house. Then the sound of the dressing bell reached
her, and she went in to prepare for dinner. It was not often that she was
betrayed into such an exhibition of feeling, and she was now angry at herself
for not having shown more self-control. She wanted time to think over what
she had heard, and it was for that purpose she had given to, and obtained
from, Pauline the promise that, until the next day, no allusion should be made
to the subject which had so agitated her.
For a girl of seventeen, Gertrude had no small amount of worldly wisdom.

People said that Miss Whitmore had great individuality of character, she
thought and decided so largely for herself, and often got her own way by dint
of steady determination. And it was a remarkable fact that whilst each of the
younger sisters had her pet name, and were Mina, Jo, and Molly, no one
would ever have presumed to call the eldest Gerty.
CHAPTER II.
"SILENCE IS GOLDEN."
GERTRUDE went early to bed that evening. She wanted to think over her
conversation with Pauline, and felt that for such a purpose there could be
nothing like the quiet of her own room. She was, beside, of an eminently
practical turn of mind, and had no desire to look weary and hollow-eyed on the
morrow, when there was to be a picnic specially got up in her honour, as the
guest of the Tindalls.
"I am just a little tired," she said to Mrs. Tindall, "and as I want to look my best
and be ready for any amount of rambling, I will say good-night now."
"This is very early, my dear, but I am sure you are wise, and Pauline will do
well to follow your example. If only young people would believe it, there is no
better preserver of good looks than early hours," replied Mrs. Tindall.
Gertrude assented, and managed to get her thinking done soon enough to
allow of some "beauty sleep." She came down in the morning in a charming
but simple dress, looking as gay and bright as though nothing had occurred to
disturb her on the preceding day.
She was especially affectionate to Pauline, and answered her friend's

inquiring look with a frank smile. A little later, amid the bustle of preparation for
starting, she whispered in her friend's ear, "Pauline, I was very cross and
stupid yesterday. I took an altogether wrong view of things. Forgive my ill-
tempers, darling, and, if you can, forget them, as I want to forget what caused
them."
Pauline's face brightened. "I am so glad," she replied. "I felt quite distressed
last night, because I had been the cause of the trouble. I never meant it. I
could not have guessed that you—"
"Hush, darling!" and Gertrude placed her hand playfully on Pauline's lips. "Do
not let us go over the ground again. The only thing I ask is that you will not
say another word about it. You could only suppose I knew all as well as
yourself. I understand the kindness which kept my position and that of the girls
at home a secret from ourselves. I was a very naughty child, and you the
sweet, sympathetic little friend you always are."
"And shall you not say a word at home—I mean to your mother, or Mr.
Richard?"
"Not a word. I decided last night, before I went to sleep even, that since my
mother and stepbrother had not chosen to speak about money matters,
neither would I. Do you not think I may be well content to go on as I have
hitherto done, enjoying the good things of this world without troubling to ask
myself who paid for them?"
"I think so, Gertrude, dear—that is, in one sense. When the good things are
given by such a kind hand as that of your brother, there can be no painful
feeling of obligation in taking. I do believe he is just one of those whose 'heart
grows rich in giving,' and that he delights in making everybody happy—most
of all his mother and sisters."
"My mother, not his, really," replied Gertrude.
"That makes it all the nicer, does it not? Who could tell that they were not
really mother and son? Why think about the fact at all, when he so willingly
forgets it, and Mrs. Whitmore loves him as her own? Do you know, Gertrude,
you called him your 'stepbrother' to-day. I never heard you use the term
before, and to me it sounded horribly harsh, seeing you are all children of one
father."
"Did I?" replied Gertrude. "Ah, well, only one heard it; and, if you please, we
will now have done with this matter, once and for all. Mrs. Tindall is wanting
our help. It is shocking to desert her, even for a few moments."
Gertrude hastened to offer her assistance in packing some sweets which

required careful handling, and soon she and the rest of the party were on their
way to the place selected for the picnic.
Never had Pauline seen her friend more apparently gay and light-hearted, and
the girl rejoiced that the impression produced by her unfortunate allusions had
already passed away. She was, however, mistaken.
Gertrude did not, and could not, forget. Through that day and after came
again and again the haunting thought, "I am only a pensioner on Richard's
bounty. Only one of the second wife's children—the portionless wife of a man
who had little to leave for her and his daughters. It is plain what people think.

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Designing Cognitive Cities Edy

Designing Networks Cities: Inclusive, Hyper-Connected,

Designing Developing and Facilitating Smart Cities

Cognitive Cities Second International Conference IC3

Smart Cities: Introducing Digital Innovation to Cities

Smart Cities Zaigham Mahmood

Cognitive neuroscience of aging linking cognitive and

Designing with Data Rochelle King

Designing Luxury Brands Diana Derval

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13304

Rudolf Seising Astrid Habenstein

Designing Cognitive Cities

ISSN 2198-4182 ISSN 2198-4190 (electronic)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018955174

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019, corrected publication 2019

It is not easy to write a meaningful preface to a book which is as ambitious and as

Berkeley, CA, USA Lotﬁ Zadeh

Part III Use Cases

Extending Knowledge Graphs with Subjective Inﬂuence Networks

About the Editors

José M. Alonso Centro Singular de Investigación en Tecnoloxías da Información

Sara D’Onofrio Human-IST Institute, University of Fribourg, Fribourg,

Marco E. Tabacchi, Edy Portmann, Rudolf Seising

Keywords Action Design Research (ADR) · Cognitive city

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 3

1 From Smart to Cognitive Cities

1.1 The City in the Age of Globalization

1.2 Smart City–Cognitive City

The main-characteristic of smart cities is the collection, analysis and preparation

factor is added to the communication loop, and communication between persons

2 Designing Cognitive Cities

2.1 Theories of Design

problems” (very complex problems in the field of sociopolitical planning)—to

2.2 Action Design Research and Ontological Design

• P1: PracƟce-Inspired Research

S4 Formalization P7: Generalized

3 Designing Citizen Communication

3.1 Computational Intelligence and Citizen Communication

3.2 Some Techniques

Metaheuristics is an umbrella term designed to cover a group of ‘smart’ strategies

3.2.2 Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Logic

• A B if and only if µA (x) µB (x),

a Computational Theory of Perceptions” (Zadeh 2001). He explained that this new

3.2.3 Computing with Words

They repeatedly embraced their sister, showered thanks on Mrs. Worsley in

The young face brightened again at these words.

"I thought I was going home with you, aunty."

"To Broadlands! You cannot mean it?"

Arthur mentally dissented from Mrs. Worsley's statement that Nettie

"Kiss me, dear Dick."

"Knew what?" asked Gertrude, turning sharply round with an expression of

Still there was a look of perplexity and bewilderment on Gertrude Whitmore's

So it was Dick's doing that Gertrude first listened in such amazement to

"I suppose I should appreciate it too in somebody else," replied Gertrude,

For a girl of seventeen, Gertrude had no small amount of worldly wisdom.

She was especially affectionate to Pauline, and answered her friend's

"My mother, not his, really," replied Gertrude.

Gertrude hastened to offer her assistance in packing some sweets which

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