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2011 | Buch

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Ontologies in Urban Development Projects

verfasst von: Gilles Falquet, Claudine Métral, Jacques Teller, Christopher Tweed

Verlag: Springer London

Buchreihe : Advanced Information and Knowledge Processing

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

Ontologies are increasingly recognized as essential tools in information science. Although the concepts are well understood theoretically , the practical implementation of ontologies remains challenging. In this book, researchers in computer science, information systems, ontology engineering, urban planning and design, civil and building engineering, and architecture present an interdisciplinary study of ontology engineering and its application in urban development projects. The first part of the book introduces the general notion of ontology, describing variations in abstraction level, coverage, and formality. It also discusses the use of ontologies to achieve interoperability, and to represent multiple points of view and multilingualism. This is illustrated with examples from the urban domain. The second part is specific to urban development. It covers spatial and geographical knowledge representation, the creation of urban ontologies from various knowledge sources, the interconnection of urban models and the interaction between standards and domain models. The third part presents case studies of the development of ontologies for urban mobility, urban morphological processes, road systems, and cultural heritage. Other cases report on the use of ontologies to solve urban development problems, in construction business models, building regulations and urban regeneration. It concludes with a discussion of key challenges for the future deployment of ontologies in this domain. This book bridges the gap between urban practitioners and computer scientists. As the essence of most urban projects lies in making connections between worldviews, ontology development has an important role to play, in promoting interoperability between data sources, both formal (urban databases, Building Integrated Models, Geographical Information Systems etc.) and less formal (thesauri, text records, web sources etc.). This volume offers a comprehensive introduction to ontology engineering for urban development. It is essential reading for practitioners and ontology designers working in urban development.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Ontology Fundamentals

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Introduction

Abstract

Ontologies are increasingly recognized as essential components in many fields of information science. Ontologies were first employed in artificial intelligence, as a means to conceptualize some part of the real world. The first aim was to enable software system to reason about real-world entities. The CyC ontology (Lenat 1995) is typical of this perspective, it is comprised of several thousand concepts and tens of thousand facts, expressed as logical formulae. A second aim of ontologies was to provide a common conceptualization of a domain on which different agents agree. It is certainly this aspect of ontologies that triggered widespread interest in this knowledge engineering artifact in fields such as information system design, system integration and interoperation, natural language processing, or information retrieval. For instance, the Gene ontology (The Gene Ontology Consortium 2001) provides a common vocabulary to standardize the representation of gene and gene products.

Gilles Falquet, Claudine Métral, Jacques Teller, Christopher Tweed

Chapter 2. An Introduction to Ontologies and Ontology Engineering

Abstract

In the last decades, the use of ontologies in information systems has become more and more popular in various fields, such as web technologies, database integration, multi agent systems, natural language processing, etc. Artificial intelligent researchers have initially borrowed the word “ontology” from Philosophy, then the word spread in many scientific domain and ontologies are now used in several developments.

Catherine Roussey, Francois Pinet, Myoung Ah Kang, Oscar Corcho

Chapter 3. Ontologies for Interoperability

Abstract

The goal of this chapter is to help readers understand how ontologies can be used to improve interoperability between heterogeneous information systems. We understand interoperability as the ability of an information system or its components to share information and applications.

Catherine Roussey, Francois Pinet, Myoung Ah Kang, Oscar Corcho

Chapter 4. Ontology Alignment in the Urban Domain

Abstract

Concepts in the domain of Urban Civil Engineering are often categorized and described using ontologies. Such ontologies may be designed independently by domain experts who have a minimal communication or no communication between them. As a result, similar concepts may be described differently and their categorization may result in heterogeneous ontologies.

Sylvie Calabretto

Chapter 5. Ontologies and Multilingualism

Abstract

The definition of an ontology as a specification of a conceptualization of a domain is independent of the terminology used in a particular natural language to describe this domain. In fact we can make a clear distinction between the conceptual structure of a domain and the way the concepts are designated by terms in a natural language. This view is exemplified in ontology specification languages such as OWL in which there is no connection with terms or texts in natural language, except for comments. In such a language, an ontology designer can arbitrarily define new concepts that do not correspond to any term in an existing language.

Gilles Falquet, Jacques Guyot

Ontologies in the Urban Domain

Frontmatter

Chapter 6. Ontologies in the Geographic Information Sector

Abstract

Geographical information (GI) or geoinformation describes phenomena associated directly or indirectly with a location (coordinates systems, address systems…) with respect to the Earth’s surface. Such phenomena can be either spatially discrete (represented by geometric primitives like points, lines, regions, etc.) such as a municipality, a road axis, etc. or spatially continuous (represented by interpolation on an image grid for example) such as terrain’s elevation, pollution diffusion, etc. GI is created by manipulating geographic data (or geospatial data) in a computerized system. Geospatial data can be acquired by different means: topographic survey, remote sensing, aerial photographs, GPS, laserscan, and all other types of sensors or survey techniques. Traditionally, these data are the core component of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which is the term commonly used to refer to the software packages that allow to capture, store, check, integrate, manipulate, analyze and display them.

Roland Billen, Javier Nogueras-Iso, F. Javier López-Pellicer, Luis M. Vilches-Blázquez

Chapter 7. Ontologies for Interconnecting Urban Models

Abstract

Various accurate urban models have been developed and are used in the urban field, to perform for example air quality calculation, building energy consumption or traffic simulation. 3D city models representing the structure of a city in three dimensions are special urban models issued from 3D GIS (3 Dimensional Geographic Information Systems). The use of urban models, particularly 3D city models, is increasing in urban planning. The consequence of an integrated approach in urban planning is the use of different models, most of the time in an interconnected way able to simulate the urban issues together with their inter-relations.

Claudine Métral, Anne-Françoise Cutting-Decelle

Chapter 8. Call for LOD – Linking Scales and Providers Through Digital Spatial Representations

Abstract

This article provides insight into linkages of data within a common spatial ontology over different scales, that are not obvious from the perspective of software interoperability. The aim of text is to stress the importance of the data usage and potentials that open up when large amounts of digital representations comes available. The focus is on industry standards of three scales of spatial design and the potential added value of their data as a by-product of ordinary usage. Samples are chosen to promote the idea that the intelligent usage of standards is far more important and far reaching than the original aim of the standardising.

Anssi Joutsiniemi, Jarmo Laitinen, Juho Malmi

Chapter 9. Ontology-Based Interoperability in Knowledge-Based Communication Systems

Abstract

One of the main ideas of this chapter is that for assuring interoperability for different kinds of applications, the existence of a well designed shared structure of concepts, a so-called “ontology”, has a major importance. The structure should be well designed in order to capture the relations and the properties of concepts in the considered domain, and to allow the inference of new properties. A carefully developed ontology may be easily used as the main component of different Knowledge-Based Systems (KBS), similarly with a human being, which uses the same knowledge in performing a large range of activities.

Stefan Trausan-Matu

Chapter 10. Transformation of Urban Knowledge Sources to Ontologies

Abstract

Since the development of ontologies from scratch requires much time and many resources, the activity of knowledge acquisition constitutes one of the most important steps at the beginning of the ontology development process. This activity is essential in all the different methodologies for ontology design as a previous step to the conceptualization and formalization phases.

Javier Nogueras-Iso, Javier Lacasta, Jacques Teller, Gilles Falquet, Jacques Guyot

Case studies

Chapter 11. Developing and Using Ontologies in Practice

Abstract

The previous sections have presented and described ontologies developed for use in a wide range of applications linked to the urban built environment domain. In many cases these ontologies have been developed through university-based research projects to achieve interoperability between different software systems. The interface, therefore, is between systems. In contrast, this section of the book seeks to explore some of the issues that arise when ontologies are introduced into working organisations. What happens at the user-ontology interface? And how does an ontology impinge on the working practices of an organisation? Although it is beyond the scope of the COST Action C21 to answer such questions, we can begin to consider what shape the answers may take.

Christopher Tweed

Chapter 12. URMOPRO: An Example of an Urban Ontology for the Formalization of Morphological Processes

Abstract

The urban morphological processes ontology (URMOPRO) has been developed to find an intermediate level of abstraction between the quantitative measures and the conceptual frameworks needed to understand the observable changes in the cityscape (i.e. morphological processes). The domain of application of this ontology is urban morphology research.

Eduardo Camacho-Hübner

Chapter 13. OUR City Cohesion Policies: Practices of Ontologies for Urban Regeneration (OUR): The Case of the Puglia Region

Abstract

The European Union (EU) Community Strategic Guidelines 2007–2013 place particular emphasis on the specific needs of certain zones, such as urban and rural areas. The guidelines encourage an “integrated approach” towards cohesion policy, not only stimulating growth and creating jobs, but also pursuing certain social and environmental objectives.

Francesco Rotondo

Chapter 14. An Ontology for Urban Mobility

Abstract

The development of the urban mobility ontology was first intended as a test of the Towntology prototype (Berdier and Roussey 2007). This test permitted us to integrate fuzzy concepts and to connect two ontologies (a road system ontology and an urban mobility ontology) through a concept bridge. This prototype has shown the interest of the professionals in this tool. At the same time, the “Cité des Sciences” in Paris expressed its interest in this tool, and would like to use it in an exhibition about the city.

Chantal Berdier

Chapter 15. The Development of Thesauri by English Heritage

Abstract

The computer-resident National Monuments Records (NMR) thesauri developed by English Heritage evolved from a paper-based list developed by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments of England and have since been expanded by various means, such as one-off projects as well as continuous adjustment following their use. English Heritage (EH) has been involved in the development of several important thesauri that serve various purposes. The remainder of this case study will focus on the largest of the English Heritage thesauri, the National Monument Records Monument Type thesaurus.

Christopher Tweed

Chapter 16. Ontology and the Scottish Building Regulations

Abstract

In this section, we discuss the notion of ontology in relation to the Scottish Building Regulations. There is no formal ontology associated with these regulations, and the interest here is partly in investigating why. This is therefore less a case-study than the study of a non-case, but we hope that it will point to some useful issues about the potential role of ontologies in cases like this, and in related contexts. The fact that the regulations are part of a legal framework seems to be important, and highlights issues about when and why it is considered important for definitions to exist and be clear, and the importance of attention to the needs and practices of the communities using the terminology. Questions that arise include which terms are defined, how terms are used that are not defined, and how in practice concepts are used and worked with.

John Lee

Chapter 17. Road System Ontology: Organisation and Feedback

Abstract

The project of developing an urban ontology for road systems is to be viewed in the context of a lack of coordination tools between urban engineering actors. The aim is to fill this gap. By reducing semantic disagreement and increasing data interchange, this tool should improve urban maintenance services (road system maintenance, public spaces, etc.). It will also improve synchronising the coordination of the interventions on networks as well as the consistent elaboration of the various related urbanism documents. A first stage emerged from the creation of a road system ontology. This first link is currently under development as part of a collaborative research project with Lyon’s Urban Community Services.

Chantal Berdier

Chapter 18. Impact of BIMs on Business Models in Construction Industry

Abstract

This article aims to cast some light on the dilemma of data transfer and storage by offering examples and experiences of the ontological approach at a building scale. The world of Geographic Information Systems is not alone facing the fact. In many a field it is nowadays impossible to conduct ‘business as usual’ without the aid of sophisticated computer based tools. Our view is that in recent decades these tools have become so effective they produce more information than can be easily stored or even handled by contemporary methods. Building industry thinks in terms of building projects that have some distinct phases.

Jarmo Laitinen, Anssi Joutsiniemi, Juho Malmi, Jussi Vakkilainen

Chapter 19. Some Observations on the Case Studies: Lessons Learned and Current Challenges

Abstract

Given the broad range of applications for ontologies, how can we analyse the relations between ontologies and their social and cultural contexts? The source of many of the issues we stumble upon in dealing with ontologies in the real world, can be found in philosophy. Perhaps not surprisingly, philosophy delivers some plausible tools for analyzing the role of ontologies in the applications we have discussed above.

Christopher Tweed

Backmatter

Titel: Ontologies in Urban Development Projects
verfasst von: Gilles Falquet
Claudine Métral
Jacques Teller
Christopher Tweed
Verlag: Springer London
Electronic ISBN: 978-0-85729-724-2
Print ISBN: 978-0-85729-723-5
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-724-2