Feroz Farazi

GeoWordNet: a resource for geo-spatial applications

Geo-spatial ontologies provide knowledge about places in the world and spatial relations between them. They are fundamental in order to build semantic information retrieval systems and to achieve semantic interoperability in geo-spatial applications. In this paper we present GeoWordNet, a semantic resource we created from the full integration of GeoNames, other high quality resources and WordNet. The methodology we followed was largely automatic, with manual checks when needed. This allowed us accomplishing at the same time a never reached before accuracy level and a very satisfactory quantitative result, both in terms of concepts and geographical entities.

A Facet-Based Methodology for the Construction of a Large-Scale Geospatial Ontology

We concentrate on geospatial ontologies. Our main contribution in this paper is a methodology and a minimal set of guiding principles, inspired by the faceted approach, as originally developed in library science, and a large-scale ontology for Space that we have constructed following the methodology proposed. The approach we propose, centered on the fundamental notions of domain and facet, guarantees the creation of high-quality ontologies in terms of robustness, extensibility, reusability, compactness and flexibility. Taking into account the different aspects of Space, the ontology we have developed, and that we have obtained from the refinement and extension of some existing resources including GeoNames, WordNet and the Italian part of MultiWordNet, provides knowledge about places of the world, their classes, their attributes and the spatial relations between them. The construction procedure was manual for the identification and categorization into facets of the terms denoting classes, relations and attribute names, while it was automatic for the population of the ontology with entities and corresponding attribute values. This has allowed us to obtain a very satisfactory quantitative and qualitative result.

A faceted ontology for a semantic geo-catalogue

Geo-spatial applications need to provide powerful search capabilities to support users in their daily activities. However, discovery services are often limited by only syntactically matching user terminology to metadata describing geographical resources. We report our work on the implementation of a geographical catalogue, and corresponding semantic extension, for the spatial data infrastructure (SDI) of the Autonomous Province of Trento (PAT) in Italy. We focus in particular to the semantic extension which is based on the adoption of the S-Match semantic matching tool and on the use of a faceted ontology codifying geographical domain specific knowledge. We finally report our experience in the integration of the faceted ontology with the multi-lingual geo-spatial ontology GeoWordNet.

The Semantic Web Languages

The Semantic Web is basically an extension of the Web and of the Web-enabling database and Internet technology, and, as a consequence, the Semantic Web methodologies, representation mechanisms and logics strongly rely on those developed in databases. This is the motivation for many attempts to, more or less loosely, merge the two worlds like, for instance, the various proposals to use relational technology for storing web data or the use of ontologies for data integration. This chapter comes after one on data management, in order to first complete the picture with the description of the languages that can be used to represent information on the Semantic Web, and then highlight a few fundamental differences which make the database and Semantic Web paradigms complementary, but somehow difficult to integrate.

A semantic geo-catalogue for a local administration

The enhancement of the search capabilities of geo-spatial tools occupies one of the highest positions in the agenda of the INSPIRE initiative. This can be done by equipping applications with tools able to understand user terminology. However, this is in contrast with current approaches, which tend to fix in advance the terminology with a consequent rigidity in the way users interact with the system. In this paper we present the work we have done with the Semantic Geo-Catalogue (SGC) project in providing a semantic extension to the geo-catalogue of the Autonomous Province of Trento (PAT) in Italy. This was done through the adoption of a semantic matching tool and a faceted ontology that codifies knowledge about the geography of the PAT and that was created by reorganizing data extracted from the local geographical dataset. Thanks to the semantic extension, queries to the geo-catalogue are expanded with domain specific terms taken from the ontology thus obtaining a higher number of relevant documents in output. We also complied with the Open Government Data (OGD) initiative by publishing in RDF and by linking to relevant dictionaries some useful data taken from the local repository.

Model-based documentation

Knowledge acquisition is becoming an integral part of the manufacturing industries, which rely on domain experts in various phases of product life cycle including design, analysis, manufacturing, operation and maintenance. It has the potential to enable knowledge reuse, however, poorly managed knowledge can cause information loss and inefficiency. If technical documentation is managed well in the manufacturing industries, intended piece of knowledge can easily be located, used and reused for purpose and as a result, the corresponding industry can be benefited. Some examples of technical documentation are design specification, operating manual and maintenance manual. Model-based Documentation (MBD) is a documentation approach that uses model to provide structure to the data of the documents. MBD can be thought of as a way to better organize knowledge thereby knowledge identification and retrieval become easier, faster and efficient. In this paper, we propose MBD and its extension as a potential solution to overcome the issues involved in the typical technical documentation approaches.

A Faceted Lightweight Ontology for Earthquake Engineering Research Projects and Experiments

With the invention of the Semantic Web, computing paradigm is experiencing a shift from databases to Knowledge Bases (KB), in which ontologies play a major role in enabling reasoning power that can make implicit facts explicit to produce better results for users. In addition, KB‐based systems provide mechanism to manage information and semantics thereof that can make systems semantically interoperable and as such can exchange and share data between them. To overcome the interoperability issues and to exploit the benefits offered by the state of the art technologies, we moved to the KB-based system. Essentially, we have developed an earthquake engineering ontology using a faceted approach with a focus on research project management and experiments. Following the validation of the ontology by a domain expert, it was published in the knowledge representation language RDF and integrated to the generic ontology WordNet. The experimental data coming from, inter alia, cyclic and pseudo-dynamic tests were also published in RDF. We used Jena, OWLIM and Sesame tools for publishing, storage and management, respectively. Finally, after integrating the tools, ontologies and data, we developed a system to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach and in fact we found quite convincing and satisfactory results.

A Semantic-Aware Data Management System for Seismic Engineering Research Projects and Experiments

The invention of the Semantic Web and related technologies is fostering a computing paradigm that entails a shift from databases to Knowledge Bases (KBs). There the core is the ontology that plays a main role in enabling reasoning power that can make implicit facts explicit; in order to produce better results for users. In addition, KB-based systems provide mechanisms to manage information and semantics thereof, that can make systems semantically interoperable and as such can exchange and share data between them. In order to overcome the interoperability issues and to exploit the benefits offered by state of the art technologies, we moved to KB-based system. This paper presents the development of an earthquake engineering ontology with a focus on research project management and experiments. The developed ontology was validated by domain experts, published in RDF and integrated into WordNet. Data originating from scientific experiments such as cyclic and pseudo dynamic tests were also published in RDF. We exploited the power of Semantic Web technologies, namely Jena, Virtuoso and VirtGraph tools in order to publish, storage and manage RDF data, respectively. Finally, a system was developed with the full integration of ontology, experimental data and tools, to evaluate the effectiveness of the KB-based approach; it yielded favorable outcomes.