An entity-relationship model of the flow of waste and resources in city-regions: Improving knowledge management for the circular economy

Waste and resources management is one of the domains where urban and regional planning can transition towards a Circular Economy, thus slowing environmental degradation. Improving waste and resources management in cities requires an adequate understanding of multiple systems and how they interact. New technologies contribute to improve waste management and resource efficiency, but knowledge silos hinder the possibility of delivering sound holistic solutions. Furthermore, lack of compatibility between data formats and diverse definitions of the same concept reduces information exchange across different urban domains. This paper addresses the challenge of organising and standardising information about waste and resources management in city regions. Given the amount and variety of data constantly captured, data models and standards are a crucial element of Industry 4.0. The paper proposes an Entity-Relationship Model to harmonise definitions and integrate information on waste and resources management. Furthermore, it helps to formalise the components of the system and their relationships. Semi-structured interviews with government officials, mobile app developers and academics provided insights into the specific system and endorsed the model. Finally, the paper illustrates the translation of the ERM into a relational database schema and instantiates Waste Management and industrial Symbiosis cases in Buenos Aires (ARG) and Helsingborg (SWE) to validate its general applicability. The data model for the Circular Flow of Waste and Resources presented here enhances traditional waste management perspectives by introducing Circular Economy strategies and spatial variables in the model. Thus, this research represents a step towards unlocking the true potential of Industry 4.0

Ecological and confined domain ontology construction scheme using concept clustering for knowledge management

Knowledge management in a structured system is a complicated task that requires common, standardized methods that are acceptable to all actors in a system. Ontology, in this regard, is a primary element and plays a central role in knowledge management, interoperability between various departments, and better decision making. The ontology construction for structured systems comprises logical and structural complications. Researchers have already proposed a variety of domain ontology construction schemes. However, these schemes do not involve some important phases of ontology construction that make ontologies more collaborative. Furthermore, these schemes do not provide details of the activities and methods involved in the construction of an ontology, which may cause difficulty in implementing the ontology. The major objectives of this research were to provide a comparison between some existing ontology construction schemes and to propose an enhanced ecological and confined domain ontology construction (EC-DOC) scheme for structured knowledge management. The proposed scheme introduces five important phases to construct an ontology, with a major focus on the conceptualizing and clustering of domain concepts. In the conceptualization phase, a glossary of domain-related concepts and their properties is maintained, and a Fuzzy C-Mean soft clustering mechanism is used to form the clusters of these concepts. In addition, the localization of concepts is instantly performed after the conceptualization phase, and a translation file of localized concepts is created. The EC-DOC scheme can provide accurate concepts regarding the terms for a specific domain, and these concepts can be made available in a preferred local language

An Ontology for the Waste Management Domain

Effective knowledge management is crucial in the Waste Management (WM) domain. Accordingly, this paper proposes the OntoWM domain ontology, developed through use of key phases of the Design Science Research Methodology. To demonstrate the OntoWM ontology’s usefulness, it has been piloted through the SmartBin developed for bins collection process currently being used by the Kemaman Municipal Council (KMC). It is to be consequently leveraged for all local councils in Malaysia’s Terengganu State. This pilot project has been implemented as part of the Smart Community program under the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, representing the first such innovation proposed for Malaysia’s local councils