Integrating building and urban semantics to empower smart water solutions

Current urban water research involves intelligent sensing, systems integration, proactive users and data-driven management through advanced analytics. The convergence of building information modeling with the smart water field provides an opportunity to transcend existing operational barriers. Such research would pave the way for demand-side management, active consumers, and demand-optimized networks, through interoperability and a system of systems approach. This paper presents a semantic knowledge management service and domain ontology which support a novel cloud-edge solution, by unifying domestic socio-technical water systems with clean and waste networks at an urban scale, to deliver value-added services for consumers and network operators. The web service integrates state of the art sensing, data analytics and middleware components. We propose an ontology for the domain which describes smart homes, smart metering, telemetry, and geographic information systems, alongside social concepts. This integrates previously isolated systems as well as supply and demand-side interventions, to improve system performance. A use case of demand-optimized management is introduced, and smart home application interoperability is demonstrated, before the performance of the semantic web service is presented and compared to alternatives. Our findings suggest that semantic web technologies and IoT can merge to bring together large data models with dynamic data streams, to support powerful applications in the operational phase of built environment systems

Semantic web in manufacturing

Advances in manufacturing systems include attempts to create collaborative networks for enterprise integration and information interoperability. To achieve collaboration and sharing effectively, various networking technologies have been proposed in the literature. The web has emerged as a basic entity for interconnecting man and machine and almost all parts of the enterprise Community are being reshaped to exploit the opportunities that it offers. Apart from web technology, there are various other tools and techniques that have attracted research communities for representing data in ways that both machines and humans can understand. Semantic web, the second-generation web technology, is enriched by machine-processable information to support the users in their tasks. This paper presents the vision of the semantic web and describes ontologies and associated metadata as the building blocks of the semantic web. it reviews the literature dealing with the application of the semantic web and ontology in the broad domain of manufacturing. First, brief details about key enablers, i.e. web services, semantic web, semantic services, and ontology, are presented. Then the implementation of these approaches in different sectors of manufacturing is discussed. A knowledge base for all the information resources concerned with the manufacturing domain is also built up in this paper. An ontology model for a knowledge base of information resources is designed in Protege software, which can be used for storing and searching information about authors, journals, blogs, newspapers, and many other sources of information

Communication and tracking ontology development for civilians earthquake disaster assistance

One of the most important components of recovery and speedy response during and immediately after an earthquake disaster is a communication and tracking which possibly capable of discovering affected peoples and connects them with their families, friends, and communities with first responders and/or to support computational systems. With the capabilities of current mobile technologies, we believed that it can be a smart earthquake disaster tools aid to help people in this situation. Ontologies are becoming crucial parts to facilitate an effective communication and coordination across different parties and domains in providing assistance during earthquake disasters, especially where affected locations are remote, affected population is large and centralized coordination is poor. Several existing competing methodologies give guidelines as how ontology may be built, there are no single right ways of building an ontology and no standard of Disaster Relief Ontology exist, although separated related ontologies may be combined to create an initial version. This article discusses the ongoing development of an ontology for a Communication and Tracking System (CTS), based on existing related ontologies, that is aimed to be used by mobile phone applications to support earthquake disaster relief at the real-time

Combining ontologies and rules with clinical archetypes

Al igual que otros campos que dependen en gran medida de las funcionalidades ofrecidas por las tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones (IT), la biomedicina y la salud necesitan cada vez más la implantación de normas y mecanismos ampliamente aceptados para el intercambio de datos, información y conocimiento. Dicha necesidad de compatibilidad e interoperabilidad va más allá de las cuestiones sintácticas y estructurales, pues la interoperabilidad semántica es también requerida. La interoperabilidad a nivel semántico es esencial para el soporte computarizado de alertas, flujos de trabajo y de la medicina basada en evidencia cuando contamos con la presencia de sistemas heterogéneos de Historia Clínica Electrónica (EHR). El modelo de arquetipos clínicos respaldado por el estándar CEN/ISO EN13606 y la fundación openEHR ofrece un mecanismo para expresar las estructuras de datos clínicos de manera compartida e interoperable. El modelo ha ido ganando aceptación en los últimos años por su capacidad para definir conceptos clínicos basados en un Modelo de Referencia común. Dicha separación a dos capas permite conservar la heterogeneidad de las implementaciones de almacenamiento a bajo nivel, presentes en los diferentes sistemas de EHR. Sin embargo, los lenguajes de arquetipos no soportan la representación de reglas clínicas ni el mapeo a ontologías formales, ambos elementos fundamentales para alcanzar la interoperabilidad semántica completa pues permiten llevar a cabo el razonamiento y la inferencia a partir del conocimiento clínico existente. Paralelamente, es reconocido el hecho de que la World Wide Web presenta requisitos análogos a los descritos anteriormente, lo cual ha fomentado el desarrollo de la Web Semántica. El progreso alcanzado en este terreno, con respecto a la representación del conocimiento y al razonamiento sobre el mismo, es combinado en esta tesis con los modelos de EHR con el objetivo de mejorar el enfoque de los arquetipos clínicos y ofrecer funcionalidades que se corresponden con nivel más alto de interoperabilidad semántica. Concretamente, la investigación que se describe a continuación presenta y evalúa un enfoque para traducir automáticamente las definiciones expresadas en el lenguaje de definición de arquetipos de openEHR (ADL) a una representación formal basada en lenguajes de ontologías. El método se implementa en la plataforma ArchOnt, que también es descrita. A continuación se estudia la integración de dichas representaciones formales con reglas clínicas, ofreciéndose un enfoque para reutilizar el razonamiento con instancias concretas de datos clínicos. Es importante ver como el acto de compartir el conocimiento clínico expresado a través de reglas es coherente con la filosofía de intercambio abierto fomentada por los arquetipos, a la vez que se extiende la reutilización a proposiciones de conocimiento declarativo como las utilizadas en las guías de práctica clínica. De esta manera, la tesis describe una técnica de mapeo de arquetipos a ontologías, para luego asociar reglas clínicas a la representación resultante. La traducción automática también permite la conexión formal de los elementos especificados en los arquetipos con conceptos clínicos equivalentes provenientes de otras fuentes como son las terminologías clínicas. Dichos enlaces fomentan la reutilización del conocimiento clínico ya representado, así como el razonamiento y la navegación a través de distintas ontologías clínicas. Otra contribución significativa de la tesis es la aplicación del enfoque mencionado en dos proyectos de investigación y desarrollo clínico, llevados a cabo en combinación con hospitales universitarios de Madrid. En la explicación se incluyen ejemplos de las aplicaciones más representativas del enfoque como es el caso del desarrollo de sistemas de alertas orientados a mejorar la seguridad del paciente. No obstante, la traducción automática de arquetipos clínicos a lenguajes de ontologías constituye una base común para la implementación de una amplia gama de actividades semánticas, razonamiento y validación, evitándose así la necesidad de aplicar distintos enfoques ad-hoc directamente sobre los arquetipos para poder satisfacer las condiciones de cada contexto

Developing a system for advanced monitoring and intelligent drug administration in critical care units using ontologies

Selected paper of the 16th International Conference on Knowledge-Based and Intelligent Information & Engineering Systems, 2012 September 10-12, San Sebastian, Spain[Abstract] When a patient enters an intensive care unit (ICU), either after surgery or due to a serious clinical condition, his vital signs are continually changing, forcing the medical experts to make rapid and complex decisions, which frequently imply modifications on the dosage of drugs being administered. Life of patients at critical units depends largely on the wisdom of such decisions. However, the human factor is sometimes a source of mistakes that lead to incorrect or inaccurate actions. This work presents an expert system based on a domain ontology that acquires the vital parameters from the patient monitor, analyzes them and provides the expert with a recommendation regarding the treatment that should be administered. If the expert agrees, the system modifies the drug infusion rates being supplied at the infusion pumps in order to improve the patient's physiological status. The system is being developed at the IMEDIR Center (A Coruña, Spain) and it is being tested at the cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) of the Meixoeiro Hospital (Vigo, Spain), which is a specific type of ICU exclusively aimed to treat patients who have underwent heart surgery or that are affected by a serious coronary disorder.Instituto de Salud Carlos III; FIS-PI10/02180Programa Iberoamericano de Ciencia y Tecnología para el Desarrollo; ref. 209RT0366Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; CN2012/217Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; CN2011/034Galcia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; CN2012/21

The use of TRAO to manage evolution risks in e-government

The need to develop and provide more efficient ways of providing Electronic Government Services to key stakeholders in government has brought about varying degrees of evolution in government. This evolution is seen in different ways like the merging of government departments, the merging of assets or its components with legacy assets etc. This has involved the incorporation of several practices that are geared towards the elimination of processes that are repetitive and manual while attempting to progressively encourage the interaction that exists between the different stakeholders. However, some of these practices have further complicated processes in government thus creating avenues for vulnerabilities which if exploited expose government and government assets to risks and threats. Focusing on ways to manage the issues accompanied with evolution can better prepare governments for manging the associated vulnerabilities, risks and threats. The basis of a conceptual framework is provided to establish the relationships that exist between the E-Government, asset and security domains. Thus, this thesis presents a design research project used in the management of evolution-related risks. The first part of the project focusses on the development of a generic ontology known as TRAO and a scenario ontology TRAOSc made up of different hypothetical scenarios. The resulting efficiency of the development of these ontologies have facilitated the development of an intelligent tool TRAOSearch that supports high-level semantically enriched queries. Results from the use of a case study prove that there are existing evolution-related issues which governments may not be fully prepared for. Furthermore, an ontological approach in the management of evolution-related risks showed that government stakeholders were interested in the use of intelligent processes that could improve government effectiveness while analysing the risks associated with doing this. Of more importance to this research was the ability to make inferences from the ontology on existing complex relationships that exist in the form of dependencies and interdependencies between Stakeholders and Assets. Thus, this thesis presents contributions in the aspect of advancing stakeholders understanding on the types of relationships that exist in government and the effect these relationships may have on service provisioning. Another novel contribution can be seen in the correction of the ambiguity associated with the terms Service, IT Service and E-Government. Furthermore, the feedback obtained from the use of an ontology-based tool during the evaluation phase of the project provides insights on whether governments must always be at par with technological evolution

Web application for reliability analysis within civil aviation domain

Analýzy spolehlivosti jsou klíčovými složkami při hodnocení posouzení rizik během fáze návrhu v leteckém průmyslu. Analýza stromu poruch (FTA) a analýza poruchových režimů a efektů (FMEA) se běžně kombinují při analýze systému a vyhodnocování možných poruch. Kombinování metodik vyžaduje sjednocení struktury dat tak, aby byla použitelná pro všechny analytické metody zároveň. Existující aplikace poskytují nástroje samostatně, což vede k nekonzistenci dat, duplikátům a překlepům při migraci napříč aplikacemi. Tato práce si klade za cíl vytvořit rozšiřitelné řešení, které by poskytlo nástroje k provedení jedné z technik FTA a FMEA a přitom se spoléhalo na ontologický model použitelný pro obě techniky zároveň. Diplomová práce analyzuje existující řešení a ontologie a na základě těchto vstupů navrhuje nezbytné požadavky, které jsou ve spolupráci se zúčastněnými doménovými odborníky prioritizovány. Výsledné řešení implementuje aplikaci zaměřenou primárně na FTA, která nabízí definování partonomie systému, konstrukci FTA a automatický převod stromů do FMEA vzhledem k jednotnému ontologickému modelu. Aplikace je na závěr otestována doménovými odborníky na základě skutečných leteckých dat.Reliability analyses are key components in a risk assessment evaluation during the design phase in an aviation industry. Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) and Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) are commonly combined together to review the system and to evaluate possible failures. The combination of methodologies requires a unified data usable for all the analyses. Existing applications provide the tools separately which introduces inconsistencies, duplicates and typos when the data are migrated across the applications. This thesis thus aims to create an extensible solution that would provide tools to perform one of FTA and FMEA techniques and yet rely on an ontological model usable for both. The thesis analyses existing solutions and ontologies and given these inputs proposes necessary requirements that are prioritized in cooperation with involved domain experts. The resulting solution implements an application focusing primarily on FTA which offers possibilities for system partonomy definition, FTA construction and an automatic conversion of the trees to FMEA tables given the unified ontological model. The application is finally reviewed by the domain experts on real aviation data

Transforming Meteorological Data into Linked Data

We describe the AEMET meteorological dataset, which makes available some data sources from the Agencia Estatal de Meteorología (AEMET, Spanish Meteorological Office) as Linked Data. The data selected for publication are generated every ten minutes by approximately 250 automatic weather stations deployed across Spain and made available as CSV files in the AEMET FTP server. These files are retrieved from the server, processed with Python scripts, transformed to RDF according to an ontology network (which reuses the W3C SSN Ontology), published in a triple store and visualized using Map4RDF.This work has been supported by the Spanish project myBigData (TIN2010-17060)