5,217 research outputs found

    A framework for integrating syntax, semantics and pragmatics for computer-aided professional practice: With application of costing in construction industry

    Get PDF
    Producing a bill of quantity is a knowledge-based, dynamic and collaborative process, and evolves with variances and current evidence. However, within the context of information system practice in BIM, knowledge of cost estimation has not been represented, nor has it been integrated into the processes based on BIM. This paper intends to establish an innovative means of taking data from the BIM linked to a project, and using it to create the necessary items for a bill of quantity that will enable cost estimation to be undertaken for the project. Our framework is founded upon the belief that three components are necessary to gain a full awareness of the domain which is being computerised; the information type which is to be assessed for compatibility (syntax), the definition for the pricing domain (semantics), and the precise implementation environment for the standards being taken into account (pragmatics). In order to achieve this, a prototype is created that allows a cost item for the bill of quantity to be spontaneously generated, by means of the semantic web ontology and a forward chain algorithm. Within this paper, ‘cost items’ signify the elements included in a bill of quantity, including details of their description, quantity and price. As a means of authenticating the process being developed, the authors of this work effectively implemented it in the production of cost items. In addition, the items created were contrasted with those produced by specialists. For this reason, this innovative framework introduces the possibility of a new means of applying semantic web ontology and forward chain algorithm to construction professional practice resulting in automatic cost estimation. These key outcomes demonstrate that, decoupling the professional practice into three key components of syntax, semantics and pragmatics can provide tangible benefits to domain use

    Do you see what I mean?

    Get PDF
    Visualizers, like logicians, have long been concerned with meaning. Generalizing from MacEachren's overview of cartography, visualizers have to think about how people extract meaning from pictures (psychophysics), what people understand from a picture (cognition), how pictures are imbued with meaning (semiotics), and how in some cases that meaning arises within a social and/or cultural context. If we think of the communication acts carried out in the visualization process further levels of meaning are suggested. Visualization begins when someone has data that they wish to explore and interpret; the data are encoded as input to a visualization system, which may in its turn interact with other systems to produce a representation. This is communicated back to the user(s), who have to assess this against their goals and knowledge, possibly leading to further cycles of activity. Each phase of this process involves communication between two parties. For this to succeed, those parties must share a common language with an agreed meaning. We offer the following three steps, in increasing order of formality: terminology (jargon), taxonomy (vocabulary), and ontology. Our argument in this article is that it's time to begin synthesizing the fragments and views into a level 3 model, an ontology of visualization. We also address why this should happen, what is already in place, how such an ontology might be constructed, and why now

    Digital document and interpretation : re-thinking "text" and scholarship in electronic settings

    Get PDF
    The contribution starts from outlining the evolution of the scholarly production flow from the print based paradigm to the digital age and in this context it explores the opposition of digital versus analog representation modes. It then develops on the triple paradigm shift caused by genuine digital publishing and its specific consequences for the social sciences and humanities (SSH) which in turn results in re-constituting basic scholarly notions such as 'text' and 'document'. The paper concludes with discussing the specific value that could be added in systematically using digital text resources as a basis for scholarly work and also states some of the necessary conditions for such a 'digital turn' to be successful in the SSH.Der Beitrag beginnt mit einem Überblick zur Evolution des wissenschaftlichen Informationskontinuums auf dem Weg vom druckbasierten Paradigma in das digitale Zeitalter und geht in diesem Zusammenhang näher auf die Unterscheidung 'digitaler' und 'analoger' Repräsentationsmodi ein. Anschließend behandeln wir den als Folge des Übergangs zu genuin digitalen Publikationsformen erwartbaren dreifachen Paradigmenwechsel und dessen spezifische Konsequenzen für die Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften sowie als deren Folge wiederum die Re-Konstitution elementarer Kernbegriffe geisteswissenschaftlichen Arbeitens wie 'Text' und 'Dokument'. Der Beitrag schließt mit einer Betrachtung des spezifischen Mehrwerts, der sich aus dem systematischen Rekurs auf digitale Textressourcen in den Geisteswissenschaften ergeben könnte und geht dabei auch auf die erforderlichen Vorbedingungen eines solcherart erfolgreichen 'digital turn' in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften ein

    Some thoughts on the importance of open source and open access for emerging digital scholarship

    Get PDF
    Both the open source and the open access movements have their roots in the ‘hard’ sciences rather than in the social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). They have been concerned, traditionally, with open access to source code for computational data processing and with open access to scienti?c information published as journal articles. Still, the basic assumption of the present contribution is that there is a specific open source and open access agenda within the SSH and that this may affect these disciplines—once such an agenda is fully in place — in a way hardly conceivable in the ‘hard’ sciences. However, understanding the full impact and potential of such approaches in the SSH requires reflection upon broader methodological issues. Two vectors or primary oppositions are of specific interest in this respect: the scholarly information continuum as a whole and its evolution from print based to electronic working paradigms and the revolutionary changes that can be foreseen as a consequence the speci?c difference of the SSH as opposed to the Science-TechnologyMedicine (STM) culture of relating signi?ers to signi?cates and the specific impact of the digital revolution resulting from this specific difference. Exploring these two vectors this contribution will try to indicate constituent elements of an ‘open’ agenda for the digital humanities

    Cultural heritage and multidimensional representations of buildings:a semiotic approach to GI-ontologies

    Get PDF
    • …
    corecore