Towards automatic construction of domain ontologies: Application to ISA88 and assessment

Process Systems Engineering has shown a growing interest on ontologies to develop knowledge models, organize information, and produce software accordingly. Although software tools supporting the structure of ontologies exist, developing a PSE ontology is a creative procedure to be performed by human experts from each specific domain. This work explores the opportunities for automatic construction of domain ontologies. Specialised documentation can be selected and automatically parsed; next pattern recognition methods can be used to extract concepts and relations; finally, supervision is required to validate the automatic outcome, as well as to complete the task. The bulk of the development of an ontology is expected to result from the application of systematic procedures, thus the development time will be significantly reduced. Automatic methods were prepared and applied to the development of an ontology for batch processing based on the ISA88 standard. Methods are described and commented, and results are discussed from the comparison with a previous ontology for the same domain manually developed.Postprint (published version

Improving automation standards via semantic modelling: Application to ISA88

Standardization is essential for automation. Extensibility, scalability, and reusability are important features for automation software that rely in the efficient modelling of the addressed systems. The work presented here is from the ongoing development of a methodology for semi-automatic ontology construction methodology from technical documents. The main aim of this work is to systematically check the consistency of technical documents and support the improvement of technical document consistency. The formalization of conceptual models and the subsequent writing of technical standards are simultaneously analyzed, and guidelines proposed for application to future technical standards. Three paradigms are discussed for the development of domain ontologies from technical documents, starting from the current state of the art, continuing with the intermediate method presented and used in this paper, and ending with the suggested paradigm for the future. The ISA88 Standard is taken as a representative case study. Linguistic techniques from the semi-automatic ontology construction methodology is applied to the ISA88 Standard and different modelling and standardization aspects that are worth sharing with the automation community is addressed. This study discusses different paradigms for developing and sharing conceptual models for the subsequent development of automation software, along with presenting the systematic consistency checking methodPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Towards automated information retrieval of process data and knowledge from academic databases

Process modeling requires both data (chemical reaction yields, kinetic constants, cost estimates, environmental indicators, etc.) and knowledge (operation models and formulations, alternative processes and technologies, etc.). Searching in databases and published research may provide such information, but there is a lack of systematic methods and tools guiding this procedure. The present work describes and assesses an information retrieval methodology that is part of a proposed retrieval and extraction cycle addressing this problem. Two query construction methods for sampling academic databases are proposed, assessed and compared. Departing from a seed corpus of a limited number of papers, Scopus® is used as an academic database to retrieve literature containing information associated with pyrolysis processes of waste plastic. It is found that, with minimal human intervention, the methodology is able to return a ranked list of candidate documents that have a considerable (linguistic) relevance.Postprint (published version

Information retrieval from scientific abstract and citation databases: A query-by-documents approach based on Monte-Carlo sampling

The rapidly increasing amount of information and entries in abstract and citation databases steadily complicates the information retrieval task. In this study, a novel query-by-document approach using Monte-Carlo sampling of relevant keywords is presented. From a set of input documents (seed) keywords are extracted using TF-IDF and subsequently sampled to repeatedly construct queries to the database. The occurrence of returned documents is counted and serves as a proxy relevance metric. Two case studies based on the Scopus® database are used to demonstrate the method and its key advantages. No expert knowledge and human intervention is needed to construct the final search strings which reduces the human bias. The methods practicality is supported by the high re-retrieval of seed documents of 7/8 and 26/31 in high ranks in the two presented case studies.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Ordocoordinación: cómo organizar 700 estudiantes en un nuevo campus (y no morir en el intento)

Since Autumn Term 2017 the Department of Computer Science of the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya UPC-BarcelonaTech is in charge of teaching ”Fundamentals of Programming” in the new DiagonalBeso ´s Campus, at EEBE School. This new endeavour had to face two particular challenges: First, due to organizing constraints, it had to be organized at the same time it was being first taught. Second, all the numbers involved were large. In effect, in Autumn Term 2017, 686 students enroled, with a teaching staff of 18 instructors, and 108 laboratory tests being prepared. To deal with these challenges, we agreed to coordinate ourselves in a particular way which we name ordocoordination. We define ordocoordation as a flexible and quick particular way of coordination in which teachers generate and agree on a minimum set of rules. It is a bottom-up procedure, requiring taking quick decisions. As a consequence of applying this particular coordination, the number of sent emails has been a large one: in Autumn Term 2017: 350 ×18 = 6300 emails were interchanged. We believe that this approach deserves to be reported, and also that it is relevant to other subjects.A partir del Q1 de 2017 el Departamento de CS de la UPC se ocupa de la docencia de Informática I en el nuevo campus de la EEBE. Dicha docencia ha sido singular en dos aspectos. Primero, hubo que organizarla al mismo tiempo que se impartía. Segundo, todos los números son grandes. En el Q1 de 2017, hubo 686 estudiantes matriculados, 18 docentes y se prepararon 108 exámenes de laboratorio. Para tratar con estas singularidades hemos adoptado una forma de coordinación a la que hemos llamado ordocoordinación. Es una coordinación flexible y rápida en la que los docentes generan y consensúan un conjunto mínimo de reglas. Es de abajo a arriba y requiere una toma de decisiones ágil, por lo que el número de emails ha sido importante. En Q1 de 2017: 350 x 18 = 6300 emails. Creemos que esta aproximación merece ser explicada y que puede ser aplicada a otras asignaturas.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

On the process of building a process systems engineering ontology using a semi-automatic construction approach

This work presents a novel systematic approach for the construction of domain ontolog ies . The s ugge sted approach uses a semi - automatic construction methodology . F or this study , parent - child concept pairs are taken from a previous work. Novel contributions include bu ilding and completing branches, introducing new relations , and resolving inconsistencies and contradictions. For the p rocess s ystems en gineering (PSE) domain the ISA88 Standard is chosen as a promising starting point for automatic text processing. Finally, this work concludes with a discussion of the ISA88 S tandard based on the conclusions tha t can be obtained from the application of this semi - automatic construction methodologPostprint (published version

Diseño y creación de una pagina web para gestión de reservas

En aquest projecte profunditzarem en el món de la programació PHP i HTML de la mà del standard de WordPress per a la creació i disseny de un plugin per a la gestió de reserves. Aquest plugin s’implementarà en la página web de l’empresa GGIDDA dedicada al wellness per a hotels amb l’objectiu d’impulsar-la en la seva evolució en el sector gràcies a un software exclusiu fet a mida

Diseño y creación de una pagina web para gestión de reservas

En aquest projecte profunditzarem en el món de la programació PHP i HTML de la mà del standard de WordPress per a la creació i disseny de un plugin per a la gestió de reserves. Aquest plugin s’implementarà en la página web de l’empresa GGIDDA dedicada al wellness per a hotels amb l’objectiu d’impulsar-la en la seva evolució en el sector gràcies a un software exclusiu fet a mida

Diseño y creación de una pagina web para gestión de reservas

En aquest projecte profunditzarem en el món de la programació PHP i HTML de la mà del standard de WordPress per a la creació i disseny de un plugin per a la gestió de reserves. Aquest plugin s’implementarà en la página web de l’empresa GGIDDA dedicada al wellness per a hotels amb l’objectiu d’impulsar-la en la seva evolució en el sector gràcies a un software exclusiu fet a mida

Implementando HPSG en ALE

Por el presente trabajo se describe el desarrollo de un núcleo de gramática del español en HPSG implementada en ALE. La gramática incluye una solución destinada a evitar la proliferación de entradas léxicas causada por la polisemia estructural del verbo. A partir de ello, se examinan las capacidades de ALE y de una aproximación ortodoxa a HPSG para el procesamiento del lenguaje natural.A core of a grammar of Spanish in HPSG including a solution to deal with verbal subcategorisation alternances avoiding to list different senses in the lexicon is built in ALE. Computational efficacy of HPSG and capabilities of ALE are tested by the way