A methodological approach to integrate ontology and configurational analysis

Abstract

The problems related to the management of information increase everyday in several contexts. This process needs of more and more effective and efficient Knowledge Management techniques. Such techniques lead to a suitable organization (and therefore to a more detailed analysis) of the phenomena, which in turn suggests how to choose the actions to perform. Information represents a strategic resource for the subjects in charge of territorial management: it is in fact raw material, job tool and final product. In a complex research scenario such as the territorial science, some fundamental elements, useful to analyze and resolve several problems, can be represented using a framework based on an ontological approach pushed on the reduction of the space as a network. The science of complex networks is indeed leading the quest for a renewed approach to territorial phenomena in many cases. Amongst the different territorial planning fields, we chose as case study the issue of urban planning and design. This choice is motivated by the cultural and scientific innovations, which led in recent years to a completely new interpretation of a city as a system of elements each other connected. The paper aim is to give a first conceptual framework to integrate ontological aspects of urban elements with topological features of the city; these latter accounted as property of the city-network. The topological information revealed by the configurational analysis of the city-network will be improved with a formal solution of conceptual misunderstanding and semantic ambiguity using a suitable ontology-based model. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.