Ontology based framework using a semantic web for addressing semantic reconciliation in construction

Abstract

Exchanging, sharing, or integrating information in the construction industry involve the reconciliation of multiple data formats, structures and schemas with minimal human interaction. Approaching interoperability employing these models via integration, mapping or merging information forces the use of purely syntactical layers with heavy human intervention. Enhancing our ability to explicitly model information and to find methods that consistently harmonize the construction participant's use of common language will allow interoperability to be moved to new levels of flexibility and automation by structuring the information upon semantic levels. These levels must have conceptualization aspects to define knowledge, a common vocabulary that covers the syntax, symbols, grammars, and axiomatization that captures inference. Our approach inherits the ability of enhancing interoperability at the syntactic and semantic levels of the Semantic web and proposes onto-semantic schemas, which are ontology constructs of concepts of the construction domain. The approach produces an analysis from the primitives to more refined concepts using the Semantic Web's power of representation with the purpose of enhancing interoperability at semantic and syntactic levels. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.