Semantic Integration of Information Models of Different Domains for the Railway Sector

Although BIM and GIS are from different domains, the interoperability of IFC and CityGML is seen today as a needed step for the plan, design, and construction of an infrastructure project. Such an approach utilizes data from both domains by converting two open data standards. However, the interoperability of GIS/BIM convergence with other domains, such as LandInfra, LADM, RailTopoModel, etc., is becoming increasingly more important, particularly in the projects of railway. Thus, the cooperation is not only for stakeholders within the AECO/MEP industry but also other stakeholders within other domains. A decentralized seamless data flow among different domains must be ensured by linking different domain information models. This study presents a comprehensive approach for incorporating information models with a particular focus on the railways. The approach in the study first asserts project information in BIM to be included in GIS using geospatial ontologies and then extends this approach by integrating other information models from different fields.

Do geospatial ontologies perpetuate Indigenous assimilation?

Research on geospatial ontologies focuses on achieving interoperability by creating universal standards applied to data. We argue that universality through ontologies can potentially perpetuate homogenization of concepts, thus contributing to assimilation of Indigenous peoples. We cover the ways the conventional geospatial ontologies enable dichotomies between mental and physical concepts, reduce concepts during the classification process, attribute agency, and privilege ontological class over relationships. We further argue that the geospatial web and natural language processing should be inclusive of Indigenous people to ensure future access to geospatial technologies and to prevent further loss of Indigenous knowledge. We explore alternative approaches to universality such as hermeneutics and heuristics. These offer the potential for Indigenous geospatial ontologies considered as equal, instead of being reduced to fit within western concepts.

Spatial Reasoning with Place Information on the Semantic Web

Geographical referencing of data and resources on the Web has become prevalent. Discovering and linking this information poses eminent research challenges to the geospatial semantic web, with regards to the representation and manipulation of information on geographic places. Towards addressing these challenges, this work explores the potential of the current semantic web languages and tools. In particular, an integrated logical framework of rules and ontologies, using current W3C standards, is assessed for modeling geospatial ontologies of place and for encoding both symbolic and geometric references to place locations. Spatial reasoning is incorporated in the framework to facilitate the deduction of implicit spatial relations and for expressing spatial integrity constraints. The logical framework is extended with geo-computation engines that offer more effective manipulation of geometric information. Example data sets mined from web resources are used to demonstrate and evaluate the framework, offering insights to its potentials and limitations.

Representing Geospatial Concepts

Knowledge representation of geospatial entities is dependent on the ability to share their structural properties along with their functional properties, which define their usage for human-society. However, geospatial ontologies have mainly relied on taxonomy-based and mereology-based ontologies. While structural properties of entities such as shape, topography, and orientation are considered important tools for geospatial ontologies, existence of structural properties are not sufficient conditions for the existence of functional properties. Contrastingly, a parallel approach assumes independent existence of function-based concept hierarchies and builds on the premise that human activities associated to any given geospatial entity are essential for specification of the entity concept itself. This chapter compares two diverging approaches based on cases drawn from physical geography, transportation, and hydrology. The differences in core concepts and tools are discussed in relation to universal ontologies of geographic space. It is argued that function representation in geospatial ontologies, in combination with structure-based concepts of geospatial entities, is both necessary and challenging.