Semantic model

The NYU-Ada project is engaged in the design and implementation of a translator-interpreter for the Ada language. The objectives of this project are twofold: a) to provide an executable semantic model for the full Ada language, that can be used for teaching, and serve as a starting point for the design of an efficient Ada compiler; b) to serve as a testing ground for the software methodology that has emerged from our experience with the very-high level language SETL. In accordance with these objectives, the NYU-Ada system is written in a particularly high-level, abstract SETL style that emphasizes clarity of design and user interface over speed and efficiency. A number of unusual design features of the translator and interpreter follow from this emphasis. Some of these features are described below. We also discuss the question of semantic specification of programming languages, and the general methodology of “Software Prototyping” of which the NYU-Ada system is a sizeable example.

Abstract—Interoperability between building information models (BIM) and geographic information models has a strong potential to bring benefit to different demands in construction analysis, urban planning, homeland security and other applications. Therefore, different research and commercial efforts have been initiated to integrate the most prominent semantic models in BIM and geospatial applications. These semantic models are the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and City Geography Markup Language (CityGML) respectively. However, these efforts mainly: a) use a unidirectional approach (mostly from IFC to CityGML) for converting data, or b) Extending CityGML by conceptual requirements for converting CityGML to IFC models. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential of unidirectional conversion between IFC and CityGML. The different IFC concepts and its corresponding concepts in CityGML is studied and evaluated. The investigation goes beyond building objects, also includi...

Various problems have been encountered on public private partnership (PPP) initiatives around the world that have eventually led to project failure. Stakeholder opposition has been reported as the main reason for failure in several instances. As such, capturing and addressing of stakeholder inputs is crucial to the success of PPP projects. Stakeholder involvement (SI) is an interdisciplinary domain that spans many disciplines (engineering, sociology, psychology, marketing, etc). The fragmented nature of knowledge in this domain is impeding project managers from leading successful SI programmes. As such, this paper presents a semantic model and taxonomy that represents the key concepts underlying stakeholder involvement in PPP infrastructure projects. The model has the potential to act as a core for knowledge representation, sharing and reuse in the multidisciplinary domain of SI. A portion of the model is implemented in a knowledge-base that can be used to recommend the most suitable set of stakeholder involvement tools to be utilized on a particular project. The recommendations provided by the system can act as a ‘short-list’ of potential tools to the inexperienced SI coordinator.

Abstract The study examined the use of code-switching by English and science teachers in secondary schools in Malaysia. It focuses on the functions of code-switching in multilingual classrooms where English is the language of instruction, examining in particular the reiterative function of code-switching and its association with translation. Thirty six lessons of teacher discourse in whole-class teaching for English and science were audiotaped, and 20 lessons were found to contain teacher code-switching. Analysis of the teacher discourse ...

A multitude of new applications is quickly emerging in the field of Building Information Models (BIM). BIM models describe buildings with respect to their spatial and especially semantic and thematic characteristics. Since BIM models are manually created during the planning and construction phase, they are only available for newly planned or recently constructed buildings. In order to apply the new applications to already existing buildings, methods for the acquisition of BIM models for built-up sites are required. Primary data source are 3D geometry models obtained from surveying, CAD, or computer graphics. Automation of this process is highly desirable, but faces a range of specific problems setting the bar very high for a reconstruction process. This paper discusses these problems and identifies consequential requirements on reconstruction methods. Above, a two-step strategy for BIM model reconstruction is proposed which incorporates CityGML as an intermediate layer between 3D gr...

— Ambient intelligence implies that a collection of everyday devices incorporates inside computing and networking capabilities that enable them to interact with each other, make intelligent decision and interact with users through user friendly multimodal interfaces. Ambient intelligence is driven by users’ needs and their design should be driven by users ’ requirements. An example of an application exhibiting ambient intelligence technologies is home automation. The consequence of putting computing capabilities in everyday devices is the development of some software to install and run on them. The presence of software requires certain procedures for managing its versions and configurations. The COMANCHE project aims to design and develop a software configuration management infrastructure which can be used in the home automation domain. In such an environment, certain issues should be considered before installing new software versions on a given device, such as the user profile, exi...

In this paper we present pddl+, a planning domain description language for modelling mixed discrete-continuous planning domains. We describe the syntax and modelling style of pddl+, showing that the language makes convenient the modelling of complex time-dependent effects. We provide a formal semantics for pddl+ by mapping planning instances into constructs of hybrid automata. Using the syntax of HAs as our semantic model we construct a semantic mapping to labelled transition systems to complete the formal interpretation of pddl+ planning instances. An advantage of building a mapping from pddl+ to HA theory is that it forms a bridge between the Planning and Real Time Systems research communities. One consequence is that we can expect to make use of some of the theoretical properties of HAs. For example, for a restricted class of HAs the Reachability problem (which is equivalent to Plan Existence) is decidable. pddl+ provides an alternative to the continuous durative action model of pddl2.1, adding a more flexible and robust model of time-dependent behaviour.

This paper describes the basic philosophy and implementation of MPLUS (M+), a robust medical text analysis tool that uses a semantic model based on Bayesian Networks (BNs). BNs provide a concise and useful formalism for representing semantic patterns in medical text, and for recognizing and reasoning over those patterns. BNs are noise-tolerant, and facilitate the training of M+. 1

Notwithstanding its acknowledged richness, the SIMPLE semantic model does not offer the representational vocabulary for encoding some conceptual links holding between events and their participants and among co-participants in events. Although critical for boosting performance in many NLP application tasks, such deep lexical information is therefore only partially encoded in the SIMPLE-CLIPS Italian semantic database. This paper reports on the enrichment of the SIMPLE relation set by some expressive means, namely semantic relations, borrowed from the EuroWordNet model and their implementation in the SIMPLE-CLIPS lexicon. The original situation existing in the database, as to the expression of this type of information is described and the loan descriptive vocabulary presented. Strategies based on the exploitation of the source lexicon data were adopted to induce new information: a wide range of semantic ─ but also syntactic ─ information was investigated for singling out word senses c...

Substantial amounts of data on cell signaling, metabolic, gene regulatory and other biological pathways have been accumulated in literature and electronic databases. Conventionally, this information is stored in the form of pathway diagrams and can be characterized as highly "compartmental" (i.e. individual pathways are not connected into more general networks). Current approaches for representing pathways are limited in their capacity to model molecular interactions in their spatial and temporal context. Moreover, the critical knowledge of cause-effect relationships among signaling events is not reflected by most conventional approaches for manipulating pathways. We have applied a semantic network (SN) approach to develop and implement a model for cell signaling pathways. The semantic model has mapped biological concepts to a set of semantic agents and relationships, and characterized cell signaling events and their participants in the hierarchical and spatial context. In...

The eventuality of the Semantic Web offers multiple attractive features to the enterprise infrastructure in the area of improved Knowledge Management and information retrieval. Current relational database models adequately perform in the transactional processing of operational data, but do little toward the advancement of knowledge foundations for innovation. The movement from an information economy to a knowledge economy mandates that successful organizations must innovate at a faster rate than their competitors. To this end, Information Systems must extend technological infrastructures away from relational transaction systems toward higher order semantic models that can accommodate schemas based on Ontologies. This report details a methodology for mapping relational data systems to a higher order semantic model that can implement an ontology-driven information system. Additionally, this report provides conclusions about the application of ontology- driven information systems to th...