Abstract
Modelers of urban systems are confronted with an enormous complexity, plurality, and multidisciplinarity of the components these urban systems are made of. Despite the existence of a large variety of modeling approaches and techniques—primarily trying to simplify the apparent complexity—data unavailability presents a common factor for partial failure or unsatisfactory results. Improving the situation can only be achieved by increasing the availability of data to feed the model. The present article describes the combination of different modeling techniques, specifically semantic modeling and the use of ontologies to overcome data unavailability when modeling complex urban systems. The first part of the article explains how to describe the semantics of urban systems; the second part describes how to use these semantics to integrate different data sources and heterogeneous models. Thus, this article presents a possibility to model a complex urban system by getting the most out of the available data. The approach is tested through its application in modeling an urban system for energy planning support purposes.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Ashby, W.R.: An Introduction to Cybernetics. Chapman & Hall, London (1956)
Batty, M.: Urban modeling. In: International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Elsevier, Oxford (2009)
Berners-Lee, T., Chen, Y., Chilton, L., Connolly, D., Dhanaraj, R., Hollenbach, J., Lerer, A., Sheets, D.: Tabulator: exploring and analyzing linked data on the semantic web (2006)
Blomqvist, E.: The use of Semantic Web technologies for decision support-a survey. Semant. Web 5, 177–201 (2014)
Fernández-López, M., Gómez-Pérez, A., Juristo, N.: Methontology: from ontological art towards ontological engineering. In: Proceedings on Ontological Engineering AAAI-97 Spring Symposium Series, pp. 33–40 (1997)
Giaretta, P., Guarino, N.: Ontologies and knowledge bases towards a terminological clarification. Very Large Knowledge Bases: Knowledge Building & Knowledge Sharing 25 (1995)
Knoblock, C.A., Szekely, P., Ambite, J.L., Goel, A., Gupta, S., Lerman, K., Muslea, M., Taheriyan, M., Mallick, P.: Semi-automatically mapping structured sources into the semantic web. In: The Semantic Web: Research and Applications, pp. 375–390. Springer (2012)
McGuinness, D.L., Van Harmelen, F., et al.: OWL web ontology language overview. W3C Recommendation 10, 2004 (2004)
Noy, N.F.: Semantic integration: a survey of ontology-based approaches. SIGMOD Rec. 33, 65–70 (2004). doi:10.1145/1041410.1041421
OpenLink Software: Virtuoso Universal Server. http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/ (2014). Accessed 20 Feb 2014 (WWW Document)
Ouhajjou, N., Loibl, W., Anjomshoaa, A., Fenz, S., Tjoa, A.M.: Ontology-based Urban energy planning support: Building-integrated solar PV. In: eWork and eBusiness in Architecture, Engineering and Construction: ECPPM 2014. CRC Press, Boca Raton (2014)
Ouhajjou, N., Palensky, P., Stifter, M., Page, J., Fenz, S., Tjoa, A.M.: A modular methodology for the development of urban energy planning support software. Presented at the IECON 2013—39th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, pp. 7558–7563 (2013). doi:10.1109/IECON.2013.6700392
Prud’Hommeaux, E., Seaborne, A., et al.: SPARQL query language for RDF. W3C Recommendation 15 (2008)
Shadbolt, N., O’Hara, K., Berners-Lee, T., Gibbins, N., Glaser, H., Hall, W., et al.: Linked open government data: Lessons from data. gov. uk. IEEE Intell. Syst. 27, 16–24 (2012)
Walloth, C., Gurr, J.M., Schmidt, J.A. (eds.): Understanding Complex Urban Systems: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Modeling, Understanding Complex Systems. Springer International Publishing, Cham (2014)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ouhajjou, N., Loibl, W., Gebetsroither-Geringer, E., Fenz, S., Tjoa, A.M. (2016). Bypassing Data Unavailability in Urban Systems Modeling. In: Walloth, C., Gebetsroither-Geringer, E., Atun, F., Werner, L. (eds) Understanding Complex Urban Systems. Understanding Complex Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30178-5_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30178-5_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-30176-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-30178-5
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)