Development of an Ontology-Based Knowledge Network by Interconnecting Soil/Water Concepts/Properties, Derived from Standards Methods and Published Scientific References Outlining Infiltration/Percolation Process of Contaminated Water

Stephanos D V Giakoumatos,Anastasios K T Gkionakis

doi:10.4236/gep.2021.91003

Stephanos D V Giakoumatos, Anastasios K T Gkionakis

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4236/gep.2021.91003

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Abstract

The present work deals with the development of an Ontology-Based Knowledge Network of soil/water physicochemical & biological properties (soil/water concepts), derived from ASTM Standard Methods (ASTMi,n) and relevant scientific/applicable references (published papers—PPi,n) to fill up/bridge the gap of the information science between cited Standards and infiltration discipline conceptual vocabulary providing accordingly a dedicated/internal Knowledge Base (KB). This attempt constitutes an innovative approach, since it is based on externalizing domain knowledge in the form of Ontology-Based Knowledge Networks, incorporating standardized methodology in soil engineering. The ontology soil/water concepts (semantics) of the developed network correspond to soil/water physicochemical & biological properties, classified in seven different generations that are distinguished/located in infiltration/percolation process of contaminated water through soil porous media. The interconnections with arcs between corresponding concepts/properties among the consecutive generations are defined by the relationship of dependent and independent variables. All these interconnections are documented according to the below three ways: 1) dependent and independent variables interconnected by using the logical operator “depends on” quoting existent explicit functions and equations; 2) dependent and independent variables interconnected by using the logical operator “depends on” quoting produced implicit functions, according to Rayleigh’s method of indices; 3) dependent and independent variables interconnected by using the logical operator “related to” based on a logical dependence among the examined nodes-concepts-variables. The aforementioned approach provides significant advantages to semantic web developers and web users by means of prompt knowledge navigation, tracking, retrieval and usage.

Highlights

A Knowledge Base (KB) in knowledge engineering is a commonly accepted information structure over a discipline that combined with artificial intelligence and expert systems, where information can be retrieved in a rapid way and deployed in numerous applications, outlining the relationship with the software engineering, information integration and knowledge management (Studer et al, 1998)
Ontologies as a formal description of knowledge set, with suitably placed concepts within a domain strictly bound by well-defined relationships are applied in artificial intelligence in order to provide to all users an interaction framework with various application systems i.e. communication models between (KB) users and machines (Weng & Chang, 2008)
As regards the first step, the “infiltration rate” of contaminated water in the soil, it was established as the initial conceptual property of our ontology network

Summary

Introduction

A Knowledge Base (KB) in knowledge engineering is a commonly accepted information structure over a discipline that combined with artificial intelligence and expert systems, where information can be retrieved in a rapid way and deployed in numerous applications, outlining the relationship with the software engineering, information integration and knowledge management (Studer et al, 1998). Ontology-Based Knowledge Networks gradually are being applied to a vast range of disciplines, such as in soil science, by describing soil properties, processing and their interaction (Du et al, 2016; Heeptaisong & Srivihok, 2010). Ontologies as a formal description of knowledge set, with suitably placed concepts within a domain strictly bound by well-defined relationships are applied in artificial intelligence in order to provide to all users an interaction framework with various application systems i.e. communication models between (KB) users and machines (Weng & Chang, 2008). Soil crust rehabilitation in the aftermath of a pollution incident, could be remarkably aided by already building up ontological structures dedicated to infiltration phenomena applied to various accidental cases (Du & Cohn, 2016)

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