A modular ontology for semantically enhanced interoperability in operational disaster response

Linda Elmhadhbi (1) , Mohamed Hedi Karray (1) , Bernard Archimède (1)

1 ENIT - Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Tarbes

Up to now, the world has witnessed how inadequate communication capabilities can adversely affect disaster response efforts. There are various Emergency Responders (ERs) that potentially must work together towards a successful resolution of the disaster. However, the different terminologies and technical vocabularies that are being exchanged between the ERs may lead to a misunderstanding and lack of semantic integrity. Yet, understanding the semantics of the exchanged data is one of the major challenges. The purpose of this work is to define the complex knowledge of the ERs by proposing a common and modular ontology shared by all the stakeholders so as to come up with a common shared vocabulary in order to ensure semantic interoperability between ERs. In this paper, we present POLARISCO and we discuss how it was developed using Basic Formal Ontology as an upperlevel ontology and Common Core Ontology as a mid-level ontology to define each module.

Mots clés: Semantic interoperability; Modular ontology; Upper-level ontology; Mid-level ontology; Disaster response

Domaines: Réseaux et télécommunications [cs.NI]; Autre

Linda Elmhadhbi, Mohamed Hedi Karray, Bernard Archimède. A modular ontology for semantically enhanced interoperability in operational disaster response. 16th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management - ISCRAM 2019, May 2019, Valencia, Spain. pp.1021-1029. ⟨hal-02487086⟩