Framework for interpretation of construction concept representations

Construction actors have the ability to operate regularly and concurrently on ongoing activities with other actors, or to interoperate, during the project life cycle. They socially interoperate according to particular situations and project needs, once they have identified their needs for interacting with others by manipulating or computing the information. The elements or products of the interoperations have the quality of information. Actors interoperate through the exchanging, sharing, transferring, or integrating of information. However, actors on construction projects experience interoperability problems that increase the use of resources, raise projects costs, and intensify the complexity of the project. As a consequence of these interoperability problems, the construction industry has concentrated its efforts on finding new methods for exchanging, sharing, transferring, and integrating information. These efforts advocate that interoperability is possible through the use of logical models to share common domain concepts in a conceptual model. Logical models have an advantage based on the efficiency in accessing the model. These efforts fail to derive a common model due to the significant fragmentation of the domain, the multiple views of the participant's, and the combinatorial explosion that is achieved when one attempts to define the relationships among construction concepts. Our research develops a systematic approach that aids construction participants in identifying the potential inconsistencies of the information within the interoperation. This strategy facilitates the construction project actors in the acknowledgement of their misconceptions concerning the observed information. The strategy establishes a framework for reducing errors produced from the assertions or conclusions about the observed pieces of information. This framework addresses the need of a mediation mechanism in interoperability. The framework brings the necessary elements to interpret the information supplied from other participants in a project. The mediation mechanism reacts as a source of verification of the construction concepts employed in the interoperability activities. Our strategy focuses on a semantic interoperability step, which is the understanding of the information representations generated from different parties. The research scrutinizes the interpretation of the representations performed by an actor as a cognitive agent, by searching for the understanding of the fundamental elements involved within the actions of interpretation. The purpose is to bring into existence a strategy that aids the actors in reducing the time, the resources, and the errors generated during their interpretation operations.