Knowledge representation and management: smart city applications

This paper presents the parameters that indicate the direction of smart cities in search of improvements in quality of life. The theoretical foundation is based on the emergence and consolidation of the Smart Cities theme and concepts of Knowledge Representation and Management applied to Architecture and Urbanism. It presents the importance of the study of information representation, organization and retrieval, considering the amount of data and information systems of cities; relates studies and applications of Smart Cities in different contexts; considers concepts of architecture and urban planning with a survey of citizens' needs; corroborates the use of technologies to bring advances. It begins with a literature review and the different approaches to defining Smart Cities and Building Information Modeling - BIM. As part of the theoretical foundation, there is the representation and management of knowledge applied to strategic areas. Analyzes examples with smart city initiatives in different contexts and regions of the world; correlates with initiatives in Belo Horizonte. The research question of how cities have used the concept of Smart Cities. It considers the diversity among multiple information systems of cities and raises as a fundamental question how systems interoperability can bring advances in the area. Introduces an information modeling initiative for smart cities; argues for the importance of Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) for the integration of different specialized information systems applied to Smart Cities. Knowledge representation, organization and management techniques and methodologies allow for detailed mapping of the complex interactions of many processes, objects and factors in the interdependent ecosystem of smart cities. The article illustrates this ecosystem and discusses the contributions of Information Science. It presents thoughts and proposes the mapping of the main factors of smart cities in different systems. These activities developed in cities need to be related to human needs thus bringing improvements to the quality of life.