An ontology-based model of procedural norms and regulated procedures

The objective of the paper is to design a preliminary ontology-basedcomputable model of the normative framework and of the sequences ofoperational activities of public bodies (or enterprises) aimed at producingservices. The main methodological assumption is that, by adopting the samerepresentation formalisms of both the norms and the processes and by definingmapping procedures between the two, all the overlapping concepts and thedependency relations will be clearly represented and managed. As a practicalapplication of the proposed methodology, the paper describes an Italian projecton immigration, the approach to the procedures description and the specificationsof the legislative data bank. It explains the ontological construction methodology,describing the phases of the domain analysis, and the conceptualisation andconstruction of the normative ontology. Then it presents the ontological model ofprocesses and a preliminary example of mapping between two ontologies.Finally, it comes to some conclusions and discuss future developments.