Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Encyclopedia of GIS pp 913–917Cite as

Processes and Events

  • Reference work entry

Synonyms

Activities and occurrences

Definition

The terms ‘process’ and ‘event’ both refer to things that happen or go on in time, and are invariably associated with some kind of change. The terms are often used loosely, sometimes interchangeably, and there is little consensus on how they should be defined or distinguished from one another. The following definitions are suggested to bring the terms into line with their main everyday uses while providing a useful basis for technical discussions.

Process:An ongoing dynamic situation involving the activity of one or more material things or portions of matter. Key properties of processes are that (1) they are conceptualized as homogeneous, i. e., if a process is going on over some interval of time then it is also going on over all the subintervals of that interval (at least down to some minimal length associated with the inherent ‘grain-size’ of the process), and (2) they are open-ended, i. e., if a process is going on at a particular...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Notes

  1. 1.

    The quality or state of not being multiple, i. e. oneness.

Recommended Reading

  1. Allen, J.: Towards a general theory of action and time. Artif. Intell. 23, 123–54 (1984)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. Casati, R., Varzi, A. (eds.): Events. The International Research Library of Philosophy. Dartmouth, Aldershot, UK (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Hornsby, K., Worboys, M. (eds.): Event-oriented Approaches in Geographic Information Science. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Special issue of: Spatial Cognition and Computation, vol. 4, number 1 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Mani, I., Pustejovsky, J., Gaizauskas, R. (eds.): The Language of Time: A Reader. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  5. McDermott, D.: A temporal logic for reasoning about processes and plans. Cogn. Sci. 6, 101–55 (1982)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Moens, M., Steedman, M.: Temporal ontology and temporal reference. Comput. Linguist. 14, 15–28 (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  7. A. P. D. Mourelatos. Events, processes, and states. In: Tedeschi, P., Zaenen, A. (eds.) Tense and Aspect, pp. 191–212. Academic Press, New York (1981)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Peuquet, D.J., Duan, N.: An event-based spatiotemporal data model (ESTDM) for temporal analysis of geographical data. Int. J. Geogr. Inf. Syst. 9, 7–24 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Raper, J.: Multidimensional Geographic Information Science. Taylor and Francis, London and New York (2000)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  10. Worboys, M.F.: Event-oriented approaches to geographic phenomena. Int. J. Geogr. Inf. Sci. 19(1), 1–28 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Yuan, M.: Representing complex geographic phenomena in GIS. Cartogr. Geogr. Inf. Sci. 28, 83–96 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering, Computer Science, and Mathematics, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Antony Galton

Authors
  1. Antony Galton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Shashi Shekhar (McKnight Distinguished University Professor) (McKnight Distinguished University Professor)

  2. Management Science and Information Systems Department, Rutgers Business School Newark and New Brunswick Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA

    Hui Xiong (Assistant Professor) (Assistant Professor)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2008 Springer-Verlag

About this entry

Cite this entry

Galton, A. (2008). Processes and Events. In: Shekhar, S., Xiong, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of GIS. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35973-1_1032

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation