Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

International Conference on Spatial Information Theory

COSIT 2007: Spatial Information Theory pp 96–115Cite as

Spatial Semantics in Difference Spaces

  • Conference paper

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 4736))

Abstract

Higher level semantics are considered useful in the geospatial domain, yet there is no general consensus on the form these semantics should take. Indeed, knowledge representation paradigms such as classification based ontologies do not always pay tribute to the complexity of geospatial semantics. Other approaches, originating from psychology, linguistics, philosophy or cognitive sciences are regularly investigated to enrich the GIScientist’s representational toolbox. However, each of these techniques is often used to the exclusion of others, creating new representational difficulties, or merely as a useful addendum to host theories with which they only superficially integrate. The present work is an attempt to introduce a common ground to these techniques by reducing them to the notion of differences or difference spaces. Differences are discernible properties of the environment, detected or produced by a computational process. I describe the following semantic frameworks: category-based ontologies, conceptual spaces, affordance based models, image schemata, and multi representation, explaining how each of them can be projected to a model based on differences. Illustrative examples from table top and geographic space are produced in order to show the model in use.

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

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Bishr, Y.: Overcoming the semantic and other barriers to GIS interoperability. International Journal of Geographical Information Science 12, 299–314 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Fonseca, F.T., Egenhofer, M.J.: Ontology-driven geographic information systems. In: GIS 1999: Proceedings of the 7th ACM international symposium on Advances in geographic information systems, pp. 14–19. ACM Press, New York (1999)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  3. Egenhofer, M.J., Mark, D.M.: Naive Geography. In: Freksa, C., Mark, D.M. (eds.) COSIT 1999. LNCS, vol. 1661, Springer, Heidelberg (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Guarino, N.: Formal Ontology and Information Systems. In: Guarino, N. (ed.) Proceedings of FOIS 1998 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Fensel, D.: Ontologies: A silver bullet for knowledge management and electronic commerce. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  6. Winter, S.: Ontology: Buzzword or paradigm shift in GI science? International Journal of Geographical Information Science 15, 587–590 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Agarwal, P.: Ontological considerations in GIScience. International Journal of Geographical Information Science 19, 501–536 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Smith, B., Mark, D.: Do Mountains Exist? Towards an Ontology of Landforms. Environment & Planning B: Planning and Design 30, 411–427 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Fensel, D., Musen, M., Amsterdam, V.: The semantic web: A brain for humankind. Intelligent Systems 16, 24–25 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Gangemi, A., Guarino, N., Masolo, C., Oltramari, A., Schneider, L.: Sweetening Ontologies with DOLCE. In: Proceedings of EKAW, pp. 166–181. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Mark, D., Turk, A.: Landscape Categories in Yindjibarndi: Ontology, Environment, and Language. In: Spatial information theory: Foundations of geographic information science, pp. 28–45. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Kuhn, W.: Why Information Science needs Cognitive Semantics - and what it has to offer in return (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Peuquet, D., Smith, B., Brogaard, B.: The ontology of fields (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Choi, S., McDonough, L., Bowerman, M., Mandler, J.: Early sensitivity to language-specific spatial categories in English and Korean. Cognitive Development 14, 241–268 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Jordan, T., Raubal, M., Gartrell, B., Egenhofer, M.: An Affordance-Based Model of Place. In: GIS 8th Int. Symposium on Spatial Data Handling, SDH, pp. 98–109 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Sowa, J.: Knowledge representation: logical, philosophical, and computational foundations Brooks/Cole (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Smith, B., Mark, D.: Ontology with Human Subjects Testing: An Empirical Investigation of Geographic Categories. American Journal of Economics and Sociology 58, 245–272 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Galton, A.: A formal theory of objects and fields. In: Spatial information theory: Foundations of geographic information science, pp. 458–473. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Wierzbicka, A.: Apples Are Not a Kind of Fruit. The Semantics of Human Categorization. American Ethnologis 11, 313–328 (1984)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Shirky, C.: The Semantic Web, Syllogism, and Worldview (2003), http://www.shirky.com/writings/semantic_syllogism.html

  21. Gärdenfors, P.: How to Make the Semantic Web More Semantic Formal Ontology in Information Systems. In: Proceedings of the Third International Conference (FOIS 2004), pp. 17–34 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Schoop, M., de Moor, A., Dietz, J.: The pragmatic web: A manifesto. Communications of the ACM 49, 75–76 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Rigaux, P., Scholl, M., Voisard, A.: Spatial Databases: With Application to GIS. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Timpf, S.: Cartographic objects in a multi-scale data structure. Geographic Information Research: Bridging the Atlantic, 224–234 (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Spaccapietra, S., Parent, C., Vangenot, C.: GIS Databases: From Multi-scale to Multi-representation. In: Abstraction, Reformulation, and Approximation, Springer, Heidelberg (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Vangenot, C., Parent, C., Spaccapietra, S.: Modeling and manipulating multiple representations of spatial data. In: Proc. of the Symposium on Geospatial Theory, Processing and Applications (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Benslimane, D., Vangenot, C., Roussey, C., Arara, A.: Multi-representation in ontologies. In: Kalinichenko, L.A., Manthey, R., Thalheim, B., Wloka, U. (eds.) ADBIS 2003. LNCS, vol. 2798, Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Bédard, Y., Bernier, E.: Supporting multiple representations with spatial databases views management and the concept of VUEL. In: ISPRS/ICA Joint Workshop on Multi-Scale Representations of Spatial Data, Ottawa, Canada (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Gärdenfors, P.: Conceptual spaces: The geometry of thought. MIT Press, Cambridge (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Gärdenfors, P., Williams, M.: Reasoning about categories in conceptual spaces. In: Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Joint Conference of Artificial Intelligence, pp. 385–392 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Raubal, M.: Formalizing Conceptual Spaces Formal Ontology in Information Systems. In: Varzi, A., Vieu, L. (eds.) Proceedings of the Third International Conference (FOIS 2004), pp. 153–164 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Ahlqvist, O.: A Parameterized Representation of Uncertain Conceptual Spaces Transactions in GIS. Blackwell Synergy 8, 493–514 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Kuhn, W.: Modeling the Semantics of Geographic Categories through Conceptual Integration. In: Egenhofer, M.J., Mark, D.M. (eds.) GIScience 2002. LNCS, vol. 2478, pp. 108–118. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  34. Barsalou, L.: Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22, 577–660 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Lakoff, G., Johnson, M.: Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL (1980)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Lakoff, G.: Women, fire, and dangerous things. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL (1987)

    Google Scholar 

  37. Johnson, M.: The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL (1987)

    Google Scholar 

  38. Mark, D.: Cognitive Image-Schemata for Geographic Information: Relations to User Views and GIS Interfaces. In: Proceedings GIS/LIS 1989, pp. 551–560 (1989)

    Google Scholar 

  39. Raubal, M., Egenhofer, M., Pfoser, D., Tryfona, N.: Structuring Space with Image Schemata: Wayfinding in Airports as a Case Study. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Spatial Information Theory, pp. 85–102 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  40. Ruetschi, U., Timpf, S.: Using Image Schemata to Represent Meaningful Spatial Configurations. In: Meersman, R., Tari, Z., Herrero, P. (eds.) On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2005: OTM 2005 Workshops. LNCS, vol. 3762, Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Frank, A., Raubal, M.: Formal specification of image schemata – a step towards interoperability in geographic information systems. Spatial Cognition and Computation 1, 67–101 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Gibson, J.: The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah (1979)

    Google Scholar 

  43. Konczak, J., Meeuwsen, H., Cress, M.: Changing affordances in stair climbing: The perception of maximum climbability in young and older adults. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Percept ion and Performance 18, 691–697 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Mathes, A.: Folksonomies-Cooperative Classification and Communication Through Shared Metadata Computer Mediated Communication. In: LIS590CMC (Doctoral Seminar), Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (December 2004)

    Google Scholar 

  45. Merholz, P.: Metadata for the Masses (2004), http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000361.php

  46. Mika, P.: Ontologies are us: A unified model of social networks and semantics. In: Proc. ISWC 2005 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  47. Deleuze, G.: Difference and Repetition. Columbia University Press (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  48. Feynman, R.: The development of the space-time view of quantum mechanics. Nobel Lecture. Physics Today 19, 31 (1966)

    Google Scholar 

  49. Kuhn, W.: Geospatial Semantics: Why, of What, and How. Journal on Data Semantics, 2 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  50. Fauconnier, G., Turner, M.: Conceptual Integration Networks. Cognitive Science 22, 133–187 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Coulson, S., Oakley, T.: Blending Basics. Cognitive Linguistics 11, 175–196 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Thomson, M.K., Béra, R.: Relating Land Use to the Landscape Character: Toward an Ontological Inference Tool. In: Winstanley, A.C. (ed.) GISRUK 2007, Proceeding of the Geographical Information Science Research UK Conference, Maynooth, Ireland, pp. 83–87 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK

    Vlad Tanasescu

Authors
  1. Vlad Tanasescu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Stephan Winter Matt Duckham Lars Kulik Ben Kuipers

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Tanasescu, V. (2007). Spatial Semantics in Difference Spaces. In: Winter, S., Duckham, M., Kulik, L., Kuipers, B. (eds) Spatial Information Theory. COSIT 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4736. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74788-8_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74788-8_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-74786-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-74788-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation