Vagueness in Geography

Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, 2009

Almost thirty years after the beginning of geographic information science (GIScience) as an interdisciplinary but distinct scientific field, new and deeper research questions have arisen, questions which make us return back to the fundamental issues of geographic concepts, knowledge representation, and semantically-aware approaches. The questions are very difficult to answer, yet this should not prevent us from always pursuing the very nature of geographic meaning. It is evident that meanings and understandings in the geospatial domain (thereinafter called "geonoemata") pivot around the connection between the central representational notions of concepts and objects. The use and application of these notions can be accounted for most problems in interoperability, non-universality of approaches, misinterpretation, and semantic conflicts. In this section, an attempt is made to identify a number of open and promising research questions in great need for progress.

2001

Two hundred and sixty-three subjects each gave examples for one of five geographic categories: geographic features, geographic objects, geographic concepts, something geographic, and something that could be portrayed on a map. The frequencies of various responses were significantly different, indicating that the basic ontological terms feature, object, etc., are not interchangeable but carry different meanings when combined with adjectives indicating geographic or mappable.

2001

This paper reports the results of a series of experiments designed to establish how non-expert subjects conceptualize geospatial phenomena. Subjects were asked to give examples of geographical categories in response to a series of differently phrased elicitations. The results yield an ontology of geographical categories-a catalogue of the prime geospatial concepts and categories shared in common by human subjects independently of their exposure to scientific geography.

International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 2000

This paper reports the results of a series of experiments designed to establish how non-expert subjects conceptualize geospatial phenomena. Subjects were asked to give examples of geographic categories in response to a series of differently phrased elicitations. The results yield an ontology of geographic categories—a catalogue of the prime geospatial concepts and categories shared in common by human subjects independently

Transactions in GIS, 2005

Definitions of categories in existent geospatial ontologies are an invaluable source of information because they provide us with essential knowledge about concepts and their properties. A closer examination reveals that definitions also contain supplementary linguistic items, which are mainly qualitative expressions, such as quantifiers. This inclusion of modifiers in definitions affects the way values are assigned to the categories' properties (semantic properties and relations). This paper introduces a methodology for: (1) representing the essence of qualitative information to clarify the identity relations among categories; and (2) assessing their semantic similarity in order to disambiguate the taxonomic structure of existent geospatial ontologies.

Proceedings of the 5th, 1996

Spatial reasoning is crucial in many AI application domains, such as robotics, qualitative and naive physics, and some types of planning. Qualitative reasoning is often required; and in many of these cases, uncertainty or imprecision about the spatial extent of particular entities has to be represented and coped with. This paper develops an axiomatisation of a relation of`crisping' (reducing imprecision or vagueness) between pairs of`vague' spatial regions: those with indeterminate boundaries. This axiomatisation is then related to the previously developed`egg-yolk' representation of vagueness, originally designed by (Lehmann and Cohn 1994) for database applications, then applied to expressing spatial vagueness by (Cohn and Gotts 1996). Topic areas: Representing Space, Reasoning under Uncertainty We gratefully acknowledge the support of the EPSRC under grant GR/H/78955 and also the CEC under the Basic Research Action MEDLAR 2, Project 6471. We also acknowledge useful discussions with the rest of the QSR group at Leeds and Eliseo Clementini.

1998

An ontology of geographic kinds is designed to yield a better understanding of the structure of the geographic world, and to support the development of geographic information systems that are conceptually sound. This paper first demonstrates that geographical objects and kinds are not just larger versions of the everyday objects and kinds previously studied in cognitive science. Geographic objects are not merely located in space, as are the manipulable objects of table-top space.

Geoinformatica, 2002

This paper deals with the representation and the processing of information about spatial objects with indeterminate location like valleys or dunes (objects subject to vagueness). The indeterminacy of the location of spatial objects is caused by the vagueness of the unity condition provided by the underlying human concepts valley and dune. We propose the notion of rough, i.e., approximate, location for representing and processing information about indeterminate location of objects subject to vagueness. We provide an analysis of the relationships between vagueness of concepts, indeterminacy of location of objects, and rough approximations using methods of formal ontology. In the second part of the paper we propose an algebraic formalization of rough location, and hence, a formal method for the representation of objects subject to vagueness on a computer. We further de®ne operations on those representations, which can be interpreted as union and intersection operations between those objects. The discussion of vagueness of concepts, indeterminacy of location, rough location and the relationships between these notions contributes to the theory about the ontology of geographic space. The formalization presented can provide the foundation for the implementation of vague objects and their location indeterminacy in GIS.

Spatial Information Theory. Cognitive and …, 1999

Cognitive categories in the geographic realm manifest certain special features as contrasted with categories for objects at surveyable scales. We argue that these features reflect specific ontological characteristics of geographic objects. This paper presents hypotheses as to the nature of the features mentioned, reviews previous empirical work on geographic categories, and presents the results of pilot experiments that used English-speaking subjects to test our hypotheses. Our experiments show geographic categories to be similar to their non-geographic counterparts in the ways in which they generate instances of different relative frequencies at different levels. Other tests, however, provide preliminary evidence for the existence of important differences in subjects' categorizations of geographic and non-geographic objects, and suggest further experimental work especially with regard to the role in cognitive categorization of different types of object-boundaries at different scales.

1991

The first paper, entitled "Deficiencies of SQL as a GIS Query Language", argues that SQL and various extended versions of it are not adequate geographic query languages. They lack the integration of graphical display in retrieval and presentation of query results and do not support the set operations necessary for spatial query. In the second paper, "A Formalization of Metaphors and Image-Schemas in User Interfaces", an algebraic approach to formalization of interface metaphors is presented as a step toward the design of metaphor-based interfaces. This approach to mapping source to target domains is demonstrated by analyzing the metaphorical and image-schematic bases the "zoom" function. The third paper, "Matching Representations of Geographic Locations", sets out fundamental differences in the representations of geographic space and spatial relations in minds, written location descriptions, and conventional cartographic data sets, and proposes a geographic data structure which might facilitate establishing correspondence between locations in each representation. Together, these papers range across theoretical and practical concerns in incorporating "spatial sense" in GIS.

Geospatial semantics is a broad field that involves a variety of research areas. The term semantics refers to the meaning of things, and is in contrast with the term syntactics. Accordingly, studies on geospatial semantics usually focus on understanding the meaning of geographic entities as well as their counterparts in the cognitive and digital world, such as cognitive geographic concepts and digital gazetteers. Geospatial semantics can also facilitate the design of geographic information systems (GIS) by enhancing the interoperability of distributed systems and developing more intelligent interfaces for user interactions. During the past years, a lot of research has been conducted, approaching geospatial semantics from different perspectives, using a variety of methods, and targeting different problems. Meanwhile, the arrival of big geo data, especially the large amount of unstructured text data on the Web, and the fast development of natural language processing methods enable new research directions in geospatial semantics. This chapter, therefore, provides a systematic review on the existing geospatial semantic research. Six major research areas are identified and discussed, including semantic interoperability, digital gazetteers, geographic information retrieval, geospatial Semantic Web, place semantics, and cognitive geographic concepts.

2009

GIS and Theoretical Geography Cognitive Categories and Experiential Realism Categories Perception, Cognition, and Schemata Some Geographical Examples Models of Space Models of Geographic Space What is the ’Objective’ Geometry of Geographic Space?

Spatial Information Theory, 2009

Ontologies are a common approach to improve semantic interoperability by explicitly specifying the vocabulary used by a particular information community. Complex expressions are dened in terms of primitive ones. This shifts the problem of semantic interoperability to the problem of how to ground primitive symbols. One approach are semantic datums, which determine reproducible mappings (measurement scales) from observable structures to symbols. Measurement theory oers a formal basis for such mappings. From an ontological point of view, this leaves two important questions unanswered. Which qualities provide semantic datums? How are these qualities related to the primitive entities in our ontology? Based on a scenario from hydrology, we rst argue that human or technical sensors implement semantic datums, and secondly that primitive symbols are denable from the meaningful environment, a formalized quality space established through such sensors.

Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 2001

Traditional computational models of geographic phenomena offer no room for imperfection. Underlying this tradition is the simplifying assumption that reality is certain, crisp, unambiguous, independent of context, and capable of quantitative representation. This paper reports on initial work which explicitly recognises that most geographic information is intrinsically imperfect. Based on an ontology of imperfection the paper explores a formal model of imperfect geographic information using multi-valued logic. The development of Java software able to assist with a geodemographic retail site assessment application is used to illustrate the utility of a formal approach. While there may be consensus on the complex multi-dimensional nature of imperfection in geographic information, there is at best limited consensus in the literature on what these different dimensions actually are. Terms such as error, uncertainty, accuracy, precision, detail are subject to a range of different definitions and interpretations across the different disciplines that comprise GIS . The starting point for this paper, then, is to introduce a simple ontology of the key aspects of imperfection. It is not the intention to suggest that the ontology and definitions developed below are necessarily exclusive of other ontologies of imperfection. However, it is argued in section 3 that the ontology introduced here is congruent with formal interpretations of imperfection. Computer, Environment and Urban Systems v25 pp. 89-103. Knowledge about reality is gained through observations. Observations are therefore first class objects in our account, rather than the underlying objects that are observed (Worboys, 1998a). Observations are imperfect in the sense that they can never fully or correctly reflect all aspects of reality. Imperfection is therefore the root of our ontology, as the concept refers generally to the inevitable deviations from perfection when observing reality. Imperfection can be thought of as comprising two distinct orthogonal concepts: error and imprecision. Error, or inaccuracy, concerns a lack of correlation of an observation with reality; imprecision concerns a lack of specificity in representation. Observations will usually be inaccurate and imprecise, but error and imprecision are orthogonal concepts since the level of accuracy of an observation is not implied by the level of precision, nor vice versa. Intuitively, the statement "York is in England" is at the same time more accurate and less precise than the statement "York is in Lancashire". The general definitions of accuracy and precision above correspond closely to the more specialised statistical definitions of the terms in common usage (see . Any observation of reality will be subject to imprecision: Veregin (1999) discusses some of the different causes and types of imprecision. Granularity is closely related, but not identical to imprecision. Granularity refers to the existence of clumps or grains in information, in the sense that individual elements in the grain cannot be distinguished or discerned apart. Granulation is therefore the result of distinct entities becoming indiscernible due to the imprecision in an observation. Observations or representations of coarser granularity offer less detail, for example where the clumping of information into pixels in remotely sensed images may prevent sub-pixel entities being distinguished . Vagueness, however, is a special type of imprecision which concerns the existence of indeterminate borderline cases. "Yorkshire is in England" is not a vague statement (both Yorkshire and England have clearly defined national or international boundaries), but is an imprecise statement. Although intuitively more precise, "Yorkshire is in the East of England" is a vague statement, since the concept of the East of England has borderline cases. Vagueness and imprecision are not equivalent, but every vague statement must also be imprecise, because of the lack of specificity at the boundary.

Future Internet, 2015

Different languages imply different visions of space, so that terminologies are different in geographic ontologies. In addition to their geometric shapes, geographic features have names, sometimes different in diverse languages. In addition, the role of gazetteers, as dictionaries of place names (toponyms), is to maintain relations between place names and location. The scope of geographic information retrieval is to search for geographic information not against a database, but against the whole Internet: but the Internet stores information in different languages, and it is of paramount importance not to remain stuck to a unique language. In this paper, our first step is to clarify the links between geographic objects as computer representations of geographic features, ontologies and gazetteers designed in various languages. Then, we propose some inference rules for matching not only types, but also relations in geographic ontologies with the assistance of gazetteers.