Spatial Natural Language Generation for Location Description in Photo Captions

We present a spatial natural language generation system to create captions that describe the geographical context of geo-referenced photos. An analysis of existing photo captions was used to design templates representing typical caption language patterns, while the results of human subject experiments were used to create field-based spatial models of the applicability of some commonly used spatial prepositions. The language templates are instantiated with geo-data retrieved from the vicinity of the photo locations. A human subject evaluation was used to validate and to improve the spatial language generation procedure, examples of the results of which are presented in the paper

Proposição de um conjunto de relações espaciais para tarefas de descrições espaciais

Orientadora: Profª. Drª Luciene Stamato DelazariTese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Ciências da Terra, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Geodésicas. Defesa : Curitiba, 26/02/2019Inclui referências: p. 146-154Resumo: Descrever espacialmente objetos ou ambientes é uma tarefa cotidiana e natural presente na rotina dos indivíduos. Frequentemente, tais descrições são realizadas através da Linguagem Natural (LN), tanto a falada como a escrita. A descrição espacial é composta por expressões como "a padaria fica ao lado do supermercado" ou "a padaria fica perto do supermercado". Esse tipo de descrição é a forma predominante de comunicação espacial entre os indivíduos é conhecido como expressão locativa ou locacionais. As expressões locativas são compostas por três elementos fundamentais: o elemento a ser localizado (locatum), ponto de referência (relatum) e a relação espacial. Os pontos de referência são elementos do ambiente que se destacam dentre os outros. A característica que torna um elemento uma referência pode ser visual (cor, tamanho), estrutural (localização proeminente) ou semântica (significado cultural, histórico ou atividade relacionada). Os vocábulos empregados para fazer associações entre o elemento a ser localizado e o ponto de referência são chamados de relações espaciais. A existência de uma constante interação do homem com o ambiente torna a LN rica em vocábulos espaciais que caracterizam o espaço, resultando em uma diversidade de tais vocábulos. A quantidade substancial e a versatilidade dos vocábulos utilizados como relações espaciais dificultam sua implementação em sistemas que buscam interpretar, processar e representar a linguagem natural. O projeto "Where Am I?", no qual esta pesquisa está inserida, tem como objetivo implementar um desses sistemas, em que seja possível converter a descrição espacial do indivíduo em uma localização geográfica. Dessa forma, o objetivo geral desta tese foi verificar se a escolha das relações espaciais é afetada pelos contextos em que se encontra o indivíduo. Os dados que possibilitaram este trabalho foram obtidos a partir de três fontes: 1) teste exploratório em ambientes desconhecidos, 2) testes exploratórios em ambiente conhecido e 3) ocorrências registradas pelo Corpo de Bombeiros Militar de Santa Catarina (CBM-SC). Os resultados alcançados permitiram a realização do experimento final em dois contextos: cotidiano e estresse. O experimento final mostrou que o emprego das relações espaciais se deu de maneiras diferentes em ambos os contextos, uma vez que a quantidade e a variabilidade dos vocábulos empregados foram distintas. Apesar disso, foi perceptível o uso de um conjunto de vocábulos representativo dos demais. Isso presume, que apesar do contexto influenciar na escolha das relações espaciais, o conjunto obtido de relações espaciais é satisfatório para serem empregados nos contextos experimentados nesta tese. Sendo assim, os experimentos realizados possibilitaram a comprovação da hipótese levantada nesta tese, e ainda que o conjunto de relações espaciais representativo das demais pode auxiliar em pesquisas futuras que objetivam a implementação da LN em sistemas de localização geográfica. Palavras-chaves: Linguagem Natural; Pontos de Referência; Relações espaciais; Descrição espacial.Abstract: Spatially describing objects or environments is a daily and natural task present in the routine of individuals. Frequently, such descriptions are performed through the Natural Language (NL), both spoken and written. The spatial description is composed of expressions such as "the bakery is next to the supermarket" or "the bakery is near the supermarket". This type of description is the predominant form of spatial communication between individuals is known as a locative or locational expression. Locative expressions are composed of three fundamental elements: the feature to be located (locatum), the reference point (relatum) and the spatial relation. Landmarks are elements of the environment that stand out from others. A characteristic that makes an element a reference can be visual (structural, visual), structural (structural) or semantic (cultural meaning). The terms used to make associations between the element to be located and the reference point are called spatial relations. The existence of a constant interaction of the individuals with the environment makes NL rich in spatial terms that characterize space, resulting in a diversity of such words. The substantial quantity and versatility of the terms used as spatial relations make it difficult to implement them in systems that seek to interpret, process and represent natural language. The project called "Where am I?", in which this research is inserted, aims to implement one of these systems that possible to convert the spatial description of the individual into a geographic location. Thus, the general objective of this thesis was to verify if the choice of spatial relations is affected by the contexts in which the individual is. The data that enabled this work were obtained from three sources: 1) exploratory test in unknown environments, 2) exploratory tests in a known environment, and 3) occurrences recorded by the Santa Catarina Military Fire Brigade (CBM-SC). The results allowed the realization of the final experiment in two contexts: daily and stress. The final experiment showed that the use of spatial relations occurred in different ways in both contexts, since the quantity and variability of the terms used were different. Despite this, the use of a set of words representative of the others was perceptible. This assumes that, although the context influences the choice of spatial relations, the set of spatial relations is adequate to be used in the contexts experienced in this thesis. Thus, the experiments carried out allowed to prove the hypothesis raised in this thesis, and even though the set of spatial relations representative of the others can help in future research that aim at the implementation of NL in geographic location systems. Keywords: Natural Language; Reference points; Spatial relationships; Spatial description

Qualitative modelling of place location on the linked data web and GIS

When asked to define where a geographic place is, people normally resort to using qualitative expressions of location, such as north of and near to. This is evident in the domain of social geography, where qualitative research methods are used to gauge people’s understanding of their neighbourhood. Using a GIS to represent and map the location of neighbourhood boundaries is needed to understand and compare people’s perceptions of the spatial extent of their neighbourhoods. Extending the GIS to allow for the qualitative modelling of place will allow for the representation and mapping of neighbourhoods. On the other hand, a collaborative definition of place on the web will result in the accumulation of large sets of data resources that can be considered “location-poor”, where place location is defined mostly using single point coordinates and some random combinations of relative spatial relationships. A qualitative model of place location on the Linked Data Web (LDW) will allow for the homogenous representation and reasoning of place resources. This research has analysed the qualitative modelling of place location on the LDW and in GIS. On the LDW, a qualitative model of place is proposed, which provides an effective representation of individual place location profiles that allow place information to be enriched and spatially linked. This has been evaluated using the application of qualitative spatial reasoning (QSR) to automatic reasoning over place profiles, to check the completeness of the representation, as well as to derive implicit links not defined by the model. In GIS, a qualitative model of place is proposed that provides a basis for mapping qualitative definitions of place location in GIS, and this has been evaluated using an implementation-driven approach. The model has been implemented in a GIS and demonstrated through a realistic case study. A user-centric approach to development has been adopted, as users were involved throughout the design, development and evaluation stages