Dwelling on ontology - semantic reasoning over topographic maps

The thesis builds upon the hypothesis that the spatial arrangement of topographic features, such as buildings, roads and other land cover parcels, indicates how land is used. The aim is to make this kind of high-level semantic information explicit within topographic data. There is an increasing need to share and use data for a wider range of purposes, and to make data more definitive, intelligent and accessible. Unfortunately, we still encounter a gap between low-level data representations and high-level concepts that typify human qualitative spatial reasoning. The thesis adopts an ontological approach to bridge this gap and to derive functional information by using standard reasoning mechanisms offered by logic-based knowledge representation formalisms. It formulates a framework for the processes involved in interpreting land use information from topographic maps. Land use is a high-level abstract concept, but it is also an observable fact intimately tied to geography. By decomposing this relationship, the thesis correlates a one-to-one mapping between high-level conceptualisations established from human knowledge and real world entities represented in the data. Based on a middle-out approach, it develops a conceptual model that incrementally links different levels of detail, and thereby derives coarser, more meaningful descriptions from more detailed ones. The thesis verifies its proposed ideas by implementing an ontology describing the land use ‘residential area’ in the ontology editor Protégé. By asserting knowledge about high-level concepts such as types of dwellings, urban blocks and residential districts as well as individuals that link directly to topographic features stored in the database, the reasoner successfully infers instances of the defined classes. Despite current technological limitations, ontologies are a promising way forward in the manner we handle and integrate geographic data, especially with respect to how humans conceptualise geographic space

Production of spatial representations through collaborative mapping. An experiment

This paper focuses on the theme of the spatial representation of cities and the territory, reflecting on the prospects for innovation in the expressive means that serve the study of the city. The described research concerns project “Mappe di Comunità 3.0” (http://ontomap.dyndns.org/), funded by the Fondazione CRT. The project focuses on the definition of a methodology that implements a synergistic exchange between institutional territorial knowledge and the knowledge of the citizens, achievable thanks to the mediation of communication provided by a semantic representation of territorial knowledge. That type of representation supports the description of data and of its properties in a unified language. Moreover, it enables the sharing of information on the Web by providing an integrated perspective on territorial data

Geographic Ontologies Production in GREASE-II

Reviewed by Ana Paula AfonsoThis report presents the development of authoritative geographic knowledge and related conceptualization tools in the project GREASE-II. The feature concept, an abstraction for geographical entities, is the centre of the conceptual model, which is oriented towards a representation of geographic data as interlinked web resources. The conceptualization tools are the Geographic Knowledge Base (GKB) system (version 2.1), a system for geographic knowledge management, and the Geo-Net vocabulary for describing geographic knowledge. Both contribute to the production of the new version of the geospatial ontology of Portugal, Geo-Net-PT 02. The innovations introduced since version 1.0 of the GKB system and Geo-Net-PT 01 include a formalization of the model, the support for generic property sets, detailed information provenance, better geographic descriptions and the definition of Geo-Net vocabulary, a domain vocabulary

The psychasthenia of deep space: evaluating the ‘reassertion of space in critical social theory’

The aim of this work is to question the notion of space that underlies the claimed ‘spatial turn’ in geographical and social theory. Section 1 examines this theoretical literature, drawing heavily on Soja as the self declared taxonomist of the genre, and also seeks parallels with more populist texts on cities and space, to suggest, following Williams, that there is a new ‘structure of feeling’ towards space. Section 1 introduces two foundational concepts. The first, derived from Soja’s misunderstanding of Borges’ story The Aleph, argues for an ‘alephic vision’, an imposition of a de-materialized and revelatory understanding of space. This is related to the second, an ‘ecstatic vision’, which describes the tendency, illustrated through the work of Koolhaas and recent exhibitions on the experience of cities, to treat spatial and material experience in hyperbolic and hallucinatory terms. Section 2 offers a series of theoretical reconstructions which seek to draw out parallels between the work of key theorists of what I term the ‘respatialization’ literature (Harvey, Giddens, Foucault and Lefebvre) and the work of Hillier et al in the Space Syntax school. A series of empirical studies demonstrate that the approach to the material realm offered by Space Syntax is not only theoretically compatible but can also help to explain ‘real world’ phenomena. However, the elision with wider theoretical positions points to the need for a reworking of elements of Space Syntax, and steps towards this goal are offered in section 3. In the final ‘speculative epilogue’ I reopen the philosophical debates about the nature of space, deliberately suppressed from the beginning, and suggest that perhaps the apparent theoretical and empirical versatility of Space Syntax, based upon a configurational approach to space as a complex relational system, may offer an alternative approach to these enduring metaphysical debates

Conservation GIS: Ontology and spatial reasoning for commonsense knowledge.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.Geographic information available from multiple sources are moving beyond their local context and widening the semantic difference. The major challenge emerged with ubiquity of geographic information, evolving geospatial technology and location-aware service is to deal with the semantic interoperability. Although the use of ontology aims at capturing shared conceptualization of geospatial information, human perception of world view is not adequately addressed in geospatial ontology. This study proposes ‘Conservation GIS Ontology’ that comprises spatial knowledge of non-expert conservationists in the context of Chitwan National Park, Nepal. The discussion is presented in four parts: exploration of commonsense spatial knowledge about conservation; development of conceptual ontology to conceptualize domain knowledge; formal representation of conceptualization in Web Ontology Language (OWL); and quality assessment of the ontology development tasks. Elicitation of commonsense spatial knowledge is performed with the notion of cognitive view of semantic. Emphasis is given to investigate the observation of wildlife movement and habitat change scenarios. Conceptualization is carried out by providing the foundation of the top-level ontology- ‘DOLCE’ and geospatial ontologies. Protégé 4.1 ontology editor is employed for ontology engineering tasks. Quality assessment is accomplished based on the intrinsic approach of ontology evaluation.(...

Data Liquidity: Conceptualization, Measurement and Determinants

Despite the rhetoric that “data is the new oil” organizations continue to face challenges in data monetization, and we don’t have a reliable way to measure how easily data assets can be reused and recombined in value creation and appropriation efforts. Data asset liquidity is a critical, yet underexamined, prerequisite for data monetization initiatives. We contribute to the theorizing process by advancing a definition, conceptualization, and measurement of data liquidity as an asset level construct. Based on interviews with 95 Chief Data and Analytics Officers from 67 distinct large global organizations, we identify three determinants of data liquidity: inherent asset characteristics, structural asset characteristics, and asset environment characteristics. We theorize the existence of equifinal configurations that yield liquid data assets, configurations that should prove helpful to academics and practitioners seeking to understand data liquidity and its impact on firms’ data monetization efforts as well as society at large

Many to many mobile maps

The rapid development of mobile computing devices along with a variety of Web 2.0 social networking tools has led to a dramatic change in the way maps and other spatial displays are utilized. The evolution from stand-alone desktop GIS to the interactive, mobile devices, in which information from one or more sources and is sent to one or more sinks, is discussed. The result is access to real-time information, which is generated from both traditional sources, social networks, and other specialized geowikis. Both the benefits of many to many mobile maps and the emergence of new problems, such as understanding the needs of the user and providing appropriate context, are discussed

Development of Adjectival Use and Meaning Structures in Swedish Students' Written production

This thesis is about the development of adjective use and meaning structures examined from a cognitive linguistic perspective. Adjectives modify nominal meanings and it is in context, in the interaction with the noun that the adjective meaning and configuration is determined. Nearly 13,000 adjective-noun combinations from texts written by Swedish students in grades 3, 5, 9, and 11/12 were analysed according to the LOC model (Ontologies and Construals in Lexical Semantics, Paradis, 2005) with regard to domains, noun ontology, adjective gradability, adjective position, and adjective function. Furthermore, the use of figurative language was studied. The results show a development from adjectives predominantly modifying concrete nouns to increasingly abstract meanings from a broad range of adjective and noun domains. The younger students use adjectives predominantly in the predicative position but there is a gradual shift towards attributive use, and attributive uses are the most common in the highest grade. Adjectives are primarily used in a descriptive function, but in the highest grade approximately one third of all adjectives are used in a classifying function. Scalar adjective construal is the most common in all grades, but the proportion of scalar uses decreases in favour of an increase in non-gradable uses. Figurative language is rare in all grades, but there is an increase in metaphorical language over the school years

A Conceptual Model of Exploration Wayfinding: An Integrated Theoretical Framework and Computational Methodology

This thesis is an attempt to integrate contending cognitive approaches to modeling wayfinding behavior. The primary goal is to create a plausible model for exploration tasks within indoor environments. This conceptual model can be extended for practical applications in the design, planning, and Social sciences. Using empirical evidence a cognitive schema is designed that accounts for perceptual and behavioral preferences in pedestrian navigation. Using this created schema, as a guiding framework, the use of network analysis and space syntax act as a computational methods to simulate human exploration wayfinding in unfamiliar indoor environments. The conceptual model provided is then implemented in two ways. First of which is by updating an existing agent-based modeling software directly. The second means of deploying the model is using a spatial interaction model that distributed visual attraction and movement permeability across a graph-representation of building floor plans