Semantic Reference Systems for Geospatial Information (Semantische Referenzsysteme für raumbezogene Information)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Werner Kuhn
• Subject Area: Security and Dependability, Operating-, Communication- and Distributed Systems
• Term: from 2004 to 2009
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5425526

• Final Report Year: 2014

Final Report Abstract

In this project, we developed a theory and method for grounding reference systems of geospatial data, based on human attention as well as perceptual and constructive operations. The theory serves as a methodological basis for reconstructing concepts underlying geospatial data as well as for precise semantic comparisons of those concepts. In a nutshell, the approach exploits constructive definitions of geospatial concepts, e.g. road junctions, in terms of repeatable standard procedures, such as navigation manoeuvres. In this way, it supports data providers in annotating their datasets with very precise descriptions of concept provenance and data users to compare these descriptions with the concepts needed. It thus gives rise to a novel notion of semantic interoperability, based on concept reconstruction and conversation among data users and providers. It also shows how technical sensors, measurements and observations can be described in a unified human-centric framework which discloses their observation context. Furthermore and foremost, it illustrates how geospatial object concepts such as road network categories and place types can be grounded in terms of potential activities, and how these definitions can be used in order to identify and localize corresponding objects. The approach not only has the potential to improve search and annotation technology, but also inspires new applications to automatically add data, to check expectations towards and consistency of data. Application areas include semantic referencing of volunteered geographic information (VGI), geographic information retrieval (GIR), place-based information systems, as well as the Semantic Sensor Web.

Publications

• Grounding geographic categories in the meaningful environment. In Spatial Information Theory, 9th Int. Conf., COSIT 2009; Springer, Berlin, 2009, pp. 69–87
  Scheider, S., Janowicz, K., Kuhn, W.
  
• Affordance-based categorization of road network data using a grounded theory of channel networks. International Journal of Geographical Information Science 24, 8 (2010), 1249 – 1267
  Scheider, S., Kuhn, W.
  
• Constructing bodies and their qualities from observations. In: Formal Ontology in Information Systems. Proc. of the Sixth International Conference (FOIS 2010), IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2010, pp. 131-144
  Scheider, S., Probst, F., Janowicz, K.
  
• Finite relativist geometry grounded in perceptual operations. In Spatial information theory: 10th international conference, COSIT 2011, LNCS 6899, 304-327. Springer, Berlin, 2011
  Scheider, S., Kuhn, W.
  
• Semantic Referencing of Geosensor Data and Volunteered Geographic Information. Ashish, N. and Sheth, A.P. (eds.): Geospatial Semantics and the Semantic Web. Foundations, Algorithms, and Applications, Springer, Berlin, 2011
  Scheider, S., Kessler, C., Ortmann, J., Devaraju, A. Trame, J., Kauppinen, T., Kuhn, W.
  
• Affordance-based search for junctions in Open Street Map, J. Spatial Information Science, 4 (1) : 31-56, 2012
  Scheider, S., Possin, J.
  
• Grounding geographic information in perceptual operations, volume 244 of Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications. IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2012
  Scheider, S.
  
• Meaningful spatial prediction and aggregation, Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 51 (2014), Pages 149-165
  Stasch, C., Scheider, S., Pebesma, E., Kuhn W.