Abstract: Contextualization of Geospatial Database Semantics

Contextualization of Geospatial Database Semantics Written by Administrator Thursday, 19 May 2011 07:40 Last Updated Friday, 04 October 2013 17:19 Human interactions with geographical information are contextualized by problem-solving activities which endow meaning to geospatial data and processing. However, existing spatial data models have not taken this aspect of semantics into account. This paper extends spatial data semantics to include not only the contents and schemas, but also the contexts of their use. I specify such a semantic model in terms of three related components: context knowledge, contextualized ontology base, and context-sensitive interpretation. Such contextualization of spatial data semantics allows the same underlying data to take multiple semantic forms, and disambiguate spatial concepts based on localized contexts. I demonstrate how such a semantic model supports contextualized interpretation of vague spatial concepts during human-GIS interactions. I employ conversational dialogue as the mechanism to perform collaborative diagnosis of context and to coordinate sharing of meaning across agents and contexts.