Geometric and Algorithmic Aspects of Topological Queries to Spatial Databases

Proefschrift voorgelegd tot het behalen van de graad van doctor in de wetenschappen, richting informatica aan de transnationale Universiteit Limburg te verdedigen door Preface First of all, I would like to thank Jan Van den Bussche for his support during the last four years. His never ending enthusiasm and advice made this dissertation possible. His intensive use of red ballpoints, learned me, hopefully, how to write scientific texts. Further, I am grateful to Bart Kuijpers. His geometrical insights were of great help. I am also grateful to Peter Revesz. The Renumbering Algorithm in Chapter 6 is the result of our joint work. I am also grateful to Bart Goethals. Apart from his enjoyable company as office-mate, his programming skills and SUN Ultra 10, made the experiments in Chapter 6 possible. This dissertation further benefitted from pleasant discussions with, among others, Chris Giannella, Stephan Kreutzer and Leonid Libkin. I also would like to thank Masahiro Shiota for bringing Lemma I.1.3 and Lemma I.1.5 in his book [66] to my attention. I thank the members of our research group for creating a stimulating environment. Many thanks to all people who contributed to this dissertation in some way or another. More specifically, my thanks go to the administrative staff, colleagues, family, and friends. Finally, I would like to thank Kristin for her support over the years.