Copyright © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Qualitative reasoning about consistency in geographic information
Received 17 September 2003;
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Abstract
This paper explores the development and use of a qualitative reasoning system for describing consistency between different geographic data sets. Consistency is closely related to issues of uncertainty and interoperability in geographic information, and the paper assesses how automated reasoning about consistency can be used to support the integration of heterogeneous geographic data sets. The system developed is based on description logic. The decidability and tractability characteristics of description logic allow consistency checking to be deferred during data integration, so minimizing the information loss that usually accompanies any data integration task. Further, the user interface allows users to negotiate with the system in defining consistency. The results of the research suggest that further work could significantly increase the level of automation for many geographic data integration tasks.
Keywords: Interoperability; Description logic; Region connection calculus; GIS; Information fusion
Article Outline
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Background
- 2.1. Acting on inconsistency
- 2.1.1. Learning
- 2.1.2. Inconsistency resolution
- 2.1.3. Instigate dialog
- 3. Qualitative reasoning with space and theme
- 3.1. Simple spatio-thematic knowledge base
- 3.1.1. Consistent
- 3.1.2. Possibly consistent
- 3.1.3. Inconsistent
- 4. Reasoning system
- 4.1. Description logic
- 4.2. Reasoning services
- 4.2.1. Abstract data set
- 5. Extending the reasoning system
- 5.1. Granularity and consistency
- 5.2. Using RCC5
- 6. Example implementation and application
- 6.1. Software architecture
- 6.2. User interface
- 6.3. Application background
- 6.4. Application
- 7. Discussion
- Acknowledgements
- References







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