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Qualitative Spatial Representation for the Humanities

Qualitative Spatial Representation for the Humanities ‘Qualitative spatial reasoning and representation’ is a range of techniques developed in Artificial Intelligence to meet the need for a computational treatment of qualitative spatial relations. Examples of such relations include ‘next to’, ‘overlapping’, ‘to the left of’, ‘separate from’, ‘including’, and so on. These relations occur within the data found in the spatial humanities, but the computational techniques described here do not appear to have been used in connection with this context. While Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are widely used as a means of visualizing and exploring material in the spatial humanities, GIS technology is acknowledged to be ill-suited to information that is vague, uncertain, ambiguous, imprecise or having other qualities that in a scientific setting could be regarded as imperfections. In the humanities such ‘imperfections’ are of course important, and qualitative spatial relations are one source of data that challenges scientifically based GIS. This article reviews the origin of qualitative spatial reasoning and representation in A. N. Whitehead's mereotopology and argues for exploring how these methods could complement GIS as a computational technique in the humanities. Qualitative representation is applicable to modelling spatial arrangements in many domains, not just geographical space. This is demonstrated through an example of spatial relations in lines of printed text. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of social_sciences_and_humanities and Arts Computing Edinburgh University Press

Qualitative Spatial Representation for the Humanities

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Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
Copyright © Edinburgh University Press
ISSN
1753-8548
eISSN
1755-1706
DOI
10.3366/ijhac.2019.0228
Publisher site
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Abstract

‘Qualitative spatial reasoning and representation’ is a range of techniques developed in Artificial Intelligence to meet the need for a computational treatment of qualitative spatial relations. Examples of such relations include ‘next to’, ‘overlapping’, ‘to the left of’, ‘separate from’, ‘including’, and so on. These relations occur within the data found in the spatial humanities, but the computational techniques described here do not appear to have been used in connection with this context. While Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are widely used as a means of visualizing and exploring material in the spatial humanities, GIS technology is acknowledged to be ill-suited to information that is vague, uncertain, ambiguous, imprecise or having other qualities that in a scientific setting could be regarded as imperfections. In the humanities such ‘imperfections’ are of course important, and qualitative spatial relations are one source of data that challenges scientifically based GIS. This article reviews the origin of qualitative spatial reasoning and representation in A. N. Whitehead's mereotopology and argues for exploring how these methods could complement GIS as a computational technique in the humanities. Qualitative representation is applicable to modelling spatial arrangements in many domains, not just geographical space. This is demonstrated through an example of spatial relations in lines of printed text.

Journal

International Journal of social_sciences_and_humanities and Arts Computing – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Oct 1, 2019

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