Bennett, B, Chaudhri, V and Dinesh, N (2013) A Vocabulary of Topological and Containment Relations for a Practical Biological Ontology. In: Tenbrink, T, Stell, J, Galton, A and Wood, Z, (eds.) Spatial Information Theory, 11th International Conference, COSIT 2013. Spatial Information Theory : 11th International Conference, COSIT 2013, 02-06 Aug 2013, Scarborough, UK. Springer International Publishing , pp. 418-437. ISBN 978-3-319-01789-1
Abstract
We describe the development of a formal language for expressing qualitative spatial knowledge. The language is intended as a practical tool for knowledge representation and has been designed with the particular aim of encoding the qualitative spatial information found in an introductory college level biology textbook. We have taken a corpus-driven approach in which we first identify the requirements by analysing the sentences in the book, design the vocabulary, and then check its adequacy by applying it to model the sentences containing spatial knowledge. Our technical solution extends the well-known Region Connection Calculus with predicates for referring to surfaces, cavities and different forms of containment. We illustrate the application of this vocabulary in encoding sample sentences from the book, and give empirical results regarding the correspondence between the defined relations of our formal theory and the actual usage of vocabulary pertaining to ‘surrounding’, ‘enclosure’ and ‘containment’ in the textbook.
Metadata
Item Type: | Proceedings Paper |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Computing (Leeds) > Artificial Intelligence & Biological Systems (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 08 Aug 2016 15:58 |
Last Modified: | 03 Nov 2016 03:44 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01790-7_23 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer International Publishing |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/978-3-319-01790-7_23 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:100721 |