Home > CSSS Seminars > Werner Kuhn   Werner Kuhn Institute for Geoinformatics University of Muenster http://ifgi.uni-muenster.de/~kuhn/ Toward Semantic Reference Systems for Geographic Information Two information systems or services can be said to be semantically interoperable if they subscribe to standardized interfaces and have a common understanding of terms. This goal is particularly important for geographic information systems (GIS), because they typically use data and processes from multiple sources. It is also particularly difficult to achieve there, because these sources often represent different views of the same geographic reality. The talk first presents the idea of geospatial ontologies as Semantic Reference Systems, in analogy to the well-understood Spatial Reference Systems for maps or GIS. This analogy allows for elegant notions of semantic projections and transformations. I then propose a typology of semantic interoperability problems with examples. A method to design ontologies and use them as Semantic Reference Systems supporting semantic interoperability is introduced. It uses the functional programming language Haskell to write algebraic specifications for conceptual categories. The method can alsobe seen as a formalization for the notion of blendings in cognitive science. The case study to be presented uses the famous example of boathouses and houseboats from the blending literature.
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