Spatial and Temporal Reasoning

. Ed(s): Stock, Oliviero

ISBN 10: 0792346440 / ISBN 13: 9780792346449

Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997

This work examines current research in qualitative reasoning about space and time, focusing on representational and computational issues. It emphasizes major lines of development in this multifaceted area and shows some common ground of spatial and temporal aspects of qualitative reasoning. Editor(s): Stock, Oliviero. Num Pages: 394 pages, biography. BIC Classification: CFX. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly; (UU) Undergraduate. Dimension: 235 x 155 x 23. Weight in Grams: 763. . 1997. Hardback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # V9780792346449

Synopsis:

Qualitative reasoning about space and time - a reasoning at the human level - promises to become a fundamental aspect of future systems that will accompany us in daily activity.
The aim of Spatial and Temporal Reasoning is to give a picture of current research in this area focusing on both representational and computational issues. The picture emphasizes some major lines of development in this multifaceted, constantly growing area. The material in the book also shows some common ground and a novel combination of spatial and temporal aspects of qualitative reasoning.
Part I presents the overall scene. The chapter by Laure Vieu is on the state of the art in spatial representation and reasoning, and that by Alfonso Gerevini gives a similar survey on research in temporal reasoning. The specific contributions to these areas are then grouped in the two main parts. In Part II, Roberto Casati and Achille Varzi examine the ontological status of spatial entities; Anthony Cohn, Brandon Bennett, John Gooday, and Nicholas Gotts present a detailed theory of reasoning with qualitative relations about regions; Andrew Frank discusses the spatial needs of geographical information systems; and Annette Herskovits focuses on the linguistic expression of spatial relations. In Part III, James Allen and George Ferguson describe an interval temporal logic for the representation of actions and events; Drew McDermott presents an efficient way of predicting the outcome of plan execution; and Erik Sandewall introduces a semantics based on transitions for assessing theories of action and change. In Part IV, Antony Galton's chapter stands clearly between the two areas of space and time and outlines the main coordinates of an integrated approach.

About the Author: Oliviero Stock is the Head of the Cognitive and Communication Technologies Division at the Istituto per la Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica (IRST) in Trento, Italy. His main research activities are artificial intelligence, natural language processing, intelligent interfaces and human-computer interaction. He has been the President of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence and the Association for Computational Linguistics, and the Chairman of the European coordinating committee for Artificial Intelligence.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Spatial and Temporal Reasoning
Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers
Publication Date: 1997
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: New