The paper is a overview of the major qualitative spatial representation and reasoning techniques. We survey the main aspects of the representation of qualitative knowledge including ontological aspects, topology, distance, orientation and shape. We also consider qualitative spatial reasoning including reasoning about spatial change. Finally there is a discussion of theoretical results and a glimpse of future work. The paper is a revised and condensed version of [33, 34].

Abstract. We propose a modular formal ontology of the biomedical domain with two components, one for biological objects, corresponding broadly to anatomy, and one for biological processes, corresponding broadly to physiology. The result constitutes what might be described as a joint venture between two perspectives – of

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Abstract. This paper is concerned with certain ontological issues in the foundations of geographic representation. It sets out what these basic issues are, describes the tools needed to deal with them, and draws some implications for a general theory of spatial representation. Our approach has ramifications in the domains of mereology, topology, and the theory of location, and the question of the interaction of these three domains within a unified spatial representation theory is addressed. In the final part we also consider the idea of nonstandard geographies, which may be associated with geography under a classical conception in the same sense in which non-standard logics are associated with classical logic. 1.

While mereotopology -- the theory of boundaries, contact and separation built up on a mereological foundation -- has found fruitful applications in the realm of qualitative spatial reasoning, it faces problems when its methods are extended to deal with those kinds of spatial and non-spatial reasoning which involve a factor of granularity. This is because granularity cannot easily be represented within a mereology-based framework. We sketch how this problem can be solved by means of a theory of coarse-grained partitions, drawing on methods developed for the manipulation of partitions in the spatial realm and applying these to a range of partitions of non-spatial sorts. We then show how these same methods can be extended to apply to finite sequences of partitions evolving over time, or to what we shall call coarse- and fine-grained histories. Keywords: mereotopology, granularity, ontology, partitions, histories 1. Introduction As a result of a series of important contribut...

The paper presents a new method for generating typologies of formal-ontological relations. The guiding idea is that formal relations are those sorts of relations which hold between entities which are constituents of distinct ontologies. We provide examples of ontologies (in the spirit of Zemach’s classic “Four Ontologies ” of 1970), and show how these can be used to give a rich typology of formal relations in a way which also throws light on the opposition between threeand four-dimensionalism. There are many candidate formal-ontological relations, for instance: identity and difference, parthood and overlap, inherence and dependence, participation and location. Our task in what follows is to provide a principle for generating the complete family of such relations. This will mean providing an account of what formal-ontological relations are, and of how they differ from relations of other types (for instance from static material relations such as lies on and fits into, from material relational events such as kisses and thumps, from comparative relations such as is taller than and is further from Witwatersrand than, and from family relations such as is the brother of and is consanguineous with). The starting point for our endeavours is a philosophical position which we call realist perspectivalism (Grenon 2003a; Smith and Brogaard 2003). This consists in the view that any given domain of reality can be viewed from a number of different ontological perspectives, all of which can have equal claim to veridicality. Compare the way in which medical science is divided into anatomy and physiology: the former tells us about the structures of the human

Every domain-specific ontology must use as a framework some upper-level ontology which describes the most general, domain-independent categories of reality. In the present paper we sketch a new type of upper-level ontology, which is intended to be the basis of a knowledge modelling language GOL (for: 'General Ontological Language'). It turns out that the upper- level ontology underlying standard modelling languages such as KIF, F-Logic and CycL is restricted to the ontology of sets. Set theory has considerable mathematical power and great flexibility as a framework for modelling different sorts of structures. At the same time it has the disadvantage that sets are abstract entities (entities existing outside the realm of time, space and causality), and thus a set-theoretical framework should be supplemented by some other machinery if it is to support applications in the ripe, messy world of concrete objects. In the present paper we partition the entities of the real world into sets and urelements, and then we introduce several new ontological relations between these urelements. In contrast to standard modelling and representation formalisms, the concepts of GOL provide a machinery for representing and analysing such ontologically basic relations.

Mereotopology is today regarded as a major tool for ontological analysis, and for many good reasons. There are, however, a number of open questions that call for an answer. Some of them are philosophical, others have direct import for applications, but all are crucial for a proper assessment of the strengths and limits of mereotopology. This paper is an attempt to put some order into this still untamed area of research. I will not attempt any answers. But I shall try to give an idea of the problems, and of their relevance for the systematic development of formal ontological theories.

. Spatial objects are located in regions of space. In this paper the notions of exact, part, and rough location are discussed. Exact location is the relation between an object and the region of space it occupies. The notion of part location characterizes relations between parts of objects and parts of regions of space. The notion of rough location characterizes the location of a spatial object within a set of regions which form a regional partition of space. It links parts of spatial objects to parts of partition elements. The relationships between rough location, vague dened spatial objects, and indeterminacy of location are discussed. Knowledge about location of spatial objects in physical reality is based on observation and measurement. This paper argues that the the observations and measurement of location in physical reality yield knowledge about rough location rather than knowledge about exact location. The underlying regional partitions are created by the observati...

Formal ontology, as the science of the formal relations that structure reality as a whole, aims at a theory of categories corresponding to the most general features of possible objects, whether existing or non-existing. The present paper is an attempt to summarise and extend recent research in analytical metaphysics in a formalised theory of objects. Existence is characterised as a formal property, suggesting that the use of quantifiers alone does not involve any existential assumptions about the objects quantified over. However, the only non-existing objects allowed for in the present account are real or objective possibilities. De re modalities as well as ontological dependence are defined on the basis of a counterpart-theoretic specification of possibilia. The present framework allows for necessary and non-relative identity as well as for a granular parthood relationship satisfying the thesis of composition as partial identity. The paper culminates in the formalisation of an Aristotelian four-category ontology allowing for universals and particulars, substances and particularised properties; in this context, the redundance of higher-order material universals as well as moderate haecceitism is argued for. After a short analysis of relationality and extrinsicness, a theory of spatial and temporal objects is sketched and a temporal counterpart theory is proposed as a solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics. The paper concludes with some general remarks on the relation between ontology and the theory of subjectivity, defending a modal approach to consciousness and a counterpart theoretic analysis of intentionality.