Place reference systems

Abstract

Reference to places is a central but largely underexposed problem of information science. Place has been a major object of research in many domains including Geography, Cognitive Science and Geographic Information Science. However, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been built solely on space reference systems creating a gap between human conceptualization and machine representation. While reference to space only partially captures reference to place, most existing definitions of place either reduce the latter to the former or lack a formal characterization of how places are constructed. In a spatial coordinate system, locations are referenced by angles and distances to other referents. In this paper, we suggest that place reference systems can be built based on localizing things (locatums) involved in simulated activities relative to other involved referents (locators). We propose a formal theory about relevant types of activities and their involved participants, and show how place referents can be identified and localized by choosing locators and locatum among the participants. We formally derive an ontology of places, publish a corresponding OWL version, and demonstrate how to compute a market place and a vantage place in a GIS.