Transcepts: Connecting Entity Representations across Conceptual Views on Spatial Information

Abstract

Analysts interpret geographic and other spatial data to check the validity of methods in reaching an analytical goal. However, the meaning of data is elusive. The same data may constitute one concept in one view and another concept in another. For example, the same set of air pollution points may be regarded as field values if they are considered pollution measurements and objects if they are1considered locations of measurement devices. In this work we adopt a framework of conceptual1spaces and viewpoints and show how entity representations in one semantic interpretation may be related to entity representations in others in terms of what we call transcepts. A transcept captures which things represent the same entity. We define and use transcepts in the framework to explain how different views of geographic data may relate to one another.