Spatial and Temporal Information Retrieval in Textual Corpora - Geographical Information Retrieval in Textual Corpora - page 38

alsoquantitative,forthecalculationofapproximatednumericrepresentations[FU 05,
LIU 09]. We identify five spatial relations:
- adjacency: unary relation allowing us to describe SFs such as “near SF”, “far
from SF” and “the periphery of SF”;
- inclusion: unary relation allowing us to describe SFs such as “the neighborhood
of SF”, “the center of SF” and “the peak of SF”;
- orientation: unary relation allowing us to describe SFs such as “south of SF”;
- distance: unary relation allowing us to describe SFs such as “an hour's walk
from SF” and “ 20 km from SF”;
- unionandintersection: n-aryrelationsthatlinkatleasttwoSFssuchas“between
SF1andSF2”,“theSF1, SF2, SF3triangle”, “attheintersectionofSF1andSF2”and
“the SF1-SF2 border”.
AnRSFisthusdefinedbyoneoftheserelationsandatleastanotherSFrecursively.
By the same principle, we distinguish five types of temporal relations:
- adjacency: unary relation allowing us to describe TFs such as “about TF”,
“around TF” and “the TFs”;
- inclusion: unary relation allowing us to describe TFs such as “in the early TF”
and “in the late TF”;
- orientation: unary relation allowing us to describe TFs such as “before TF” and
“after TF”;
- interval: binaryrelationallowingustodescribeTFssuchas“fromTF2toTF2”;
- enumeration: n-ary relation allowing us to describe TFs such as “9, 10 and TF”
(“12 November 1900”, for example).
An RTF is thus defined by one of these relations and at least another TF recursively.
The recursive definition of the SFs and TFs is an advantage of our model not only
from a pragmatic point of view but also from a cognitive point of view, since it is
close to our mode of reasoning. Two modes of representation are thus determined. A
first symbolic annotation recursively transcribes the semantics expressed in the text.
A second annotation referred to as numeric corresponds to an approximated
representation in the form of a georeference or an interval associated with the SF or
the TF, respectively. The numeric representation is related to an IR usage. Other uses
of these representations are obviously possible.