An Ordering of Convex Topological Relations

Abstract. Klippel has recently identified topological relativity as an important question for geographic information theory. One way of assessing at the importance of topology in spatial reasoning and in spatial theory is to analyze commonplace terms from natural language relative to conceptual neighborhood graphs, the alignment structures of choice for topological relations. Each of the terms analyzed is found to represent a convex set within the conceptual neighborhood graph of the region-region relations, giving rise to the construction of the convex ordering of region-region relations on the surface of the sphere