Ontology-based Disambiguation of Spatiotemporal Locations

Abstract. Geographic place names are semantically often highly ambiguous. For example, there are 491 places in Finland sharing the same name "Isosaari" (great island) that are instances of several geographical classes, such as Island, Forest, Peninsula, Inhabited area, etc. Referencing unambiguously to a particular "Isosaari", either when annotating content or during information retrieval, can be quite problematic and requires usage of advanced search methods and maps for semantic disambiguation. Historical places introduce even more challenges, since historical metadata commonly make spatiotemporal references to historical regions and places using names whose meanings are non-existing or different in different times. This paper presents how these problems have been addressed in a large Finnish place ontology SUO and a historical geo-ontology SAPO. A location ontology server ONKI-Geo has been created for publishing the ontologies and utilizing them as mashup service...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: ESWS
• Authors: Tomi Kauppinen, Riikka Henriksson, Reetta Sinkkilä, Robin Lindroos, Jari Väätäinen, Eero Hyvönen
• Keywords: ESWS 2008, Geographic Place Names, Historical Geo-ontology Sapo, Internet Technology, Place Ontology Suo