Abstract

We explore the relation--algebraic aspects of the region connection calculus (RCC) of Randell et al. (1992a). In particular, we present a refinement of the RCC8 table which shows that the axioms provide for more relations than are listed in the present table. We also show that each RCC model leads to a Boolean algebra. Finally, we prove that a refined version of the RCC5 table has as models all atomless Boolean algebras B with the natural ordering as the "part -- of" relation, and that the table is closed under first order definable relations iff B is homogeneous. 1 Introduction Qualitative reasoning (QR) has its origins in the exploration of properties of physical systems when numerical information is not sufficient -- or not present -- to explain the situation at hand (Weld and Kleer, 1990). Furthermore, it is a tool to represent the abstractions of researchers who are constructing numerical systems which model the physical world. Thus, it fills a gap in data modeling which often l...

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