Collaborative Spatial Decision Making with Qualitative
Constraints
Nikos Karacapilidis, Dimitris Papadias, and
Max Egenhofer Third International ACM Workshop on Advances in GIS, Baltimore, MD,
P. Bergougnoux, K. Makki, and N. Pissinou (eds.), ACM Press, pp. 53-59,1995.
Abstract
Usually spatial planning problems involve a large number of
decision makers with different backgrounds and interests. The
process of Collaborative Spatial Decision Making (CSDM) has to
reconcile the individual approaches and lead to solutions that
satisfy all participants. In this paper we deal with a particular
instance of CSDM that involves qualitative constraints. Qualitative
CSDM is very important for practical applications where decision
makers communicate spatial knowledge using relations in space
rather than absolute coordinates. It is also an interesting topic
from the scientific point of view, because it combines several
research areas related to Geographic Information Systems such as
Spatial Query Languages, Constraint Satisfaction Mechanisms,
Heterogeneous Databases, Spatial Access Methods, and Group Decision
Making. We describe the problems that need to be dealt with,
outline solutions, and propose a computational model that can
automate a large party of Qualitative CSDM.
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Nikos Karacapilidis, 
Dimitris Papadias, and
Max Egenhofer