Carl Schultz

My view is that qualitative spatial reasoning calculi are not easily accessible to developers with a background in software engineering. Thus, in order to help bridge this gap, I am developing software engineering methodologies in the areas of requirements specification, design, analysis, validation, and meta-validation. A central theme in my PhD research (completed July 2010) was the adaptation of object-oriented software engineering techniques and paradigms in a manner that supports the strengths of qualitative spatial reasoning. For example, this includes incorporating the central role of continuity, working with infinite domains, and managing complex models that reason over a broad range of abstraction levels. In general, my research aims to facilitate the development of applications that utilise qualitative spatial reasoning calculi:

• How can we determine whether a qualitative system is capable of performing its required tasks?
• Which spatial abstractions should we use to model the world?
• How can we design and analyse effective domain-specific spatial inference rules?
• How do we test these systems, and when should we stop testing?