This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 29th Annual German Conference on Artificial Intelligence, KI 2006, held in Bremen, Germany, in June 2006 - co-located with RoboCup 2006, the innovative robot soccer world championship, and with ACTUATOR 2006, the 10th International Conference on New Actuators.

The 29 revised full papers presented together with 2 invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from 112 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on cognition and emotion, semantic Web, analogy, natural language, reasoning, ontologies, spatio-temporal reasoning, machine learning, spatial reasoning, robot learning, classical AI problems, and agents. The book is completed with the extended abstracts of 8 lectures - especially invited for the public symposium 50 Years AI' held after the regular conference sessions.

This is the fourth volume in a series of books dedicated to basic research in spatial cognition. Spatial cognition is a field that investigates the connection between the physical spatial world and the mental world. Philosophers and researchers have p- posed various views concerning the relation between the physical and the mental worlds: Plato considered pure concepts of thought as separate from their physical manifestations while Aristotle considered the physical and the mental realms as two aspects of the same substance. Descartes, a dualist, discussed the interaction between body and soul through an interface organ and thus introduced a functional view that presented a challenge for the natural sciences and the humanities. In modern psych- ogy, the relation between the physical and the cognitive space has been investigated using thorough experiments, and in artificial intelligence we have seen views as diverse as 'problems can be solved on a representation of the world' and 'a representation of the world is not necessary. ' Today's spatial cognition work establishes a correspondence between the mental and the physical worlds by studying and exploiting their interaction; it investigates how mental space and spatial "reality" join together in understanding the world and in interacting with it. The physical and representational aspects are equally important in this work. Almost all topics of cognitive science manifest themselves in spatial cognition.

This section gives a description of notions used throughout this study. Current achievements in developing action-centered ontologies are also discussed. 2.1 Ontologies In the context of information extraction and retrieval, different kinds of ontologies can be distinguished [15]: * Top-level ontologies describe very general concepts like space and time, not depending on a particular domain, * Domain ontologies and task ontologies describe the vocabulary related to a generic domain or kind of task, detailing the terms used in the top-level ontology, * Application ontologies describe the concepts that depend on the particular domain and task within a specific activity. Several investigations have been conducted to bring actions (tasks) to bear on - tologies. Among them are Chandrasekaran et al. [6] and Mizoguchi et al. [23] in the fields of AI and Knowledge Engineering. For the geospatial domain, Kuhn [21] and Raubal and Kuhn [26] have attempted to support human actions in ontologies for transportation. Acknowledging the importance of human actions in the geographic domain, a research workshop was held in 2002, bringing together experts from diff- ent disciplines to share the knowledge and work on this issue [1]. Camara [5], one of the workshop participants, has proposed that action-driven spatial ontologies are formed via category theory, for the case of emergency action plans.

This third volume documents the results achieved within a priority program on spatial cognition funded by the German Science Foundation (DFG). The 23 revised full papers presented went through two rounds of reviewing and improvement and reflect the increased interdisciplinary cooperation in the area. The papers are organized in topical sections on routes and navigation, human memory and learning, spatial representation, and spatial reasoning.

Spatialcognitionisconcernedwiththewayshumans,animals,ormachinesthink about real or abstract space and also with the ways spatial structures can be used for reasoning. Thus, space is considered both, as an object of cognition and as ameans of cognition. Spatial cognition is an interdisciplinary research areainvolvingapproachesfromarti?cialintelligence,cognitivepsychology,ge- raphy, mathematics, biology, design, theoretical computer science, architecture, andphilosophy.Researchonspatialcognitionhasprogressedrapidlyduringthe past few years. The disciplines contributing to the ?eld have moved closer - getherandbegintospeakacommonlanguage.Theyhavefoundwaysofmerging theresearchresultsobtainedthroughdi?erentapproaches.Thisallowsfordev- oping more sophisticated hybrid approaches that overcome intrinsic limitations of the individual disciplines. Research on spatial cognition has drawn increased attention in recent years foratleastthreedi?erentreasons:(1)basicresearchdimension:thereisagr- ing awareness of the importance of spatial cognitive abilities in biological s- tems, speci?cally with respect to perception and action, to the organization of memory, and to understanding and producing natural language; (2) compu- tionaldimension:spatialrepresentationsandspatialinferencemayprovidesu- ablelimitationsto enhancethe computationale? ciencyforalargeandrelevant class of problems; (3) application dimension: a good understanding of spatial processes is essential for a wide variety of challenging application areas incl- ing Geographic Information Systems (GIS), pedestrian and vehicle navigation aids,autonomousrobots,smartgraphics,medicalsurgery,informationretrieval, virtual reality, Internet navigation, and human-computer interfaces. This is the second volume published in the framework of the Spatial Cog- tion Priority Program. It augments the results presented in Freksa et al. 1998.

The Conference on Spatial Information Theory - COSIT - grew out of a series of workshops / NATO Advanced Study Institutes / NSF specialist meetings concerned with cognitive and applied aspects of representing large-scale space, particularly geographic space. In these meetings, the need for a well-founded theory of spatial information processing was identified. The COSIT conference series was established in 1993 as a biennial interdisciplinary European conference on the representation and processing of information about large-scale space, after a successful international conference on the topic had been organized by Andrew Frank et al. in Pisa, Italy, in 1992 (frequently referred to as 'COSIT zero'). After two successful European conferences with strong North-American participation (COSIT '93, held on the Island of Elba, Italy; COSIT '95, held in Semmering, Austria), the conference became a truly international enterprise when COSIT '97 was held in the Laurel Highlands, Pennsylvania, USA. COSIT '99 will take place in Stade, Germany. All aspects of large-scale space, i. e. spaces too large to be seen from a single vantage point, are addressed in the COSIT conferences. These include spaces of geographic scale, as well as smaller spaces in which humans, animals, or autonomous robots have to find their way around. Spatial information theory also deals with the description of objects, processes, or events in spatial environments and it forms the foundation for the construction of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and for spatial information and communication system design in general.

Research on spatial cognition is a rapidly evolving interdisciplinary enterprise for the study of spatial representations and cognitive spatial processes, be they real or abstract, human or machine. Spatial cognition brings together a variety of - search methodologies: empirical investigations on human and animal orientation and navigation; studies of communicating spatial knowledge using language and graphical or other pictorial means; the development of formal models for r- resenting and processing spatial knowledge; and computer implementations to solve spatial problems, to simulate human or animal orientation and navigation behavior, or to reproduce spatial communication patterns. These approaches can interact in interesting and useful ways: Results from empirical studies call for formal explanations both of the underlying memory structures and of the processes operating upon them; we can develop and - plement operational computer models obeying the relationships between objects and events described by the formal models; we can empirically test the computer models under a variety of conditions, and we can compare the results to the - sults from the human or animal experiments. A disagreement between these results can provide useful indications towards the re nement of the models.

This book constitutes an anthology of refereed papers arranged to acknowledge the work of Wilfried Brauer on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. The volume presents 49 revised refereed papers organized in topical sections on computer science and its potential, social implications of computer science, formal languages and automata, structures and complexity theory, Petri nets, systems analysis and distributed systems, software engineering and verification, cognition and artificial intelligence, knowledge representation and reasoning, machine learning, neural networks and robotics, language and information systems.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Spatial Cognition, Spatial Cognition 2014, held in Bremen, Germany, in September 2014. The 27 revised full papers presented in this book were carefully selected and reviewed from 53 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on spatial memory; language and communication; wayfinding and navigation; computational models; diagrams and maps; technical approaches; and spatial ability.

Ein zentraler Problemkreis der neueren KI-Forschung ist die Reprasentation des Gegenstandlichen. Insbesondere stellt sich die Frage, wie raumliche Konstellationen zu reprasentieren und zu verarbeiten sind. Primares Ziel des vorliegenden Bandes ist es, einen Uberblick uber die aktuelle Forschung im Bereich von Reprasentation und Verarbeitung raumlichen Wissens zu geben. Die Beitrage des Bandes decken das gesamte Spektrum der kognitionsorientierten KI-Forschung ab, von Arbeiten, die, in der Tradition der Kybernetik bzw. Neurophysiologie stehend, Aspekte der Raumorientierung in biologischen Systemen betreffen, uber formale Ansatze zur Bildverarbeitung und Integration von Bild- und Sprachverarbeitung, die an Fragestellungen der Theoretischen Informatik orientiert sind, bis zu Ansatzen, die die naturlichsprachliche Verarbeitung raumlicher Konstellationen durch Menschen und Maschinen betreffen. Ein weiteres Ziel des Bandes besteht darin, die Basis fur eine interdisziplinare Bearbeitung der Thematik zu schaffen. Der vorliegende Band enthalt die uberarbeiteten Fassungen von Vortragen, die bei dem Workshop "Reprasentation und Verarbeitung raumlichen Wissens" der Fachgruppe Kognition der GI im November 1988 gehalten wurden. Zusatzlich wurden einige erganzende Beitrage aufgenommen. Das Buch wird durch eine umfangreiche Bibliographie abgerundet."

Durch die Reihe der GI-Kongresse uber wissensbasierte Systeme wird eine groessere OEffentlichkeit uber den Stand der Entwicklung sowohl in den Entwurfsmethoden und Konstruktionstechniken als auch in der industriellen Anwendung unterrichtet. Ein wichtiges Ziel ist dabei, auf das grosse Potential an Anwendungsmoeglichkeiten hinzuweisen und intensivere Kooperation zwischen verschiedenen Gebieten anzuregen. Behandelt werden diesmal neben den Grundlagen, Entwicklungen und Anwendungen von Expertensystemen auch maschinelles Lernen, naturlichsprachliche Systeme und Konnektionismus. Einen grossen Raum nimmt die Prasentation von Gemeinschaftsprojekten ein; insbesondere werden deutsche KI-Zentren, alle BMFT-Verbundprojekte im Bereich wissensbasierter Systeme und zahlreiche europaische Gemeinschaftsprojekte (EUREKA- und ESPRIT-Projekte) dargestellt. Dieses Buch wendet sich an alle, die Interesse an der Informatik und ihren Anwendungen haben. Es soll sowohl Wissenschaftler als auch Praktiker und moegliche Anwender informieren und zu fruchtbarer Diskussion und Zusammenarbeit stimulieren.

"Kognitive Aspekte der Mensch-Computer-Interaktion" war das Thema des ersten Workshops des Arbeitskreises "Kognition" im FachausschuB 1. 2 "KUnstliche Intelligenz und Mustererkennung," Gesellschaft fUr Infor matik und des MUnchener Arbeitskreises fUr KUnstliche Intelligenz und Cognitive Science. Er wurde am 12. und 13. April 1984 in den R umen der Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung von 35 Teilnehmern aus Hochschulen, Forschungsinstituten und Industrie durchgefUhrt. Der vorliegende Band enth lt 15 Beitr ge aus der Perspektive von Psychologen, Informatikern und Systemdesignern, die aus den Uberarbeiteten Vortr gen entstanden sind. Dabei konnten viele Anregungen aus der gemeinsamen Diskussion aller Teilnehmer aufgegriffen werden. FUr die fruchtbare Arbei- atmosph re w hrend des Workshops waren die hohe Motivation und die groBe Aktivit t der Teilnehmer sowie der stimulierende Charakter des Tagungsortes wichtige Faktoren. Wir dank en allen Teilnehmern und Forderern. Dezember 1985 Die Herausgeber TEILNEHMER DES WORKSHOPS David Ackermann, ETH ZUrich Stephan Bayer1, Universitat MUnchen Helmut von Benda, TU MUnchen (jetzt Universitat Er1angen-NUrnberg) Klaus F."