Modelling Principles and Methodologies – Relations in Anatomical Ontologies

Abstract

Spatial relations include mereological relations such as parthood and overlap, topological relations such as connectedness and one-pieceness, as well as location relations. The location and the arrangement of an anatomical structure within the human body can be further specified by means of relations that express spatial orderings in a qualitative way, e.g. superior, anterior, lateral, etc. In this chapter we give an overview of the various kinds of spatial relations and their properties. We particularly focus on properties of spatial relations that can be exploited for automated reasoning. We also discuss the distinction between so-called individual-level and type-level spatial relations.