astronomy

Reinhard Moratz

Reinhard Moratz is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Reinhard Moratz rather than just read about it. In short: Reinhard Moratz is a German science educator, academic and researcher. He is Ausserplanmässiger Professor at the University of Münster’s Institute for Geoinformatics.

Key takeaways

Reinhard Moratz belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
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Connect Reinhard Moratz to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Reinhard Moratz from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Reinhard Moratz is a German science educator, academic and researcher. He is Ausserplanmässiger Professor at the University of Münster’s Institute for Geoinformatics. He has worked on spatial cognition and reasoning, qualitative theories of low-dimensional entities like straight line segments and oriented points, artificial intelligence and specifically the OPRA calculus. His research is based on computational models that account for the varying reference frames used in giving verbal instructions about navigation. Moratz has published various research papers and is the author of Visuelle Objekterkennung als kognitive Simulation and co-editor of the conference proceedings of the Conference on Spatial Information Theory 2011 (COSIT 2011). Moratz's work has been published in Artificial Intelligence. He is a former member of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA).

Education Moratz completed his Bachelor and Master in Informatics from the University of Hamburg. He then received Doctoral degree in the same field from Bielefeld University.

Career Moratz started his academic career as an assistant professor at University of Bremen in 2001. He worked in the industry prior to receiving his Habilitation degree in Computer Science in 2008. Moratz then moved to the USA and was appointed as associate professor at University of Maine’s College of Engineering. He also served as the Director of the Human Robot Interaction Laboratory at the university. Parallel to this appointment, he was elected as a member of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA). In 2017, Moratz resigned from his positions at the University of Maine. He then returned to Germany, where he was appointed as Ausserplanmässiger Professor at the University of Münster's Institute for Geo-informatics in November 2018.

Research Moratz's research is primarily focused on the spatial application of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. He uses both formal and empirical methods to work on representing and modeling spatial cognition. His major scientific contributions include building bridges between calculi for Qualitative Spatial Reasoning (QSR) and human natural language.

Compatibility of QSR calculi and human linguistic expressions Moratz investigated spatial communication in linguistic human-robot interaction and found that linguistic constituents can be successfully mapped onto projective relations of positional QSR calculi. He designed a new calculi with finer distinctions regarding the constraint-based spatial reasoning. His work combines qualitative spatial and linguistic knowledge and has applications in human-robot interaction. Moratz's research also contributes to spatial representations as modules in ontologies. He also worked on spatial references to objects in human-robot interactions.

Relation between entities of QSR calculi and perceived objects Moratz has also conducted research on the relation between QSR calculus entities and perceived objects. He worked on identifying the real world objects that corresponded to spatial entities related to QSR calculi. He also conducted research on methods for detecting these real world objects through an automatic perception. His approach for function-based object recognition contributed to the link between sensorically registered object features and entities to reason about. His function-based object recognition uses the visually perceived function that is offered by constructed objects. Moratz's research indicates that certain spatial invariants can be used to detect meaningful high-level object classes, as object shape is typically determined by object function. Moratz's work has applications in the fields of mobile service robots, Geographic Information Systems, smart items, semantic technologies and location-based services, among others.

Bibliography

Books Visuelle Objekterkennung als kognitive Simulation(1997) ISBN 978-3-89838-174-1 Spatial Information Theory: 10th International Conference, COSIT 2011, Belfast, ME, USA (2011) ISBN 978-3-642-23195-7

Selected articles Moratz, Reinhard; Ragni, Marco (2008). "Qualitative spatial reasoning about relative point position". Journal of Visual Languages & Computing. 19 (1). Elsevier BV: 75–98. doi:10.1016/j.jvlc.2006.11.001. ISSN 1045-926X. Moratz, Reinhard; Tenbrink, Thora (2006). "Spatial Reference in Linguistic Human-Robot Interaction: Iterative, Empirically Supported Development of a Model of Projective Relations". Spatial Cognition & Computation. 6 (1). Informa UK Limited: 63–107. Bibcode:2006SpCC....6...63M. doi:10.1207/s15427633scc0601_3. ISSN 1387-5868. S2CID 18996294. Mossakowski, Till; Moratz, Reinhard (2012). "Qualitative reasoning about relative direction of oriented points". Artificial Intelligence. 180–181. Elsevier BV: 34–45. doi:10.1016/j.artint.2011.10.003. ISSN 0004-3702. Moratz, Reinhard; Wallgrün, Jan Oliver (19 December 2012). "Spatial reasoning with augmented points: Extending cardinal directions with local distances". Journal of Spatial Information Science (5). doi:10.5311/josis.2012.5.84. ISSN 1948-660X. Moratz, Reinhard; Lücke, Dominik; Mossakowski, Till (2011). "A condensed semantics for qualitative spatial reasoning about oriented straight line segments". Artificial Intelligence. 175 (16–17). Elsevier BV: 2099–2127. doi:10.1016/j.artint.2011.07.004. ISSN 0004-3702.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Reinhard Moratz

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Reinhard Moratz claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Reinhard Moratz before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Reinhard Moratz ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Reinhard Moratz

In research: Reinhard Moratz appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Reinhard Moratz in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Reinhard Moratz is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century German scientists, Academic staff of the University of Bremen, Academic staff of the University of Münster, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Reinhard Moratz outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Reinhard Moratz in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Reinhard Moratz means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Reinhard Moratz out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Reinhard Moratz in simple terms?

Reinhard Moratz is a German science educator, academic and researcher. He is Ausserplanmässiger Professor at the University of Münster’s Institute for Geoinformatics.

Why does Reinhard Moratz matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Reinhard Moratz?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Reinhard Moratz.