Recent Advances in Visual Representation and Reasoning

Dear Colleagues,

Visual representations play a fundamental role in problem solving, enabling the use of spatial features for potential computational or cognitive advantages, for example.

From an application perspective, the diversity of visual representations utilised can be seen from examples such as knot diagrams and related objects or their variants (e.g., braids, virtual knots, welded knots), which have applications in biology, physics and chemistry (e.g., molecular knots in DNA, RNA and proteins, or via synthetic chemistry, statistical mechanics, particle motions); string diagrams for quantum theoretic applications; set system/Euler diagrams, combinatorial designs and graphs/hypergraphs for data/information presentation (e.g., regarding items, their relationships and set memberships/relationships), or as visual constraint languages and reasoning systems (e.g., for use within software system specifications or for business process analysis); and bespoke visual notations for diagrammatic puzzles or proofs, with implications in cognitive science.

From a representational point of view, various tasks may arise, such as choosing or creating suitable visual representations as an abstraction for modelling problems, whether general or domain specific; automatically generating a representative diagram from given information or data; developing reasoning systems utilising the representations to enable analysis or logical reasoning within the problem domain; automating reasoning tasks; re-representing information via different representations; modifying or repurposing representations, for alternative tasks; or blending representations for enhanced representative capabilities.

A key aim of this Special Issue is to draw together the state of the art across different diagram types, fields of application and problem areas in order to raise awareness and identify commonalities, distinctions and potential synergies. The scope covers the theory and application of visual representations within the sciences, where representation itself is essential to the problem at hand. Survey-type articles are welcome, in addition to standard research articles.

Dr. Andrew Fish
Guest Editor

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• visual representations
• diagrammatic reasoning
• visual languages
• knot diagrams
• Euler diagrams
• combinatorial designs
• graphs
• hypergraphs
• string diagrams
• visual proofs