A STUDY ON CELLULAR AUTOMATA BASED ON RELATIONAL DATABASES AND SPATIO-TEMPORAL SIMULATIONS OF CULTURE DIFFUSION

This paper presents a development of the extended Cellular Automata (CA), based on relational databases(RDB), to model dynamic interactions among spatial objects. The integration of Geographical Information System (GIS)and CA has the great advantage of simulating geographical processes. But standard CA has some restrictions in cellularshape and neighbourhood and neighbour rules, which restrict the CA's ability to simulate complex, real world environ-ments. This paper discusses a cell's spatial relation based on the spatial object's geometrical and non-geometrical characteris-tics, and extends the cell' s neighbour definition, and considers that the cell' s neighbour lies in the forms of not only spa-tial adjacency but also attribute correlation. This paper then puts forward that spatial relations between two different cellscan be divided into three types, including spatial adjacency, neighbourhood and complicated separation. Based on tradition-al ideas, it is impossible to settle CA's restrictions completely. RDB-based CA is an academic experiment, in whichsome fields are designed to describe the essential information needed to define and select a cell's neighbour. The cultureinnovation diffusion system has multiple forms of space diffusion and inherited characteristics that the RDB-based CA iscapable of simulating more effectively. Finally this paper details a successful case study on the diffusion of fashion weartrends. Compared to the original CA, the RDB-based CA is a more natural and efficient representation of human knowl-edge over space, and is an effective tool in simulating complex systems that have multiple forms of spatial diffusion.