Specification of high-level application programming interfaces (SemSorGrid4Env)

This document defines an Application Tier for the SemsorGrid4Env project. Within the Application Tier we distinguish between Web Applications - which provide a User Interface atop a more traditional Service Oriented Architecture - and Mashups which are driven by a REST API and a Resource Oriented Architecture. A pragmatic boundary is set to enable initial development of Web Applications and Mashups; as the project progresses an evaluation and comparison of the two paradigms may lead to a reassessment of where each can be applied within the project, with the experience gained providing a basis for general guidelines and best practice. Both Web Applications and Mashups are designed and delivered through an iterative user-centric process; requirements generated by the project case studies are a key element of this approach

Bridging between sensor measurements and symbolic ontologies through conceptual spaces

The increasing availability of sensor data through a variety of sensor-driven devices raises the need to exploit the data observed by sensors with the help of formally specified knowledge representations, such as the ones provided by the Semantic Web. In order to facilitate such a Semantic Sensor Web, the challenge is to bridge between symbolic knowledge representations and the measured data collected by sensors. In particular, one needs to map a given set of arbitrary sensor data to a particular set of symbolic knowledge representations, e.g. ontology instances. This task is particularly challenging due to the potential infinite variety of possible sensor measurements. Conceptual Spaces (CS) provide a means to represent knowledge in geometrical vector spaces in order to enable computation of similarities between knowledge entities by means of distance metrics. We propose an ontology for CS which allows to refine symbolic concepts as CS and to ground instances to so-called prototypical members described by vectors. By computing similarities in terms of spatial distances between a given set of sensor measurements and a finite set of prototypical members, the most similar instance can be identified. In that, we provide a means to bridge between the real-world as observed by sensors and symbolic representations. We also propose an initial implementation utilizing our approach for measurement-based Semantic Web Service discovery

Ontology of core concept data types for answering geo-analytical questions

In geographic information systems (GIS), analysts answer questions by designing workflows that transform a certain type of data into a certain type of goal. Semantic data types help constrain the application of computational methods to those that are meaningful for such a goal. This prevents pointless computations and helps analysts design effective workflows. Yet, to date it remains unclear which types would be needed in order to ease geo-analytical tasks. The data types and formats used in GIS still allow for huge amounts of syntactically possible but nonsensical method applications. Core concepts of spatial information and related geo-semantic distinctions have been proposed as abstractions to help analysts formulate analytic questions and to compute appropriate answers over geodata of different formats. In essence, core concepts reflect particular interpretations of data which imply that certain transformations are possible. However, core concepts usually remain implicit when operating on geodata, since a concept can be represented in a variety of forms. A central question therefore is: Which semantic types would be needed to capture this variety and its implications for geospatial analysis? In this article, we propose an ontology design pattern of core concept data types that help answer geo-analytical questions. Based on a scenario to compute a liveability atlas for Amsterdam, we show that diverse kinds of geo-analytical questions can be answered by this pattern in terms of valid, automatically constructible GIS workflows using standard sources

Museos virtuales y entorno construido: narrativas y experiencias inmersivas vía centros de geodatos multitemporales

[EN] Our built environment is nowadays considered as a dynamic complex, stretching and transforming across space and time, with the interaction of human, social and economic dimensions. It needs to be safeguarded as living places for the future taking into account such complexity. The general aim of this work is to contribute to the comprehension of landscape values, enhancing participation processes by tourists and local communities, considering the built environment as a system: the sum of natural transformation, ancient artefacts stratification and human activities, partially covering the tangible traces, and functioning as a vehicle for the comprehension of intangible values. Multi-temporal, multi-scale and geospatial datasets can play an important role in such knowledge transfer processes by means of narratives and immersive experiences in a multimedia museum approach. In particular, the cartographic heritage, in the form of metric and non-metric maps, can be progressively used as a source of information for innovative narratives. Virtual Museums (VMs)are additional "channels" to disseminate content and to provide knowledge about cultural heritage; they have emerged from the crossbreeding process between museums and digital technologies. Investigating how digital storytelling may support communication and understanding of complex systems, such as the built environment and landscape, it is relevant because cultural awareness may foster the sense of belonging and identity construction of which Europe is thirsty, contributing to the safeguarding of fragile sites. The paper provides useful information for museums that would like to follow this pathway. It retraces the main steps of storytelling production and presents interesting examples of immersive narrative models based on geospatial data and a virtual hub, helping people to retrieve and access information and to recognize places of memory mostly unknown. Moreover, it offers an evaluation of existing tools that can be adopted for this purpose. Eventually, by virtue of the research carried out for the case study of the Virtual Museum of Como Lake Landscape, the paper aims at ascertaining which kind of stories and experiences can be designed, the potential of these tools and possible weaknesses or constraints that deserve future researches.[ES] El entorno construido se considera hoy en día como un complejo dinámico, que se extiende y transforma a través del espacio y el tiempo, con interacción de dimensiones humanas, sociales y económicas. Debe salvaguardarse como lugares donde vivir el futuro teniendo en cuenta tal complejidad. El objetivo general de este trabajo es contribuir a la comprensión de los valores paisajísticos, potenciando los procesos de participación de los turistas y de los autóctonos, considerando el entorno construido como un sistema: suma de la transformación natural, de la estratificación de artefactos antiguos y de actividades humanas, cubriendo parcialmente los rastros tangibles, y vehículo de comprensión de valores intangibles. Los conjuntos de datos multitemporales, a multi-escala y geoespaciales pueden desempeñar un papel importante en dicho proceso de transferencia de conocimiento a través de narrativas y experiencias inmersivas en el enfoque de un museo multimedia. En particular, el patrimonio cartográfico, en forma de mapas métricos y mapas no métricos, puede utilizarse progresivamente como fuente de información para narrativas innovadoras. Los Museos Virtuales (VM) son “canales” adicionales que permiten difundir contenido y proporcionar conocimiento sobre el patrimonio cultural; surgen del proceso de mestizaje entre museos y tecnologías digitales. Investigar cómo la narración digital puede apoyar la comunicación y la comprensión de sistemas complejos, como el entorno construido y el paisaje, es relevante porque la conciencia cultural puede fomentar el sentido de pertenencia y la construcción de identidad de los que Europa tiene sed, contribuyendo a la protección de sitios frágiles. El artículo proporciona información útil para los museos que deseen seguir este camino. Describe los principales pasos que deberían considerarse a la hora de producir narrativas y pone ejemplos interesantes de modelos narrativos inmersivos basados en datos geoespaciales y centros virtuales, que ayudan a las personas a recuperar y acceder a información, y a reconocer lugares desconocidos o vagamente retenidos en la memoria. Además, ofrece una evaluación de las herramientas existentes que se pueden adoptar con este propósito. El objetivo es aclarar, finalmente, en virtud dela investigación desarrollada en el caso de estudio del Museo Virtual del Paisaje del Lago di Como, qué tipo de historias y experiencias se pueden diseñar, el potencial de estas herramientas y las posibles debilidades o limitaciones que merecen futuras investigaciones.We thank Stefano Della Torre (Head of Polimi dABC) as Sc. Responsible of the Advisory within the PORL FESR 2007/2013 ‘Multimedia system for the presentation and participated recognizing of the environmental values of the landscape of the Lake of Como’; and Leoni Marco (Director of the Museum of Como Lake Landscape) for the concession of museum’s data and his support in developing the PhD research of which this paper presents a summary of preliminary findings.The research leading to the results of this paper is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the European Community (CIP) GA no. 620400.Brumana, R.; Oreni, D.; Caspani, S.; Previtali, M. (2018). Virtual museums and built environment: narratives and immersive experience via multi-temporal geodata hub. Virtual Archaeology Review. 9(19):34-49. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2018.9918SWORD3449919Bedford, L. (2001). Storytelling: The real work of museums. 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Haifa, Israel.Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Cuca, B., Rampini, A., & Pepe, M. (2012). Open Access to Historical Atlas: Sources of Information and Services for Landscape Analysis in an SDI Framework. In ICCSA 2012 (pp. 397-413). Springer Int. Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-31075-1_30.Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Van Hecke, L., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Roncoroni, F., & Valente, R. (2013). Combined Geometric and Thermal Analysis from Uav Platforms for Archaeological Heritage Documentation. In XXIV International Cipa Symposium (pp. 49-54). Strasbourg, France.Brumana, R., Santana Quintero, M., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Della Torre, S., Roels, D., & Capitani, M. (2015). A geo-swot chart, using a values centered approach and multitemporal-maps for landscape assessment and multimedia ecomuseum. In ICOMOS International Symposium "Heritage and Landscape as Human Values, Theme 1 "Sharing and experiencing the identity of communities through tourism and interpretation" (pp. 186-191). Florence, Italy.Bedford, L. (2001). Storytelling: The real work of museums. Curator: the Museum Journal, 44(1), 27-34.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2151-6952.2001.tb00027.xBarazzetti, L., Brumana, R., Oreni, D., & Roncoroni, F. (2013). Recognizing landscapes: can we change the point of view of geographic data? Journal of Mobile Multimedia, 9(1-2), 39-52.Barazzetti, L., Brumana, R., Oreni, D., & Previtali, M. (2014). Historical Map Registration via Independent Model Adjustment with Affine Transformations. In ICCSA 2014 (pp. 44-56). Guimaraes, Portugal. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09147-1_4Barazzetti, L., Brumana, R., Cuca, B., & Previtali, M. (2015). Towards a Virtual Hub for a wider Open Data community. In FOSS4G Europe 2015(pp.1-12). Como, Italy.Brumana, R., Cuca, B., Oreni, D., Prandi, F., & Scaioni, M. (2010). Integration of old cadastral maps into up-to-date geodatabases for urban planning. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XXXVIII, 4-8-2/W9, 90-95.Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Cuca, B., Rampini, A., &Pepe, M. (2012). Open Access to Historical Atlas: Sources of Information and Services for Landscape Analysis in an SDI Framework .In ICCSA 2012(pp. 397-413).Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31075-1_30Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Van Hecke, L., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Roncoroni, F., & Valente, R. (2013). Combined geometric and thermal analysis from UAV platforms for archaeological heritage documentation. ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Science, II-5/W1, 49-54. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprsannals-II-5-W1-49-2013Brumana, R., Santana Quintero, M., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Della Torre, S., Roels, D., & Capitani, M. (2015a). A geo-swot chart, using a values centered approach and multi temporal-maps for landscape assessment and multimedia ecomuseum. In ICOMOS International Symposium "Heritage and Landscape as Human Values", Theme 1"Sharing and experiencing the identity of communities through tourism and interpretation" (pp. 186-191). Florence, Italy.Brumana, R., Santana Quintero, M., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Banfi, F., Oreni, D., Roels D., & Roncoroni, F. (2015b). Towards a virtual hub approach for landscape assessment and multimedia ecomuseum using multi temporal-maps. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XL-5/W7, 49-56. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprsarchives-XL-5-W7-49-2015Bruner, J. (1991). The Narrative Construction of Reality. Critical Inquiry, 18 (1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1086/448619Caquard, S. (2013). Mapping narrative cartography. 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Perspectives on the 3-D analysis through the cadastral map series (XVIII -XX sec.) and the first geodetic large scale map of Milan realized by the 'Astronomidi Brera' (Astronomers of Brera): toward an advanced portal. E-PERIMETRON, 4(2), 86-100.Nativi, S., Craglia, M., & Pearlman, J. (2013). Earth science infrastructures interoperability: the brokering approach. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics. Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 6(3), 1118-1129. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2013.2243113Pierdicca, R., Malinverni, E., Frontoni, E., Colosi, F., & Orazi, R. (2016). 3D visualization tools to explore ancient architectures in South America. Virtual Archaeology Review, 7(15), 44-53.https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2016.5904Pini, L. (2003). Tremezzo il paese dove fioriscono I limoni. Tremezzo: Silvana Editoriale.Previtali, M. (2017). Geopan atl@s: A brokering based gateway to georeferenced historical maps for risk analysis. 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An Enhanced Spatial Reasoning Ontology for Maritime Anomaly Detection

International audienceAlthough originally conceived as a conceptual object for modelling knowledge, current ontologies do not make it possible to manipulate spatial knowledge. However, spatial knowledge is an essential component of any modelling specification. This problem provided the motivation for the creation of an expert system driven by an ontology. The system enables experts in the maritime domain to characterise abnormal ship behaviour based on formal semantic properties. Users are able to specify and execute spatial rules that are directly integrated into the ontology and a map interface linked to the ontology displays the results of the inferences obtained