272 research outputs found

    Methods for creating and using geospatio-temporal semantic web

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    This dissertation discusses the problems and the methods of creating and using ontologies in the area of digital cultural heritage. One of the problems is that content annotations in semantic cultural heritage portals commonly make spatiotemporal references to historical regions and places using names whose meanings are different in different times. For example, historical administrational regions such as countries, municipalities, and cities have been renamed, merged together, split into parts, and annexed or moved to and from other regions. The contribution of this dissertation to this problem is to develop methods which can be used to model, produce and utilize geospatio-temporal ontologies. The resources in geospatio-temporal ontologies can be used as annotation terms for describing content, and also for seeking information. The main point of this dissertation is to describe schemas, models and methods that produce and utilize a geospatio-temporal ontology. The schemas and the models are used as inputs for the methods. These methods generate identifiers for spatio-temporal instances, and also relationships between them. In this work, historical Finnish municipalities were modeled and geospatio-temporal descriptions for them created from a filled-up schema. Methods enriched the models by creating geospatio-temporal relationships between these temporal municipalities. The resulting collection of models are referred to as the Finnish Spatio-temporal Ontology (Suomen ajallinen paikkaontologia, SAPO). Specific relationships of the geo-spatiotemporal instances provided the basis for novel recommendation, data mining and visualization schemes. The results of the experiments were promising. For example, with the help of the ontology a user has the ability to retrieve also the content annotated to a historic region even if she searches using a contemporary name of the same or partially overlapping region. The work contributes also to modeling and reasoning about imprecise temporal intervals. A set of different measures based on analyzing two fuzzy temporal intervals are presented and evaluated in the work. The use of a combination of different measures for calculating relevance between temporal intervals was found out to perform best

    Using spatiotemporal patterns to qualitatively represent and manage dynamic situations of interest : a cognitive and integrative approach

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    Les situations spatio-temporelles dynamiques sont des situations qui Ă©voluent dans l’espace et dans le temps. L’ĂȘtre humain peut identifier des configurations de situations dans son environnement et les utilise pour prendre des dĂ©cisions. Ces configurations de situations peuvent aussi ĂȘtre appelĂ©es « situations d’intĂ©rĂȘt » ou encore « patrons spatio-temporels ». En informatique, les situations sont obtenues par des systĂšmes d’acquisition de donnĂ©es souvent prĂ©sents dans diverses industries grĂące aux rĂ©cents dĂ©veloppements technologiques et qui gĂ©nĂšrent des bases de donnĂ©es de plus en plus volumineuses. On relĂšve un problĂšme important dans la littĂ©rature liĂ© au fait que les formalismes de reprĂ©sentation utilisĂ©s sont souvent incapables de reprĂ©senter des phĂ©nomĂšnes spatiotemporels dynamiques et complexes qui reflĂštent la rĂ©alitĂ©. De plus, ils ne prennent pas en considĂ©ration l’apprĂ©hension cognitive (modĂšle mental) que l’humain peut avoir de son environnement. Ces facteurs rendent difficile la mise en Ɠuvre de tels modĂšles par des agents logiciels. Dans cette thĂšse, nous proposons un nouveau modĂšle de reprĂ©sentation des situations d’intĂ©rĂȘt s’appuyant sur la notion des patrons spatiotemporels. Notre approche utilise les graphes conceptuels pour offrir un aspect qualitatif au modĂšle de reprĂ©sentation. Le modĂšle se base sur les notions d’évĂ©nement et d’état pour reprĂ©senter des phĂ©nomĂšnes spatiotemporels dynamiques. Il intĂšgre la notion de contexte pour permettre aux agents logiciels de raisonner avec les instances de patrons dĂ©tectĂ©s. Nous proposons aussi un outil de gĂ©nĂ©ration automatisĂ©e des relations qualitatives de proximitĂ© spatiale en utilisant un classificateur flou. Finalement, nous proposons une plateforme de gestion des patrons spatiotemporels pour faciliter l’intĂ©gration de notre modĂšle dans des applications industrielles rĂ©elles. Ainsi, les contributions principales de notre travail sont : Un formalisme de reprĂ©sentation qualitative des situations spatiotemporelles dynamiques en utilisant des graphes conceptuels. ; Une approche cognitive pour la dĂ©finition des patrons spatio-temporels basĂ©e sur l’intĂ©gration de l’information contextuelle. ; Un outil de gĂ©nĂ©ration automatique des relations spatiales qualitatives de proximitĂ© basĂ© sur les classificateurs neuronaux flous. ; Une plateforme de gestion et de dĂ©tection des patrons spatiotemporels basĂ©e sur l’extension d’un moteur de traitement des Ă©vĂ©nements complexes (Complex Event Processing).Dynamic spatiotemporal situations are situations that evolve in space and time. They are part of humans’ daily life. One can be interested in a configuration of situations occurred in the environment and can use it to make decisions. In the literature, such configurations are referred to as “situations of interests” or “spatiotemporal patterns”. In Computer Science, dynamic situations are generated by large scale data acquisition systems which are deployed everywhere thanks to recent technological advances. Spatiotemporal pattern representation is a research subject which gained a lot of attraction from two main research areas. In spatiotemporal analysis, various works extended query languages to represent patterns and to query them from voluminous databases. In Artificial Intelligence, predicate-based models represent spatiotemporal patterns and detect their instances using rule-based mechanisms. Both approaches suffer several shortcomings. For example, they do not allow for representing dynamic and complex spatiotemporal phenomena due to their limited expressiveness. Furthermore, they do not take into account the human’s mental model of the environment in their representation formalisms. This limits the potential of building agent-based solutions to reason about these patterns. In this thesis, we propose a novel approach to represent situations of interest using the concept of spatiotemporal patterns. We use Conceptual Graphs to offer a qualitative representation model of these patterns. Our model is based on the concepts of spatiotemporal events and states to represent dynamic spatiotemporal phenomena. It also incorporates contextual information in order to facilitate building the knowledge base of software agents. Besides, we propose an intelligent proximity tool based on a neuro-fuzzy classifier to support qualitative spatial relations in the pattern model. Finally, we propose a framework to manage spatiotemporal patterns in order to facilitate the integration of our pattern representation model to existing applications in the industry. The main contributions of this thesis are as follows: A qualitative approach to model dynamic spatiotemporal situations of interest using Conceptual Graphs. ; A cognitive approach to represent spatiotemporal patterns by integrating contextual information. ; An automated tool to generate qualitative spatial proximity relations based on a neuro-fuzzy classifier. ; A platform for detection and management of spatiotemporal patterns using an extension of a Complex Event Processing engine

    Culture boundaries in semantic web

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    Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.Culture, being created by any and every of us, is the expression form of the society. We easily manipulate this term in everyday life, but defining the culture brings a lot of discussions in between scientists. The most common approach of understanding culture is from anthropologists (Harris & Johnson, 2006; Tylor, 1871) who associate culture with the common developed complex pattern of the society life expressed through knowledge, believes, art, morality, laws, traditions and other features. Approaching extinct cultures all this can be found and interpreted just from archaeological artefacts. Despite many culture definitions, the spatio-temporal aspect of culture is brought mostly by archaeologists. All in all the culture and cultural area understandings remain very fuzzy, though culture area is always formalized as a crispy one. Due to such fuzziness, author would guess, there was no hurry for cultural area or boundary digitalization as it happened with other cultural data in Europe within last decades. The cultural boundary question stayed 'taboo' in semantic web also, that is recently developing for cultural data in order to help to represent the meaning in a restricted sense. It is therefore in this thesis the culture boundary representation in semantic web is analyzed

    Proceedings of the GIS Research UK 18th Annual Conference GISRUK 2010

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    This volume holds the papers from the 18th annual GIS Research UK (GISRUK). This year the conference, hosted at University College London (UCL), from Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 April 2010. The conference covered the areas of core geographic information science research as well as applications domains such as crime and health and technological developments in LBS and the geoweb. UCL’s research mission as a global university is based around a series of Grand Challenges that affect us all, and these were accommodated in GISRUK 2010. The overarching theme this year was “Global Challenges”, with specific focus on the following themes: * Crime and Place * Environmental Change * Intelligent Transport * Public Health and Epidemiology * Simulation and Modelling * London as a global city * The geoweb and neo-geography * Open GIS and Volunteered Geographic Information * Human-Computer Interaction and GIS Traditionally, GISRUK has provided a platform for early career researchers as well as those with a significant track record of achievement in the area. As such, the conference provides a welcome blend of innovative thinking and mature reflection. GISRUK is the premier academic GIS conference in the UK and we are keen to maintain its outstanding record of achievement in developing GIS in the UK and beyond

    Towards development of fuzzy spatial datacubes : fundamental concepts with example for multidimensional coastal erosion risk assessment and representation

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    Les systĂšmes actuels de base de donnĂ©es gĂ©odĂ©cisionnels (GeoBI) ne tiennent gĂ©nĂ©ralement pas compte de l'incertitude liĂ©e Ă  l'imprĂ©cision et le flou des objets; ils supposent que les objets ont une sĂ©mantique, une gĂ©omĂ©trie et une temporalitĂ© bien dĂ©finies et prĂ©cises. Un exemple de cela est la reprĂ©sentation des zones Ă  risque par des polygones avec des limites bien dĂ©finies. Ces polygones sont crĂ©Ă©s en utilisant des agrĂ©gations d'un ensemble d'unitĂ©s spatiales dĂ©finies sur soit des intĂ©rĂȘts des organismes responsables ou les divisions de recensement national. MalgrĂ© la variation spatio-temporelle des multiples critĂšres impliquĂ©s dans l’analyse du risque, chaque polygone a une valeur unique de risque attribuĂ© de façon homogĂšne sur l'Ă©tendue du territoire. En rĂ©alitĂ©, la valeur du risque change progressivement d'un polygone Ă  l'autre. Le passage d'une zone Ă  l'autre n'est donc pas bien reprĂ©sentĂ© avec les modĂšles d’objets bien dĂ©finis (crisp). Cette thĂšse propose des concepts fondamentaux pour le dĂ©veloppement d'une approche combinant le paradigme GeoBI et le concept flou de considĂ©rer la prĂ©sence de l’incertitude spatiale dans la reprĂ©sentation des zones Ă  risque. En fin de compte, nous supposons cela devrait amĂ©liorer l’analyse du risque. Pour ce faire, un cadre conceptuel est dĂ©veloppĂ© pour crĂ©er un model conceptuel d’une base de donnĂ©e multidimensionnelle avec une application pour l’analyse du risque d’érosion cĂŽtier. Ensuite, une approche de la reprĂ©sentation des risques fondĂ©e sur la logique floue est dĂ©veloppĂ©e pour traiter l'incertitude spatiale inhĂ©rente liĂ©e Ă  l'imprĂ©cision et le flou des objets. Pour cela, les fonctions d'appartenance floues sont dĂ©finies en basant sur l’indice de vulnĂ©rabilitĂ© qui est un composant important du risque. Au lieu de dĂ©terminer les limites bien dĂ©finies entre les zones Ă  risque, l'approche proposĂ©e permet une transition en douceur d'une zone Ă  une autre. Les valeurs d'appartenance de plusieurs indicateurs sont ensuite agrĂ©gĂ©es basĂ©es sur la formule des risques et les rĂšgles SI-ALORS de la logique floue pour reprĂ©senter les zones Ă  risque. Ensuite, les Ă©lĂ©ments clĂ©s d'un cube de donnĂ©es spatiales floues sont formalisĂ©s en combinant la thĂ©orie des ensembles flous et le paradigme de GeoBI. En plus, certains opĂ©rateurs d'agrĂ©gation spatiale floue sont prĂ©sentĂ©s. En rĂ©sumĂ©, la principale contribution de cette thĂšse se rĂ©fĂšre de la combinaison de la thĂ©orie des ensembles flous et le paradigme de GeoBI. Cela permet l’extraction de connaissances plus comprĂ©hensibles et appropriĂ©es avec le raisonnement humain Ă  partir de donnĂ©es spatiales et non-spatiales. Pour ce faire, un cadre conceptuel a Ă©tĂ© proposĂ© sur la base de paradigme GĂ©oBI afin de dĂ©velopper un cube de donnĂ©es spatiale floue dans le system de Spatial Online Analytical Processing (SOLAP) pour Ă©valuer le risque de l'Ă©rosion cĂŽtiĂšre. Cela nĂ©cessite d'abord d'Ă©laborer un cadre pour concevoir le modĂšle conceptuel basĂ© sur les paramĂštres de risque, d'autre part, de mettre en Ɠuvre l’objet spatial flou dans une base de donnĂ©es spatiales multidimensionnelle, puis l'agrĂ©gation des objets spatiaux flous pour envisager Ă  la reprĂ©sentation multi-Ă©chelle des zones Ă  risque. Pour valider l'approche proposĂ©e, elle est appliquĂ©e Ă  la rĂ©gion Perce (Est du QuĂ©bec, Canada) comme une Ă©tude de cas.Current Geospatial Business Intelligence (GeoBI) systems typically do not take into account the uncertainty related to vagueness and fuzziness of objects; they assume that the objects have well-defined and exact semantics, geometry, and temporality. Representation of fuzzy zones by polygons with well-defined boundaries is an example of such approximation. This thesis uses an application in Coastal Erosion Risk Analysis (CERA) to illustrate the problems. CERA polygons are created using aggregations of a set of spatial units defined by either the stakeholders’ interests or national census divisions. Despite spatiotemporal variation of the multiple criteria involved in estimating the extent of coastal erosion risk, each polygon typically has a unique value of risk attributed homogeneously across its spatial extent. In reality, risk value changes gradually within polygons and when going from one polygon to another. Therefore, the transition from one zone to another is not properly represented with crisp object models. The main objective of the present thesis is to develop a new approach combining GeoBI paradigm and fuzzy concept to consider the presence of the spatial uncertainty in the representation of risk zones. Ultimately, we assume this should improve coastal erosion risk assessment. To do so, a comprehensive GeoBI-based conceptual framework is developed with an application for Coastal Erosion Risk Assessment (CERA). Then, a fuzzy-based risk representation approach is developed to handle the inherent spatial uncertainty related to vagueness and fuzziness of objects. Fuzzy membership functions are defined by an expert-based vulnerability index. Instead of determining well-defined boundaries between risk zones, the proposed approach permits a smooth transition from one zone to another. The membership values of multiple indicators (e.g. slop and elevation of region under study, infrastructures, houses, hydrology network and so on) are then aggregated based on risk formula and Fuzzy IF-THEN rules to represent risk zones. Also, the key elements of a fuzzy spatial datacube are formally defined by combining fuzzy set theory and GeoBI paradigm. In this regard, some operators of fuzzy spatial aggregation are also formally defined. The main contribution of this study is combining fuzzy set theory and GeoBI. This makes spatial knowledge discovery more understandable with human reasoning and perception. Hence, an analytical conceptual framework was proposed based on GeoBI paradigm to develop a fuzzy spatial datacube within Spatial Online Analytical Processing (SOLAP) to assess coastal erosion risk. This necessitates developing a framework to design a conceptual model based on risk parameters, implementing fuzzy spatial objects in a spatial multi-dimensional database, and aggregating fuzzy spatial objects to deal with multi-scale representation of risk zones. To validate the proposed approach, it is applied to Perce region (Eastern Quebec, Canada) as a case study

    Framework development for providing accessibility to qualitative spatial calculi

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    Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.Qualitative spatial reasoning deals with knowledge about an infinite spatial domain using a finite set of qualitative relations without using numerical computation. Qualitative knowledge is relative knowledge where we obtain the knowledge on the basis of comparison of features with in the object domain rather then using some external scales. Reasoning is an intellectual facility by which, conclusions are drawn from premises and is present in our everyday interaction with the geographical world. The kind of reasoning that human being relies on is based on commonsense knowledge in everyday situations. During the last decades a multitude of formal calculi over spatial relations have been proposed by focusing on different aspects of space like topology, orientation and distance. Qualitative spatial reasoning engines like SparQ and GQR represents space and reasoning about the space based on qualitative spatial relations and bring qualitative reasoning closer to the geographic applications. Their relations and certain operations defined in qualitative calculi use to infer new knowledge on different aspects of space. Today GIS does not support common-sense reasoning due to limitation for how to formalize spatial inferences. It is important to focus on common sense geographic reasoning, reasoning as it is performed by human. Human perceive and represents geographic information qualitatively, the integration of reasoner with spatial application enables GIS users to represent and extract geographic information qualitatively using human understandable query language. In this thesis, I designed and developed common API framework using platform independent software like XML and JAVA that used to integrate qualitative spatial reasoning engines (SparQ) with GIS application. SparQ is set of modules that structured to provides different reasoning services. SparQ supports command line instructions and it has a specific syntax as set of commands. The developed API provides interface between GIS application and reasoning engine. It establishes connection with reasoner over TCP/IP, takes XML format queries as input from GIS application and converts into SparQ module specific syntax. Similarly it extracts given result, converts it into defined XML format and passes it to GIS application over the same TCP/IP connection. The most challenging part of thesis was SparQ syntax analysis for inputs and their outputs. Each module in Sparq takes module specific query syntax and generates results in multiple syntaxes like; error, simple result and result with comments. Reasoner supports both binary and ternary calculi. The input query syntax for binary-calculi is different for ternary-calculi in the terms of constraint-networks. Based on analysis I, identified commonalities between input query syntaxes for both binary and ternary calculi and designed XML structures for them. Similarly I generalized SparQ results into five major categories and designed XML structures. For ternary-calculi, I considered constraint-reasoning module and their specific operations and designed XML structure for both of their inputs and outputs

    Spatial ontologies for architectural heritage

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    Informatics and artificial intelligence have generated new requirements for digital archiving, information, and documentation. Semantic interoperability has become fundamental for the management and sharing of information. The constraints to data interpretation enable both database interoperability, for data and schemas sharing and reuse, and information retrieval in large datasets. Another challenging issue is the exploitation of automated reasoning possibilities. The solution is the use of domain ontologies as a reference for data modelling in information systems. The architectural heritage (AH) domain is considered in this thesis. The documentation in this field, particularly complex and multifaceted, is well-known to be critical for the preservation, knowledge, and promotion of the monuments. For these reasons, digital inventories, also exploiting standards and new semantic technologies, are developed by international organisations (Getty Institute, ONU, European Union). Geometric and geographic information is essential part of a monument. It is composed by a number of aspects (spatial, topological, and mereological relations; accuracy; multi-scale representation; time; etc.). Currently, geomatics permits the obtaining of very accurate and dense 3D models (possibly enriched with textures) and derived products, in both raster and vector format. Many standards were published for the geographic field or in the cultural heritage domain. However, the first ones are limited in the foreseen representation scales (the maximum is achieved by OGC CityGML), and the semantic values do not consider the full semantic richness of AH. The second ones (especially the core ontology CIDOC – CRM, the Conceptual Reference Model of the Documentation Commettee of the International Council of Museums) were employed to document museums’ objects. Even if it was recently extended to standing buildings and a spatial extension was included, the integration of complex 3D models has not yet been achieved. In this thesis, the aspects (especially spatial issues) to consider in the documentation of monuments are analysed. In the light of them, the OGC CityGML is extended for the management of AH complexity. An approach ‘from the landscape to the detail’ is used, for considering the monument in a wider system, which is essential for analysis and reasoning about such complex objects. An implementation test is conducted on a case study, preferring open source applications

    Spatial ontologies for architectural heritage

    Get PDF
    Informatics and artificial intelligence have generated new requirements for digital archiving, information, and documentation. Semantic interoperability has become fundamental for the management and sharing of information. The constraints to data interpretation enable both database interoperability, for data and schemas sharing and reuse, and information retrieval in large datasets. Another challenging issue is the exploitation of automated reasoning possibilities. The solution is the use of domain ontologies as a reference for data modelling in information systems. The architectural heritage (AH) domain is considered in this thesis. The documentation in this field, particularly complex and multifaceted, is well-known to be critical for the preservation, knowledge, and promotion of the monuments. For these reasons, digital inventories, also exploiting standards and new semantic technologies, are developed by international organisations (Getty Institute, ONU, European Union). Geometric and geographic information is essential part of a monument. It is composed by a number of aspects (spatial, topological, and mereological relations; accuracy; multi-scale representation; time; etc.). Currently, geomatics permits the obtaining of very accurate and dense 3D models (possibly enriched with textures) and derived products, in both raster and vector format. Many standards were published for the geographic field or in the cultural heritage domain. However, the first ones are limited in the foreseen representation scales (the maximum is achieved by OGC CityGML), and the semantic values do not consider the full semantic richness of AH. The second ones (especially the core ontology CIDOC – CRM, the Conceptual Reference Model of the Documentation Commettee of the International Council of Museums) were employed to document museums’ objects. Even if it was recently extended to standing buildings and a spatial extension was included, the integration of complex 3D models has not yet been achieved. In this thesis, the aspects (especially spatial issues) to consider in the documentation of monuments are analysed. In the light of them, the OGC CityGML is extended for the management of AH complexity. An approach ‘from the landscape to the detail’ is used, for considering the monument in a wider system, which is essential for analysis and reasoning about such complex objects. An implementation test is conducted on a case study, preferring open source applications

    Geospatial Semantics

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    Geospatial semantics is a broad field that involves a variety of research areas. The term semantics refers to the meaning of things, and is in contrast with the term syntactics. Accordingly, studies on geospatial semantics usually focus on understanding the meaning of geographic entities as well as their counterparts in the cognitive and digital world, such as cognitive geographic concepts and digital gazetteers. Geospatial semantics can also facilitate the design of geographic information systems (GIS) by enhancing the interoperability of distributed systems and developing more intelligent interfaces for user interactions. During the past years, a lot of research has been conducted, approaching geospatial semantics from different perspectives, using a variety of methods, and targeting different problems. Meanwhile, the arrival of big geo data, especially the large amount of unstructured text data on the Web, and the fast development of natural language processing methods enable new research directions in geospatial semantics. This chapter, therefore, provides a systematic review on the existing geospatial semantic research. Six major research areas are identified and discussed, including semantic interoperability, digital gazetteers, geographic information retrieval, geospatial Semantic Web, place semantics, and cognitive geographic concepts.Comment: Yingjie Hu (2017). Geospatial Semantics. In Bo Huang, Thomas J. Cova, and Ming-Hsiang Tsou et al. (Eds): Comprehensive Geographic Information Systems, Elsevier. Oxford, U
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