Emerging Informatics

The book on emerging informatics brings together the new concepts and applications that will help define and outline problem solving methods and features in designing business and human systems. It covers international aspects of information systems design in which many relevant technologies are introduced for the welfare of human and business systems. This initiative can be viewed as an emergent area of informatics that helps better conceptualise and design new world-class solutions. The book provides four flexible sections that accommodate total of fourteen chapters. The section specifies learning contexts in emerging fields. Each chapter presents a clear basis through the problem conception and its applicable technological solutions. I hope this will help further exploration of knowledge in the informatics discipline

A Clustering Approach for Protecting GIS Vector Data

The availability of Geographic Information System (GIS) data has increased in recent years, as well as the need to prevent its unauthorized use. One way of protecting this type of data is by embedding within it a digital watermark. In this paper, we build on our previous work on watermarking vector map data, to improve the robustness to (unwanted) modifications to the maps that may prevent the identification of the rightful owner of the data. More specifically, we address the simplification (removing some vertices from GIS vector data) and interpolation (adding new vertices to GIS data) modifications by exploiting a particular property of vector data called a bounding box. In addition, we experiment with bigger maps to establish the feasibility of the approach for larger maps

Mapping Shallow Coastal Ecosystems: A Case Study of a Rhode Island Lagoon

In order to effectively study, manage, conserve, and sustain shallow-subtidal ecosystems, a spatial inventory of the basic resources and habitats is essential. Because of the complexities of shallow-subtidal substrates, benthic communities, geology, geomorphology, and water column attributes, few standard protocols are fully articulated and tested that describe the mapping and inventory processes and accompanying interpretations. In this paper, we describe a systematic approach to map Rhode Island’s shallow-subtidal coastal lagoon ecosystems, by using, integrating, and reconciling multiple data sets to identify the geology, soils, biological communities, and environments that, collectively, define each shallow-subtidal habitat. We constructed maps for these lagoons via a deliberate, step by step approach. Acoustics and geostatistical modeling were used to create a bathymetric map. These data were analyzed to identify submerged landforms and geologic boundaries. Geologic interpretations were verified with video and grab samples. Soils were sampled, characterized, and mapped within the context of the landscape and geologic boundaries. Biological components and distributions were investigated using acoustics, grab samples, video, and sediment profile images. Data sets were cross-referenced and ground-truthed to test for inconsistencies. Maps and geospatial data, with Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)-compliant metadata, were finalized after reconciling data set inconsistencies and made available on the Internet. These data allow for classification in the revised Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS). With these maps, we explored potential relationships among and between physical and biological parameters. In some cases, we discovered a clear match between habitat measures; in others, however, relationships were more difficult to distinguish and require further investigation

Digital Learning in the Wild: Re-Imagining New Ruralism, Digital Equity, and Deficit Discourses through the Thirdspace

abstract: Digital media is becoming increasingly important to learning in today’s changing times. At the same time, digital technologies and related digital skills are unevenly distributed. Further, deficit-based notions of this digital divide define the public’s educational paradigm. Against this backdrop, I forayed into the social reality of one rural Americana to examine digital learning in the wild. The larger purpose of this dissertation was to spatialize understandings of rural life and pervasive social ills therein, in order to rethink digital equity, such that we dismantle deficit thinking, problematize new ruralism, and re-imagine more just rural geographies. Under a Thirdspace understanding of space as dynamic, relational, and agentive (Soja, 1996), I examined how digital learning is caught up spatially to position the rural struggle over geography amid the ‘Right to the City’ rhetoric (Lefebvre, 1968). In response to this limiting and urban-centric rhetoric, I contest digital inequity as a spatial issue of justice in rural areas. After exploring how digital learning opportunities are distributed at state and local levels, I geo-ethnographically explored digital use to story how families across socio-economic spaces were utilizing digital tools. Last, because ineffective and deficit-based models of understanding erupt from blaming the oppressed for their own self-made oppression, or framing problems (e.g., digital inequity) as solely human-centered, I drew in posthumanist Latourian (2005) social cartographies of Thirdspace. From this, I re-imagined educational equity within rural space to recast digital equity not in terms of the “haves and have nots” but as an account of mutually transformative socio-technical agency. Last, I pay the price of criticism by suggesting possible actions and solutions to the social ills denounced throughout this dissertation.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Learning, Literacies and Technologies 201

AXMEDIS 2008

The AXMEDIS International Conference series aims to explore all subjects and topics related to cross-media and digital-media content production, processing, management, standards, representation, sharing, protection and rights management, to address the latest developments and future trends of the technologies and their applications, impacts and exploitation. The AXMEDIS events offer venues for exchanging concepts, requirements, prototypes, research ideas, and findings which could contribute to academic research and also benefit business and industrial communities. In the Internet as well as in the digital era, cross-media production and distribution represent key developments and innovations that are fostered by emergent technologies to ensure better value for money while optimising productivity and market coverage