Geo-visual Analytics of Canada-U.S. Transborder Traffic Data

This research aims to investigate new geo-visual analytics methods and techniques for visually analyzing the large amount of historical and near real time geospatial and temporal traffic data at the border crossings between Canada and the U.S. Historical traffic-related time-series data are available from different agencies in both countries for at least the last four decades for different modes of transportation and different purposes. Supplementary historical and near real-time data about delays, weather conditions, and different types of alerts and conditions at the ports of entry can be used to analyze the decision processes behind changes in traffic patterns. The data are gathered, processed, and linked to a web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) that can be accessed by authorized users over the Internet using an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) to support different types of queries. The resulting database and information system can be beneficial for understanding the impact of the different factors affecting delays at the ports of entry and the impacts of these delays on the decision-making of travelers, planners, and supply chain operators

Interoperability of Mobile Devices for Crisis Management: Outcomes of the 1st JRC ECML Crisis Technology Workshop

The 1st JRC ECML Crisis Technology Workshop on Mobile Interoperability for International Field Deployment took place in the European Crisis Management Laboratory (ECML) of the Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, from 12 to 13 March 2012. 37 participants attended the workshop. They were coming from: 11 EU countries and Norway, Brazil and US, 3 UN agencies, and 2 NGOs. The workshop's purpose was to measure the added value of mobile assessment technology for rapid situation assessment in international emergency operations. Seven mobile assessment systems were deployed among the participants and needed to provide, in an interoperable way, real-time data to a single electronic On-Site Operations Coordination Centre (eOSOCC). The performance of the systems was benchmarked against a traditional paper-based assessment that was conducted simultaneously (pOSOCC). In the workshop experiment both paper and electronic On-Site Operations Coordination Centres (OSOCCs) reached a similar situation awareness in the same time, but only the eOSOCC had products available as sharable electronic maps and documents. The final map with all incoming feeds in the eOSOCC was very cluttered and there was considerable information overload. Therefore sophisticated editing, filtering, and visualization functionalities have to be available for eOSOCC staff. Mobile technology is mature and can be deployed in an interoperable way. However, then the information of each system leaves the proprietary applications for processing and analyzing the data. The main impression from the eOSOCC team was that there is a lot of potential. Having access in real-time to field information was felt to be extremely useful. Still missing are tools and procedures for exploiting this benefit. Most important are tools to curate, filter, manipulate, edit, and delete assessment information of all teams. A dedicated eOSOCC software suite is needed that gives full control over the data to the eOSOCC staff.JRC.G.2-Global security and crisis managemen

Situational Awareness & Incident Management SAIM2014. 5th JRC ECML Crisis Management Technology Workshop

The 5th JRC ECML Crisis Management Technology Workshop on Software and data formats used in Crisis Management Rooms and Situation Monitoring Centres for information collection and display, organised by the European Commission Joint Research Centre in collaboration with the DRIVER Consortium Partners, took place in the European Crisis Management Laboratory (ECML) of the JRC in Ispra, Italy, from 16 to 18 June 2014. 32 participants from stakeholders in civil protection, academia, and industry attended the workshop. The workshop's purpose was to present, demonstrate, and explore IT solutions for Situation Awareness and Incident Management and the related design considerations, applied within the context of humanitarian aid and civil protection. During the first day the demonstrators set up in the JRC environment. A week before they were provided the contents to be processed. The second day was devoted to the presentations including: - Beyond the Myth of Control: toward the Trading Zone by Kees Boersma & Jeroen Wolbers, Department of Organization Sciences, VU University of Amsterdam - The organizers’ descriptions, the JRC and the DRIVER project - The software to be demonstrated on day three - Data exchange Challenges (From computer-readable data to meaningful information) by Christian Flachberger, FREQUENTIS AGJRC.G.2-Global security and crisis managemen

MusA: Using Indoor Positioning and Navigation to Enhance Cultural Experiences in a museum

In recent years there has been a growing interest into the use of multimedia mobile guides in museum environments. Mobile devices have the capabilities to detect the user context and to provide pieces of information suitable to help visitors discovering and following the logical and emotional connections that develop during the visit. In this scenario, location based services (LBS) currently represent an asset, and the choice of the technology to determine users' position, combined with the definition of methods that can effectively convey information, become key issues in the design process. In this work, we present MusA (Museum Assistant), a general framework for the development of multimedia interactive guides for mobile devices. Its main feature is a vision-based indoor positioning system that allows the provision of several LBS, from way-finding to the contextualized communication of cultural contents, aimed at providing a meaningful exploration of exhibits according to visitors' personal interest and curiosity. Starting from the thorough description of the system architecture, the article presents the implementation of two mobile guides, developed to respectively address adults and children, and discusses the evaluation of the user experience and the visitors' appreciation of these application

Utilization of Crowdsourced Maps in Catastrophic Disasters

Crowdsourced data, the collective messages from citizens through social media like Twitter® or Facebook®, have been increasingly recognized as a vital information source in a catastrophic disaster. Because there is often insufficient emergency personnel to gather situational information during a big disaster, the crowdsourced data can offer a supplemental means for data collection or dissemination immediately after the disaster. In addition, crowdsourced maps can empower citizens with their involvement. In the Haiti earthquake of 2010, crowdsourced data was first used to create a web map application to aid the humanitarian effort. With some success in Haiti, these crowdsourced maps have since been created for other disasters in many countries. However, although the crowdsourced map showed great potential, it also revealed a major shortcoming: most first responders did not use the crowdsourced map. This thesis addresses the issues associated with using crowdsourced maps in the responder community and seeks a possible solution for increasing utilization by first responders during catastrophic disasters. Citizen messages from the Japan earthquake of 2011 were analyzed and filtered by categories best suited for responders. Then, considering the technological difficulties experienced immediately following the disaster, the best communication means were explored to complete two-way communication between responders and citizens

Sharing and visualizing environmental data using Virtual Globes

Virtual globe technology holds many exciting possibilities for environmental science. These easy-to-use, intuitive systems provide means for simultaneously visualizing four-dimensional environmental data from many different sources, enabling the generation of new hypotheses and driving greater understanding of the Earth system. Through the use of simple markup languages, scientists can publish and consume data in interoperable formats without the need for technical assistance. In this paper we give, with examples from our own work, a number of scientific uses for virtual globes, demonstrating their particular advantages. We explain how we have used Web Services to connect virtual globes with diverse data sources and enable more sophisticated usage such as data analysis and collaborative visualization. We also discuss the current limitations of the technology, with particular regard to the visualization of subsurface data and vertical sections

Command and Control Systems for Search and Rescue Robots

The novel application of unmanned systems in the domain of humanitarian Search and Rescue (SAR) operations has created a need to develop specific multi-Robot Command and Control (RC2) systems. This societal application of robotics requires human-robot interfaces for controlling a large fleet of heterogeneous robots deployed in multiple domains of operation (ground, aerial and marine). This chapter provides an overview of the Command, Control and Intelligence (C2I) system developed within the scope of Integrated Components for Assisted Rescue and Unmanned Search operations (ICARUS). The life cycle of the system begins with a description of use cases and the deployment scenarios in collaboration with SAR teams as end-users. This is followed by an illustration of the system design and architecture, core technologies used in implementing the C2I, iterative integration phases with field deployments for evaluating and improving the system. The main subcomponents consist of a central Mission Planning and Coordination System (MPCS), field Robot Command and Control (RC2) subsystems with a portable force-feedback exoskeleton interface for robot arm tele-manipulation and field mobile devices. The distribution of these C2I subsystems with their communication links for unmanned SAR operations is described in detail. Field demonstrations of the C2I system with SAR personnel assisted by unmanned systems provide an outlook for implementing such systems into mainstream SAR operations in the future

The Exploitation of Data from Remote and Human Sensors for Environment Monitoring in the SMAT Project

In this paper, we outline the functionalities of a system that integrates and controls a fleet of Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles (UAVs). UAVs have a set of payload sensors employed for territorial surveillance, whose outputs are stored in the system and analysed by the data exploitation functions at different levels. In particular, we detail the second level data exploitation function whose aim is to improve the sensors data interpretation in the post-mission activities. It is concerned with the mosaicking of the aerial images and the cartography enrichment by human sensors—the social media users. We also describe the software architecture for the development of a mash-up (the integration of information and functionalities coming from the Web) and the possibility of using human sensors in the monitoring of the territory, a field in which, traditionally, the involved sensors were only the hardware ones.JRC.H.6-Digital Earth and Reference Dat

The PREVIEW Global Risk Data Platform: a geoportal to serve and share global data on risk to natural hazards

With growing world population and concentration in urban and coastal areas, the exposure to natural hazards is increasing and results in higher risk of human and economic losses. Improving the identification of areas, population and assets potentially exposed to natural hazards is essential to reduce the consequences of such events. Disaster risk is a function of hazard, exposure and vulnerability. Modelling risk at the global level requires accessing and processing a large number of data, from numerous collaborating centres. <br><br> These data need to be easily updated, and there is a need for centralizing access to this information as well as simplifying its use for non GIS specialists. The Hyogo Framework for Action provides the mandate for data sharing, so that governments and international development agencies can take appropriate decision for disaster risk reduction. <br><br> Timely access and easy integration of geospatial data are essential to support efforts in Disaster Risk Reduction. However various issues in data availability, accessibility and integration limit the use of such data. In consequence, a framework that facilitate sharing and exchange of geospatial data on natural hazards should improve decision-making process. The PREVIEW Global Risk Data Platform is a highly interactive web-based GIS portal supported by a Spatial Data Infrastructure that offers free and interoperable access to more than 60 global data sets on nine types of natural hazards (tropical cyclones and related storm surges, drought, earthquakes, biomass fires, floods, landslides, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions) and related exposure and risk. This application portrays an easy-to-use online interactive mapping interface so that users can easily work with it and seamlessly integrate data in their own data flow using fully compliant OGC Web Services (OWS)

Sextant: Visualizing time-evolving linked geospatial data

The linked open data cloud is constantly evolving as datasets get continuously updated with newer versions. As a result, representing, querying, and visualizing the temporal dimension of linked data is crucial. This is especially important for geospatial datasets that form the backbone of large scale open data publication efforts in many sectors of the economy (e.g., the public sector, the Earth Observation sector). Although there has been some work on the representation and querying of linked geospatial data that change over time, to the best of our knowledge, there is currently no tool that offers spatio-temporal visualization of such data. This is in contrast with the existence of many tools for the visualization of the temporal evolution of geospatial data in the GIS area. In this article, we present Sextant, a Web-based system for the visualization and exploration of time-evolving linked geospatial data and the creation, sharing, and collaborative editing of “temporally-enriched” thematic maps which are produced by combining different sources of such data. We present the architecture of Sextant, give examples of its use and present applications in which we have deployed it