Towards general spatial intelligence

The goal of General Spatial Intelligence is to present a unified theory to support the various aspects of spatial experience, whether physical or cognitive. We acknowledge the fact that GIScience has to assume a particular worldview, resulting from specific positions regarding metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, mind, language, cognition and representation. Implicit positions regarding these domains may allow solutions to isolated problems but often hamper a more encompassing approach. We argue that explicitly defining a worldview allows the grounding and derivation of multi-modal models, establishing precise problems, allowing falsifiability. We present an example of such a theory founded on process metaphysics, where the ontological elements are called differences. We show that a worldview has implications regarding the nature of space and, in the case of the chosen metaphysical layer, favours a model of space as true spacetime, i.e. four-dimensionality. Finally we illustrate the approach using a scenario from psychology and AI based planning

Comparing global land cover datasets through the Eagle matrix land cover components for continental Portugal

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Geospatial TechnologiesGlobal land cover maps play an important role in the understanding of the Earth's ecosystem dynamic. Several global land cover maps have been produced recently namely, Global Land Cover Share (GLC-Share) and GlobeLand30. These datasets are very useful sources of land cover information and potential users and producers are many times interested in comparing these datasets. However these global land cover maps are produced based on different techniques and using different classification schemes making their interoperability in a standardized way a challenge. The Environmental Information and Observation Network (EIONET) Action Group on Land Monitoring in Europe (EAGLE) concept was developed in order to translate the differences in the classification schemes into a standardized format which allows a comparison between class definitions. This is done by elaborating an EAGLE matrix for each classification scheme, where a bar code is assigned to each class definition that compose a certain land cover class. Ahlqvist (2005) developed an overlap metric to cope with semantic uncertainty of geographical concepts, providing this way a measure of how geographical concepts are more related to each other. In this paper, the comparison of global land cover datasets is done by translating each land cover legend into the EAGLE bar coding for the Land Cover Components of the EAGLE matrix. The bar coding values assigned to each class definition are transformed in a fuzzy function that is used to compute the overlap metric proposed by Ahlqvist (2005) and overlap matrices between land cover legends are elaborated. The overlap matrices allow the semantic comparison between the classification schemes of each global land cover map. The proposed methodology is tested on a case study where the overlap metric proposed by Ahlqvist (2005) is computed in the comparison of two global land cover maps for Continental Portugal. The study resulted with the overlap spatial distribution among the two global land cover maps, Globeland30 and GLC-Share. These results shows that Globeland30 product overlap with a degree of 77% with GLC-Share product in Continental Portugal

Urban design with weather variability – Adaptive capacity approaches towards Northern climate now and in the future

This conceptual paper examines different conceptions of weather variability as a starting point for urban design and planning in Northern climate. It explores the possible over-arching approaches towards weather, mapping connections and differences between them. Thus, the paper forms an intial framework that helps to understand urban spaces’ adaptive capacity towards climate.Weather variability in urban design and planning context is discussed both inductively and deductively, based on a literature review on proposed design solutions in Northern urban design. This is reflected and combined to theories and concepts on adaptive capacity and resilience in climate change adaptation literature. Reacting to current climate and climate change are combined into a dynamic framework, thus finding connections between solutions to current weather variability and future adaptation. Sustaining, recovering, adapting and supple approaches are proposed as categories for different approaches to framing weather variability and reacting to it.Three main conditions characterize the proposed framework: (1) a balance between the approaches is needed to achieve both adaptive capacity and maintain the stability and identity of a place. (2) Framing weather variability as a seasonal cycle might have possibilities to act as a mediator in preparing for future climatic changes in urban design and planning processes. (3) When discussing temporary element such as climate, management cannot be separated from spatial adaptive qualities. When taking the climate into account, urban environment should be understood both as a process and a form.  

Dwelling on ontology - semantic reasoning over topographic maps

The thesis builds upon the hypothesis that the spatial arrangement of topographic features, such as buildings, roads and other land cover parcels, indicates how land is used. The aim is to make this kind of high-level semantic information explicit within topographic data. There is an increasing need to share and use data for a wider range of purposes, and to make data more definitive, intelligent and accessible. Unfortunately, we still encounter a gap between low-level data representations and high-level concepts that typify human qualitative spatial reasoning. The thesis adopts an ontological approach to bridge this gap and to derive functional information by using standard reasoning mechanisms offered by logic-based knowledge representation formalisms. It formulates a framework for the processes involved in interpreting land use information from topographic maps. Land use is a high-level abstract concept, but it is also an observable fact intimately tied to geography. By decomposing this relationship, the thesis correlates a one-to-one mapping between high-level conceptualisations established from human knowledge and real world entities represented in the data. Based on a middle-out approach, it develops a conceptual model that incrementally links different levels of detail, and thereby derives coarser, more meaningful descriptions from more detailed ones. The thesis verifies its proposed ideas by implementing an ontology describing the land use ‘residential area’ in the ontology editor Protégé. By asserting knowledge about high-level concepts such as types of dwellings, urban blocks and residential districts as well as individuals that link directly to topographic features stored in the database, the reasoner successfully infers instances of the defined classes. Despite current technological limitations, ontologies are a promising way forward in the manner we handle and integrate geographic data, especially with respect to how humans conceptualise geographic space

Formal ontologies and strategic environmental assessment. A case study: the municipal land use plan of Genoa

n/

Urban Ruralities or the New Urban-Rural Paradigm - Introduction

Classical theories of urbanisation are based on a strict distinction of ‘the urban’ and ‘the non-urban’ and closely linked with concepts of order and organisation. Continuous statistics regarding the changing relation between people living in cities and outside cities and the extensive celebration of the demographic shift towards the ‘urban side’ in 2007 as a significant marker of the “Urban Age” clearly reflect this perspective. We do not question the general historic dichotomy of cities and the countryside but we oppose models which generally place the city in the centre or tend to colonise the country conceptually (“urbanised landscapes”, “planetary urbanism” etc.). The concept of “Urban Ruralities“ assembles research approaches which challenge a supposed hegemony of the 'urban order.' We propose to look at the city from its region and from the fringes. Shifting the perspective we want to find out about rural/non-urban logics and dynamics and their impact on urbanisation processes.Since the unfolding phase of town planning in the 19th century the formation and installation of order was a prerequisite for achieving healthy and just living conditions. Order became the equivalent of ‘the good city’ or ‘the urban.’ Accordingly the planning disciplines as well as the scholarly analysis of urbanising processes tend towards a conceptual prioritisation of order and ‘the urban’ over forms of disorder or non-urban and rural phenomena. In this session we rather propose to take into account a “complex relationality” of the opposing qualities: we are interested in examples which show and help explain that in most urbanising processes order and disorder, aspects of ‘the urban’ and ‘the rural’, are deeply entangled and belonging together as the two sides of a coin (new urban-rural paradigm). The four case studies of this session discuss two influential perspectives in this field: the planning and testing of modern infrastructure systems during the late 19th century in Berlin and Hanoi and the concept of 'Stadtlandschaft' in the reconstruction master plans of Madrid and Hamburg during the 1940s. Both topics are closely related and will display complementary manifestations of territorial, material, and representational ambivalence in urban-rural and centre-periphery relation.With this research we aim at a clearer conception of complex, uncontrolled and intertwined urban-rural assemblies and dynamics which dominantly materialise at the urban fringes, in zones of spatial, functional and habitual overlap, and in simultaneously growing and shrinking areas worldwide. We look for analytical tools to describe the continuously shifting condition of urban-rural relations and exchanges. This research can contribute to display, explain and conceptualise the resilience of cities through history – a focus of this conference

Mechanistic and Correlative Models of Ecological Niches

The suite of factors that drives where and under what conditions a species occurs has become the focus of intense research interest. Three general categories of methods have emerged by which researchers address questions in this area: mechanistic models of species’ requirements in terms of environmental conditions that are based on first principles of biophysics and physiology, correlational models based on environmental associations derived from analyses of geographic occurrences of species, and process-based simulations that estimate occupied distributional areas and associated environments from assumptions about niche dimensions and dispersal abilities. We review strengths and weaknesses of these sets of approaches, and identify significant advantages and disadvantages of each. Rather than identifying one or the other as ‘better,’ we suggest that researchers take great care to use the method best-suited to each specific research question, and be conscious of the weaknesses of any method, such that inappropriate interpretations are avoided