Challenges of the Anthropocene epoch – supporting multi-focus research

International audienceWork on multiscale issues presents countless challenges that have been long attacked by GIScience researchers. Most results either concentrate on modeling or on data structures/database aspects. Solutions go either towards generalization (and/or virtualization of distinct scales) or towards linking entities of interest across scales. However, researchers seldom take into account the fact that multiscale scenarios are increasingly constructed cooperatively, and require distinct perspectives of the world. The combination of multiscale and multiple perspectives per scale constitutes what we call multifocus research. This paper presents our solution to these issues. It builds upon a specific database version model – the multiversion MVBD – which has already been successfully implemented in several geospatial scenarios, being extended here to support multi-focus research

SSM: A Semantic Metasearch Platform for Scientific Data retrieval

Scientific research in all fields has advanced in complexity and in the amount of data generated. The heterogeneity of data repositories, data meaning and their metadata standards makes this problem even more significant. In spite of several proposals to find and retrieve research data from public repositories, there is still need for more comprehensive retrieval solutions. In this article, we specify and develop a mechanism to search for scientific data that takes advantage of metadata records and semantic methods. We present the conception of our architecture and how we have implemented it in a use case in the agriculture domain

Using Versions in GIS

Geographic information systems gis have become important tools in public planning activities (e.g, in environmental or utility management). This type of activity requires the creation and management of alternative scenarios, as well as analysis of temporal data evolution. Existing systems provide limited support for these operations, and appropriate tools are yet to be developed. This paper presents a solution to this problem. This solution is based on managing temporal data and alternatives using the dbv version mechanism. It provides efficient handling and storage of versions, and supports the creation of alternatives for decisionmaking activities. A reduced version of this report appeared in the Proceedings of the DEXA'94 Conference -- 5th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications, Athens, Greece. Keywords: versions, gis, georeferenced data evolution. 1 Introduction Geographic Information Systems (gis) are automated systems that manipulate georeference..

Using Versions in GIS

. gis have become important tools in public planning activities (e.g, in environmental or utility management). This type of activity requires the creation and management of alternative scenarios, as well as analysis of temporal data evolution. Existing systems provide limited support for these operations, and appropriate tools are yet to be developed. This paper presents a solution to this problem. This solution is based on managing temporal data and alternatives using the dbv version mechanism. Keywords: versions, gis, georeferenced data evolution. 1 Introduction Geographic Information Systems (gis) are automated systems that manipulate georeferenced data -- data about geographic phenomena associated with their spatial relationships and location on the terrestrial surface. The term georeferenced entity, in this paper, refers to any type of entity whose components are georeferenced (be it a house, a residential plot or a geographic region). gis data contains spatial and thematic c..

Maintaining Integrity Constraints across Versions in a Database

This paper analyzes the problem of maintaining applicationdependent integrity constraints in databases for design environments. Such environments are characterized by the need to support different types of interaction between integrity maintenance and version maintenance mechanisms. The paper describes these problems, and proposes a framework in which they can be treated homogeneously. We thus bridge the gap existing between research on constraint maintenance and on version control, which has so far posed several problems to researchers in these two areas. 1 Introduction A design environment (e.g., CASE, CAD) must support parallel development of independent entities (e.g., program modules, or car parts) that are eventually integrated into a final product (e.g., a piece of software, or an engine). During this activity, entities are logically grouped into Research partially financed by grants FAPESP 91/2117-1, CNPq RHAE/INFO 46.0571/91.5 and CNPq 453176/91 y Universit'e Paris IX-Da..

Geographic digital content components

Projects using geographic information tools involve a large variety of data objects, represented in different formats. Many efforts pursue standards to represent each kind of data object, and the interoperability between geographic information tools. The proliferation of data and tools raises the need for their reuse. This need can be extended to project reuse. This work presents a proposal to reuse geographic information projects based on a model called digital content component. This model can represent all elements involved in a project - including software components - and their relationship in a open homogeneous format.Pages: 281-29

Escience Today And Tomorrow

This special issue contains extended versions of many of the top papers from the 10th IEEE International eScience Conference (eScience 2014), held in October 2014 in Guaruja, Brazil. The authors of strongly reviewed papers published in that conference were invited to extend their papers, which then went through a second peer review. This special issue contains the first set (seven) of the extended papers selected as the result of this review. Part 2, with three additional extended papers, will follow in a future issue of FGCS. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.5652352