Towards spatio‐temporal data modeling of geo‐tagged shipping information

Ponencias, comunicaciones y pósters presentados en el 17th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science "Connecting a Digital Europe through Location and Place", celebrado en la Universitat Jaume I del 3 al 6 de junio de 2014.Spatio-temporal data models deal with capturing information characterized by both spatial and temporal semantics. In this paper we review current approaches for spatio-temporal data modelling and present out initial results for selecting the most relevant approach: Object-Oriented modeling for means of modeling geo-tagged shipping information. The shipping information is provided by the well-known LLLOYD’s lists dataset. We have introduced the case study and dataset characteristics used in the research project and presented our data model in Unified Modeling Language (UML). The model focuses on spatio-temporal events where characteristics are categorized as thematic, spatial and temporal attributes. The paper follows up with discussion on the selected approach and results, and finally ends with presenting the future outlook

The influence of geometrical and nongeometrical features on the use of the lexical concepts NEAR and FAR in English and Finnish

This paper investigates the impact of geometrical and nongeometrical features on the use of the lexical concepts NEAR and FAR in English and Finnish. Participants’ acceptability ratings for these concepts demonstrate that a bar in between a Figure and a Ground acts as a scale-setting object but not as a distance enhancing barrier, shows that the influence of the geometrical feature Figure–Ground distance exceeds the influence of several nongeometrical features, but most of all reveals that language specific lexical properties associated with NEAR and FAR predict language dependent effects for functional relatedness in interaction with Figure–Ground distance and bar presence

Hierarchies for Event-Based Modeling of Geographic Phenomena

Modeling the dynamic aspect, or change, of geographic phenomena is essential to explain the evolution of geographic entities and predict their future. Event-based modelling, describing the occurrences rather than states of geographic phenomena, gives an explicit treatment of such change, but currently does not have the support of the mechanisms to enable the shifts among different granularities of events. To account for different tasks, a hierarchical representation of the event space at different granularities is needed. This thesis presents an event-based model; a general framework for representing events based on precondition and postcondition using Allen\u27s temporal interval logic. It captures not only the changes to the objects, but also some contextual information that is necessary for the occurrence of events. Analogous to objects, events have types and instances, and two abstraction processes in the object-oriented paradigm, generalization and aggregation, are applied to events. Event-event relations a.re investigated through their preconditions and post,conditions. Our representation of relationships between events is based on two relations between events, f-sequences and f-transitions. These relationships play an important role in describing the structure of a component event in the event partonomy, and therefore provide a mechanism to construct the event partonomy automatically. This research constructs an algorithm to generate the part-whole hierarchy for events, which supports multiple representations of events and enables shifts among them. To illustrate the process of constructing the event partonomy, we give a case study of a car accident scenario

The importance of topological validation processes when managing changes in land property

Las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación están consiguiendo que la información geográfica sea asequible a un mayor número de profesionales a través de las Tecnologías de la Información Geográfica. La intervención multidisciplinar en el territorio enriquece la investigación y las formas de aplicación de este tipo de recursos tecnológicos. Pero esta facilidad tecnológica puede suponer el riesgo de un uso inadecuado, por falta de conocimientos técnicos adecuados a la complejidad de la información geográfica o por el mal uso de las aplicaciones informáticas. El trabajo catastral puede beneficiarse mucho del empleo de estas tecnologías de información geográfica, al facilitar el uso, la comunicación y su administración electrónica, pero el desconocimiento de las propiedades geométricas y topológicas de la información geográfica puede llevar a cometer errores de graves consecuencias a profesionales no especializados. En este artículo ofrecemos el resultado de la investigación del trabajo de diversos juristas y técnicos, con el objetivo de desarrollar métodos automatizados y aplicaciones informáticas que permitan a los especialistas no expertos en Cartografía usar este tipo de información con garantías de exactitud al más alto nivel, como una solución eficaz para que la información geográfica con calidad topológica enriquezca la seguridad jurídica en el tráfico inmobiliario.Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is making Geographic Information (GI) reachable to an increasing number of professionals through technology. A multidisciplinary approach to land resources assessment enriches research and encourages new implementations of this type of technological resources, but the affordability of Geographic Information Technology (GIT) may lead to misuse due to lack of knowledge about GI complexity or poor user skills when working with computer applications. Cadastral tasks can greatly benefit from the use of GIT to empower transparent transactions and e-government, but failing to handle geometric and topological properties when dealing with GI may lead to mistakes with serious consequences for non-skilled professionals. In this article, we show results of a research work conducted by a team of both, legal and technical professionals, whose main goal is the development of automated methods and mapping software that allow non-experts to fully embrace GI while preserving the highest level of accuracy. We foresee this as an effective solution to encompass real estate data transactions with topologically accurate GI and, thus, as a means to enforce for legal certainty.Este trabajo se ha realizado como resultados del Proyecto de Investigación Aplicada “Ramón Llull”, realizado en el Laboratorio de Geomática del Instituto Interuniversitario de Geografía y el Departamento de Derecho Civil de la Universidad de Alicante bajo el patrocinio del Consejo General del Notariado y Colegio Notarial de Valencia. Además, se inscribe en el marco del proyecto de investigación «El Registro de la Propiedad como instrumento vertebrador de la información territorial; datos espaciales, metadatos y Directiva INSPIRE (II)» (DER 2011-23321), financiado por el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad

Modeling and manipulating spacetime objects in a true 4D model

The concept of spacetime has long been used in physics to refer to models that integrate 3D space and time as a single 4D continuum. We argue in this paper that it is also advantageous to use this concept in a practical geographic context by realizing a true 4D model, where time is modeled and implemented as a dimension in the same manner as the three spatial dimensions. Within this paper we focus on 4D vector objects, which can be implemented using dimension-independent data structures such as generalized maps. A 4D vector model allows us to create and manipulate models with actual 4D objects and the topological relationships connecting them, all of which have a geometric interpretation and can be constructed, modified, and queried. In this paper we discuss where such a 4D model fits with respect to other spatiotemporal modeling approaches, and we show concretely how higher-dimensional modeling can be used to represent such 4D objects and topological relationships. In addition, we explain how the 4D objects in such a system can be created and manipulated using a small set of implementable operations, which use simple 3D space and 1D time inputs for intuitiveness and which modify the underlying 4D model indirectly

"Landmark Route": A Comparison to the Shortest Route

Most navigation systems for pedestrians output the shortest route. However, there are findings that travellers do not use the shortest route when free to choose. One alternative to minimising spatial distance is the incorporation of landmark information in a shortest route algorithm. Yet, we do not know whether pedestrians prefer such a landmark route over the shortest route. Therefore, we perform a survey and show participants videos of a shortest and a landmark route. We let participants answer questions concerning navigation satisfaction, route communication, and route comparison. Our findings show that the landmark route is more favourable.</p

GIS and Network Analysis

Both geographic information systems (GIS) and network analysis are burgeoning fields, characterised by rapid methodological and scientific advances in recent years. A geographic information system (GIS) is a digital computer application designed for the capture, storage, manipulation, analysis and display of geographic information. Geographic location is the element that distinguishes geographic information from all other types of information. Without location, data are termed to be non-spatial and would have little value within a GIS. Location is, thus, the basis for many benefits of GIS: the ability to map, the ability to measure distances and the ability to tie different kinds of information together because they refer to the same place (Longley et al., 2001). GIS-T, the application of geographic information science and systems to transportation problems, represents one of the most important application areas of GIS-technology today. While traditional GIS formulation's strengths are in mapping display and geodata processing, GIS-T requires new data structures to represent the complexities of transportation networks and to perform different network algorithms in order to fulfil its potential in the field of logistics and distribution logistics. This paper addresses these issues as follows. The section that follows discusses data models and design issues which are specifically oriented to GIS-T, and identifies several improvements of the traditional network data model that are needed to support advanced network analysis in a ground transportation context. These improvements include turn-tables, dynamic segmentation, linear referencing, traffic lines and non-planar networks. Most commercial GIS software vendors have extended their basic GIS data model during the past two decades to incorporate these innovations (Goodchild, 1998). The third section shifts attention to network routing problems that have become prominent in GIS-T: the travelling salesman problem, the vehicle routing problem and the shortest path problem with time windows, a problem that occurs as a subproblem in many time constrained routing and scheduling issues of practical importance. Such problems are conceptually simple, but mathematically complex and challenging. The focus is on theory and algorithms for solving these problems. The paper concludes with some final remarks.

Dissemination and geovisualization of territorial entities\u27 history

This paper describes an innovative solution for geovisualization of the demographic and administrative history of French municipalities named communes in French. This solution allows for the open dissemination of such data. The challenge is to provide a web interface for unskilled users in order to help them understand complex information about the demographic evolution of French territories. Our approach combines interactive thematic spatial and temporal views. We describe our architecture based on open-source technologies and the organization of this imperfect geo-historical information in our spatiotemporal database. Our second contribution concerns the concept of an acquaintance graph that has been used to obtain an efficient design with good performance in our geovisualization website