Towards Interactive Geodata Analysis through a Combination of Domain-Specific Languages and 3D Geo Applications in a Web Portal Environment

Urban planning processes affect a wide range of stakeholders including decision makers, urban planners, business companies as well as citizens. ICT-enabled tools supporting urban planning are considered key to successful and sustainable urban management. Based on previous work in the areas of web-based participation tools for urban planning, rule-based geospatial processing as well as 3D virtual reality applications we present a tool that supports experts from municipalities in planning and decision making but also provides a way for the public to engage in urban planning processes. The main contribution of this work is in the combination of 3D visualization and interaction components with a new ontology-driven rule editor based on domain-specific languages. The 3D visualization, on the one hand, enables stakeholders to present and discuss urban plans. On the other hand, the rule editor particularly targets expert users who need to perform spatial analyses on urban data or want to configure the 3D scene according to custom rules. Compared to previous approaches we propose a portable and interactive solution. Our tool is web-based and uses HTML5 technology making it accessible by a broad audience

Avifauna e uso da terra: o caso do Parque Natural de Montesinho

Apresenta-se uma possível utilização da informação dos atlas de avifauna como instrumentos de apoio à gestão de áreas de alta diversidade biológica. O atlas de avifauna do Parque Natural de Montesinho recolhe a informação relativa a um total de 119 espécies, de aves referenciadas, em 48 quadrículas de 5 por 5 quilómetros. A relação entre a avifauna e os sistemas de utilização da terra que a sustenta estimou-se por correlações canónicas (CCA - ter Braak, 1986). Uma análise de classificação (TWINSPAN- Hill, 1979) permitiu discriminar os sectores representativos do PNM. A amplitude de nicho das espécies em relação aos usos da terra, assim como a sua capacidade descritiva e discriminante, avaliam-se, mediante índices de informação (Shannon e Weaver, 1949). Os três eixos gerados pelas CCA avaliaram em 0,594, 0,689 e 0,633 a correlação (Kendall) da avifauna e os usos da terra considerados. Os seus resultados classificam o território do PNM em duas grandes unidades separadas pelo Rio Sabor, o sector ocidental evidencia gradientes climáticos e o oriental gradientes fisiográficos. São fundamentalmente passariformes residentes e biogeografia paleártica (Alauda arvensis, Pica pica, Passer montanus, etc.) as espécies mais envolvidas na dinâmica do território, apresentando os mais elevados valores de entropia. Os usos da terra apresentam distintas relações com o valor informativo das variáveis avifaunísticas. Destacam-se as relações positivas com os secadais, soutos e carvalhais, as neutras com as culturas de regadio e as negativas com os pinhais. A preponderância dos passeriformes residentes na discriminação do território destaca a escala de trabalho, para as quais o uso da terra têm uma importância acrescida na determinação do habitat dessas espécies. As relações com o uso da terra parecem manifestar uma adaptação da avifauna aos sistemas agrários tradicionais ( dos carvalhais aos lameiros e soutos), o que não ocorrerá em relação às formas mais modernas de utilização da terra (regadio e pinhais).Reitoria da Universidade de Coimbra, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento, Câmara Municipal de Coimbra, Região de Turismo do Centro, Banco do Comércio e Indústria, SA, Cafés Delt

Semantically-Enabled Sensor Plug & Play for the Sensor Web

Environmental sensors have continuously improved by becoming smaller, cheaper, and more intelligent over the past years. As consequence of these technological advancements, sensors are increasingly deployed to monitor our environment. The large variety of available sensor types with often incompatible protocols complicates the integration of sensors into observing systems. The standardized Web service interfaces and data encodings defined within OGC’s Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) framework make sensors available over the Web and hide the heterogeneous sensor protocols from applications. So far, the SWE framework does not describe how to integrate sensors on-the-fly with minimal human intervention. The driver software which enables access to sensors has to be implemented and the measured sensor data has to be manually mapped to the SWE models. In this article we introduce a Sensor Plug & Play infrastructure for the Sensor Web by combining (1) semantic matchmaking functionality, (2) a publish/subscribe mechanism underlying the SensorWeb, as well as (3) a model for the declarative description of sensor interfaces which serves as a generic driver mechanism. We implement and evaluate our approach by applying it to an oil spill scenario. The matchmaking is realized using existing ontologies and reasoning engines and provides a strong case for the semantic integration capabilities provided by Semantic Web research

Das Talsperren-Monitoring-System TAMIS

TaMiS ist ein webbasiertes Informationssystem, welches einen gesamtheitlichen Blick auf Stauanlagensysteme erlaubt und deren Berichtswesen und Datenfortführung unterstützt. Hierfür bündelt TaMiS entscheidungsrelevante aktuelle sowie historische Messdaten aus den fachspezifischen Softwareprodukten der Bereiche Bauwerksüberwachung, Hydrologie, Limnologie und Meteorologie. TaMiS ist modular aufgebaut und erlaubt eine Erweiterung auf weitere Anlagen und fachliche Anwendungen. Um der Anforderung einer bestmöglichen Kompatibilität und Datentransparenz gerecht zu werden, basieren die Module soweit möglich auf offenen, standardisierten Webschnittstellen zur Datenübertragung. TaMiS optimiert das Sicherheitsmonitoring von Stauanlagen durch die Zusammenführung aller relevanten Daten. Das Stauanlagenpersonal erhält mit diesem Informationssystem somit eine wertvolle Entscheidungsunterstützung zum sicheren Betreiben von Stauanlagen.TaMiS is a web based information system, which allows for an overall view on water reservoir systems and moreover supports reporting and data management. Therefore TaMiS bundles decision relevant measure data of software products from construction monitoring, hydrological, lomnilogical and meteorological domains. TaMiS is designed modular, thus extensible on further buildings and domain applications. To overcome the requirement of best possible compatiblity and data transperency, the modules are based on open standardised web interfaces for data communication. TaMiS optimizes water reservoir monitoring through integration of all relevant data. The water reservoir stuff is given with a valuable decision support system for running water reservoirs more safely

Open Land Use Map

Open Land Use Map is an initiative that has been started by the Plan4business project and that will be extended as part of the SDI4Apps project in the future. This service aims to create an improved worldwide land use map. The initial map will be prepared using the CORINE Land Cover, Global Cover dataset and Open Street Map. Contributors, mainly volunteers, will able to change the geometry and assign up-to-date land use according to the HILUCS specification. For certain regions more detailed datasets, if available, will be used as an update of the Open Land Use Map. The product is treated as Open Data and users will be able to download the data in a specified format and for a selected area. The paper introduces the technical and business aspects of Open Land Use Map app including the integration and harmonisation tools, sustainability plan and apps that accompany the entire platform

Open Land Use Map

Open Land Use Map is an initiative that has been started by the Plan4business project and that will be extended as part of the SDI4Apps project in the future. This service aims to create an improved worldwide land use map. The initial map will be prepared using the CORINE Land Cover, Global Cover dataset and Open Street Map. Contributors, mainly volunteers, will able to change the geometry and assign up-to-date land use according to the HILUCS specification. For certain regions more detailed datasets, if available, will be used as an update of the Open Land Use Map. The product is treated as Open Data and users will be able to download the data in a specified format and for a selected area. The paper introduces the technical and business aspects of Open Land Use Map app including the integration and harmonisation tools, sustainability plan and apps that accompany the entire platform

Open data platform for data integration, visualisation and map design

The current trend in the EU is to open access to public sector information which is provided either for free or for marginal cost, and reuse it in various applications. Information technologies enable people to access, process and analyse spatial data from various sources, help to design on-demand maps and provide information for decision makers. However, the provision of data varies across different authorities, and combining heterogeneous data is not an easy task. We present an Open Data Platform that enables people to integrate, harmonise and visualise spatial planning and other data. The platform connects to the approach of real cartography and aims to enable non-cartographers to correctly design maps and gain new information in a user-friendly way based on modern technologies and robust data storage. This chapter mainly tackles the issues of heterogeneous data integration, harmonisation and visualisation. Ongoing research aims to explore new methods of data reuse and cartographic visualisation, following the trends of modern cartography