Choriented Maps: Visualizing SDG Data on Mobile Devices

Choropleth maps and graduated symbol maps are often used to visualize quantitative geographic data. However, as the number of classes grows, distinguishing between adjacent classes increasingly becomes challenging. To mitigate this issue, this work introduces two new visualization types: choriented maps (maps that use colour and orientation as variables to encode geographic information) and choriented mobile (an optimization of choriented maps for mobile devices). The maps were evaluated in a graphical perception study featuring the comparison of SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) data for several European countries. Choriented maps and choriented mobile visualizations resulted in comparable, sometimes better effectiveness and confidence scores than choropleth and graduated symbol maps. Choriented maps and choriented mobile visualizations also performed well regarding efficiency overall and performed worse only than graduated symbol maps. These results suggest that the use of colour and orientation as visual variables in combination can improve the selectivity of map symbols and user performance during the exploration of geographic data in some scenarios.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Cartographic Journa

Collaboration or competition: The impact of incentive types on urban cycling

Bicycling is an important mode of transport for cities and many cities are interested in promoting its uptake by a larger portion of the population. Several cycling mobile applications primarily rely on competition as a motivation strategy for urban cyclists. Yet, collaboration may be equally useful to motivate and engage cyclists. The present research reports on an experiment comparing the impact of collaboration-based and competition-based rewards on users’ enjoyment, satisfaction, engagement with, and intention to cycle. It involved a total of 57 participants in three European cities: Münster (Germany), Castelló (Spain), and Valletta (Malta). Our results show participants from the study reporting higher enjoyment and engagement with cycling in the collaboration condition. However, we did not find a significant impact on the participants’ worldview when it comes to the intentions to start or increase cycling behavior. The results support the use of collaboration-based rewards in the design of game-based applications to promote urban cycling

Spatial and temporal resolution of sensor observations

Beobachtung ist ein Kernkonzept der Geoinformatik. Beobachtungen dienen bei Phänomenen wie Klimawandel, Massenbewegungen (z. B. Hangbewegungen) und demographischer Wandel zur Überwachung, Entwicklung von Modellen und Simulation dieser Erscheinungen. Auflösung ist eine zentrale Eigenschaft von Beobachtungen. Der Gebrauch von Beobachtungen unterschiedlicher Auflösung führt zu (potenziell) unterschiedlichen Entscheidungen, da die Auflösung der Beobachtungen das Erkennen von Strukturen während der Phase der Datenanalyse beeinflusst. Der Hauptbeitrag dieser Arbeit ist eine entwickelte Theorie der raum- und zeitlichen Auflösung von Beobachtungen, die sowohl auf technische Sensoren (z. B. Fotoapparat) als auch auf menschliche Sensoren anwendbar ist. Die Konsistenz der Theorie wurde anhand der Sprache Haskell evaluiert, und ihre praktische Anwendbarkeit wurde unter Einsatz von Beobachtungen des Webportals Flickr illustriert

Quality of life, big data and the power of statistics

The digital era has opened up new possibilities for data-driven research. This paper discusses big data challenges in environmental monitoring and reflects on the use of statisticalmethodsintacklingthesechallengesforimprovingthequalityoflifeincities

Interactive guidelines:Public communication of data-based research in cities

Trilles, S., Granell, C., Degbelo, A., & Bhattacharya, D. (2020). Interactive guidelines: Public communication of data-based research in cities. PLoS ONE, 15(1), [e0228008]. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228008Scientific research results are traditionally published as articles in peer-reviewed conference proceedings or journals. These articles often use technical jargon, which precludes the general public from consuming the results achieved. New ways to communicate scientific results are thus necessary to transfer scientific insights to non-experts, and this work proposes the concept of interactive guidelines to fill this gap. A web tool, called Interactive Guidelines Tool, was developed as a proof-of-concept for the idea. It was used in the context of the GEO-C project to communicate research outputs in smart cities scenarios to the public. A comparative analysis between the Interactive Guidelines Tool and related tools helps to highlight the progress it enables beyond the current state of the art. Interactive Guidelines Tool is available as an open-source tool and can be customised/extended by any interested researcher, in the process of making scientific knowledge and insights more accessible and understandable to a broader public.publishersversionpublishe

Open City Toolkit: the role of geospatial science in making open and participative cities

En la literatura se distinguen dos enfoques diferentes para la transformación de las actuales ciudades en ciudades inteligentes: (a) ofrecer sistemas más eficientes y autónomos a través del uso de la tecnología, sensores, etc.; o (b) educar a los ciudadanos para que puedan hacer frente a los avances tecnológicos en sus ciudades. En este contexto, el proyecto GEO-C (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2014) tiene como objetivo ofrecer estos dos enfoques. Para ello se ofrece una plataforma de software abierto, llamada Open City Toolkit. Dicha plataforma es considerada como la aglutinación de herramientas para capacitar tanto a ciudadanos y desarrolladores como a administraciones públicas, en la participación ciudadana y lograr ciudades más abiertas e inteligentes. Entre estas herramientas se encuentran: aplicaciones, conjuntos de datos, servicios y guías. La Open City Toolkit tiene como misión integrar los avances de investigación provenientes de diferentes temáticas alrededor de las ciudades inteligentes. Dichos avances son los resultados de los diferentes temas de investigación llevados a cabo por los quince estudiantes de doctorado pertenecientes al proyecto. Por otra parte, la caja de herramientas también tiene como objetivo difundir los avances de la ciencia y tecnología geoespacial a los usuarios detallados, para hacer frente a los retos de las ciudades abiertas y participativas.The current literature points out two main approaches regarding the development and enablement of smart cities: on one hand, a technology-driven approach to make systems more efficient and autonomous through sensing technologies; on the other hand, a citizen-driven strategy to educate people so that they can cope with the technological advances in their cities. In this context, the GEO-C project (H2020-MSCA- ITN2014) aims to combine these two approaches by developing an open software platform, called Open City Toolkit. This platform is a toolbox to train citizens, developers and public administrations, to facilitate citizen participation, and to open up cities. These tools include applications, guidelines, services, and datasets. The Open City Toolkit aims to integrate different research results around smart cities. These scientific results are being generated by fifteen doctoral students who are part of the GEO-C project. Moreover, the Open City Toolkit will disseminate the progress of science and technology to end users, to meet the challenges of open and participatory cities.Este trabajo ha sido financiado por la Comisión Europea a través del proyecto GEO-C (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2014, acuerdo de concesión número 642332, http://www.geo-c.eu/). Carlos Granell ha sido financiado por el programa Ramón y Cajal (ayuda RYC-2014-16913). Sergio Trilles ha sido financiando por el programa postdoctoral Vali+d de la Generalitat Valenciana (APOSTD/2016/058)

Air Quality Monitoring Network Design Optimisation for Robust Land Use Regression Models

A very common curb of epidemiological studies for understanding the impact of air pollution on health is the quality of exposure data available. Many epidemiological studies rely on empirical modelling techniques, such as land use regression (LUR), to evaluate ambient air exposure. Previous studies have located monitoring stations in an ad hoc fashion, favouring their placement in traffic “hot spots”, or in areas deemed subjectively to be of interest to land use and population. However, ad-hoc placement of monitoring stations may lead to uninformed decisions for long-term exposure analysis. This paper introduces a systematic approach for identifying the location of air quality monitoring stations. It combines the flexibility of LUR with the ability to put weights on priority areas such as highly-populated regions, to minimise the spatial mean predictor error. Testing the approach over the study area has shown that it leads to a significant drop of the mean prediction error (99.87% without spatial weights; 99.94% with spatial weights in the study area). The results of this work can guide the selection of sites while expanding or creating air quality monitoring networks for robust LUR estimations with minimal prediction errors