Framework development for providing accessibility to qualitative spatial calculi

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.Qualitative spatial reasoning deals with knowledge about an infinite spatial domain using a finite set of qualitative relations without using numerical computation. Qualitative knowledge is relative knowledge where we obtain the knowledge on the basis of comparison of features with in the object domain rather then using some external scales. Reasoning is an intellectual facility by which, conclusions are drawn from premises and is present in our everyday interaction with the geographical world. The kind of reasoning that human being relies on is based on commonsense knowledge in everyday situations. During the last decades a multitude of formal calculi over spatial relations have been proposed by focusing on different aspects of space like topology, orientation and distance. Qualitative spatial reasoning engines like SparQ and GQR represents space and reasoning about the space based on qualitative spatial relations and bring qualitative reasoning closer to the geographic applications. Their relations and certain operations defined in qualitative calculi use to infer new knowledge on different aspects of space. Today GIS does not support common-sense reasoning due to limitation for how to formalize spatial inferences. It is important to focus on common sense geographic reasoning, reasoning as it is performed by human. Human perceive and represents geographic information qualitatively, the integration of reasoner with spatial application enables GIS users to represent and extract geographic information qualitatively using human understandable query language. In this thesis, I designed and developed common API framework using platform independent software like XML and JAVA that used to integrate qualitative spatial reasoning engines (SparQ) with GIS application. SparQ is set of modules that structured to provides different reasoning services. SparQ supports command line instructions and it has a specific syntax as set of commands. The developed API provides interface between GIS application and reasoning engine. It establishes connection with reasoner over TCP/IP, takes XML format queries as input from GIS application and converts into SparQ module specific syntax. Similarly it extracts given result, converts it into defined XML format and passes it to GIS application over the same TCP/IP connection. The most challenging part of thesis was SparQ syntax analysis for inputs and their outputs. Each module in Sparq takes module specific query syntax and generates results in multiple syntaxes like; error, simple result and result with comments. Reasoner supports both binary and ternary calculi. The input query syntax for binary-calculi is different for ternary-calculi in the terms of constraint-networks. Based on analysis I, identified commonalities between input query syntaxes for both binary and ternary calculi and designed XML structures for them. Similarly I generalized SparQ results into five major categories and designed XML structures. For ternary-calculi, I considered constraint-reasoning module and their specific operations and designed XML structure for both of their inputs and outputs

Cognitively plausible representations for the alignment of sketch and geo-referenced maps

In many geo-spatial applications, freehand sketch maps are considered as an intuitive way to collect user-generated spatial information. The task of automatically mapping information from such hand-drawn sketch maps to geo-referenced maps is known as the alignment task. Researchers have proposed various qualitative representations to capture distorted and generalized spatial information in sketch maps, however thus far the effectiveness of these representations has not been evaluated in the context of an alignment task. This paper empirically evaluates a set of cognitively plausible representations for alignment using real sketch maps collected from two different study areas with the corresponding geo-referenced maps. Firstly, the representations are evaluated in a single-aspect alignment approach by demonstrating the alignment of maps for each individual sketch aspect. Secondly, representations are evaluated across multiple sketch aspects using more than one representation in the alignment task. The evaluations demonstrated the suitability of the chosen representation for aligning user-generated content with geo-referenced maps in a real-world scenario

Songs between cities: Listening to courtesans in colonial north India

In the aftermath of 1857, urban spaces and cultural practices were transformed and contested. Regional royal capitals became nodes in a new colonial geography, and the earlier regimes that had built them were recast as decadent and corrupt societies. Demolitions and new infrastructures aside, this transformation was also felt at the level of manners, sexual mores, language politics, and the performing arts. This article explores this transformation with a focus on women's language, female singers and dancers, and the men who continued to value their literary and musical skills. While dancing girls and courtesans were degraded by policy-makers and vernacular journalists alike, their Urdu compositions continued to be circulated, published, and discussed. Collections of women's biographies and lyrics gesture to the importance of embodied practices in cultivating emotional positions. This cultivation was valued in late Mughal elite society, and continued to resonate for emotional communities of connoisseurs, listeners, and readers, even as they navigated the expectations and sensibilities of colonial society

SmartSkeMa: Scalable Documentation for Community and Customary Land Tenure

According to the online database landmarkmap, up to an estimated 50% or more of the world’s habitable land is held by indigenous peoples and communities. While legal and procedural provisions are being made for bureaucratically managing the many different types of tenure relations in this domain, there continues to be a lack of tools and expertise needed to quickly and accurately document customary and indigenous land rights. Software and hardware tools that have been designed for documenting land tenure through communities continue to assume a parcel-based model of land as well as categories of land relations (RRR) largely dimensionally similar to statutory land rights categories. The SmartSkeMa approach to land tenure documentation combines sketching by hand with aerial imagery and an ontology-based model of local rules regulating land tenure relations to produce a system specifically designed to allow accurate documentation of land tenure from a local perspective. In addition, the SmartSkeMa adaptor which is an OWL-DL based set of rules for translating local land related concepts to the LADM concepts provides a more high-level view of the data collected (i.e., what does this concept relate to within the national LADM profile?) In this paper we present the core functionalities of SmartSkeMa using examples from Kenya and Ethiopia. Based on an expert survey and focus groups held in Kenya, we also analyze how the approach fairs on the Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration tools scale. The results indicate that the approach could be beneficial in scaling up mapping of community and customary lands as well as help reduce conflict through its participatory nature

A Sociological Study of the Tabligh Jama’at: Working for Allah

In this book we study The Tabligh Jama’at, an Islamic revivalist movement which, through participation in its preaching tours, provides satisfaction to individuals experiencing the crisis of modernity. Preaching tours enable Muslims to become workers for Allah and involved in the renewal of Allah’s world. We explore the ideological underpinning of preaching and working for Allah through the application of Frame Theory. Through an analytic framework comprising framing tasks and framing processes we unpack how the ideas of Islamic revivalism found in key Tabligh Jama’at written and oral texts – the Faza’il-e-A’maal and bayans – are packaged and communicated in such a way as to attract individuals to participate in preaching tours. The book concludes that working for Allah provides Muslims with meaning, social solidarity, and satisfaction which modernity has failed to provide them. This book will appeal to academics, researchers, journalists, policy-makers, and research students interested in or working on Islamic revivalist movements

Maternal and newborn outcomes of care from community midwives in Pakistan: A retrospective analysis of routine maternity data

Objective: The study aimed to determine the maternal and newborn outcomes of Community Midwives\u27 (CMWs\u27) services in Pakistan as recorded in the provincial Management Information System (MIS) of the government\u27s Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) program of Sindh province.Methodology: A descriptive retrospective design was used to examine the monthly reports of CMWs, stored in the MNCH-MIS, for the period of January 2013 to December 2015. A total of 200 CMWs were randomly selected from 23 districts of the Sindh province. The outcomes of the CMWs\u27 services were analyzed, using descriptive statistics.Results: The analysis of data of 23 districts revealed that a total of 103,836 antenatal care were attended by 200 CMWs who were selected for the study. For intranatal care, 23,296 cases were registered, of which 78.3% (n = 18, 233) returned to these CMWs at the time of delivery. During the period, 17,849 were live births. The still birth rate was calculated to be 13.4/1000, the abortion rate was 7.3 per 1000 pregnant women, newborn mortality rate was 12.4/1000 live births, and the maternal mortality ratio was 142.5/100,000 live births. Moreover, the low birth weight newborns were 9% of the total live births.Conclusion: This study indicates that although the outcomes for CMWs are better than for some other cadres in Pakistan, they are still inadequate compared to midwives trained to the international standards. The outcomes presented in this study are in line with the challenges of CMWs survival reported in the earlier studies. This strongly indicate need for improvement in CMWs pre-service and in-service education to meet the international quality standards set by ICM

Generalized, inaccurate,incomplete: How to comprehensively analyze sketch maps beyond their metric correctness

Sketch mapping is a method to investigate a person’s spatial perception and knowledge about the surrounding environment. While cartographic maps can be easily evaluated with respect to the represented features, map scale, and spatial accuracy, there still does not exist a comprehensive method to evaluate sketch maps. This paper aims to overcome this gap and proposes a sketch map analysis method that allows for analyzing the completeness, generalization and (qualitative) spatial accuracy of the sketched information in a three-step process. After describing the method, we illustrate how our computer-supported method performs in a use case with three sketch maps. Our approach may assist researchers in geography, psychology, and education to evaluate spatial knowledge in a systematic way independent of specific research questions and experimental scenarios

Innovative geospatial solutions for land tenure mapping

There are millions of unrecorded land rights in sub-Saharan Africa, which are still not mapped. Therefore, there is a clear demand for innovative solutions for land tenure recording, as also written in the target 1.4 of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In response to this need, the consortia of “its4land” European Commission Horizon 2020 project developed the “its4land toolbox” based on the continuum of land rights and fit-for-purpose approach. The advanced technological solutions of the toolbox include smart sketch maps, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), interactive boundary delineator, as well as sharing and publishing land information via geocloud services. The solutions are based on specific needs, market opportunities, and readiness of end-users. Moreover, aiming in scaling up broader governance implications are examined. During the project lifetime, the main technical tasks included tool development, prototyping, and demonstration of the tools to local, regional, national, and international users and stakeholders. Furthermore, equal emphasis was placed on needs assessment, governance, capacity, and business modeling. The current paper presents the unique its4land land administration toolbox in which the key exploitable results of the project are integrated in a joint used case in Rwanda