Design and development of a web-based GIS application for rating residential properties

In the real estate business, it is a common understanding that the value and potential of a property are fundamentally determined by its location and surrounding environment, like the proximity to services and facilities. Depending on buyer/tenant preferences or on the stage of a person life cycle, surrounding preferences may vary, such as families with young children are interested in properties located near parks, playgrounds or schools, whereas young people and students want to be near entertainment venues.  In this paper, we present "Rate your Place", a web-based GIS that allows buyers/tenants to define their preferences regarding the types of facilities that they want to have near or far from their ideal property and returns a ranked list of the most suitable properties. Ranking mechanism is based on a multi-criteria geospatial analysis methodology that employs: (a) routing methods, for calculating road network distances, (b) a Ratio Estimation Procedure, for assigning weights to types of facilities, (c) Score Range Procedure, for distance normalization and (d) a Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) index for calculating the final score of each property. The methodology is supported by an integrated web-based GIS developed exclusively with the use of open source software. As a case study, an application has been implemented for the city of Chios, Greece

Semantically-Aware Retrieval of Oceanographic Phenomena Annotated on Satellite Images

Scientists in the marine domain process satellite images in order to extract information that can be used for monitoring, understanding, and forecasting of marine phenomena, such as turbidity, algal blooms and oil spills. The growing need for effective retrieval of related information has motivated the adoption of semantically aware strategies on satellite images with different spatiotemporal and spectral characteristics. A big issue of these approaches is the lack of coincidence between the information that can be extracted from the visual data and the interpretation that the same data have for a user in a given situation. In this work, we bridge this semantic gap by connecting the quantitative elements of the Earth Observation satellite images with the qualitative information, modelling this knowledge in a marine phenomena ontology and developing a question answering mechanism based on natural language that enables the retrieval of the most appropriate data for each user’s needs. The main objective of the presented methodology is to realize the content-based search of Earth Observation images related to the marine application domain on an application-specific basis that can answer queries such as “Find oil spills that occurred this year in the Adriatic Sea”

The Development of an Educational Outdoor Adventure Mobile App

This article focuses on the development of an educational outdoor adventure mobile app while presenting findings that were derived from various case studies that we conducted using it. The mobile application, called RouteQuizer, is complemented by a web application and a database, forming a system that enables teachers to create educational treasure hunt activities for their students and monitor their performance. The aim of the research was to create a system that would exploit all possible Outdoor Adventure Education (OAE) and treasure hunt benefits while excluding possible smartphone use negative consequences. The development of the system took place in Greece and began in December 2017, by conducting a nation-wide research examining Greek secondary teachers’ Information and Communication Technology (ICT) literacy and perceptions on smartphone use and outdoor activities. By June 2018, 700 questionnaires were collected. In order to test the system, in March 2018, we conducted a pilot case study in Lesvos island Greece and between July 2018 and February 2020, we conducted four additional case studies and a teacher training program, all of which took place in Lesvos island Greece. During the development process of the mobile application, we focused on the participatory aspect of the process, paying special attention to the teacher and student evaluation during the design and prototyping phases. Considering that the system is educational we research whether the mobile application provided effective learning outcomes and whether it benefited students’ social and physical skills. The results that we collected suggest that the mobile application is an effective learning tool while mobile learning and treasure hunt benefits have been repeatedly confirmed during the case studies. Greek teachers and students also proved to be capable smartphone and computer users, and reported being willing to participate in similar activities in the future

Mesoscale Ocean Feature Identification in the North Aegean Sea with the Use of Sentinel-3 Data

The identification of oceanographic circulation related features is a valuable tool for environmental and fishery management authorities, commercial use and institutional research. Remote sensing techniques are suitable for detection, as in situ measurements are prohibitively costly, spatially sparse and infrequent. Still, these imagery applications require a certain level of technical and theoretical skill making them practically unreachable to the immediate beneficiaries. In this paper a new geospatial web service is proposed for providing daily data on mesoscale oceanic feature identification in the North Aegean Sea, produced by Sentinel-3 SLSTR Sea Surface Temperature (SST) imagery, to end users. The service encompasses an automated process for: raw data acquisition, interpolation, oceanic feature extraction and publishing through a webGIS application. Level-2 SST data are interpolated through a Co-Kriging algorithm, involving information from short term historical data, in order to retain as much information as possible. A modified gradient edge detection methodology is then applied to the interpolated products for the mesoscale feature extraction. The resulting datasets are served according to the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards and are available for visualization, processing and download though a dedicated web portal

Mapping Cultural Heritage in Coastal Areas with UAS: The Case Study of Lesvos Island

Dynamic processes in coastal zones and human activities in the coastal environment produce pressure on cultural heritage, especially in touristic places. Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are used as an additional tool for monitoring cultural heritage sites in sensitive coastal areas. UASs provide low-cost accurate spatial data and high-resolution imagery products in various spatial and temporal scales. The use of UAS for mapping cultural heritage sites in the coastal zone is of increasing interest among scientists and archaeologists in terms of monitoring, documentation, mapping, and restoration. This study outlines the integration of UAS data acquisition and structure from motion (SfM) pipeline for the visualization of selected cultural heritage areas (ancient harbors) in the coastal zone. The UAS-SfM methodology produces very detailed orthophoto maps for mapping and detecting cultural heritage sites. Additionally, a metadata cataloging system has been developed in order to facilitate online searching operations for all products of the data acquisition, SfM pipeline, and cartographic processes. For this reason, a specific metadata profile was implemented, based on the European INSPIRE framework. As a result, datasets reusability and catalogs interoperability are promoted

Geography Teachers’ Knowledge of and Perceptions on Dyslexia

At all levels of education, teachers are actively involved in improving students’ learning outcomes and developing their own pedagogical experience. As a consequence, the teacher’s role in managing learning difficulties is of particular importance. This research investigates secondary school geography teachers’ knowledge of and perceptions of dyslexia. For research purposes, 61 questionnaires were distributed to secondary teachers teaching geography all over Greece. The questionnaire included a total of 30 questions about demographic and personal information, teachers’ knowledge of and perceptions of dyslexia, and teaching approaches they adopt while teaching geography. The research examined teachers’ willingness to use teaching tools and innovative approaches that would help all students and, more specifically, dyslexics. The responses were coded using SPSSv.23.00. The results show that teachers’ knowledge of dyslexia is contradictory, as most teachers (93.4%) believe that dyslexia affects students’ performance only in language courses, whereas a smaller percentage of teachers (just 27.8%) believe that dyslexic students also find it difficult to participate in science courses, and only 26.2% believe they face difficulties in orientation as well. Teachers also have unclear views on how to manage dyslexia and how to implement effective teaching strategies. The results show the importance of geography teachers’ training on dyslexia and the integration of new technology in teaching dyslexic students

Efficient Evaluation of Probabilistic Advanced Spatial Queries on Existentially Uncertain Data

Abstract—We study the problem of answering spatial queries in databases where objects exist with some uncertainty and they are associated with an existential probability. The goal of a thresholding probabilistic spatial query is to retrieve the objects that qualify the spatial predicates with probability that exceeds a threshold. Accordingly, a ranking probabilistic spatial query selects the objects with the highest probabilities to qualify the spatial predicates. We propose adaptations of spatial access methods and search algorithms for probabilistic versions of range queries, nearest neighbors, spatial skylines, and reverse nearest neighbors and conduct an extensive experimental study, which evaluates the effectiveness of proposed solutions. Index Terms—H.2.4.h Query processing, H.2.4.k Spatial databases

Supporting insular research and development through the ‘Archipelago’ information system

Information systems play a crucial role in supporting decision-making for managing and administrating territories at different levels of authority. Unfortunately, most such information systems are not dedicated to or customized for the special needs imposed by islands. In this work we describe the design, implementation, and operation of the ‘Archipelago’ digital repository, an integrated information system for supporting island research and development. The main objectives of the system are the storage, documentation, and dissemination of any kind of data regarding islands, as well as the provision of cartographic facilities for searching, visualization, and comparison. The basic principle of the system is the ability to geographically designate any stored material. The system is compatible with the standards for digital information documentation and interoperability, and it is based on free and open-source software tools