Crowdsourcing the georeferencing of historical pictures

Countless organizations own archive pictures which are not used due to the difficulty of localizing them. Only the participation of volunteers can help to identify the image content. Through an accessible web interface called smapshot, citizens are able to georeference historical images without any prior specific competence. To avoid the volunteers to face the complexity of 3D digitization and navigation, we implemented a state of the art photogrammetry camera orientation algorithm in the platform. Currently several thousand images from all around Switzerland have been georeferenced by the crowd. At this time the tool is mainly used by the population for the visualization experience and the nostalgia behind it. The ambition is to support scientists to analyze landscape evolution

GEOPOLL - Integrate Cartographic Questions in Web Forms, Polls or Surveys

Most of the web forms, polls or surveys are composed with classical input fields (check boxes, radio buttons, select lists, etc.) and a lot of standards web forms builders or services (e.g. Typeform, WuFoo, Google Forms, Survey Monkey, etc.) help to build and deploy them. Nowadays, offering a text area to catch a ZIP code or a select list to point out a country remains the best way to explicitly collect geospatial data. But what about mapping interfaces to integrate cartographic questions and/or cartographic answers as a more suitable solution? How to let form’s respondents indicate in which area(s) they engage in certain activities? The only way to solve these issues is by coding it yourself. This paper shows the design and technical problematic and try to give some solutions to build an efficient UX for the respondents and a standard answers treatment for the data analysts. This paper will also highlight the capacities of open source JavaScript library like OpenLayers to build the solution. Our interface was tested by the cities of Lausanne and Pully (Switzerland) and thousands of people answered to these « cartographic forms » on mobile and desktop. We would like to share some good practice and lessons learned

Challenges in VGI for scientific projects

Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is a recent trend that has been successfully used in order to collect and share geographic information. This method is of interest for scientists who are in need of data and who want to get people involved in their cause. In this paper we discuss the challenges and opportunities that scientists may face when using the concept. An initial challenge is to find users who are willing to contribute. Second scientist must get these users to interact with the application and with each other. The final goal is to end up with high quality data that can be used for scientific research

Intracellular Nanoparticle Dynamics Affected by Cytoskeletal Integrity

The cell interior is a crowded chemical space, which limits the diffusion of molecules and organelles within the cytoplasm, affecting the rates of chemical reactions. We provide insight into the relationship between non-specific intracellular diffusion and cytoskeletal integrity. Quantum dots entered the cell through microinjection and their spatial coordinates were captured by tracking their fluorescence signature as they diffused within the cell cytoplasm. Particle tracking revealed significant enhancement in the mobility of biocompatible quantum dots within fibrosarcoma cells versus their healthy counterparts, fibroblasts, as well as in actin destabilized fibroblasts versus untreated fibroblasts. Analyzing the displacement distributions provided insight into how the heterogeneity of the cell cytoskeleton influences intracellular particle diffusion. We demonstrate that intracellular diffusion of non-specific nanoparticles is enhanced by disrupting the actin network, which has implications for drug delivery efficacy and trafficking

Implementation of tiled vector services: a case study

Abstract. Vector tiling aims at cutting vector data into smaller entities. It offers several opportunities, especially for the development of web-mapping systems, such as the possibilities to apply different styles, to access attributes or to render 3D data. Today no open and widely adopted standard exists for the implementation of web services involving vector tiles. In this paper we investigate several important parameters that need to be considered for the implementation of vector tile services. We then present a case-study where several tiled vector services are implemented. The results of this case study are useful for further implementations of tiled vector services and discussions regarding standardization

Motivational Principles and Personalisation Needs for Geo-Crowdsourced Intangible Cultural Heritage Mobile Applications

Whether it’s for altruistic reasons, personal gains, or third party’s interests, users are influenced by different kinds of motivations when making use of mobile geo-crowdsourcing applications (geoCAs). These reasons, extrinsic and/or intrinsic, must be factored in when evaluating the use intention of these applications and how effective they are. A functional geoCA, particularly if designed for Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), is the one that persuades and engages its users, by accounting for their diversity of needs across a period of time. This paper explores a number of proven and novel motivational factors destined for the preservation and collection of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) through geoCAs. By providing an overview of personalisation research and digital behaviour interventions for geo-crowdsoured ICH, the paper examines the most relevant usability and trigger factors for different crowd users, supported by a range of technology-based principles. In addition, we present the case of StoryBee, a mobile geoCA designed for “crafting stories” by collecting and sharing users’ generated content based on their location and favourite places. We conclude with an open-ended discussion about the ongoing challenges and opportunities arising from the deployment of geoCAs for ICH

GeoSQL journey ::a gamified learning experience to introduce (or demystify) geospatial SQL queries

In a digital world in the making, digital natives develop new learning profiles, interests, and way of working. Simultaneously teachers are facing students with lack of engagement and motivation with quite traditional learning process that has probably to be reframed considering the effects of digital transformation in the education sector. This issue is acute when it comes to complex subject of study, such as SQL geospatial to manipulate the geospatial characteristic of data. Indeed, some common difficulties have been identified by teachers from HEIG-VD university both in Media Engineering and Geomatics fields of study. The user-centered approach aims at creating digital products highly responding to the user’s needs through techniques improving the user experience. Various aspects have to be considered, including emotions. In education, gamification, along with user experience, interface design and usability best practices is one promising approach able to increase the learner’s engagement, interest and motivation. It aims to implement game mechanics within non-game context, in order to motivate the learner to accomplish a task and increase the ability to learn new skills. Using a gamification layer within a given context, being digital or not, act as a motivational trigger. It helps giving meaningful, enjoyable and empowering experience. SQL Island is a project from Kaiserslautern University of Technology which illustrates very well a gamified learning experience of the SQL special-purpose programming language. The GeoSQL Journey project goes further, tackling SQL geospatial to learn in a fun way how to manipulate the geospatial characteristic of data. It is a gamified pedagogical application to introduce the students to the practice of SQL geospatial during the first hours or days of the course. Serving as an initiation, it is designed to focus on intrinsic motivation (personal development, quest, challenge and fulfillment) with learning objectives determined and integrated with an engaging and coherent game world and narrative. This paper describes the early work of conceptual design of the GeoSQL Journey project. Game mechanics and game interface has been conceived and brought together according to the literature in the domain and best practices on this matter. The following step for this project is to elaborate a testing method without yet having to develop an application prototype (e.g. organizing a fairly raw tabletop game associated with a classic SQL console) so as to challenge the design with students and teachers to get their feedbacks. Also, it is envisioned to evaluate how existing open source gamification tools and frameworks would be suitable to develop the first prototype planned for the 2019-2020 academic year

GEOPOLL ::integrate cartographic questions in web forms, polls or surveys

Most of the web forms, polls or surveys are composed with classical input fields (check boxes, radio buttons, select lists, etc.) and a lot of standards web forms builders or services (e.g. Typeform, WuFoo, Google Forms, Survey Monkey, etc.) help to build and deploy them. Nowadays, offering a text area to catch a ZIP code or a select list to point out a country remains the best way to explicitly collect geospatial data. But what about mapping interfaces to integrate cartographic questions and/or cartographic answers as a more suitable solution? How to let form’s respondents indicate in which area(s) they engage in certain activities? The only way to solve these issues is by coding it yourself. This paper shows the design and technical problematic and try to give some solutions to build an efficient UX for the respondents and a standard answers treatment for the data analysts. This paper will also highlight the capacities of open source JavaScript library like OpenLayers to build the solution. Our interface was tested by the cities of Lausanne and Pully (Switzerland) and thousands of people answered to these « cartographic forms » on mobile and desktop. We would like to share some good practice and lessons learned

The utilization of landscape pictures extracted from open picture collections for the determination of interest in spatial features

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