TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

DSS AND GIS IN KNOWLEDGE TRANSFORMATION PROCESS

Knowledge is an important resource for successful decision-making process in the whole society today. The special procedures of control and management of knowledge therefore have to be used. In the area of knowledge management and knowledge engineering basic terms of these disciplines are data, information, knowledge and knowledge transformation. The knowledge can be defined as a dynamic human process of justifying personal beliefs. Knowledge is a product of successful decision-making process. Knowledge transformation is a spiralling process of interactions between explicit and tacit knowledge that leads to the new knowledge. Nonaka and all show, that the combination of these two categories makes possible to conceptualise four conversion steps: Socialisation, Externalisation, Combination and Internalisation (SECI model). Another model of knowledge creation is the Knowledge Transformation Continuum (BCI Knowledge Group) that begins with the articulation of a specific instruction representing the best way that a specific task, or series of tasks, should be performed. Knowledge modelling and knowledge representation is an important field of research also in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. The definition of knowledge in Artificial Intelligence is a noticeable different, because Artificial Intelligence is typically dealing with formalized knowledge (e.g. ontology). The development of knowledge-based systems was seen as a process of transferring human knowledge to an implemented knowledge base. Decision Support Systems (DSS), Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Operations Research/Management Science (OR/MS) modelling process support decision-making process, therefore they also produce a new knowledge. A Decision Support Systems are an interactive computer-based systems helping decision makers complete decision process. Geographic Information Systems provide essential marketing and customer intelligence solutions that lead to better business decisions. Operational Research and Management Science (OR/MS) is methodology based on system theory and theory of modelling. The OR/MS models serve for better quantification and precision of decision-making process. In this contribution the role of DSS, GIS and OR/MS models in the process of knowledge creation will be explained. The tacit or explicit character of this knowledge and the process of its creation will be explained and discussed

Analytical GIS and digital image processing

Příspěvek je zamyšlením nad limity praktických cvičení a nad možnostmi, které by studentům poskytly prostor pro výběr témat diplomových, případně bakalářských prací a podpořily kreativitu v oblasti modelování

Several comments on temporal modeling in GIS

The paper discusses the trends of modeling temporal data in GIS, gives the overview of approaches and shows the examples of data models.We focus the difficult cases to be represented by the current temporal GIS datamodels, show further dimensions of given problem and speak about possibilities to improve the capabilities of temporal GIS

Optimalizace příznakového prostoru

The contribution deals with the problem of feature selection strategies for the case of high dimensional feature space. In this paper an effective method of feature selection is proposed where two different measures are considered and time and storage complexity is acceptable

Poznámky ke klasifikaci obrazu

For many practical problems, it is impossible to hypothesize distribution function firstly and some distribution models, such as Gaussian distribution, may not suit to complicated distribution in practical. This paper shows the possibility of the approach based on the maximum entropy theory that can optimally describe the spatial data distribution and gives actual error estimation

Prvé zkušenosti katedry informačního inženýrství na PEF ČZU v Praze s navazujícím magisterským studiem Aplikovaná informatika v angličtině

Příspěvek informuje o navazujícím magisterském studiu Aplikovaná informatika na PEF ČZU Praha v anglickém jazyce a o prvých zkušenostech katedry s touto výukou

Evropský geografický prostor

This contribution discusses the possibilities and relationships of European Geographic Environment and society through GIS Web services and explores the requirements of contextual modelling of spatial data for the purposes of new European activities and cooperation as well as of private initiatives. Geo-spatial information is the most important component of the human recognition of reality