abstract: A major challenge in health-related policy and program evaluation research is attributing underlying causal relationships where complicated processes may exist in natural or quasi-experimental settings. Spatial interaction and heterogeneity between units at individual or group levels can violate both components of the Stable-Unit-Treatment-Value-Assumption (SUTVA) that are core to the counterfactual framework, making treatment effects difficult to assess. New approaches are needed in health studies to develop spatially dynamic causal modeling methods to both derive insights from data that are sensitive to spatial differences and dependencies, and also be able to rely on a more robust, dynamic technical infrastructure needed for decision-making. To address this gap with a focus on causal applications theoretically, methodologically and technologically, I (1) develop a theoretical spatial framework (within single-level panel econometric methodology) that extends existing theories and methods of causal inference, which tend to ignore spatial dynamics; (2) demonstrate how this spatial framework can be applied in empirical research; and (3) implement a new spatial infrastructure framework that integrates and manages the required data for health systems evaluation. The new spatially explicit counterfactual framework considers how spatial effects impact treatment choice, treatment variation, and treatment effects. To illustrate this new methodological framework, I first replicate a classic quasi-experimental study that evaluates the effect of drinking age policy on mortality in the United States from 1970 to 1984, and further extend it with a spatial perspective. In another example, I evaluate food access dynamics in Chicago from 2007 to 2014 by implementing advanced spatial analytics that better account for the complex patterns of food access, and quasi-experimental research design to distill the impact of the Great Recession on the foodscape. Inference interpretation is sensitive to both research design framing and underlying processes that drive geographically distributed relationships. Finally, I advance a new Spatial Data Science Infrastructure to integrate and manage data in dynamic, open environments for public health systems research and decision- making. I demonstrate an infrastructure prototype in a final case study, developed in collaboration with health department officials and community organizations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Geography 2017

Esse trabalho apresenta uma proposta de Infraestrutura de Dados Espaciais de nível organizacional para o Parque Estadual de Intervales-SP, que visa compartilhar suas informações geográficas com a sociedade em geral. Nos processos de elaboração da IDE são discutidas questões como interoperabilidade, padronização, metadados, especificação de serviços geográficos e o relacionamento dos nós das Infraestrutura de Dados Espaciais que vão permitir a disseminação da informação geográfica de fácil acesso a usuários externos. Os procedimentos, benefícios e limitações são listados e problematizados de forma que demonstrem as etapas necessárias na elaboração da Infraestrutura de Dados Espaciais de nível organizacional para uma Unidade de Conservação. Conclui-se que uma Infraestrutura de Dados Espaciais depende de variáveis administrativas, culturais, técnicas e financeiras, o que leva a uma proposta de implementação por estágios. Também são elaboradas críticas aos recursos existentes e sugestões para melhorias e estudos futuros. / This paper presents a proposal about Spatial Data Infrastructure in organizational level to the Parque Estadual de Intervales-SP, in order to promote the sharing of geographic information with the society. In the elaboration process of the SDI are discussed issues such as interoperability, standardization, metadata, specifying geographic services and relationship of the Spatial Data Infrastructure nodes that will enable the dissemination of geographic information easily and accessible to external users. The process steps, benefits and limitations are listed and discussed in order to demonstrate the necessary steps to prepare the Spatial Data Infrastructure in organizational level to a protected area. As results we observe a spatial data infrastructure that depends of others variables like management, culture, technical and financial company aspects, which leads to a proposal of implementation in stages, as well as discussions about the capabilities and suggestions for improvements and future studies.

Address data within geographic information systems (GIS) is used as reference data to link personal and administrative information, thus making it possible to locate and deliver goods and services to eligible persons. Preferably, every country must develop and maintain a single national address database (NAD) to eliminate data redundancy and provide a common point of reference across the board. In South Africa, the challenge is that there are separate address databases, which are developed and maintained by various public and private organizations – with little or no cooperation on data sharing. Currently, the establishment of a Committee for Spatial Information (CSI) which is tasked with the implementation of the South African Spatial Data Infrastructure (SASDI) and the publication of the South African Address Standard (SANS 1883) offer organizations an opportunity to collaborate towards the creation of a single address dataset. This research posits that the implementation of a successful data sharing initiative depends on the understanding of motivators and barriers of organizations participating in it. The research applied the case study method – with a semi-structured questionnaire – to assess the issues that motivate or obstruct GIS data sharing among three address organizations in South Africa. The results identified significant motivators that underlie the data sharing activities, e.g. reduced cost of data collection, improved data quality; and equally identified significant barriers that make organizations reluctant to enter into a data sharing initiative, e.g. data copyright and ownership, high staff-turnover, and lack of financial and technical resources. Although the case studies focused on address data in South Africa, the research findings can equally apply to other spatial datasets and are relevant for the successful implementation of the South African Spatial Data Infrastructure (SASDI). / Dissertation (MIT)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Computer Science / Unrestricted

Over the past decade, the public awareness and availability as well as methods for the creation and use of spatial data on the Web have steadily increased. Besides the establishment of governmental Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs), numerous volunteered and commercial initiatives had a major impact on that development. Nevertheless, data isolation still poses a major challenge. Whereas the majority of approaches focuses on data provision, means to dynamically link and combine spatial data from distributed, often heterogeneous data sources in an ad hoc manner are still very limited. However, such capabilities are essential to support and enhance information retrieval for comprehensive spatial decision making. To facilitate spatial data fusion in current SDIs, this thesis has two main objectives. First, it focuses on the conceptualization of a service-based fusion process to functionally extend current SDI and to allow for the combination of spatial data from different spatial data services. It mainly addresses the decomposition of the fusion process into well-defined and reusable functional building blocks and their implementation as services, which can be used to dynamically compose meaningful application-specific processing workflows. Moreover, geoprocessing patterns, i.e. service chains that are commonly used to solve certain fusion subtasks, are designed to simplify and automate workflow composition. Second, the thesis deals with the determination, description and exploitation of spatial data relations, which play a decisive role for spatial data fusion. The approach adopted is based on the Linked Data paradigm and therefore bridges SDI and Semantic Web developments. Whereas the original spatial data remains within SDI structures, relations between those sources can be used to infer spatial information by means of Semantic Web standards and software tools. A number of use cases were developed, implemented and evaluated to underpin the proposed concepts. Particular emphasis was put on the use of established open standards to realize an interoperable, transparent and extensible spatial data fusion process and to support the formalized description of spatial data relations. The developed software, which is based on a modular architecture, is available online as open source. It allows for the development and seamless integration of new functionality as well as the use of external data and processing services during workflow composition on the Web. / Die Entwicklung des Internet im Laufe des letzten Jahrzehnts hat die Verfügbarkeit und öffentliche Wahrnehmung von Geodaten, sowie Möglichkeiten zu deren Erfassung und Nutzung, wesentlich verbessert. Dies liegt sowohl an der Etablierung amtlicher Geodateninfrastrukturen (GDI), als auch an der steigenden Anzahl Communitybasierter und kommerzieller Angebote. Da der Fokus zumeist auf der Bereitstellung von Geodaten liegt, gibt es jedoch kaum Möglichkeiten die Menge an, über das Internet verteilten, Datensätzen ad hoc zu verlinken und zusammenzuführen, was mitunter zur Isolation von Geodatenbeständen führt. Möglichkeiten zu deren Fusion sind allerdings essentiell, um Informationen zur Entscheidungsunterstützung in Bezug auf raum-zeitliche Fragestellungen zu extrahieren. Um eine ad hoc Fusion von Geodaten im Internet zu ermöglichen, behandelt diese Arbeit zwei Themenschwerpunkte. Zunächst wird eine dienstebasierten Umsetzung des Fusionsprozesses konzipiert, um bestehende GDI funktional zu erweitern. Dafür werden wohldefinierte, wiederverwendbare Funktionsblöcke beschrieben und über standardisierte Diensteschnittstellen bereitgestellt. Dies ermöglicht eine dynamische Komposition anwendungsbezogener Fusionsprozesse über das Internet. Des weiteren werden Geoprozessierungspatterns definiert, um populäre und häufig eingesetzte Diensteketten zur Bewältigung bestimmter Teilaufgaben der Geodatenfusion zu beschreiben und die Komposition und Automatisierung von Fusionsprozessen zu vereinfachen. Als zweiten Schwerpunkt beschäftigt sich die Arbeit mit der Frage, wie Relationen zwischen Geodatenbeständen im Internet erstellt, beschrieben und genutzt werden können. Der gewählte Ansatz basiert auf Linked Data Prinzipien und schlägt eine Brücke zwischen diensteorientierten GDI und dem Semantic Web. Während somit Geodaten in bestehenden GDI verbleiben, können Werkzeuge und Standards des Semantic Web genutzt werden, um Informationen aus den ermittelten Geodatenrelationen abzuleiten. Zur Überprüfung der entwickelten Konzepte wurde eine Reihe von Anwendungsfällen konzipiert und mit Hilfe einer prototypischen Implementierung umgesetzt und anschließend evaluiert. Der Schwerpunkt lag dabei auf einer interoperablen, transparenten und erweiterbaren Umsetzung dienstebasierter Fusionsprozesse, sowie einer formalisierten Beschreibung von Datenrelationen, unter Nutzung offener und etablierter Standards. Die Software folgt einer modularen Struktur und ist als Open Source frei verfügbar. Sie erlaubt sowohl die Entwicklung neuer Funktionalität durch Entwickler als auch die Einbindung existierender Daten- und Prozessierungsdienste während der Komposition eines Fusionsprozesses.

Die Zusammenführung von Geodaten auf Basis homologer Objekte ist ein wichtiger Teilprozess zur Wissensgenerierung aus verfügbaren Geoinformationen. Forschungen im Bereich der digitalen Geodatenfusion gibt es bereits seit Anfang der 80er Jahre. Das Aufgabenspektrum umfasst dabei die Aktualisierung, Veränderungsdetektion, Informationsanreicherung und Integration verfügbarer Datensätze. Gleichzeitig vollzieht sich seit Ende der 90er Jahre ein Paradigmenwechsel hin zum Aufbau dienstebasierter Geoinformationslandschaften auf Basis serviceorientierter Architekturen (SOA). Dieser wird insbesondere durch die Entwicklung einer Geodateninfrastruktur (GDI) im öffentlichen Sektor forciert und bildet einen Schwerpunkt der aktuellen Forschung im Bereich Geoinformatik. Innerhalb dieser interoperablen Strukturen kann ein entscheidender Informationsmehrwert durch die Kombination thematisch verwandter Ressourcen geschaffen werden. Die Fusion von Daten wird daher einen zentralen Bestandteil zukünftiger Entwicklungen im Bereich Web-basierter Anwendungen darstellen. Zur Bereitstellung von Geodaten in einer GDI hat das Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) bereits zahlreiche Standards veröffentlicht. Darüber hinaus eröffnet die Entwicklung des Web 2.0 weitere, oftmals Community-gestützte, Möglichkeiten zur Bereitstellung von Geodaten außerhalb standardisierter GDI. Die Verarbeitung dieser Geodaten kann durch die Einführung des OGC Web Processing Service (WPS) realisiert werden. Diese Schnittstellenspezifikation ermöglicht die Verlagerung von Geoprozessierungsfunktionalitäten in eine GDI und trägt somit zur Ablösung monolithischer Geoinformationssysteme (GIS) durch verteilte dienstebasierte Strukturen bei. Für die Umsetzung komplexer Prozesse wie einer Geodatenfusion ist die Verfügbarkeit, Interoperabilität und Verkettung beteiligter Dienste von entscheidender Bedeutung. Nach der Einführung in Grundlagen von GDI und Geodatenfusion werden in dieser Arbeit Systemarchitektur und Bestandteile einer dienstebasierten Geodatenfusion konzipiert. Im Anschluss erfolgt die Beschreibung einer proof-ofconcept Implementierung wesentlicher Bestandteile unter Nutzung des 52°North WPS-Framework. Gegenstand der Implementierung ist die Fusion von Straßendaten der Modelle ATKIS (Amtliches Topographisch-Kartographisches Informationssystem) und OSM (OpenStreetMap) durch einen Feature- und Attributtransfer. Die Metadatenverarbeitung, Generalisierung und Evaluierung im Kontext einer dienstebasierten Geodatenfusion stellen weitere Teilaspekte dieser Arbeit dar. / The conflation of spatial data is one important task concerning the generation of knowledge from available geo-information. Research in this domain has been carried out since the early 80s and incorporates updating, change detection, enhancement and integration of spatial data. At the same time a paradigm shift leads towards service-oriented Architectures (SOA) in the field of geoinformation science. In the public sector this change is promoted by the developement of spatial data infrastructures (SDI). Especially whithin these interoperable structures, the combination of thematically comparable ressources can be used to enhance available spatial information. The conflation of data in general represents a core component of future research on web-based applications. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has already published various standards for spatial data dissemination. In addition, the Web 2.0 developement offers the possibility of user-generated spatial data beyond standardized SDI. The conflation of institutional- and community-provided datasets can be realized by the introduction of the OGC Web Processing Service (WPS). The WPS interface offers geoprocessing capabilities within SDI and thus helps distributed serviceoriented environments to replace monolithic Geographic Information Systems. Availibility, interoperability and chaining of services are crucial for implementing complex processes, such as conflation. After an introduction to the fundamentals of SDI and conflation, a servicebased architecture for geodata conflation will be developed within this thesis. The proof-of-concept implementation is realized using the 52°North WPS and exercises the conflation of street data. For this purpose, the data models ATKIS (Authoritative Topographic Cartographic Information System) and OSM (OpenStreetMap) were applied to perform a transfer of attributes and features. Other important aspects of this thesis related to service-based conflation include the processing of metadata, generalization and evaluation.

Fundamentale Voraussetzung für alle professionellen Kartendienste ist die Möglichkeit zur Kontrolle der grafischen Präsentation. Aus diesem Grund besteht ein starker Bedarf an der visuellen Darstellung von Geodaten. Diese transformiert rohe Informationen in wichtige und entscheidungstragende Werkzeuge. Der Feature Portrayal Service (FPS) hat die Aufgabe, diese Anforderungen umzusetzen und damit wesentlich zur kartographischen Interoperabilität in Geodateninfrastrukturen beizutragen. Der Dienst entstammt dem internationalen Standard SLD 1.1.0 (Styled Layer Descriptor). Es handelt sich um einen Darstellungsdienst, der die interoperable Nutzung von Vektor-Daten, also von so genannten Features, ermöglicht. Dieser spezielle Web Map Service hat die Aufgabe, Geodaten von beliebigen Web Feature Services sowie rohe GML-Daten in einer gewünschten grafischen Ausprägung zu präsentieren. Dabei ist der jeweilige Nutzer in der Lage, eigene Darstellungen zu definieren und auf einen beliebigen Datenbestand anzuwenden. Datenquellen, Darstellungsvorschriften und der Feature Portrayal Service selbst sind insofern unabhängig voneinander, dass diese drei Komponenten auf verschiedenen und voneinander unabhängigen Servern liegen können. Diese Art der Implementierung bezeichnet man als Component WMS.

Atualmente o Brasil conta com um volume imenso de dados sobre o território nacional. Entretanto, grande parte dos dados existentes encontra-se dispersa, fragmentada, sem compatibilização cartográfica e, em alguns casos, duplicada em vários locais. O grande desafio é compartilhar dados geograficamente dispersos e comunicar conceitos importantes entre departamentos dentro da organização ou entre organizações diferentes usando, para isso, tecnologias de informação. Assim, esse trabalho tem como objetivo geral contribuir para o desenvolvimento de uma infra-estrutura para informação geográfica, que possa ser amplamente disseminada via Internet através de Web Services e que atenda os requisitos de interoperabilidade, de modo que diversos usuários possam usufruir dos dados disponíveis, integrando-os quando necessários. Este trabalho incidirá inicialmente nas necessidades de informação geográfica para o Zoneamento Ecológico e Econômico do Brasil. Entretanto, como se trata de um sistema de infra-estrutura de dados espaciais poderá, então, agregar dados para qualquer trabalho que envolva a informação espacial. / Currently Brazil has available an immense volume of data on its domestic territory. However, great part of the existing data is dispersed, fragmented, without cartographic compatibility, and, in some cases, duplicated in several places. The great challenge is to share these geographically dispersed data and to provide communication of important concepts between departments of the same organization or even between different organizations. For reaching this, the use of information technologies becomes necessary. The present work has for objective to contribute to develop a infrastructure for geographic information, that can be widely disseminated by the Internet through Web Services and that meets the requirements for interoperability so that several users may have the data available, integrating them when necessary. This work will focus initially on the need for geographic information to the Ecological and Economical Zoning of Brazil. However, as it is a system of infrastructure for spatial data can then add data to any work involving the spatial information.

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Fernando Rocha Nogueira / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Planejamento e Gestão do Território, 2016. / A instituição da Política Nacional de Proteção e Defesa Civil (Lei nº 12.608/2012) em conjunto com a Política Nacional de Gestão de Risco e Resposta a Desastres Naturais (PNGRD) pressupõe a articulação de ações nas três esferas do governo, definindo a criação de instrumentos focados na reestruturação de espaços urbanos através da criação de mecanismos preventivos e de mitigação frente à situação de risco. Muitas diferentes iniciativas préestabelecidas pelo PNGRD estão em desenvolvimento, mas ainda estão pouco consolidadas no âmbito da gestão pública municipal. Dentro deste atual cenário político-institucional, o desafio é o desenvolvimento e implantação de estruturas permanentes de planejamento e gestão a partir da criação de novos arranjos institucionais que potencializem redes de cooperação intermunicipal na criação de políticas em escala regional, a criação de uma rede de informação que subsidie ações intersetoriais e a cooperação e troca de informações nos diferentes níveis da administração pública, estruturados em sistemas de informação geográfica (GIS). A partir do contexto apresentado, a presente pesquisa tem como objetivo apresentar práticas e métodos para redução de riscos de desastres a serem adaptados à realidade dos municípios brasileiros. Como estudo de caso, a pesquisa apresenta o Consórcio Intermunicipal Grande ABC, que reúne ao todo sete municípios para o planejamento e gestão, com caráter cooperativo, através da integração e padronização de políticas locais, potencializando as respostas individuais frente a diferentes riscos socioambientais, através da criação de planos regionais e o processo para a estruturação de uma infraestrutura de dados espaciais para gestão integrada dos riscos em escala regional. / The institution of the National Policy on Protection and Civil Defense (Law nº12.608 / 2012) in conjunction with the National Policy on Risk Management and Disaster Response (PNGRD) requires the articulation of actions in the three spheres of government, defining the creation instruments focused on the restructuring of urban spaces through the creation of preventive mechanisms and facing mitigate the risk. Many different initiatives pre-set by PNGRD are in development but are still little consolidated within the municipal public administration. Within this current political-institutional setting, the challenge is the development and implementation of permanent structures planning and management from the creation of new institutional arrangements that enhance inter-municipal cooperation networks in creating a regional scale policies, the creation of a network information that assists intersectoral action and cooperation and exchange of information at different levels of government, structured in geographic information systems (GIS). From the presented context, this research aims to present practices and methods for reducing disaster risks to be adapted to the reality of Brazilian municipalities. As a study case will be analyzing the Grand ABC Intermunicipal Consortium that gathers in all seven municipalities for planning and management, cooperative character through the integration and standardization of local policies, enhancing the individual responses to different environmental risk by creating regional plans, and the process for structuring a-spatial data infrastructure for integrated risk management on a regional scale.

Atualmente o Brasil conta com um volume imenso de dados sobre o território nacional. Entretanto, grande parte dos dados existentes encontra-se dispersa, fragmentada, sem compatibilização cartográfica e, em alguns casos, duplicada em vários locais. O grande desafio é compartilhar dados geograficamente dispersos e comunicar conceitos importantes entre departamentos dentro da organização ou entre organizações diferentes usando, para isso, tecnologias de informação. Assim, esse trabalho tem como objetivo geral contribuir para o desenvolvimento de uma infra-estrutura para informação geográfica, que possa ser amplamente disseminada via Internet através de Web Services e que atenda os requisitos de interoperabilidade, de modo que diversos usuários possam usufruir dos dados disponíveis, integrando-os quando necessários. Este trabalho incidirá inicialmente nas necessidades de informação geográfica para o Zoneamento Ecológico e Econômico do Brasil. Entretanto, como se trata de um sistema de infra-estrutura de dados espaciais poderá, então, agregar dados para qualquer trabalho que envolva a informação espacial. / Currently Brazil has available an immense volume of data on its domestic territory. However, great part of the existing data is dispersed, fragmented, without cartographic compatibility, and, in some cases, duplicated in several places. The great challenge is to share these geographically dispersed data and to provide communication of important concepts between departments of the same organization or even between different organizations. For reaching this, the use of information technologies becomes necessary. The present work has for objective to contribute to develop a infrastructure for geographic information, that can be widely disseminated by the Internet through Web Services and that meets the requirements for interoperability so that several users may have the data available, integrating them when necessary. This work will focus initially on the need for geographic information to the Ecological and Economical Zoning of Brazil. However, as it is a system of infrastructure for spatial data can then add data to any work involving the spatial information.

The concept of grid computing has permeated all areas of distributed computing, changing the way in which distributed systems are designed, developed and implemented. At the same time ‘geobrowsers’, such as Google Earth, NASA World Wind and Virtual Earth, along with in-vehicle navigation, handheld GPS devices and maps on mobile phones, have made interactive maps and geographic information an everyday experience. Behind these maps lies a wealth of spatial data that is collated from a vast number of different sources. A spatial data infrastructure (SDI) aims to make spatial data from multiple sources available to as wide an audience as possible. Current research indicates that, due to a number of reasons, data sharing in these SDIs is still not common. This dissertation presents an analysis of the data grid approach for SDIs. Starting off, two imaginary scenarios spell out for the first time how data grids can be applied to enable the sharing of address data in an SDI. The work in this dissertation spans two disciplines: Computer Science (CS) and Geographic Information Science (GISc). A study of related work reveals that the data grid approach in SDIs is both a novel application for data grids (CS), as well as a novel technology in SDI environments (GISc), and this dissertation advances mutual understanding between the two disciplines. The novel evaluation framework for national address databases in an SDI is used to evaluate existing information federation models against the data grid approach. This evaluation, as well as an analysis of address data in an SDI, confirms that there are similarities between the data grid approach and the requirement for consolidated address data in an SDI. The evaluation further shows that where a large number of organizations are involved, such as for a national address database, and where there is a lack of a single organization tasked with the management of a national address database, the data grid is an attractive alternative to other models. The Compartimos (Spanish for ‘we share’) reference model was developed to identify the components with their capabilities and relationships that are required to grid-enable address data sharing in an SDI. The definition of an address in the broader sense (i.e. not only for postal delivery), the notion of an address as a reference and the definition of an addressing system and its comparison to a spatial reference system contribute towards the understanding of what an address is. A novel address data model shows that it is possible to design a data model for sharing and exchange of address data, despite diverse addressing systems and without impacting on, or interfering with, local laws for address allocation. The analysis in this dissertation confirms the need for standardization of domain specific geographic information, such as address data, and their associated services in order to integrate data from distributed heterogeneous sources. In conclusion, results are presented and recommendations for future work, drawn from the experience on the work in this dissertation, are made. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Computer Science / unrestricted