Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-103). Also available online via the Florida State University website (http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: James E. Pizzuto, Dept. of Geological Sciences. Includes bibliographical references.

The distribution of real-time GIS (Geographic Information System) data among users is now more important than ever as it becomes increasingly affordable and important for scientific and government agencies to monitor environmental phenomena in real-time. A growing number of sensor networks are being deployed all over the world, but there is a lack of solutions for their effective monitoring. Increasingly, GIS users need access to real-time sensor data from a variety of sources, and the data must be represented in a visually-pleasing way and be easily accessible. In addition, users need to be able to collaborate with each other to share and discuss specific sensor data. The real-time acquisition, analysis, and sharing of sensor data from a large variety of heterogeneous sensor sources is currently difficult due to the lack of a standard architecture to properly represent the dynamic properties of the data and make it readily accessible for collaboration between users. This thesis will present a JEE-based publisher/subscriber architecture that allows real-time sensor data to be displayed collaboratively on the web, requiring users to have nothing more than a web browser and Internet connectivity to gain access to that data. The proposed architecture is evaluated by showing how an AJAX-based and a Flash-based web application are able to represent the real-time sensor data within novel collaborative environments. By using the latest web-based technology and relevant open standards, this thesis shows how map data and GIS data can be made more accessible, more collaborative and generally more useful.

The distribution of real-time GIS (Geographic Information System) data among users is now more important than ever as it becomes increasingly affordable and important for scientific and government agencies to monitor environmental phenomena in real-time. A growing number of sensor networks are being deployed all over the world, but there is a lack of solutions for their effective monitoring. Increasingly, GIS users need access to real-time sensor data from a variety of sources, and the data must be represented in a visually-pleasing way and be easily accessible. In addition, users need to be able to collaborate with each other to share and discuss specific sensor data. The real-time acquisition, analysis, and sharing of sensor data from a large variety of heterogeneous sensor sources is currently difficult due to the lack of a standard architecture to properly represent the dynamic properties of the data and make it readily accessible for collaboration between users. This thesis will present a JEE-based publisher/subscriber architecture that allows real-time sensor data to be displayed collaboratively on the web, requiring users to have nothing more than a web browser and Internet connectivity to gain access to that data. The proposed architecture is evaluated by showing how an AJAX-based and a Flash-based web application are able to represent the real-time sensor data within novel collaborative environments. By using the latest web-based technology and relevant open standards, this thesis shows how map data and GIS data can be made more accessible, more collaborative and generally more useful.

Between 1988 and 1989, an intensive archaeological survey of a small drainage known as Roan Mare coulee in southern Saskatchewan was conducted by Dr. Ernest Walker (Walker 1990). Among the 120 archaeological sites in the area, seven bison kills and a vast array of associated drivelines were identified. This study focuses upon the spatial interaction amongst the kills, the drivelines and the local environment in relation to the bison hunting strategies used on the Northern Plains. This is done by modelling where bison are likely to move in the terrain as well as how the topography obstructs their line of sight. As this problem covers a large spatial area and multiple different data sources, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are integrated into the research design in the form of Least Cost Path and Viewshed analyses. Both archaeological data from Walker's survey and environmental data such as elevation and water sources served as the input datasets required by ArcGIS's spatial analysis tools. The results of the Least Cost Path analyses were compared visually to both the location and orientation of the driveline evidence, while the viewshed results were compared to the trap's location at the valley edge. The results of this research showed that the drivelines found at Roan Mare coulee appear to be following the general orientation of the landscape at the broadest scales, and likely served to funnel bison over large distances. There also appear to be several locations on the landscape that are amenable to moving bison to several different sites. The viewshed evidence shows the smaller scale nuances between bison vision and the terrain in a hypothetical drive event. The differences in the viewable area available to the bison at each site likely played a role in the chosen strategy employed when that site was used. It is hoped that this style of research can be continued with higher quality data and additional variables to help clarify many of the subtleties found in a Plains bison drive.

The field of crime mapping has an extensive history, yet it has managed to remain an effective tool for policing even in modern times. This success can be attributed in part to the field’s willingness to adapt to newer technologies as they have become available. A current trend that is occurring internationally is the practice of online crime mapping. Many police services from around the world have recognized the importance of using the Internet to connect with the public that they serve. To this end, while most police services have an online presence in the form of a Web site, some have opted to go further and to publish their crime data spatially in the form of an interactive Web-based mapping application. Presently, the City of Toronto has opted not to engage in interactive Web mapping and has limited their online publications to only static maps and written crime reports. This thesis attempts to build upon the capabilities that are offered by Web GIS tools for crime mapping applications in the City of Toronto. To achieve this, two Web applications were developed to help facilitate the process of reporting crime incidents and gang-related graffiti. The services in these Web applications were developed using ArcGIS for Desktop 10.1 and hosted using ArcGIS for Server 10.1, while the Web applications themselves were developed using the ArcGIS API for JavaScript. Each application was designed to support interactive incident mapping, as well as anonymous incident reporting. In addition, the Graffiti Tagger application utilized a mobile-themed interface and image attachments to promote on-the-go graffiti incident reporting. By doing this, it was hypothesized that the overall quality and quantity of data contributed to the Toronto Police Service would increase. To test this hypothesis, a survey was developed and released to a number of participants with varying backgrounds and technical skill levels. The results of this survey showed that a public desire did exist for both of these Web applications, along with a willingness from the majority of participants to voluntarily participate in using these applications. These results suggest that adopting the use of Web mapping applications has the potential to increase the quantity, and potentially the quality, of crime data that is reported.

This study investigates the actual glaciers and the major properties of glacial landscapes (valleys, cirques and lakes) located over the Eastern Black Sea mountain chain using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) technologies. A database is created for each glacial feature that includes fundamental properties of each landscape. Data layers used in the study include digital and analog topographic maps, satellite images, geological maps and drainage maps. The studies carried out yielded identification of 93 glacial valleys (30 main, 63 tributary), 1222 cirques and 685 lakes. Several properties (length, size, aspect, elevation, slope, orientation, roundness, elongation) of each glacial landscape are investigated for the northern and southern parts separately. The frequency of each landscape is found to be more in the northern part of the area. Total area of the actual glacier is found as 0.43 to 0.53 km2 by two methods of remote sensing applications.

The vision of ubiquitous computing is to seamlessly integrate information processing into everyday objects and activities. Part of this integration is an awareness on the part of a system of its user's context. Context can be composed of several variables --- such as a user's current activity, goals, or state of mind --- but location (both past and present) is almost always a key component. Determining location outdoors has become quite simple and pervasive with today's low-cost handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. Technologies enabling the location of people and objects to be determined while indoors, however, have lagged due to their extensive infrastructure requirements and associated cost. Just as GPS receivers utilize radio signals from satellites to triangulate their position, an indoor real-time locating system (RTLS) must also make use of some feature of the environment to determine the location of mobile units. Since the signal from GPS satellites is not sufficiently strong to penetrate the structure of a building, indoor RTLS systems must either use some existing feature of the environment or generate a new one. This typically requires a large amount of infrastructure (e.g. specialized RF receivers, additional 802.11 access points, RFID readers, etc.) to be deployed, making indoor RTLSs impractical for the home. While numerous techniques have been proposed for locating people and objects within a building, none of these has yet proven to be a viable option in terms of cost, complexity of installation, and accuracy for home users. This dissertation builds on work by Patel et al. in which the home power lines are used to radiate a low-frequency wireless RF signal that mobile tags use for location fingerprinting. Leveraging the existing power line permits this system to operate on far less additional infrastructure than existing solutions such as cellular (GSM and CDMA), 802.11b/g, and FM radio based systems. The contributions of this research to indoor power line-based RTLS are threefold. First, I examine the temporal stability of a power line based RTLS system's output. Fingerprinting-based RTLS relies upon some feature of the environment, such as the amplitude of an RF signal, to be stable over time at a particular location (temporal stability), but to change in space (spatial differentiability). I show that a power line-based RTLS can be made much more resistant to temporal instability in individual fingerprint components by utilizing a wide-band RF fingerprint. Next, I directly compare the temporal stability of the raw features used by various fingerprinting based indoor RTLSs, such as cellular, 802.11b/g, and FM radio. In doing so, I show that a power line based indoor RTLS has an inherent advantage in temporal stability over these other methods. Finally, I characterize the power line as a receiving antenna for low-powered wireless devices within the home, thus allowing the power line to not only transmit the RF signals used for fingerprinting, but also to receive the sensed features reported by location tags. Here, I show that the powerline is a viable receiver for these devices and that the globally available 27.12 MHz ISM band is a good choice of frequency for communications.

Extraction of buildings from remote sensing sources is an important GIS application and has been the subject of extensive research over the last three decades. An accurate building inventory is required for applications such as GIS database maintenance and revision; impervious surfaces mapping; storm water management; hazard mitigation and risk assessment. Despite all the progress within the fields of photogrammetry and image processing, the problem of automated feature extraction is still unresolved. A methodology for automatic building extraction that integrates remote sensing sources and GIS data was proposed. The methodology consists of a series of image processing and spatial analysis techniques. It incorporates initial simplification procedure and multiple feature analysis components. The extraction process was implemented and tested on three distinct types of buildings including commercial, residential and high-rise. Aerial imagery and GIS data from Shelby County, Tennessee were identified for the testing and validation of the results. The contribution of each component to the overall methodology was quantitatively evaluated as relates to each type of building. The automatic process was compared to manual building extraction and provided means to alleviate the manual procedure effort. A separate module was implemented to identify the 2D shape of a building. Indices for two specific shapes were developed based on the moment theory. The indices were tested and evaluated on multiple feature segments and proved to be successful. The research identifies the successful building extraction scenarios as well as the challenges, difficulties and drawbacks of the process. Recommendations are provided based on the testing and evaluation for future extraction projects.

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2001. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 95 p. : ill., maps (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-95).