The implementation of an Enterprise Geographical Information System to support Cadastre and Expropriation activities.

The processes of mobilization of land for infrastructures of public and private domain are developed according to proper legal frameworks and systematically confronted with the impoverished national situation as regards the cadastral identification and regularization, which leads to big inefficiencies, sometimes with very negative impact to the overall effectiveness. This project report describes Ferbritas Cadastre Information System (FBSIC) project and tools, which in conjunction with other applications, allow managing the entire life-cycle of Land Acquisition and Cadastre, including support to field activities with the integration of information collected in the field, the development of multi-criteria analysis information, monitoring all information in the exploration stage, and the automated generation of outputs. The benefits are evident at the level of operational efficiency, including tools that enable process integration and standardization of procedures, facilitate analysis and quality control and maximize performance in the acquisition, maintenance and management of registration information and expropriation (expropriation projects). Therefore, the implemented system achieves levels of robustness, comprehensiveness, openness, scalability and reliability suitable for a structural platform. The resultant solution, FBSIC, is a fit-for-purpose cadastre information system rooted in the field of railway infrastructures. FBSIC integrating nature of allows: to accomplish present needs and scale to meet future services; to collect, maintain, manage and share all information in one common platform, and transform it into knowledge; to relate with other platforms; to increase accuracy and productivity of business processes related with land property management.

Narrative Bifurcation, Cloud Computing Interfaces and Hitchcok

From a narratological perspective, this paper aims to address the theoretical issues concerning the functioning of the so called «narrative bifurcation» in data presentation and information retrieval. Its use in cyberspace calls for a reassessment as a storytelling device. Films have shown its fundamental role for the creation of suspense. Interactive fiction and games have unveiled the possibility of plots with multiple choices, giving continuity to cinema split-screen experiences. Using practical examples, this paper will show how this storytelling tool returns to its primitive form and ends up by conditioning cloud computing interface design.

Relating the spatial component and users interests to improve applications based on questions, petitions and participatory processes

Nowadays, participatory processes attending the need for real democracy and transparency in governments and collectives are more needed than ever. Immediate participation through channels like social networks enable people to give their opinion and become pro-active citizens, seeking applications to interact with each other. The application described in this dissertation is a hybrid channel of communication of questions, petitions and participatory processes based on Public Participation Geographic Information System (PPGIS), Participation Geographic Information System (PGIS) and ‘soft’ (subjective data) Geographic Information System (SoftGIS) methodologies. To achieve a new approach to an application, its entire design is focused on the spatial component related with user interests. The spatial component is treated as main feature of the system to develop all others depending on it, enabling new features never seen before in social actions (questions, petitions and participatory processes). Results prove that it is possible to develop a working application mainly using open source software, with the possibility of spatial and subject filtering, visualizing and free download of actions within application. The resulting application empowers society by releasing soft data and defines a new breaking approach, unseen so far.

Politicization of non-political events

Spatial analysis and social network analysis typically take into consideration social processes in specific contexts of geographical or network space. The research in political science increasingly strives to model heterogeneity and spatial dependence. To better understand and geographically model the relationship between “non-political” events, streaming data from social networks, and political climate was the primary objective of the current study. Geographic information systems (GIS) are useful tools in the organization and analysis of streaming data from social networks. In this study, geographical and statistical analysis were combined in order to define the temporal and spatial nature of the data eminating from the popular social network Twitter during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The study spans the entire globe because Twitter’s geotagging function, the fundamental data that makes this study possible, is not limited to a geographic area. By examining the public reactions to an inherenlty non-political event, this study serves to illuminate broader questions about social behavior and spatial dependence. From a practical perspective, the analyses demonstrate how the discussion of political topics fluсtuate according to football matches. Tableau and Rapidminer, in addition to a set basic statistical methods, were applied to find patterns in the social behavior in space and time in different geographic regions. It was found some insight into the relationship between an ostensibly non-political event – the World Cup - and public opinion transmitted by social media. The methodology could serve as a prototype for future studies and guide policy makers in governmental and non-governmental organizations in gauging the public opinion in certain geographic locations.

Analysis and visualization of energy use for university campus

The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is one of the big global challenges for the next decades due to its severe impact on the atmosphere that leads to a change in the climate and other environmental factors. One of the main sources of greenhouse gas is energy consumption, therefore a number of initiatives and calls for awareness and sustainability in energy use are issued among different types of institutional and organizations. The European Council adopted in 2007 energy and climate change objectives for 20% improvement until 2020. All European countries are required to use energy with more efficiency. Several steps could be conducted for energy reduction: understanding the buildings behavior through time, revealing the factors that influence the consumption, applying the right measurement for reduction and sustainability, visualizing the hidden connection between our daily habits impacts on the natural world and promoting to more sustainable life. Researchers have suggested that feedback visualization can effectively encourage conservation with energy reduction rate of 18%. Furthermore, researchers have contributed to the identification process of a set of factors which are very likely to influence consumption. Such as occupancy level, occupants behavior, environmental conditions, building thermal envelope, climate zones, etc. Nowadays, the amount of energy consumption at the university campuses are huge and it needs great effort to meet the reduction requested by European Council as well as the cost reduction. Thus, the present study was performed on the university buildings as a use case to: a. Investigate the most dynamic influence factors on energy consumption in campus; b. Implement prediction model for electricity consumption using different techniques, such as the traditional regression way and the alternative machine learning techniques; and c. Assist energy management by providing a real time energy feedback and visualization in campus for more awareness and better decision making. This methodology is implemented to the use case of University Jaume I (UJI), located in Castellon, Spain.

Contributos para a análise espacial em sistemas de informação geográfica da vulnerabilidade socio-territorial no município de Humpata (Angola)

A pesquisa tem como objectivo contribuir para a discussão do conceito de vulnerabilidade socio-territorial em países em desenvolvimento e dar contributos de análise espacial para a construção de um modelo geográfico de vulnerabilidade socio-territorial, tendo como estudo caso o município de Humpata-Angola. A metodologia recorreu a vários instrumentos, nomeadamente organização bibliográfica e documental, discussão do conceito de vulnerabilidade socio-territorial e outros complementares, recolha de informação diversa, através de levantamentos urbanísticos, realização de inquéritos aos chefes de famílias (usando indicadores de domínios social, económico e territorial) e de entrevistas aos governantes ou representantes da Administração Municipal. Foram tomadas as coordenadas dos equipamentos sociais (Saúde e Educação) e todos os dados recolhidos inseridos numa Geodatabase e, com recurso aos Sistemas de Informação Geográfica (análise espacial), foi possível a construção de um modelo de vulnerabilidade socio-territorial para o município de Humpata. O modelo representa um contributo para o futuro ordenamento do município, permitindo uma melhor visão geográfica das áreas mais carenciadas e das áreas melhor equipadas, constituindo um instrumento de apoio a tomada de decisão em políticas públicas, procurando assegurar em simultâneo melhor distribuição dos recursos e beneficiação das condições de vida das comunidades.

Instrumental Fado: a generative interactive system

Fado was listed as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2011. This dissertation describes a theoretical model, as well as an automatic system, able to generate instrumental music based on the musics and vocal sounds typically associated with fado’s practice. A description of the phenomenon of fado, its musics and vocal sounds, based on ethnographic, historical sources and empirical data is presented. The data includes the creation of a digital corpus, of musical transcriptions, identified as fado, and statistical analysis via music information retrieval techniques. The second part consists in the formulation of a theory and the coding of a symbolic model, as a proof of concept, for the automatic generation of instrumental music based on the one in the corpus.

Building 3D City Models: Testing and Comparing Laser Scanning and Low-Cost UAV Data Using FOSS Technologies

Contém resumo