A way forward for land-use planning to achieve policy goals by using spatial modelling scenarios

This paper investigates how demographic (socioeconomic) and land-use (physical and environmental) data can be integrated within a decision support framework to formulate and evaluate land-use planning scenarios. A case-study approach is undertaken with land-use planning scenarios for a rapidly growing coastal area in Australia, the Shire of Hervey Bay. The town and surrounding area require careful planning of the future urban growth between competing land uses. Three potential urban growth scenarios are put forth to address this issue. Scenario A ('continued growth') is based on existing socioeconomic trends. Scenario B ('maximising rates base') is derived using optimisation modelling of land-valuation data. Scenario C ('sustainable development') is derived using a number of social, economic, and environmental factors and assigning weightings of importance to each factor using a multiple criteria analysis approach. The land-use planning scenarios are presented through the use of maps and tables within a geographical information system, which delineate future possible land-use allocations up until 2021. The planning scenarios are evaluated by using a goal-achievement matrix approach. The matrix is constructed with a number of criteria derived from key policy objectives outlined in the regional growth management framework and town planning schemes. The authors of this paper examine the final efficiency scores calculated for each of the three planning scenarios and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the three land-use modelling approaches used to formulate the final scenarios.

The wonderful possibilities of the future: Town planning and greater Brisbane

The 'greater city' movement in the 1920s in Australia was profoundly influenced by the growing town planning movement of the time. Brisbane was the only major metropolitan city in which local government amalgamations occurred, leading to a 'greater Brisbane' in 1925. The paper tries to identify reasons why, despite the close connection between the greater city movement and the early town planning movement, there was no formal town plan in place in Brisbane until 1965.

Efficiently computing weighted proximity relationships in spatial databases

Spatial data mining recently emerges from a number of real applications, such as real-estate marketing, urban planning, weather forecasting, medical image analysis, road traffic accident analysis, etc. It demands for efficient solutions for many new, expensive, and complicated problems. In this paper, we investigate the problem of evaluating the top k distinguished “features” for a “cluster” based on weighted proximity relationships between the cluster and features. We measure proximity in an average fashion to address possible nonuniform data distribution in a cluster. Combining a standard multi-step paradigm with new lower and upper proximity bounds, we presented an efficient algorithm to solve the problem. The algorithm is implemented in several different modes. Our experiment results not only give a comparison among them but also illustrate the efficiency of the algorithm.

Planning of Intellectual Robot Actions in Real Time

In article the mathematical model of the mobile robot actions planning at recognition of situations in extreme conditions of functioning is offered. The purpose of work is reduced to formation of a concrete plan of the robot actions by extrapolation of a situation and its concrete definition with the account a priori unpredictable features of current conditions.

Provision of Mobile Learning in Higher Schools

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2013

Mobile Exploring of the Bulgarian Iconography through QR Codes in the GUIDE@HAND Tourist Guide Application

The following paper presents an application of QR code marking of digital iconographical collections for their outdoor mobile access and exploring through the GUIDE@HAND audio tourist guide.

Security in the Mobile World

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education and Research in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2014

Az esztétikai alapú várostervezés és kapcsolata a tájépítészettel a XX. században. Út a "New Urbanism" és a gyalogosbarát város elméletéhez

Kutatásunk két korszakot vizsgál alaposabban. A XIX. század végének és a XX. század első évtizedeinek városépítészetelméletéből a „Civic Art”-ot mutatjuk be, valamint az ennek alapjain, a modernizmus városépítészetének kritikájaként létrejött, az 1960-as évektől kezdődő „Urban Design”-t. Mindkét éra jellemezhető egy olyan tervezői attitűddel, városépítészet elméleti kultúrával, amelynek célja a jól használható terek (Cultures of good place-making) kialakítása volt (Bohl, 2009). A két korszak összehasonlításánál fontos megemlíteni, hogy egyrészt sok szempontból azonos gazdasági-társadalmi jelenségek zajlottak, másrészt az ezekre nyújtott reakció azonos társadalmi csoportoktól érkezett. Az előbbi példájaként lehet említeni a drámai gazdasági és technológiai változásokat, a gyors iramú városfejlődést és migrációt, valamint a hagyományos városközpontok felbomlását. Az ezekre a problémákra felmerülő válaszok mindkét esetben a tervező mellett a közösségek építésében szerepet játszó szakmák (ingatlan és üzleti szféra, ipar, államszervezet), valamint a lakosság különböző csoportjaiban fogalmazódtak meg (Bohl, 2009). Tanulmányunk a tájépítészet szerepét kívánja feltérképezni ezen irányzatokban, s választ keres arra, hogy szakmánk jelentősége és érdekeltsége hogyan változott az idők során. A kérdés, hogy a napjainkig meghatározó „urban design” teoretika a városi szabadterek alakítása terén tudott-e a „Civic Art” korszakának tanulságaiból meríteni?

A large-scale dynamic vector and raster data visualization geographic information system based on parallel map tiling

With the exponential increasing demands and uses of GIS data visualization system, such as urban planning, environment and climate change monitoring, weather simulation, hydrographic gauge and so forth, the geospatial vector and raster data visualization research, application and technology has become prevalent. However, we observe that current web GIS techniques are merely suitable for static vector and raster data where no dynamic overlaying layers. While it is desirable to enable visual explorations of large-scale dynamic vector and raster geospatial data in a web environment, improving the performance between backend datasets and the vector and raster applications remains a challenging technical issue. This dissertation is to implement these challenging and unimplemented areas: how to provide a large-scale dynamic vector and raster data visualization service with dynamic overlaying layers accessible from various client devices through a standard web browser, and how to make the large-scale dynamic vector and raster data visualization service as rapid as the static one. To accomplish these, a large-scale dynamic vector and raster data visualization geographic information system based on parallel map tiling and a comprehensive performance improvement solution are proposed, designed and implemented. They include: the quadtree-based indexing and parallel map tiling, the Legend String, the vector data visualization with dynamic layers overlaying, the vector data time series visualization, the algorithm of vector data rendering, the algorithm of raster data re-projection, the algorithm for elimination of superfluous level of detail, the algorithm for vector data gridding and re-grouping and the cluster servers side vector and raster data caching.