2. (Geo) Informatics across Disciplines!

3. Why Geo-Spatial Computing?
Societal:
Google Earth, Google Maps, Navigation, location-based service
Global Challenges facing humanity – many are geo-spatial!
Future of Computer Science (CS) is to address societal challenges!
Intellectual
Challenges CS assumptions, opporunities for new research
Ex. Shortest path problem – What algorithms are common today?
Are these correct if edge travel-times is not fixed (e.g. rush-hour, non-rush-hour)?
Is Dynamic Programming correct for spatio-temporal problems?
Ex. Classical Data Mining, e.g. Decision trees, Association Rules, Regression, …
Are these effective for spatial data?
ACM SIGSPATIAL
Special interest group started in 2008 to bring computer scientists together
Annual Conference: ACM GIS
Journals
GeoInformatica: An Intl. Jr. on Advances in Computer Science for GIS

4. Shashi Shekhar Mcknight Distinguished University Professor
URLs: ~shekhar
Area: Spatial Databases, Spatial Data Mining, Geographic Info. Systems
Teaching:
Fall 2009:
Csci 4707: Database I
iPhone programming (w/ Prof. Tripathi and Prof. Mokbel)
Spring 2010:
Csci 5708: Database Systems
Csci 8715: Spatial Databases
Books, Surveys, etc.:
Updating a survey paper on spatial and spatio-temporal data mining
Textbook, Encyclopedia, …

5. Research Group: Spatial Database, Data Mining, GIS
URLs:
Weekly Meetings:
Current Projects:
NSF: CRI:IAD Infrastructure for Research in Spatio-Temporal and Context-Aware Systems …
NSF: III-CXT: Spatio-temporal Graph Databases for Transportation Science
NSF: IGERT: Non-equilibrium Dynamics Across Space and Time
USDOD: Spatio-Temporal Pattern Mining for Multi-Juris. Multi-Temporal Activity Datasets
USDOD: Dynamic Purpose-Aware Graph Models for Composite Networks
USDOD: Cascase Models for Multi-Scale Spatio-temporal Pattern Discovery
UM: OVPR: Minnesota Futures: Exploring Spatio-temporal Future of Geo-Informatics
Current Ph.D. Students:
James Kang
Pradeep Mohan
Mike Evans
Dev Oliver
Xun Zhou

6. Spatial Databases: Representative Projects
Parallelize
Range Queries
only in old plan
Only in new plan
In both plans
Evacutation Route Planning
Storing graphs in disk blocks
Shortest Paths

7. Spatial Data Mining : Representative Projects
Nest locations
Distance to open water
Vegetation durability
Water depth
Location prediction: nesting sites
Spatial outliers: sensor (#9) on I-35
Co-location Patterns
Tele connections

8. Spatio-Temporal (ST) Questions
How do we conceptualize spatio-temporal (ST) worlds?
How do we measure ST concepts, recognize them in (remotely) sensed information or in the field, and identify their accuracy and quality?
How do we represent ST concepts with incomplete/ uncertain information, with alternative data models, and possibly with multiple representations for the same data, in digital environments?
How do we store, access, and transform ST concepts, facilitating data sharing, data transfer, and data archiving, while ensuring minimum information loss?
How do we explain ST phenomena through the application of appropriate methods of forward or inverse models of physical and human processes?
How do we visualize ST concepts on a variety of media such as maps on electronic displays or animated displays ?
How do we use ST concepts to think about spatio-temporal phenomena, and to seek explanations for spatio-temporal patterns and phenomena?
Source: Adaptation from NCGIA proposal to NSF by Goodchild et al.