Day: August 31, 2011

Geospatial Predictive Modelling of the Neolithic Archaeological Sites of Magnesia in Greece

/ Matt Artz

International Journal of Digital EarthInternational Journal of Digital Earth, Volume 4, Issue 5, 2011, pages 421-433

Konstantinos G. Perakis and Athanasios K. Moysiadis

“Sources of heterogeneous geospatial data such as the elevation, the slope, the aspect, the water network and the current settlements related to the known Neolithic archaeological sites of Magnesia, are used in an attempt to confirm the existence and allow for the prediction of other archaeological sites using predictive modelling theory. Predictive modelling allows the update of the problem solving strategy as soon as new data layers are available. The Dempster–Shafer Theory also commonly referred to as evidential reasoning (ER) is used to compose probability maps of areas of archaeological interest from physiographical and historical data. The advantage of this theory is that the ignorance is quantified and used to compose the probability maps named as belief, plausibility and belief interval for the archaeological sites. The final digital probability maps show that the Neolithic archaeological sites can be detected in the prefecture of Magnesia. This research study forms a methodological tool for the prediction of new archaeological sites in other areas of archaeological interest according to the physiographical and historical characteristics of the archaeological period being examined. It also contributes to the digital earth modelling and archaeological site protection, one of the most critical and challenging global initiatives.”

An Assessment View to Evaluate whether Spatial Data Infrastructures Meet their Goals

/ Matt Artz

Computers, Environment and Urban SystemsComputers, Environment and Urban Systems, Volume 35, Issue 3, May 2011, Pages 217-229

Łukasz Grus, Watse Castelein, Joep Crompvoets, Theo Overduin, Bastiaan van Loenen, Annemarie van Groenestijn, Abbas Rajabifard, and Arnold K. Bregt

“Research highlights:

  • As a result of the research, a SDI goal-oriented assessment view has been proposed.
  • The practical applicability of the proposed assessment view has been demonstrated by its implementation in the Dutch SDI case.
  • The presented goal-oriented SDI assessment approach offers a specific and rational assessment which helps to evaluate SDIs for accountability purposes.
  • The design of the assessment view is generic, so it can be used to measure the extent of goals realization of any infrastructures with clearly defined and agreeable goals and where all of the stakeholders can be identified and approached.

“The motives for constructing Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) are often based on their anticipated benefits for society, economy, and environment. According to those widely articulated but rarely proven benefits, SDI coordinators have been defining more specific objectives to be achieved by their SDIs. However, there is a limited number of assessment approaches that are able to demonstrate whether SDIs indeed realize the intended goals. In this article we develop, apply and evaluate an assessment view for evaluating the extent to which SDIs realize their goals. The assessment view has been developed stepwise using the Multi-view SDI assessment framework as a guideline. The application of the proposed view in the Dutch SDI demonstrates its potential. In addition, the evaluation of the proposed view by the potential users confirms to a certain extent its usability. The results also show that the ease of determining assessment indicators depends on the precision with which the SDI goals are formulated.”