1082-4006/05/1101-29$5.00 ©2005 The International Association of Chinese Professionals in Geographic Information Science (CPGIS) Abstract Given the decentralized computing environment for managing landscape resources in Shanghai, China, this paper introduces a Distributed GIS application to support a more efficient and effective approach for resource management. Four critical computing issues r...

GIS as we know it is traditionally a two-dimensional static representation of space, closely related to the paper maps that were its inspiration. While various attempts have been made to define a “3D GIS” or a “Dynamic GIS”, in recent years other disciplines have moved much faster in this direction – notably some parts of computer science, computer graphics and game development. This paper look...

Several GIS applications are characterized by the vast amount of information that needs to be stored, retrieved and analyzed. The volume and complexity of the data will continue to grow in the future as is apparent from the expected geo-spatial petabyte data set for NASA’s EOSDIS project which will hold a collection of raster images arriving at a rate of 3-5 Mbytes/second for 10 years from sate...

GIS is a technology with the potential to transform government by enhancing business processes and providing a platform to manage spatial and non-spatial data, which is expected to result in better decision-making. However, little is known about how this technology is actually implemented organization-wide and the environment surrounding its use. Current GIS maturity models have not examined us...

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are a special case of information systems with a capability to integrate spatial and descriptive data. As GIS enter into mainstream business applications, understanding how they are similar and different from more familiar information systems such as DSS can be usefil. An attempt is made to converge on a definition of GIS. The potential for many decisions to...

Spatial decision support systems (SDSS) are decision support tools which have been used widely in addressing complicated issues involving a spatial component. The use of SDSS has increased greatly over the last few decades especially in fields such as planning, natural resources management, and environmental science. Traditionally, SDSS have been developed with Geographic Information Systems (G...

We measure the ability of human observers to predict the next datum in a sequence that is generated by a simple statistical process undergoing change at random points in time. Accurate performance in this task requires the identification of changepoints. We assess individual differences between observers both empirically, and using two kinds of models: a Bayesian approach for change detection a...

Natural language interface to spatial databases have not received a lot of attention in computational linguistics, in spite of the potential value of such systems for users of Geographical Information Systems (GISs). This paper presents a controlled language for GIS queries, solves some of the semantic problems for spatial inference in this language, and introduces a system that implements this...

It is possible to eliminate some of the traditional problems with GIS implementation by changing the model of space used. The Voronoi spatial model has bee used as the basis of a set of core GIS or spatial operations, with encouraging results. It has been implemented in a PC environment so as to leave as much flexibility as possible for the designer of any particular application. Examples inclu...

The idea of public participation GIS involves the use of GIS tools to help laypcople understand the spatial consequences of proposed projects, evaluate alternatives, and create new solutions. The widening use of information networks creates opportunities for making GIS a widely accessible decision-making tool, bypassing the constraints of location and time. This paper presents a prototype softw...