An Experimental Performance Evaluation of Spatio-Temporal Join Strategies

Many applications capture, or make use of, spatial data that changes over time. This requirement for effective and efficient spatio‐temporal data management has given rise to a range of research activities relating to spatio‐temporal data management. Such work has sought to understand, for example, the requirements of different categories of application, and the modelling facilities that are most effective for these applications. However, at present, there are few systems with fully integrated support for spatio‐temporal data, and thus developers must often construct custom solutions for their applications. Developers of both bespoke solutions and of generic spatio‐temporal platforms will often need to support the fusion of large spatio‐temporal data sets. Supporting such requests in a database setting involves the use of join operations with both spatial and temporal conditions – spatio‐temporal joins. However, there has been little work to date on spatio‐temporal join algorithms or their evaluation. This paper presents an evaluation of several approaches to the implementation of spatio‐temporal joins that build upon widely available indexing techniques. The evaluation explores how several algorithms perform for databases with different spatial and temporal characteristics, with a view to helping developers of generic infrastructures or custom solutions in the selection and development of appropriate spatio‐temporal join strategies.     

A Hybrid Geocoding Methodology for Spatio‐Temporal Data

As tools for collecting data continue to evolve and improve, the information available for research is expanding rapidly. Increasingly, this information is of a spatio‐temporal nature, which enables tracking of phenomena through both space and time. Despite the increasing availability of spatio‐temporal data, however, the methods for processing and analyzing these data are lacking. Existing geocoding techniques are no exception. Geocoding enables the geographic location of people and events to be known and tracked. However, geocoded information is highly generalized and subject to various interpolation errors. In addition, geocoding for spatio‐temporal data is especially challenging because of the inherent dynamism of associated data. This article presents a methodology for geocoding spatio‐temporal data in ArcGIS that utilizes several additional supporting procedures to enhance spatial accuracy, including the use of supplementary land use information, aerial photographs and local knowledge. This hybrid methodology allows for the tracking of phenomenon through space and over time. It is also able to account for reporting inconsistencies, which is a common feature of spatio‐temporal data. The utility of this methodology is demonstrated using an application to spatio‐temporal address records for a highly mobile group of convicted felons in Hamilton County, Ohio.     

Detection of clusters in traffic networks based on spatio‐temporal flow modeling

Spatio‐temporal clustering is a highly active research topic and a challenging issue in spatio‐temporal data mining. Many spatio‐temporal clustering methods have been designed for geo‐referenced time series. Under some special circumstances, such as monitoring traffic flow on roads, existing methods cannot handle the temporally dynamic and spatially heterogeneous correlations among road segments when detecting clusters. Therefore, this article develops a spatio‐temporal flow‐based approach to detect clusters in traffic networks. First, a spatio‐temporal flow process is modeled by combining network topology relations with real‐time traffic status. On this basis, spatio‐temporal neighborhoods are captured by considering traffic time‐series similarity in spatio‐temporal flows. Spatio‐temporal clusters are further formed by successive connection of spatio‐temporal neighbors. Experiments on traffic time series of central London's road network on both weekdays and weekends are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed method.     

利用时序手机通话数据识别城市用地功能

城市土地利用是人的活动与城市物质空间交互所表现出的综合结果,因此人的活动与城市土地利用功能密切相关;具有不同时间段人的活动的空间聚集与分散规律的区域,其所属的社会功能属性亦不相同。随着大数据时代的到来,以居民手机数据为代表的基于位置的服务数据（local basic service,LBS）大量出现,使得实现时空全覆盖和精细化地监测城市人的活动成为可能。因此,利用手机数据的优势,能够实现从人的角度来区分识别城市用地功能类型。利用手机通话详单数据（call detail records,CDRs）提取面向地块尺度的居民通话聚合时序特征,提出了一种城市土地利用类型谱聚类识别方法。以武汉市为例进行实验分析,结果表明,该方法识别城市土地利用的平均精度为54.6%,为探知城市土地利用空间分布提供了一个有效的方法。     

Mining Association Rules in Spatio-Temporal Data: An Analysis of Urban Socioeconomic and Land Cover Change

This research demonstrates the application of association rule mining to spatio‐temporal data. Association rule mining seeks to discover associations among transactions encoded in a database. An association rule takes the form A→B where A (the antecedent) and B (the consequent) are sets of predicates. A spatio‐temporal association rule occurs when there is a spatio‐temporal relationship in the antecedent or consequent of the rule. As a case study, association rule mining is used to explore the spatial and temporal relationships among a set of variables that characterize socioeconomic and land cover change in the Denver, Colorado, USA region from 1970–1990. Geographic Information Systems (GIS)‐based data pre‐processing is used to integrate diverse data sets, extract spatio‐temporal relationships, classify numeric data into ordinal categories, and encode spatio‐temporal relationship data in tabular format for use by conventional (non‐spatio‐temporal) association rule mining software. Multiple level association rule mining is supported by the development of a hierarchical classification scheme (concept hierarchy) for each variable. Further research in spatio‐temporal association rule mining should address issues of data integration, data classification, the representation and calculation of spatial relationships, and strategies for finding ‘interesting’ rules.     

集成GIS和细胞自动机模型进行地理时空过程模拟与预测的新方法

目前商用地理信息系统（GIS）不能完整地表达地理实体的时态信息和时空关系，缺乏时空分析和时空动态模拟的能力，这已成为GIS界的一个共识，然而，未来GIS在各应用领域的深入发展以及在实现“数字地球”战略过程中，都要求发展新的时空分析和模拟方法，细胞自动机（Cellular Automaton)是一种“自下而上”的动态模拟建模框架，具有模拟地理复要系统时空演化过程的能力，首先将标准CA模型的4元组进行扩展以满足GIS环境下时空动态模型的要求，然后以城市土地利用演化这一动态过程为例，建立了土地利用演化动态模拟与预测模型（LESP），最后运用此模型对包头市城市扩展和土地可持续利用演化进行了比较成功的模拟和预测。     

Extraction of spatio‐temporal data about historical events from text documents

Often, we are faced with questions regarding past events and the answers are hidden in the historical text archives. The growing developments in geographic information retrieval and temporal information retrieval techniques have given new ways to explore digital text archives for spatio‐temporal data. The question is how to retrieve the answers from the text documents. This work contributes to a better understanding of spatio‐temporal information extraction from text documents. Natural language processing techniques were used to develop an information extraction approach using the GATE language processing software. The developed framework uses gazetteer matching, spatio‐temporal relationship extraction and pattern‐based rules to recognize and annotate elements in historical text documents. The extracted spatio‐temporal data is used as input for GIS studies on the time–geography context of the German–Herero resistance war of 1904 in Namibia. Related issues when analyzing the historical data in current GIS are discussed. Particularly problematic are movement data in small scale with poor temporal density and trajectories that are short or connect very distant locations.     

A Hybrid Spatio-Temporal Data Model and Structure (HST-DMS) for Efficient Storage and Retrieval of Land Use Information

While the incorporation of geographical and environmental modeling with GIS requires software support for storage and retrieval of spatial information that changes over time, it continues to be an unresolved issue with modern GIS software. Two complementary approaches have been used to manage the spatial and temporal heterogeneity within datasets that use a field‐based representation of the world. Some researchers have proposed new data models that partition space into discrete elements on an as‐needed basis following each temporal event, while others have focused on eliminating duplication of repeated data elements present in spatio‐temporal information. It is proposed in this paper that both approaches have merit and can be combined to create a Hybrid Spatio‐Temporal Data Model and Structure (HST‐DMS) that efficiently supports spatio‐temporal data storage and querying. Specifically, Peuquet and Duan's (1995) Event‐based Spatio‐Temporal Data Model (ESTDM) and the Overlapping R‐tree (Guttman 1984, Tzourmanis et al. 2000) are utilized to create a prototype used to store information about urban expansion for the town of Carbondale, Illinois.     

Urban Sprawl Analysis of Tripoli Metropolitan City (Libya) Using Remote Sensing Data and Multivariate Logistic Regression Model

The main objective of this paper is to analyze urban sprawl in the metropolitan city of Tripoli, Libya. Logistic regression model is used in modeling urban expansion patterns, and in investigating the relationship between urban sprawl and various driving forces. The 11 factors that influence urban sprawl occurrence used in this research are the distances to main active economic centers, to a central business district, to the nearest urbanized area, to educational area, to roads, and to urbanized areas; easting and northing coordinates; slope; restricted area; and population density. These factors were extracted from various existing maps and remotely sensed data. Subsequently, logistic regression coefficient of each factor is computed in the calibration phase using data from 1984 to 2002. Additionally, data from 2002 to 2010 were used in the validation. The validation of the logistic regression model was conducted using the relative operating characteristic (ROC) method. The validation result indicated 0.86 accuracy rate. Finally, the urban sprawl probability map was generated to estimate six scenarios of urban patterns for 2020 and 2025. The results indicated that the logistic regression model is effective in explaining urban expansion driving factors, their behaviors, and urban pattern formation. The logistic regression model has limitations in temporal dynamic analysis used in urban analysis studies. Thus, an integration of the logistic regression model with estimation and allocation techniques can be used to estimate and to locate urban land demands for a deeper understanding of future urban patterns.     

Visualising Crime Clusters in a Space‐time Cube: An Exploratory Data‐analysis Approach Using Space‐time Kernel Density Estimation and Scan Statistics

For an effective interpretation of spatio‐temporal patterns of crime clusters/hotspots, we explore the possibility of three‐dimensional mapping of crime events in a space‐time cube with the aid of space‐time variants of kernel density estimation and scan statistics. Using the crime occurrence dataset of snatch‐and‐run offences in Kyoto City from 2003 to 2004, we confirm that the proposed methodology enables simultaneous visualisation of the geographical extent and duration of crime clusters, by which stable and transient space‐time crime clusters can be intuitively differentiated. Also, the combined use of the two statistical techniques revealed temporal inter‐cluster associations showing that transient clusters alternatively appeared in a pair of hotspot regions, suggesting a new type of “displacement” phenomenon of crime. Highlighting the complementary aspects of the two space‐time statistical approaches, we conclude that combining these approaches in a space‐time cube display is particularly valuable for a spatio‐temporal exploratory data analysis of clusters to extract new knowledge of crime epidemiology from a data set of space‐time crime events.     

Cumulative spatial impact layers: A novel multivariate spatio‐temporal analytical summarization tool

Scientific inquiry often requires analysis of multiple spatio‐temporal datasets, ranging in type and size, using complex multi‐step processes demanding an understanding of GIS theory and software. Cumulative spatial impact layers (CSIL) is a GIS‐based tool that summarizes spatio‐temporal datasets based on overlapping features and attributes. Leveraging a recursive quadtree method, and applying multiple additive frameworks, the CSIL tool allows users to analyze raster and vector datasets by calculating data, record, or attribute density. Providing an efficient and robust method for summarizing disparate, multi‐format, multi‐source geospatial data, CSIL addresses the need for a new integration approach and resulting geospatial product. The built‐in flexibility of the CSIL tool allows users to answer a range of spatially driven questions. Example applications are provided in this article to illustrate the versatility and variety of uses for this CSIL tool and method. Use cases include addressing regulatory decision‐making needs, economic modeling, and resource management. Performance reviews for each use case are also presented, demonstrating how CSIL provides a more efficient and robust approach to assess a range of multivariate spatial data for a variety of uses.     

Addressing location uncertainties in GPS‐based activity monitoring: A methodological framework

Location uncertainty has been a major barrier in information mining from location data. Although the development of electronic and telecommunication equipment has led to an increased amount and refined resolution of data about individuals’ spatio‐temporal trajectories, the potential of such data, especially in the context of environmental health studies, has not been fully realized due to the lack of methodology that addresses location uncertainties. This article describes a methodological framework for deriving information about people's continuous activities from individual‐collected Global Positioning System (GPS) data, which is vital for a variety of environmental health studies. This framework is composed of two major methods that address critical issues at different stages of GPS data processing: (1) a fuzzy classification method for distinguishing activity patterns; and (2) a scale‐adaptive method for refining activity locations and outdoor/indoor environments. Evaluation of this framework based on smartphone‐collected GPS data indicates that it is robust to location errors and is able to generate useful information about individuals’ life trajectories.     

VGDI – Advancing the Concept: Volunteered Geo‐Dynamic Information and its Benefits for Population Dynamics Modeling

The concept of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has progressed from being an exotic prospect to making a profound impact on GIScience and geography in general, as initially anticipated. However, while massive and manifold data is continuously produced voluntarily and applications are built for information and knowledge extraction, the initially introduced concept of VGI lacks certain methodological perspectives in this regard which have not been fully elaborated. In this article we highlight and discuss an important gap in this concept, i.e. the lack of formal acknowledgment of temporal aspects. By coining the proposed advanced framework ‘Volunteered Geo‐Dynamic Information’ (VGDI), we attempt to lay the ground for full conceptual and applied spatio‐temporal integration. To illustrate that integrative approach of VGDI and its benefits, we describe the potential impact on the field of dynamic population distribution modeling. While traditional approaches in that domain rely on survey‐based data and statistics as well as static geographic information, the use of VGDI enables a dynamic setup. Foursquare venue and user check‐in data are presented for a test site in Lisbon, Portugal. Two core modules of spatio‐temporal population assessment are thereby addressed, namely time use profiling and target zone characterization, motivated by the potential integration in existing population dynamics frameworks such as the DynaPop model.     

Multi‐temporal transport network models for accessibility studies

Vehicle tracking is a spatio‐temporal source of high‐granularity travel time information that can be used for transportation planning. However, it is still a challenge to combine data from heterogeneous sources into a dynamic transport network, while allowing for network modifications over time. This article uses conceptual modeling to develop multi‐temporal transport networks in geographic information systems (GIS) for accessibility studies. The proposed multi‐temporal network enables accessibility studies with different temporal granularities and from any location inside the city, resulting in a flexible tool for transport and urban planning. The implemented network is tested in two case studies that focus on socially excluded people in a large global city, São Paulo, Brazil, including accessibility analyses from slum areas. It explores variations within a day and differences between transport modes across time. Case study results indicate how the accessibility is heterogeneous in low‐income regions.     

An adaptive method for clustering spatio‐temporal events

The clustering of spatio‐temporal events has become one of the most important research branches of spatio‐temporal data mining. However, the discovery of clusters of spatio‐temporal events with different shapes and densities remains a challenging problem because of the subjectivity in the choice of two critical parameters: the spatio‐temporal window for estimating the density around each event, and the density threshold for evaluating the significance of clusters. To make the clustering of spatio‐temporal events objective, in this study these two parameters were adaptively generated from statistical information about the dataset. More precisely, the density threshold was statistically modeled as an adjusted significance level controlled by the cardinality and support domain of the dataset, and the appropriate sizes of spatio‐temporal windows for clustering were determined by the spatio‐temporal classification entropy and stability analysis. Experiments on both simulated and earthquake datasets were conducted, and the results show that the proposed method can identify clusters of different shapes and densities.     

基于多时相Landsat数据的城市扩张及其驱动力分析

 以长沙市为例，在多时相Landsat遥感数据支持下，采用监督分类、非监督分类和归一化裸露指数(NDBI)等方法提取城市用地信息。通过对比多期城市用地的熵值变化，定量分析城市扩张的时空特性； 运用叠加、缓冲区分析等方法，分析城市扩张和中心城区的关系，绘制城市扩张速度玫瑰图。研究结果表明，长沙市建成区总面积不断扩展，其中，1973~1986年扩张主要表现在东南方向，1987~1993年为西部方向，1994~2001年南和东南方向成为快速扩张方向； 对长沙城市扩张驱动力进行分析，认为人口迅速增加是城市扩张的最主要驱动力。     

基于云计算的智慧唐山时空信息平台数据库构建

随着云计算技术的不断发展,大数据与信息化时代的优势越来越突出,应用越来越广泛。时空信息平台作为智慧城市建设的重要内容,管理海量基础地理信息数据,是智慧城市建设的基础。因此,海量数据的管理成为时空信息平台设计的关键。以智慧唐山建设为例,结合云计算技术,探讨时空信息平台数据库的构建,针对云平台基础地理信息数据体系、云平台数据库体系架构以及云平台数据库管理系统等方面进行设计,明确基于云计算时空信息平台数据库建设内容,探讨适用于智慧城市建设的时空信息云平台解决方案。