GoGeo

Horizon would like to invite you to the workshop Crowdsourcing in Action. This workshop will look in detail at examples of successful crowdsourcing projects with a view to understanding the underlying platforms, exploring how they may be exploited in your own work, and identifying the challenges for the next generation of crowdsourcing platforms.

The aims of the workshop are to:

• Present and discuss examples of different types of crowdsourcing in action
  
• Identify how communities are motivated to contribute and crowdsource work
  
• Consider how to design for engagement in crowdsourcing activities
  
• Identify key challenges, business models and new opportunities and requirements for the crowdsourcing platforms
  

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Geospatial technology was used to visualise and analyse the most detailed laser-scan survey ever conducted at Stonehenge. The laser scan used a point spacing of 0.5 millimeters to get high resolution results which revealed important information for analysis.

ArcHeritage, part of the United Kingdom’s York Archaeological Trust, is examining this ancient structure as part of a English Heritage-commissioned project. Preliminary analyses of the meshed models identified individual tool marks more than 5,000 years old, but the data contained additional prehistoric artwork carved onto the stones’ surfaces, so the team decided to visualise the original point-cloud data.

Bentley Systems Inc.’s Bentley Pointools enabled large datasets to be loaded, facilitating an examination of full-resolution data. The software’s shading function was instrumental in visualising the most subtle features, which resulted in the discovery of 71 carvings of Bronze Age axes not seen in more than 3,000 years.

Depending on the position in relation to a preset camera plane, each data point was assigned a grayscale value, allowing subtle features to be visible. When the images were combined into an animation and played back, the carvings, which are invisible to the naked eye, are seen fading in and out. After the carvings’ extent was identified, the team deployed measuring and point-location tools to accurately plot the carvings to an Ordnance Survey grid.

Further information about the laser-scan survey results can be found on the ArcHeritage's website.

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Three Early Stage Researcher positions are available in the Department of Geography, Durham University, within the Marie Curie Initial Training Network GLANAM (Glaciated North Atlantic Margins). The GLANAM network involves a co-ordinated research project between seven academic partners with complementary expertise in glacial and marine geology, geophysics, and modelling: Durham University, University of Bergen, University of Tromso, Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), University of Ulster, Denmark and Greenland Geological Survey, and the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS). There is one full industrial partner, North Energy and two associate industrial partners involved in training activities, Statoil and Volcanic Basin Petroleum Research.

The network will employ 15 researchers who will each have an individual research project based at one of the full partners, but involving secondments or shorter visits to other partners in GLANAM. The 15 projects are focussed on various aspects of Glaciation of the North Atlantic margins. There is also an extensive programme of training in scientific, field, technical and transferrable skills.

Each position is 3 years with a preferred starting date of 1 October 2013.

Closing Date: 29th March 2013
Salary: €39325 p.a.

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This opportunity could certainly involve both GIS and spatial modelling. Cranfield University have an exciting opportunity for a one-year post-doctoral position in the Cranfield Water Science Institute. You will contribute to one of the new Flood Risk projects funded by EPSRC - Flood MEMORY: Multi-Event Modelling of Risk & recovery. The post will involve collaboration with other partner groups, and especially the team working on hydraulic modelling aspects of sediment transfer.

You must have a PhD focused on sediment transport modelling, geomorphology or fluvial morphology, to contribute to the sediment dynamics component of this project. Some field work in remote areas may be involved, and therefore a willingness to travel and a current UK driving licence are required.

Salary: £29,793 to £33,207
Closing Date: 2 April 2013

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TatukGIS announces the version 10 upgrade of its Developer Kernel Compact Framework edition (DK.CF) for mobile GIS application development for the Windows Mobile and CE operating systems (WinCE, PocketPC, Windows Mobile 5.0, 6.x, Windows Embedded Handheld 6.x). This upgrade elevates the DK.CF functionality to the level of the other TatukGIS Developer Kernel product editions that are for desktop application development.

Despite the popularity of alternative mobile operations systems for retail applications, Windows Mobile and CE are still the leading operating systems for rugged handheld computing devices often used for enterprise-level, industrial type mobile GIS solutions in industries such as forestry and land management, mining, utilities, oil and gas, etc. Examples of such rugged handheld Windows Mobile and CE computing devices are the products produced by Juniper Systems (www.junipersys.com).

The DK.CF is a pure .NET SDK supporting Compact Framework version 3.5. As a pure .NET component, the DK.CF is processor independent, meaning that a DK.CF application can run on any Compact Framework compatible processor without need for recompilation. Because the DK.CF shares the same object API as the pure .NET WinForms edition of the TatukGIS Developer Kernel, porting a DK.NET developed desktop application to a DK.CF based mobile application can be as easy as copying the source code to the DK.CF and recompiling.

Though some mobile computing devices are CPU limited, performance of a DK-CF developed application need not be limited by data size. If necessary, large data sets can be read from external storage such as a removable SD card. SQL based storage of vector and image layers is also an option (using the SQLite database) .

To review the product features and specifications, download a trial version, etc., please visit the www.tatukgis.com web site.

Senior Research Engineer (Part-time: 0.8FTE; 28 hours per week)

Salary: £37,382-£44,607 (pro-rata)

EDINA national data centre is seeking to recruit an enthusiastic individual to act as the senior software engineer and technical lead for EDINA in the European Union (EU) funded COBWEB (Citizen Observatory Web) research project – for which EDINA is the coordinator.

The post is a key role within the project, as you will be responsible for researching and implementing novel solutions to achieve project objectives. You will iteratively define and refine requirements, implement software solutions based on general research goals and objectives set for the project and work closely with COBWEB consortium partners and relevant EDINA staff, particularly the project Co-ordinator and project partner science and technology leads. The role will involve evaluating different technologies and technical solutions, and presenting solutions to consortium members to facilitate meeting project targets.

You should be able to demonstrate flexibility, initiative and good problem solving skills. As the post involves working with a variety of people in different roles across Europe, good interpersonal and communication skills are required. Previous experience of EU projects or projects with multiple partners would be an advantage.

The post is fixed term to 31 October 2016

Closing date: 20 March 2013

Application Procedure

All applicants should apply via The University of Edinburgh's vacancy website. The application process is quick and easy to follow, and you will receive email confirmation of safe receipt of your application. The online system allows you to submit a CV and other attachments.

We anticipate interviews will be held in the week commencing 1st April 2013.You will be notified by email whether you have been shortlisted for interview or not.

The University of Edinburgh's Jobs webpage can be reached via link below. Click Professional and support vacancies to find this vacancy (Vacancy Ref : 010902).

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Mike Batty, Founder, Chair, and Professor of Planning, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), University College London will give this Fridays Edinburgh Earth Observatory talk. This is titled: Smart Cities: Big Data, Real Time Transport, Social Media and Urban Simulation

Mike will explain how computers are being fast embedded into many different aspects of the built environment of cities and thus delivering many news kinds of data that pertain to change and movement, particularly in terms of transport flows and social networking. These data are large in the sense that every time an event occurs, the event is recorded and there may be as many as 10000 events per second, yielding data streams measured in millions of events. Making sense of all this is a major challenge and visualization as well as quite elaborate data mining is the key, but the smart city that is an obvious consequence of this digital revolution depends on how we use these new data streams, how we understand urban problems better and fashion more effective urban plans. We will illustrate these ideas from our work in London with the Oyster card system on London’s public transport, various social explorations into social media, digital participation and the development of longer term more traditional land use transport models that can be run now in almost real time. In short, the temporal events associated with spatial events in cities is changing the basis of how we think about their planning. The focus is shifting from long to short term planning as indeed is our own attention span in an era when life seems ever faster. We illustrate these ideas with notions about how we can account for disruptions in cities, unexpected events and how big data is providing us with possibilities for understanding and indeed control of cities that we have never been realized before.

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Back for 2013, this 2 day course provides an introduction to Geographical Information Systems (GIS) using ESRI's ArcGIS version 10.0 software. It provides participants with the opportunity to familiarise themselves with using and navigating the software, as well as focussing on the skills of data entry, data manipulation, editing, analysis and mapping. The emphasis of this course is working with health data such as prevalence of obesity in local areas. The course will mix teaching with demonstrations and hands-on exercises. By the end of the course participants will be able to produce choropleth maps of health data, measure access to services using buffers and create network datasets for calculating detailed access measures. The participants will be given an overview of several key challenges in mapping and displaying health data and introduced to the most common types of map (choropleth, graduated symbol, interpolated surface). They will also be directed to important data sources.

When: 4th April 2013 - 5th April 2013
Where: University College London
Cost: £120 (Academics), £60 (Postgraduates)

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UN-Habitat through the Global Land Tool Network and its partners is developing and implementing the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM). STDM, as it stands, has the capacity to broaden the scope of land administration by providing a land information management framework that would integrate formal, informal and customary land systems and administrative and spatial components. STDM makes this possible through tools that facilitates recording all forms of land rights, all types of rights holders and all kinds of land and property objects/spatial units regardless of the level of formality.

An initial framework of STDM version was developed which is primarily based on free and open source software packages like QGIS, PostgreSQL and PostGIS and based on the pilot experience in Uganda. It was identified that the current version need further improvements and additional functionalities to address the information requirements of other context (e.g. post conflict/disaster, customary, etc.).

RESPONSIBILITIES

The main responsibilities of the GIS Officer for the development and implementation of Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) include the following:

• Introduce new developments and functionalities to the STDM pilot version towards making the system more adaptable to other contexts, more user-friendly, easy to update/manage, robust, flexible and secure.
  
• Undertake customization, technical documentation and provide technical and capacity development support on specific country and/or thematic contexts other than for enumeration purpose (STDM
• Pilot Version). (Potentially such contexts or situations may include dispute resolution in post conflict/disaster context, natural resource management, land recordation, integration of cadastral and enumeration data and customary context.)
  
• Provide support, coordination, advocacy/communication and documentation work to the GLTN Secretariat on the over-all STDM-related work and requirements
  
• Based on users' and partners' requirements and demands, provide a set of recommendations on additional STDM functionalities needed and other relevant potential value additions to STDM development and over-all work and strategy.
  

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The course is provided by TALISMAN, a node of the National Centre for Research Methods, and is funded through the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of a strategy to improve the standard of research methods across the UK social science community.

Event Description: A Geographical Information System (GIS) uses spatial and aspatial data to explore where ‘things’ are and how they are related. This is a ‘hands-on’, introductory course on using MapInfo Professional – a series of short activities will allow participants to explore the functionality and potential applications of the GIS, guiding through the basics of opening and importing geographical boundaries, linking aspatial data (e.g. Census data) to those boundaries, querying and analysing data, extracting data to meet criteria, visualising data and producing maps and graphs which can be used in research outputs. MapInfo uses a menu-based interface.

When: 27 - 28 March, 2013
Where: Room G.19, School of Geography, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT
Cost: £45 for postgraduate researchers and £90 for academics (This includes lunch on first day).

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