Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Land Information Service'

Nowadays Wireless LAN is playing a more and more important role in network systems. After 1999, in which the IEEE organization published its Wireless Local Network standard 802.11[1], many people saw the advantages of the standard but also the lack of support for multimedia streaming. A lot of research work has been done on the proposed IEEE 802.11e standard draft during the past 4 years. It is supposed to be able to fully support Quality of Service. The final version will be published early in 2004. In my thesis, I propose two possible methods to improve the performance of service differentiation in the MAC layer. The first one is calledPCWA (Practical Contention Window Adjustment). It is a method with which the station finds a best size of its contention window when running the EDCF (Enhanced Distributed Coordination Function) access method. It helps to improve the total system throughput, the jitter and the delay of traffics with different priorities. The second method is called AIPM (Adaptive Initiative Polling Machine). It uses the polling mechanism for differential service, intelligently arranging the polling time to reduce the delay as much as possible, achieving large improvement in performance. This method significantly increases the total system throughput, while the delay and jitter of the traffics are very much small in comparison to EDCF.

Most of spatial data extraction and updating procedures require digitization of geographical entities from satellite imagery. During digitization, errors are introduced by factors like instrument deficiencies or user errors. In this study positional uncertainty of geographical objects, digitized from high resolution Quickbird satellite imagery, is assessed using Data Uncertainty Engine (DUE). It is a software tool for assessing uncertainties in environmental data
and generating realisations of uncertain data for use in uncertainty propagation analyses. A case study area in Kocaeli, Turkey that mostly includes agricultural land parcels is selected in order to evaluate positional uncertainty and obtain uncertainty boundaries for manually digitized fields. Geostatistical evaluation of discrepancy between reference data and digitized polygons are undertaken to analyse auto and cross correlation structures of errors. This process is utilized in order to estimate error model parameters which are employed in defining an uncertainty model within DUE. Error model parameters obtained from training data, are used to generate simulations for test data. Realisations of data derived via Monte Carlo Simulation using DUE, are evaluated to generate uncertainty boundaries for each object guiding user for further analyses with pre-defined information related to the accuracy of spatial entities. It is also aimed to assess area uncertainties affected by the position of spatial entities. For all different correlation structures and object models, weighted average positional error for this study is between 2.66 to 2.91 meters. At the end of uncertainty analysis, deformable object model produced the smallest uncertainty bandwidth by modelling cross correlation.

The research sought to examine the effect of literacy on access to, and utilization of agricultural information for household food security at Chirau Communal lands in Zimbabwe. The study was influenced by the diffusion of innovations approach based on interviews, observation and document study. Selected female farmers from Chirau communal lands were respondents to the self administered interviews and focus group discussions. Representatives from, Agriculture Extension and the Ministry of Agriculture were key informants. Systematic Random sampling was used to select 100 female respondents from the age of 18 to above 80 from wards 1 to 10 of Chirau Rural District in Zimbabwe. Data was analyzed into themes and coded for statistical analysis using the SPSS. The country is faced with food insecurity and the main findings of this study support the view that women play an active role in food production but their potential is limited by inadequate levels of literacy that affect the way they access and utilize resources for sustainable agriculture and household food security among other factors. This may be generalized to the situation of female farmers in Zimbabwe. Improved literacy competencies among the female farmers in Zimbabwe lends itself as one of the interventions that may assist in improving access to information and its effective utilization.. This calls decision-makers to boost literacy for women, develop available agricultural information resources and harness effort towards making them accessible. While interventions may be multi-sectored, the role of government is stressed in this report.

The thesis work intends to provide architecture for mobile local information search service using Wireless LAN and cellular integration. Search technology has been popular and driving business bodies with increasing e-commerce opportunities. The search technology has been recently brought to portable devices such as mobile phones and PDA devices by extending the research scope. Mobile search revenues are expected to surpass Internet search revenues in near future. Mobile local search on the other hand is getting much popular with growing number of mobile subscribers. Mobile phones have been chosen to provide mobile local search services because of its high possessivity and portable nature. In this thesis work, the author would like to propose a generalized architecture for mobile local information search in a new perspective by involving cellular service provider directly with a minimum co-operation from consumers and retailers. When providing mobile local search services, cellular operator has to maintain a replica of databases of all the existing retailers. Updating the replica at cellular operator at regular intervals has been leading to synchronization problems that produce out-dated results to mobile users. The aspects that have driven the author towards proposing the architecture are solving database synchronization problems and thriving for effective search results. The existing architecture of web search, mobile search and mobile local search are analyzed to identify the domain specific challenges and research gaps. Proposed architecture is designed and evaluated by using an approach called Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM). The architecture is evaluated against its quality attributes and the results are presented.
Sridher Rao Sidduri Lindblomsvagen, 97, Rum no 555, 372 33 Ronneby, Sweden E-mail: srsi05@student.bth.se

La haie bocagère, au travers des nombreuses fonctions qu’elle possède, intervient dans les problématiques engendrées par le changement climatique actuel. Cependant, l’évolution radicale du paysage agraire au cours du XXe siècle a conduit à un arasement massif des haies ces 60 dernières années. Bien que ses intérêts économiques, écologiques et socio-culturels soient avérés, ils ne sont pas reconnus par tous les acteurs et la dégradation du bocage se poursuit. Les conséquences de cette disparition font peu à peu prendre conscience de la nécessité de préserver les haies. Des initiatives apparaissent à diverses échelles et une forte demande d’outils de diagnostic et d’évaluation qualitative émerge. Or, il y a un manque de cohérence territoriale de ces initiatives et un manque de données permettant la caractérisation précise de la haie.Notre recherche s’attèle à l’étude systémique des rôles de la haie et de sa place dans l’espace sur le territoire bas-normand à partir d’une démarche multi-échelle afin de comprendre les raisons de la dégradation toujours à l’œuvre et de proposer des solutions. Cette étude vise à proposer des outils de caractérisation de la haie, de façon à intégrer une vision systémique des services rendus par cette dernière afin de développer des plans de gestion multifonctionnels transposables. Trois approches complémentaires permettent d’aboutir à cet outil. Pour commencer, un modèle systémique est réalisé à partir de la bibliographie à la fois dense, pluridisciplinaire et très éclatée. Puis, une approche quantitative visant à caractériser l’évolution et les fonctionnalités des linéaires, estimer les capacités de production et analyser l’organisation spatiale des réseaux des haies est mise en place. Enfin, une approche qualitative permettant de recueillir la parole des acteurs (populations et gestionnaires) pour mieux appréhender la place des haies dans le paysage rural actuel est réalisée. Pour terminer, les résultats de ces approches ont été utilisés pour l’élaboration du modèle Ger’haies, un modèle sous Système Multi-Agent destiné à être employé comme outil de médiation pour la mise en place de PGMH sur le territoire d’une collectivité
Hedgerow, across its many functions, takes action in the problems generated by the current climate change. However, the radical agricultural landscape evolution during the 20th century led to massive removal of hedgerows in the past 60 years. Although its economic, ecological and socio-cultural interests are proved, they are not recognised by all the actors and the hedgerow density keep decreasing. The consequences of this disappearance gradually raise awareness of the need to preserve hedgerows. Some initiatives appears at various scales with an increasing demand for diagnostic tools and qualitative evaluation. Yet, the territorial cohesion is missing and there is a lack of data to precisely characterise the hedge.Our research gets on with the systemic study of roles and functions of hedgerow and its place in space on the bas-normand territory from a multi-scale approach in order to understand the reasons of deterioration still at work and suggest solutions. This study aims to propose tools to characterise the hedge, so as to integrate a systemic vision of the services in order to develop multifunctional management plans that can be spatially transposed. Three complementary approaches lead to this tool. The first purpose of this work is to realise a systemic model from a substantial, multidisciplinary and very fragmented bibliography. Then, a quantitative approach has been set up to characterise the evolution and functionality of the hedgerows, estimate production capacities and analyse the spatial organisation of hedgerow networks. In a third step, a qualitative approach is carried out to collect the actor perception (populations and managers) and to better understand the place of hedges in the current rural landscape. Finally, the results of these approaches have been used to develop the Ger'haies model, an agent-based model intended to be used as a mediation tool for the establishment of PGMH on a municipal territory

The purpose of this study consists of gaining an understanding about Augmented Reality (AR) and if this technology can help land-surveyors to visualize cadastral parcels using an iOS app. In addition, the app is also used to get insights of what it takes for an AR system to replace 2D paper maps completely. In land-surveyors daily work, they usually bring annotated 2D paper maps to locate their assets when they do field work. However, the 2D paper map can be cumbersome to use because the map visualizes assets in 2D while the working environment for land-surveyors is in 3D. Therefore, this study presents an AR app that can visualize cadastral parcels in 3D in collaboration with a company called InfoTrader. This dissertation utilizes a qualitative methodology with a design and creation strategy as well as semi-structured interviews. To get feedback and evaluate the proposed app it was tested with professionals with experience in the land-surveying business. The findings from testing the app indicated that the app could be very useful in different scenarios. Nevertheless, to completely replace the 2D paper map, the AR system should integrate all the layers of information that the 2D map provides.

This study has developed a method to create an, to a big extent, automated testing system for NMP (Networked Music Performance) communication over LAN and WAN to be able to benchmark the UDP streaming engine JackTrip using a client-server model. The method is not locked into using JackTrip only, it could be used to do experiments with other engines too. The study tried to answer the question if latency correlates to amount of correctly aligned audio, and to what extent the audio is correctly aligned in respect to tolerated latency (based on earlier research) when at least two musicians remote-conducting musical pieces together. There were 13 different buffer settings tested, which used no redundancy and redundancy of 2, and which were sent through 4 different LAN/WAN-scenarios. A big dataset was produced, with about 82 minutes’ worth of audio per test. To post-process the data a phase cancelling method was used to measure correctly aligned audio, while the latency was measured by counting the number of samples from the start of each audio file to the first sample that were not null or not under a certain threshold. The results showed clear correlations of buffer sizes impact of latency and amount of correctly audio sent over the network. If the buffer sizes are greater, it will produce higher latency and increase the amount of correctly aligned audio, and on the opposite side, if using less buffer, it will produce lower latencies and less correctly aligned amount of audio. The study also showed that there was very little impact of using higher redundancies, both regarding latency and amount of correctly audio. When analysing the amount of correct data when respecting the tolerated level of latency, the study showed a support for correctly aligned amount of streamed audio up to 65% when using JackTrip.
Den här studien har utvecklat en metod för att skapa ett, till stor del, automatiserat testsystem för NMP-kommunikation (Networked Music Performance) över LAN och WAN för att kunna prestandatesta den UDP-strömmande ljudmotorn JackTrip, med en klient-server-modell. Metoden är inte låst till att endast användas med JackTrip, den kan användas för att göra experiment med andra motorer också. Studien försökte svara på frågorna om latens korrelerar med mängden korrekt justerat ljud, och till hur stor del som ljudet är korrekt justerad med hänsyn till tolererbar latens (baserat på tidigare undersökning) när minst två musiker fjärrmusicerar tillsammans. Det testades 13 olika buffertinställningar, som använde ingen redundans samt med redundans på 2, och som kördes genom 4 olika LAN / WAN-scenarier. En stor datamängd producerades, med ca 82 minuters ljud per test. För att post-bearbeta data användes en fas-elimineringsmetod för att mäta mängden korrekt justerat ljud, medan latensen var uppmätt genom att räkna antalet samplingar från starten av varje ljudfil till den första samplingen som inte var innehållslös eller inte under ett specifikt tröskelvärde. Resultaten visade tydlig korrelation av buffertstorlekens påverkan av latens och mängd korrekt ljud skickat över nätverket. Om buffertstorlekarna är större kommer det att ge högre latens och öka mängden korrekt justerat ljud, och tvärtom, om mindre buffert används, kommer det att ge lägre latens och mindre rätt justerad mängd ljud. Studien visade också att det gav mycket liten effekt att använda högre redundans, både vad gällande latens och mängden korrekt ljud.  Vid analys av mängden korrekta data med hänsyn till den tolererade latensnivån visade studien ett stöd för korrekt justerat mängd av strömmat ljud upp till 65% vid användning av JackTrip.

Il lavoro è stato suddiviso in tre macro-aree. Una prima riguardante un'analisi teorica di come funzionano le intrusioni, di quali software vengono utilizzati per compierle, e di come proteggersi (usando i dispositivi che in termine generico si possono riconoscere come i firewall). Una seconda macro-area che analizza un'intrusione avvenuta dall'esterno verso dei server sensibili di una rete LAN. Questa analisi viene condotta sui file catturati dalle due interfacce di rete configurate in modalità promiscua su una sonda presente nella LAN. Le interfacce sono due per potersi interfacciare a due segmenti di LAN aventi due maschere di sotto-rete differenti. L'attacco viene analizzato mediante vari software. Si può infatti definire una terza parte del lavoro, la parte dove vengono analizzati i file catturati dalle due interfacce con i software che prima si occupano di analizzare i dati di contenuto completo, come Wireshark, poi dei software che si occupano di analizzare i dati di sessione che sono stati trattati con Argus, e infine i dati di tipo statistico che sono stati trattati con Ntop. Il penultimo capitolo, quello prima delle conclusioni, invece tratta l'installazione di Nagios, e la sua configurazione per il monitoraggio attraverso plugin dello spazio di disco rimanente su una macchina agent remota, e sui servizi MySql e DNS. Ovviamente Nagios può essere configurato per monitorare ogni tipo di servizio offerto sulla rete.

Agriculture Online Service (AOS) aims to provide online services. The system developed is a one-stop shop that sells agricultural products online and provides agricultural information to customers. It provides specific and up to date information on agricultural crops. There are links to various agricultural sites. The System consists of a number of Active Server Pages that are designed to work with each other in complete harmony and is simple to use. A user visiting the Online Service site can commence shopping immediately. Most pages are interlinked to each other for convenience and easy access. The Active Server Pages, Microsoft's most powerful technology is used for the development of AOS System.

The predominant land use in Denmark is agriculture, which has had negative effects on the aquatic environment, bothmarine and freshwater, due to excess nutrient runoff and resulting eutrophication. The current condition does not fullfillthe European Water Framework Directive’s goal of ‘Good ecological condition’ in all aquatic environments. InDenmark, forests only account for a small proportion of the land use, and despite an increase over the past twocenturies, the currently small forested area has had negative consequences for biodiversity since a majority of thespecies in Denmark are dependent on forests for habitat. The current efforts do not meet Denmark’s commitment tofulfill the United Nations Convention on Biological diversity. Similar to other countries, Denmark is obligated to reduceits carbon dioxide emissions according to the Paris agreement, with reduction goals of 40 % in 2030 and 80-95% in2050. The aim of the present thesis, is to assess whether reforestation on agricultural land can ensure that Denmarkreaches the international obligations for water quality and biodiversity at the same time as reducing climate impact byincreasing carbon sequestration, without significant land use conflict between agriculture and forest.This aim is pursued through an analysis of spatial data using a Geographical Information System, where threescenarios are created to assess differences in policy priorities.Based on the result of the spatial analysis, carbon sequestration estimates are calculated to assess the extent towhich forests could contribute to reducing the Danish climate impact, by increasing carbon sequestration. Theparameters used in the spatial analysis were found through a literature review, and the data for the spatial analysis wereaccessed in official and university databases.The main findings of the spatial analysis suggest that the areas with the highest potential agricultural value andthe areas with the highest potential for forest ecosystem services are not overlapping to a significant degree. Thisimplies that the areas that would have the highest levels of trade-offs between these goals when transitioning to forest,can continue the current land use without being needed for reforestation. The areas where agricultural value is low, andwhere reforestation would provide high levels of forest ecosystem services, are best suited for land use change. Theseareas were found to cover a substantial part of the study area, varying depending on three different scenarios, and areestimated to have the potential to contribute greatly to Denmark’s international commitments for water quality andbiodiversity. The carbon sequestration estimates show that if an area of approximately 7 % of Zealand was reforested,the sequestered amounts of carbon dioxide would correspond to a large portion of the emissions reductions necessary tofulfill Denmark’s obligations in the Paris Agreement.

The recognition that human life depends on services provided by ecosystems has given rise to the field of ecosystem services. The main goal of the thesis is to develop a robust methodology for investigating how human interventions in the landscape affect ecosystem services, using as a case study the Australian Capital Region. The methods, which are based on remote sensing, spatial environmental modelling and geographic information systems, address the measurement, modelling and mapping of a comprehensive set of ecosystem services associated with major land cover types and land uses. These analyses are used to explore the synergies and trade-offs between these services across the Australian Capital Region. This thesis is structured in three sections. The first section introduces the aim and scope of the thesis; defines the concept of ecosystem services and its role as a communication tool for scientists, policy makers and stakeholders and describes the methods used by the thesis. The second section presents a land use and land cover classification for the Australian Capital Region. This classification underpins the quantification and mapping of five key ecosystem services in the remainder of the second section. These ecosystem services are: (i) carbon flows and storage; (ii) provision of food; (iii) biodiversity richness; (iv) water quality; and (v) recreation and ecotourism. The third section analyses the impacts of a hypothetical land use change scenario in which food production in the region is increased to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the importation of food - the so-called 'carbon miles' associated with the transport of food into the region from other parts of Australia and the world. The analysis assesses not only the impact on carbon stored in the region, but also the impact on other ecosystem services. The analysis also identifies what parts of the Australian Capital Region are most affected under the scenario outcomes. The thesis concludes with the key outcomes of this study. The methods presented in this thesis demonstrate that remote sensing, spatial environmental modelling and geographic information system are cost-effective tools to study and quantify ecosystem services at a regional scale. The results of this thesis could help in the promotion of sustainability in landscape and conservation planning.

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Geographic Information Systems and Science
Among the main goals for the climate change, defined in the International protocols, are: i) to maintain of the global average rise of the temperature bellow 2º C, and ii) to reduce the Greenhouse Gases (GHG). The carbon dioxide (CO2) is the biggest responsible for GHG effect. Aiming at mitigating the CO2 emissions, the Portuguese government, under the international directives, has created plans and strategies. Some of this plans and strategies directly impact the Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) Management and they also directly influence the Ecosystems Services (ES) regardless of their nature. Carbon sequestration and storage for the LULC constitutes one of the ES and it brings important benefits for the accomplishment of the 2030 national goals, at an environmental level. Against this background, this project intends to evaluate the LULC management over carbon sequestration and storage performance, in a future perspective, using scenarios approaches combined with GIS tools. The intervention scenarios in the High case scenario show that policies effect over the ES produces 8% more than current policies and the Low case scenario produces 1%. The Business-as-Usual approach results indicate that the current policies performance over a future perspective may be responsible for the production of 5%. However, according the LULC trade-offs, current policies may reveal a loss of carbon sequestration and storage capacity over the territory, while in the intervention scenarios there is no loss evidence. This analysis allows us to conclude that the policies improvement may create conditions for a suitable LULC management, particularly in the carbon sequestration and storage, rather than the current framework of the policies.
Nos Protocolos internacionais encontram-se definidos os objetivos para o combate às alterações climáticas. Entre eles estão a manutenção do aumento da temperatura média anual abaixo dos 2º C e a redução da emissão dos gases de efeito estufa. O dióxido de carbono (CO2) é o principal gás responsável pelo efeito estufa. Por esse motivo, Portugal criou um conjunto de planos e estratégias, visando a mitigação das emissões de CO2. Alguns destes planos e estratégias, têm um impacto direto na Gestão do uso e ocupação do solo, influenciando, ainda, os serviços de ecossistemas, independente da sua natureza. O sequestro e armazenamento de carbono constituem um desses serviços, cujos benefícios se repercutem no cumprimento das metas nacionais para 2030 em matéria ambiental. Neste contexto, este projeto tem como objetivo a avaliação das políticas de gestão do uso e ocupação do solo no desempenho futuro do sequestro e armazenamento de carbono, com recurso a abordagem de cenários e à sua combinação com ferramentas SIG. Os dados obtidos mostram que os cenários de intervenção no cenário Alto apresentam resultados que compravam a eficiência e a eficácia na implementação de políticas na produção dos serviços de ecossistemas, com resultados de 8%, situando-se, assim, acima daquilo que é produzido atualmente. Já o cenário Baixo indica que uma implementação não tão eficaz conduzem a resultados de 1%. Por sua vez, uma análise corrente mostra que os impactos das políticas em vigor, numa perspetiva futura, poderiam conduzir a um incremento de 5% na produção dos serviços e ecossistema. Desta forma, é possível concluir que, mesmo no pior cenário, as implementações de políticas criam condições mais apropriadas do que as políticas em vigor no desempenho dos serviços de ecossistema, particularmente no que diz respeito ao sequestro e armazenamento de carbono.

While decision-making under uncertainty is a major universal problem, its implications in the field of transportation systems are especially enormous; where the benefits of right decisions are tremendous, the consequences of wrong ones are potentially disastrous. In the realm of highway systems, decisions related to the highway configuration (number of lanes, right of way, etc.) need to incorporate both the traffic demand and land price uncertainties. In the literature, these uncertainties have generally been modeled using the Geometric Brownian Motion (GBM) process, which has been used extensively in modeling many other real life phenomena. But few scholars, including those who used the GBM in highway configuration decisions, have offered any rigorous justification for the use of this model. This thesis attempts to offer a detailed analysis of various aspects of transportation systems in relation to decision-making. It reveals some general insights as well as a new concept that extends the notion of opportunity cost to situations where wrong decisions could be made. Claiming deficiency of the GBM model, it also introduces a new formulation that utilizes a large and flexible parametric family of jump models (i.e., Lévy processes). To validate this claim, data related to traffic demand and land prices were collected and analyzed to reveal that their distributions, heavy-tailed and asymmetric, do not match well with the GBM model. As a remedy, this research used the Merton, Kou, and negative inverse Gaussian Lévy processes as possible alternatives. Though the results show indifference in relation to final decisions among the models, mathematically, they improve the precision of uncertainty models and the decision-making process. This furthers the quest for optimality in highway projects and beyond.