An employee of terrestris also took part in this year’s Spring School of the ifgi (Institute for Geoinformatics) at the University of Münster. The ten-day course program included three blocks on innovative topics in GIScience:
- Ontology, Vagueness and Geography (Brandon Bennett, University of Leeds, UK)
- Similarity: Concepts, measures, and applications in (cognitive) spatial sciences (Alexander Klippel, Penn State University, USA )
- Self-organizing Maps (Fernando Bação. ISEGI, New University of Lisbon, Portugal)
In addition to introductory and in-depth lectures on the corresponding topics, practical exercises were used to deepen the knowledge:
In the “Similarity” module, a research proposal on the perception of “near and far” was developed, among other things. Here, an analysis of the community-based geonames dataset and its nearby tags was presented in order to investigate the different understandings of “near and far.”
Another collection of ideas for the integration of self-organizing maps (SOM) into current research projects represents a possible usability of SOM in landslide early warning systems. Here, the applicability in the ILEWS research project, which is co-supervised by terrestris, was analyzed: By means of sensor measurements on endangered slopes and information about actual landslides, a derivation of critical measured value combinations by means of self-organizing maps would be conceivable.
We thank the organizers for the free participation in the event, including the successful supporting program.
