Illustrative Research Areas

Graduate students and faculty are engaged in far ranging yet complementary research programs. Many of the projects involve multi-investigator and cross-disciplinary efforts. For specific project descriptions, consult the NCGIA site. The following are illustrative of general areas within which specific topics are being pursued.

• Spatio-Temporal Models

  A growing amount of data and information have important spatial and temporal dimensions. We need methods to manage, query, and access both dimensions.
  Research areas:
  • Databases for moving objects
  • Location based services
  • Event based models

• Sensor Based Systems

  Multiple sensing devices need to be integrated with computing platforms and wireless communications capabilities. We need advanced methods for doing so.
  Research areas:
  • Data processing, summarization and analysis in the network
  • Algorithms for autonomous adaptation and self-configuration of the network
  • User interaction - query languages for sensor networks

• User Interfaces and Interactions

  As devices get smaller and we need to use them in different environments. New interaction paradigms are needed under the differing conditions.
  Research areas:
  • Sketch interaction
  • Egocentric pointing device
  • Space-time visualization environments

• Information Extraction

  Surveillance and monitoring systems generate huge volumes of information. From such data streams we want to identify objects and/or behaviors.
  Research areas:
  • Automated feature extraction from satellite and aerial imagery
  • Detection and tracking of moving objects from imagery
  • Event detection and activity monitoring from time series and space-time series sensing

• Information Integration

  Growing heterogeneous collections of information (maps, images, text, video, time series) need to be integrated and searched for patterns
  Research areas:
  • Semantic similarity models
  • Event data models
  • Metadata models
  • Uncertainty models

• Information Policy: Access, Security, Privacy, Intellectual Property Rights

  As technologies and their interaction with society become more complex, neither technological nor legal solutions uninformed by the other are sufficient.
  Research areas:
  • Ethics driven information systems design
  • Models for internalizing externalities in systems design and development
  • Societal needs driven metadata, data provenance and recommender systems.