Invitation to a GIS4EU Workshop in Italy on 20th April

“Sharing European Geographic Data”

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Tearo della Gioventù, Via Cesarea 14
Genoa

On April 20, 2010 the Italian Regions’ bodies and cartographic Institutions will meet in Genoa for a Workshop organised by “GIS4EU”
Project (Provision of Interoperable datasets to open GI to EU communities).

Aim of the workshop is to present to the Italian context the last results of GIS4EU project activities and point out the operational applicability of INSPIRE Directive.

The workshop intends to compare the experiences developed by the different Italian Regions, about the activity of publishing and sharing the geographic data, in particular using the web standard services (WFS, WMS).

In addition, the recent publication of the decree establishing the infrastructure for the INSPIRE EU spatial information will definitely offer occasions for debates and discussions.

The event will be held in Italian and it is free of charge but, due to organisational reasons, you should register at the following address.

For further information use the ‘Events’ link here -
http://www.gis4eu.eu/events.asp?c=3&s=2&=p=1&l=4

GIS4EU_Workshop Genova

High profile event at Nottingham Geospatial Building

Details at http://electionblog2010.blogspot.com/2010/03/pm-unveils-election-pledges-at.html

Official opening of Nottingham Geospatial Building

The official opening of Nottingham Geospatial Building was today (25th March 2010) by David Lammy MP, Minister for Higher Education.

Video of  NGB official launch event at http://www.spokenword.org/program/1013507

Centre for Geospatial Science moves to new purpose built building (The Nottingham Geospatial Building)

CGS along with IESSG and GRACE have moved to the new Nottingham Geospatial Building on 21 October 2009

This major cross-disciplinary research centre will also provide new technology transfer and business development opportunities. Together it will provide an integrated, purpose built facility building on Nottingham’s reputation as one of the fastest growing scientific centres in the UK.

First Open Source GIS UK Conference is a great success…

OSGIS 2009 was a great success.Thanks to all for their fantastic support for the First Open Source GIS UK Conference…

Check out reports on the conference from delegates

http://www.osgeo.org/tyler/2009/nottingham

http://ollie.blogs.splintdev.geog.ucl.ac.uk/2009/06/osgis-uk-conference/

http://www.gogeo.ac.uk/cgi-bin/resource.cgi?cat=2&newscat=200906#2282

For photos of the conference check   http://picasaweb.google.com/suchithanand76/OSGIS2009#

Congratulations to the winners of OSGIS 2009 Best paper and presentation prizes

We are pleased to announce the winners of OSGIS 2009 prizes

CGS Best Presentation winner for OSGIS 2009 is

Mapping Future Climate : A Case Study for the Deployment of the Open Source Geo-stack in Scalable Web-based Applications
Philip James, Simon Abele, David Alderson,Stephen Pascoe, Ag Stephens
Newcastle University, and British Atmospheric Data Centre, Rutherford Labs, UK

CGS Best Presentation runner up prize for OSGIS 2009
SEXTANTE – The free geoprocessing library
Victor Olaya University of Extremadura, Caceres, Spain

CGS Best Presentation runner up prize for OSGIS 2009
An introduction to Mapwindow
Dr Daniel Ames, Idaho State University, USA

The Wiley BlackWell prizes for best full paper prizes are awarded to the following papers

Development of Sensor Web Applications with Open Source Software
Arne Broring,Eike Hinderk Jurrens, and Simon Jirka from 52� North and Christoph Stasch from the Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Muenster.

The SDIlight OSGEO stack at ITC
Barend Kobben, Rob Lemmens, Javier Morales, Rolf de By, Theodor Foerster, International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC),Enschede, The Netherlands.

Visualising Alternative Futures using Open Source technologies
William Cartwright (RMIT University, Australia)

Congratulations to all winners… Well Done…

JISC funding success

Congratulations to Dr Gobe Hobona for JISC funding success on SPACER project under the Rapid Innovation call. SPACER will use GPS-supported mobile phones to enable learners, teachers and researchers to find relevant location-referenced resources. The 4-month project is led by Professor Jackson and Dr Hobona . The project is endorsed by BGS and EDINA.

SPACER proposes development of a demonstrator prototype that enables mobile phones with built-in positioning devices to query repositories supporting standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) – a global group of over 380 private, public and academic organisations (http://www.opengeospatial.org). The project addresses the need for efficient methodologies in fieldwork during learning, teaching and research.  Historically, a student or researcher conducting fieldwork was only able to search for datasets relevant to their study sites after downloading data from their mobile devices into a computer back at their laboratories. SPACER aims to develop mobile software that improves the process by enabling repositories to be searched whilst the student or researcher is still out in the field. Therefore, the project will consider the possible interfacing of metadata catalogues with GPS-enabled mobile phones, through standards of the OGC.

Jeremy Morley appointed as Deputy Director at the Centre for Geospatial Science

Jeremy Morley from University College, London (UCL), has been appointed as Deputy Director of the Centre for Geospatial Science (CGS) at The University of Nottingham. He takes-up the post in September.  Jeremy was programme director of UCL’s MSc in GIS from 1998-2004 and of its BEng/MEng in Geoinformatics from 2005-9. Over the last 15 years his research has focussed on the mapping of Mars in support of geological analysis; terrain mapping from LiDAR and InSAR; GIS interoperability and mashup WebGIS systems. He has been UCL’s technical representative to the Open Geospatial Consortium since 2004. Jeremy is currently the academic organiser for the AGI’s “GeoCommunity” 2009 Annual Conference and Conference Chair for GISRUK 2010.

CGS is a major multi-disciplinary post-graduate research centre, established in 2005 by The University of Nottingham’s Institute of Engineering Surveying and Space Geodesy (IESSG) and School of Geography.  Its research focus is on spatial data infrastructures (SDI), geospatial intelligence, spatial interoperability and location-based services. Its current multi-million pound research portfolio includes contracts for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain, The Technology Strategy Board and the EU. It is part of a recently awarded £5.7m Doctoral Training Centre at Nottingham in Location Aware Pervasive Computing and a £12m award for a Digital Economy Research Hub in the same subject area. It also shares with IESSG and Computer Science in a £700,000 award for positioning and sensor infrastructure. CGS is currently based within the School of Geography and  moves, with IESSG, into a new purpose built building in October 2009.

Professor Mike Jackson, Director of CGS, said: “We are delighted to welcome Jeremy to CGS and The University of Nottingham. His strong research background will further enhance the status that the Centre has achieved in the last few years and enable the Centre to continue to grow its reputation for multi-disciplinary research in the geospatial sciences.”

Jeremy Morley said: “I am very pleased to be joining Professor Jackson at the Centre for Geospatial Science. The Centre has established a strong international presence in the field of GIS, interoperability and services and I look forward to contributing to the further growth of the group and its research.”

New Researchers’ Fund success

Dr Gobe Hobona has been awarded a research grant by the University of Nottingham’s Research Committee under its New Researchers’ Fund for project on “Geospatial Processing of Earth Observation Data in Computational Clouds“. Well done Gobe.

Horizon Digital Economy Research Hub

The Horizon Digital Economy Hub is a new venture representing a £40M investment by Research Councils UK and over 40 partners.

 Horizon aims to: 

• Address the key scientific challenges in the widespread adoption of ubiquitous computing for an inclusive digital society
• Produce landmark user-led applications grounded in deployment ‘in the wild’
• Engage in knowledge transfer, including training and consultancy
• Develop a new generation of interdisciplinary researchers
• Understand societal issues and to engage with public policy

Horizon will focus on the role of ‘always on, always with you’ ubiquitous computing technology in the Digital Economy.

Building on the Digital Britain plan, Horizon will investigate the technical developments needed if electronic information is to be controlled, managed and harnessed — for example, to develop new products and services — for societal benefit.

Horizon Approach

 Our approach involves: 

• Open software platforms
• Development of concepts of ‘open data’
• Understanding the innovation models around open research

The core Horizon research programme will foster widespread availability across society through appropriate open licenses to technology developed.

Horizon brings together researchers with backgrounds in computer science, the geospatial sciences, engineering, psychology, sociology, business, social science, law and the arts to build-in an understanding of people and society in our technology developments from the outset and to ensure we all benefit from these advances. 

Horizon is organized around research themes, each of which connects a group of our external partners with a group of Horizon faculty, and research staff focused on a common agenda. Horizon currently has two planned themes in Transportation and Creative Visiting, and will specifically examine how the digital footprints we leave behind could be harnessed to transform the way those sectors operate. 

For further details please contact:

Dr. Sophie Dale

Horizon Digital Economy Research Hub

c/o School of Computer Science

Jubilee Campus

University of Nottingham

Wollaton Road

Nottingham

NG8 1BB

 Tel: 0115 84 68923

Mobile: +44 (0)7804 151219

Fax: +44 (0)115 951 4239

Email: horizon@nottingham.ac.uk

Web: http://www.horizon.ac.uk