Spatio-temporal knowledge representation for emergency management

本提案利用了在短时间内出现的宝贵机会：美国缅因大学的Michael Worboys教授将于2010年5月至7月在埃克塞特大学工程、计算和数学学院做访问研究员。该项目汇集了Antony Galton博士（首席研究员）在空间和时空知识表示方面的专门知识和Worboys教授在空间信息领域的专门知识，以解决与动态空间现象相关的知识表示方面的问题，并将其应用于应急管理和救灾领域。该项目的一个重要特点是诺丁汉大学地理空间科学中心和澳大利亚墨尔本大学地理信息学系的合作，它们将在灾害管理的地理信息学方面提供专门知识，与这项工作相辅相成，但又密切相关。总的来说，毫无疑问，有效的应急管理、监测国家关键基础设施和在发生灾害时管理恢复工作，对国民经济、公共服务和公民健康极为重要。即将投入使用的基于传感器的新技术可以大大加强有效的应急管理和灾害反应。然而，来自许多异构来源、分布在空间和时间上的传感器数据，只有具备信息学和知识表示的基础，才能有效地利用这些数据，将其转化为对决策者及时和有意义的信息。正是为了实现这一目标，本项目的研究做出了贡献。

This proposal takes advantage of a valuable opportunity which has arisen at short notice: the availability of Professor Michael Worboys (University of Maine, USA) to be a visiting researcher at the School of Engineering, Computing, and Mathematics, University of Exeter in May - July 2010.The project brings together the expertise of Dr Antony Galton (Principal Investigator) in spatial and spatio-temporal knowledge representations and the expertise of Professor Worboys in the field of spatial information in order to address issues in knowledge representations associated with dynamic spatial phenomena, with application to the domain of emergency management and disaster response. An important feature of the project is the collaboration of Centre for Geospatial Science, University of Nottingham, and the Department of Geomatics, University of Melbourne, Australia, who will contribute expertise in the geoinformatics of disaster management complementary but closely related to this endeavour.In general terms there can be no doubt that effective emergency management, monitoring the nation's critical infrastructure and managing recovery in the case of a disaster, is extremely important for the national economy, public services, and for the health of citizens. Effective emergency management and disaster response can be significantly enhanced by the new sensor-based technologies that are coming on stream. However, sensor data from many heterogeneous sources, distributed in space and time, can only be effectively utilized if the foundations in informatics and knowledge representation are available to transform the data into information that is timely and meaningful to decision makers. It is towards this goal that the research in this proposed project makes a contribution.