Infrastructure Engineering - Research Publications
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ItemAdverse possession as repair mechanism: recent developments and further reflections(Department of Geomatics, University of Melbourne, 2007)Recent developments regarding the law of part parcel adverse possession of registered title ("Torrens") land in England, Nova Scotia, New South Wales and Queensland are discussed with particular regard to disputed boundary location.
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ItemAutomated geographic information fusion and ontology alignment(Springer, Berlin, 2007)
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ItemA formal model of obfuscation and negotiation for location privacy(Springer, 2005)Obfuscation concerns the practice of deliberately degradingthe quality of information in some way, so as to protect the privacy ofthe individual to whom that information refers. In this paper, we arguethat obfuscation is an important technique for protecting an individual’slocation privacy within a pervasive computing environment. The papersets out a formal framework within which obfuscated location-based servicesare defined. This framework provides a computationally efficientmechanism for balancing an individual’s need for high-quality informationservices against that individual’s need for location privacy. Negotiationis used to ensure that a location-based service provider receivesonly the information it needs to know in order to provide a service ofsatisfactory quality. The results of this work have implications for numerousapplications of mobile and location-aware systems, as they providea new theoretical foundation for addressing the privacy concerns thatare acknowledged to be retarding the widespread acceptance and use oflocation-based services.
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ItemSimulation of obfuscation and negotiation for location privacy(Springer, 2005)Current mobile computing systems can automatically sense and communicatedetailed data about a person’s location. Location privacy is an urgent researchissue because concerns about privacy are seen to be inhibiting the growthof mobile computing. This paper investigates a new technique for safeguardinglocation privacy, called obfuscation, which protects a person’s location privacy bydegrading the quality of information about that person’s location. Obfuscation isbased on spatial imperfection and offers an orthogonal approach to conventionaltechniques for safeguarding information about a person’s location. Imprecisionand inaccuracy are two types of imperfection that may be used to achieve obfuscation.A set of simulations are used to empirically evaluate different obfuscationstrategies based on imprecision and inaccuracy. The results show that obfuscationcan enable high quality of service in concert with high levels of privacy.
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ItemWhat is the region occupied by a set of points?(Springer, Berlin, 2006)There are many situations in GIScience where it would beuseful to be able to assign a region to characterize the space occupied bya set of points. Such a region should represent the location or configurationof the points as an aggregate, abstracting away from the individualpoints themselves. In this paper, we call such a region a ‘footprint’ forthe points. We investigate and compare a number of methods for producingsuch footprints, with respect to nine general criteria. The discussionidentifies a number of potential choices and avenues for further research.Finally, we contrast the related research already conducted in this area,highlighting differences between these existing constructs and our ‘footprints’.
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ItemA spatiotemporal model of obfuscation strategies and counter strategies for location privacy( 2006)Safeguarding location privacy is becoming a critical issue in location based services and location-aware computing generally. Two drawbacks of many previous models of location privacy are: 1) the models only consider a person’slocation privacy protection, but not the invasion of location privacy by external agents; and 2) the models are static and do not consider the spatiotemporal aspectsof movement. We argue that, to be complete, any model of location privacy needs to enable the analysis and identification of techniques both to protect and toinvade an individual’s location privacy over time. One way to protect an individual’s location privacy is to minimize the information revealed about a person’s location, termed obfuscation. This paper presents an explicitly spatiotemporalmodel of location privacy that models a third party’s limited knowledge of a mobileindividual’s location. We identify two core strategies that a third party canuse to refine its knowledge, so potentially invading that mobile individual’s locationprivacy. A global refinement strategy uses the entire history of knowledgeabout an agent’s location in a single step. A local refinement strategy iterativelyconstructs refined knowledge over time.We present a formal model of global andlocal refinement operators, and show how this formal model can be translatedinto a computational model in a simulation environment.
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ItemSpatial data integration: a necessity for spatially enabling government(University of Melbourne, The Centre for SDIs and Land Administration, 2007)Introduction Most governmental decisions involve a spatial component (Williamson and Wallace, 2006), therefore informative decision making within governments is highly reliant upon multi-sourced spatial data. The ability to spatially enable governments through the use of integrated multi-source spatial data at different governmental levels makes governmental decisions incredibly efficient (Mitchell, 2006b), though governments rarely produce all the data required for their business. Rather, they obtain and integrate data from different sources. However, the diversity of data producers hinders effective spatial data integration. There are many technical and non-technical obstacles in the integration of multi-sourced spatial data and this is one of the major problems in sharing and using spatial data among government organizations. From a technical perspective, spatial data may differ semantically, syntactically and structurally. Institutional, social, policy and legal issues also hinder data integration. In order to effectively overcome these issues, a holistic framework is required to manage and address the issues. SDIs aim to facilitate the integration of multi-source spatial data by providing a holistic framework in which spatial data stakeholders (governments, private sector, etc) interact with spatial data effectively through technological components. There are inconsistencies in the various data within an SDI which lead to data inconsistency and hinder data integration. These inconsistencies should be managed through the SDI framework. However, at the moment, the SDI framework does not deal with these inconsistencies effectively. Hence, we need to identify and map the inconsistencies and develop tools and guidelines within the framework of an SDI to manage them. This will then make it easier for data to be integrated across and within government organisations.
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ItemBrave new world: innovative tools for spatially enabling land administration(University of Melbourne, The Centre for SDIs and Land Administration, 2007)Introduction The term silo effect gained prominence in government and business circles during the 1990s (Williamson, 2007). It denotes the entrenched lack of communication and collaboration between organisations and their systems. For decades private organisations held onto their capital, information and skills for internal use only. All this changed with the introduction of information and communication technologies: by sharing resources with its business partners and customers a company could decrease costs, streamline processes and create better customer relations. The silo effect had to be overcome. The field of land administration was created in part in response to discussions about the silo effect. It was clear that the institutions dealing with tenure registration, cadastral mapping, natural resource management and so on, needed to be united. Integration of their theories, processes and information would result in better land management. The collaboration of ideas began in the late 1990s and has resulted in academic theories being used to enhance understandings of practical issues: for example hierarchal spatial reasoning has been applied to spatial data infrastructures (Rajabifard, 2002), policy design concepts to land policies (Ting, 2002), benchmarking to land administration systems (Steudler, 2003), cost benefit analysis to decision making about land (Paez, 2005). Organizational theory has advanced collaboration within land administration agencies (Warnest, 2005; McDougall, 2006) and tenure theories have been applied to the rural parts of developing countries (Dalrymple, 2006). Land administration is now multidisciplinary: its ability to use of the tools and theories of diverse disciplines has been its underlying strength. This chapter takes a similar approach: it looks at new theories and concepts from outside the discipline that will assist in spatially enabling land administration. Particularly, the management of the hundreds of new land rights, restrictions and responsibilities that exist over land. Ontological design, social learning, spatial technologies and uncertainty theory are four areas worthy of consideration. Each could profoundly impact upon existing land administration systems.
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ItemA mixed method approach for evaluating spatial data sharing partnerships for Spatial Data Infrastructure development(ESRI Press, Redlands, California., 2007)In recent years interjurisdictional partnerships have emerged as an importantmechanism for establishing an environment conducive to data sharing and hencethe facilitation of SDI development. However, unless the partnership arrangementsare carefully designed and managed to meet the business objectives of eachpartner, it is unlikely that they will be successful or sustainable in the longer term.The purpose of this paper is to focus on the methodological approaches and relevantissues for researching these new data sharing partnerships and their relationshipsto SDI development. This paper proposes a research methodology forinvestigating both the organisational context of data sharing partnerships andthe factors that contribute to the success of interjurisdictional data sharing initiatives.The paper examines past research and theory in spatial data sharingand examines the characteristics of a number of existing data sharing modelsand frameworks. The use of a mixed-method approach to evaluate local-stategovernment partnerships in Australia is described. Finally, the validationof the mixed-method approach and its generalisation to other SDI and datasharing initiatives is discussed.
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ItemSpatially enabling societies by shifting the basic building block(The University of Melbourne, 2007)Moving towards spatially enabled societies, governments have turned to best preserve, develop, allocate and use land, incorporating all interests in land. Generally, land registries contribute to recording the important interests in land such as ownership, land use, covenants, caveats, leases, easements, and mortgages in land parcels (Williamson 2002). At the same time land mapping agencies are responsible for recording land parcel dimensions to identify the extent of the interests. In a theoretical framework, Bennett et al. (2006) analysed the problem of management of interests in land and classified them into three categories. Firstly, some interests have been poorly designed. They may be unenforceable by authorities or may provide little incentive for those who are supposed to adhere to them. Secondly, some interests are poorly administered. The administration system may offer limited public information access, have slow permit and licence processing times, or might be administered in isolation from other related interests. Finally, some interests do not exist where they ought to exist. In a practical context, the parcel based organization of interests mentioned above encounters two problems: the interests in land are not necessarily limited to those mentioned earlier, and the interests are not necessarily restricted to specific parcels. In other words, the interests in land are diverse and some of the interests can not be defined by boundaries. An efficient technical solution for organizing the growing number of interests in land information systems remains a challenge. The solution suggested in this chapter redefines the relationship between land and interests in the context of modern land administration systems.