Guidelines to Visualize Vessels in a Geographic Information System

In information systems the data representation covers a great importance. In fact the visualization of information is the last point of contact between the user and the information system. This is the space where the communication takes place. In real-time monitoring systems, this passage covers a great importance, especially for reasons related to the time and the transparency of relevant information. These factors are fundamental to vessel monitoring systems. This is the beginning where we start to define a guidelines manual, act to help specialists of information visualization in the vessel monitoring field, and in the GIS field more in general.

Mapping affinities: visualizing academic practice through collaboration

Dario Rodighiero

Academic affinities are one of the most fundamental hidden dynamics that drive scientific development. Some affinities are actual, and consequently can be measured through classical academic metrics such as co-authoring. Other affinities are potential, and therefore do not have visible traces in information systems; for instance, some peers may share scientific interests without actually knowing it. This thesis illustrates the development of a map of affinities for scientific collectives, which is intended to be relevant to three audiences: the management, the scholars themselves, and the external public. Our case study involves the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering of EPFL, which consists of three institutes, seventy laboratories, and around one thousand employees. The actual affinities are modeled using the data available from the academic systems reporting publications, teaching, and advising, whereas the potential affinities are addressed through text mining of the documents registered in the information system. The major challenge for designing such a map is to represent the multi-dimensionality and multi-scale nature of the information. The affinities are not limited to the computation of heterogeneous sources of information, they also apply at different scales. Therefore, the map shows local affinities inside a given laboratory, as well as global affinities among laboratories. The thesis presents a graphical grammar to represent affinities. This graphical system is actualized in several embodiments, among which a large-scale carpet of 250 square meters and an interactive online system in which the map can be parameterized. In both cases, we discuss how the actualization influences the representation of data, in particular the way key questions could be appropriately addressed considering the three target audiences: the insights gained by the management and the relative decisions, the understanding of the researchersâ own positioning in the academic collective that might reveal opportunities for new synergies, and eventually the interpretation of the structure from an external standpoint that suggesting the relevance of the tool for communication.

EPFL2018

Access control and privacy in location-aware applications

Maria Luisa Damiani

The topic addressed in this thesis concerns the relationship between spatial knowledge and information protection in a mobile setting. The proliferation of mobile devices in an increasingly connected world raises growing concern for information security and privacy. For example, sensitive data recorded in corporate and networked information systems can be accessed from uncontrolled locations, downloaded on mobile terminals and disclosed to unauthorized third parties. The protection of information against improper use and modification in a mobile context poses research questions which solicit the investigation of unconventional protection strategies. In such a perspective, this thesis investigates how to provide strong control over information access based on knowledge of location and movement of individuals. Indeed, the use of spatial information for secure access support has been prospected in mid nineties, yet such a vision has not had a significant follow-up at research level. This work focuses on the definition of a comprehensive framework for the specification and enforcement of spatially-aware access control policies. Policies are spatially-aware in that the access authorization depends on the position of users. The core contribution of this work is the GEO-RBAC model, a role-based access control model that complies with current standards in access control and geo-spatial data representation. In addition, two further models have been specified, which are, to some extent, complementary to GEO-RBAC: the former is a decentralized administration model for the specification of GEO-RBAC access control policies in large organizations; the latter is a location privacy model which can be integrated into the GEO-RBAC framework to protect personal location information, for example in Location Based Services applications. The thesis addresses also issues related to the design of a system based on GEO-RBAC: an architecture has been defined based on which a prototype has been then developed. The use of geographical knowledge in security is a novel area of research and that motivates the existence of several open issues. Some of these have been discussed in the dissertation and a possible direction of research has been finally prospected for future activity.

EPFL2008

Mapping affinities: visualizing academic practice through collaboration

Dario Rodighiero

EPFL2018

Access control and privacy in location-aware applications

Maria Luisa Damiani

EPFL2008