Introduction - Computational Movement Analysis - page 5

data describing movement phenomena, both in geographic and abstract spaces, aim-
ing for a better understanding of the processes governing that movement.

CMA investigates the scientific fundamentals related to

￿ the specific characteristics and peculiarities of the geographic phenomenon move-

ment and the spatio-temporal data describing it, including data quality (uncertainty,
accuracy), scale issues, and spatio-temporal autocorrelation,

￿ the peculiarities of established and emerging integrated spatial systems serving as

direct or indirect tracking systems capturing raw or enriched movement data,

￿ capturing, (pre-)processing, integrating, storing, managing, and querying the

rapidly growing data streams describing movement phenomena,

￿ the conceptual models for moving objects and movement processes, and the spaces

embedding that movement, the data structures implementing these models, and
the implications of models and structures on the CMA process,

￿ the development and evaluation of analysis techniques and operations structuring

low-level movement data and deriving high-level process knowledge from that
data. This draws on methods from spatio-temporal analysis, geography, computa-
tional geometry, scientific visualization, data mining and KDD, and statistics.

￿ the characteristics and semantics of the wide range of current applications of CMA,

and the assessment of the potential of prospective applications areas, and

￿ societal issues , including ethics and privacy, as well as issues around user-

generated and open data.

1.3 Structure of this Topic

The topic is organized into three core chapters, each discussing another aspect of
CMA. Chapter 2 investigates the conceptual modeling of movement spaces and the
movement embedded in those spaces. Chapter 3 focuses on adopting and adapting
data mining techniques for CMA. From the many possible application areas of CMA,
Chap. 4 specifically focuses on CMA challenges and opportunities in decentralized
spatial information systems. A chapter on grand challenges in the area concludes the
book.
Figure 1.1 offers an overview of the publications building core of the topic and the
topics they cover. In order to give the reader a more detailed overview, I have narrowed
down and particularized the generic list of issues given in the CMA definition above,
producing a set of specific keywords heading the columns in the pictorial matrix of
content in Fig. 1.1 . For every included publication I then indicate whether the listed
issues build a key , major ,or minor topic.