Transcript Powerpoint - The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute

Reasoning
about the
Environment
Chris Skelsey
Keith Matthews
Macaulay
Land Use Research
Institute
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Land Cover Data
• Describes nature of land cover over some
geographical area
0
km
1
Arable
Heather moor
Coniferousplantation
• Varied uses
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Land Cover Data
• Derived from an interpretation of varied
data and information sources
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Aerial photographs
Soil maps
Knowledge of local management
Knowledge of seasonal cycles
Satellite imagery
• Can automation play a more significant
role?
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Established Software
• GIS and remote sensing packages
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Arc/Info
Smallworld
ER-Mapper
PCI
Erdas Imagine
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Problem Complexity
• Procedural, quantitative functionality
1988
1995
Areas of
forest-felling
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Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Production rules
Frame systems
Semantic networks
Neural networks
Fuzzy logic
Dempster-Shafer theories
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Limitations of AI Approaches
• Data-specific and method-specific
• Single software environment
• Real-world domain complexities prevent
these applications “scaling-up”
– Most remain within the research community
• Still need greater software flexibility
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A Prototype AI Toolkit
• ETORA
– Developed within G2
– Blackboard reasoning
– Re-use of established software
• ARC/INFO and PV-WAVE servers
– Implementation of endorsement theory
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A Prototype AI Toolkit
• Disparate multi-source
data
• Quantitative and
qualitative knowledge
• Dynamic solution
strategies
• Use of 3rd-party,
established software
• Full reasoning
explanations,
associated with endproducts
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A Map Revision Problem
• Land Cover of Scotland (1988) dataset
• Requires revision
0
km
1
Arable
Heather moor
Coniferousplantation
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A Map Revision Problem
• SYMOLAC: solves a simple problem, but
demonstrates the flexibility of ETORA
• Produces a useful product despite realworld complexities
“difficult access; >20m
from forest boundary”
“large enough to be
completed felling”
“may be a track;
one exists within 20m”
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In Summary
• Automation is becoming increasingly
important
• Recognised need for AI technology
• AI approaches are often problem-specific,
or adopt unsuitable software platforms
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Some Conclusions
• Prototype ETORA toolkit offers flexibility
to solution designer
• Exists potential to automate a greater
number of processes involved in land cover
data production
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LADSS
• Land Allocation Decision Support System
• Evaluates economic impacts of land use
strategies
• Use of genetic algorithms
• Bridge to the Smallworld GIS
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Why use G2?
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Flexible knowledge-representation
Object-orientated concepts
Ability to visualise the reasoning processes
G2-Gateway
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