Académique Documents
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Geographische Informationssysteme
digital cartography
spatial analysis in linguistics
movement analysis and simulation
GIS for protected areas.
Our methodological toolset draws from an interdisciplinary range of fields, including spatial analysis
and spatial statistics, algorithms development, and computational techniques such as data mining
and agent-based modeling.
Choosing a Topic
We recommend that you first take a look at the list of ongoing and past MSc projects, with
downloads of MSc theses: http://www.geo.uzh.ch/en/units/giscience-gis/research/msc-theses.
Think about what interests you most, and what you are good at. Do you want to program, are you
good at it, or rather not? Do you like to work empirically, running experiments and analysing the
results, or would you rather develop something new (in which case you would probably have to
program)? Is real world applicability important to you, or are you ready for blue skies research? Do
you have your own topic, or a topic that you wanted to pursue with a third party (e.g. WSL, ETH)?
Finally, come talk to us. In the topic descriptions below, we have listed the contact persons in our
group. Additionally, Robert Weibel can give an overview of the project topics in the GIS Unit.
Dont forget that the MSc project is primarily a scientific project. Even if you might be more interested
in applied research, the outcome must be more than what would typically be achieved in GIS project
undertaken by an engineering firm. Hence, what are the research questions you want to investigate?
We are there to help you formulate suitable research questions and bring your research to fruition.
Digital Cartography
Contextual Generalization of Built-up Areas Using Operations of Mathematical
Morphology
Short description: This MSc project will focus on the generalization of settlements in small scales
(1:200 000 and smaller), that is, shape analysis, classification and contextual generalization of builtup areas representing large settlements. Operations such as aggregation and simplification are to be
used. Tools of Mathematical Morphology (MM) so far have been widely used for raster data
generalization and vector data generalization at large scales (e.g. in building generalization). The
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objective is to assess the relevance of MM operations (erosion, dilation, opening, closing etc.) for the
purpose of the generalization of settlement outlines at geographic (i.e. small) scales, to verify them
and based on the results propose and develop further improvements. The project will use data from
the Polish General Geographic Objects Database (corresponding to 1:250 000 scale) as well as initial
generalization rules that exist in the documentation, and which may serve as input generalization
parameters to smaller scales. Additionally, Swisstopo data for the transition from 1:200 000 to
1:500 000 will be used.
Methods, requirements: Implementation in Java or MATLAB (some MM functions already
implemented).
Language: Thesis can be written in German or English (preferably).
Supervisor(s): Robert Weibel, Izabela Karsznia.
Additional remarks: In collaboration with the University of Warsaw.
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Historic Geographic Information from Text Documents - or, Law and Order in
Switzerland over the last 1000 years
Short description: Modelling future scenarios, for instance of climate or society, requires deep
understanding of the past, which is dependent on the availability of historic spatial information. Short
time spans, such as decades, are well covered by sensory information, for instance compiled using
remote sensing techniques. For longer time spans, however, only relatively few data sources are
available, examples are dendrochronology, ice core samples or soil measures. These methods
usually only cover small numbers of variables.
The probably largest and richest source of historic information that has a direct link to humans and
how they describe nature, society or culture is text. Text documents can date back several hundred
and sometimes even some 1000 years. Only recently, many large collections of text documents were
digitized and thus made available. Two such examples are Google Ngrams for Books, which comes
as word combinations and their frequency in some 20 million books, aggregated per year and
covering the last 500 years. This is immense data with almost no associated context information.
Another example are accounts of legal decisions in Switzerland. These texts reach back to
approximately 800 AD and contain detailed information on society, culture and potentially nature.
The umbrella question for this master thesis is, if historic text could serve as a means for retrieving
and structuring spatial information, such that it could be further use in the context of modelling future
scenarios. The extraction and structuring of information will be automatic and thus requires
sophisticated methods for dealing with unstructured information. The major challenge is the historic
context of the data that is often not known, we thus collaborate with linguists that have more
experiences and better knowledge of data and techniques.
Methods, requirements: Text parsing and application of further methodologies developed in
geographic information retrieval and computer linguistics require the implementation of programs,
ideally developed in Java, Python or R. Structuring unstructured data is challenging and not only
affords good programming skills but also a vivid imagination.
Language: Thesis can be written in German or English.
Supervisor(s): Curdin Derungs, Robert Weibel or Ross Purves, Michail Piotrovski (the linguist who
compiled to corpus of historic legal accounts for Switzerland and currently heads the digital
humanities group in Mainz)
Additional remarks: The framing of the project sounds relatively narrow. However, investigations of
language distribution with focus on stratification effects require rich imagination and bear a great
potential for individual orientation.
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Within the scope of COST Action IC0903 Knowledge Discovery from Moving Objects, a large
research network on movement data analysis consisting of 40+ groups all over Europe, which was
initiated by the GIS Unit, more concrete MSc projects could be launched on other types of moving
objects (incl. pedestrians, vehicles, vessels etc.), depending on the interest of the student(s). See
www.move-cost.info.
Methods, requirements: Quantitative movement analysis; machine learning (using RapidMiner);
statistical analysis (using R); programming in R and/or Matlab (or Python or Java)
Language: A good command of English is a prerequisite, as you will be collaborating with
international groups.
Supervisor(s): Robert Weibel, Ali Soleymani and the corresponding ecology expert
Additional remarks: A visit to the field site(s) of the species under study is an option.
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Defining landscape quality is a process concerning many aspects and involving different actors. Such
processes are prone to fail: Misunderstandings, conflicting goals, interests and beliefs are likely to
occur. At the same time, collaborating with various actors fosters capacity building, produces more
legitimate results and strengthens democracy. To foster transdisciplinary collaboration, we investigate
spatially explicit methods, such as PGIS.
Methods, requirements: A field trip lasts 2-3 weeks, with eventually 1 to 2 shorter visits before and
after. So far, we used paper and pencil methods, but are open to other solutions, especially for
technically versatile students. We made good experience combining mapping with expert interviews,
focus groups, stakeholder workshops, and questionnaires. The sample depends on the students
interest: General public, farmers, tourists, certified experts
We will define the study area with the student. It must be a region of suitable size and where a land
use change occurred recently, or occurs soon. Preferably in the Italian or French speaking part of
Switzerland, as our 2 previous studies were in the German and Romansh speaking part.
Language: Students with good command of the Italian or French language are thus preferred.
However, we do expect the thesis to be written in English or German.
Supervisor(s): Beni Rohrbach, Robert Weibel, Norman Backhaus
Additional remarks: This is a joint MSc thesis between human geography (N. Backhaus) and
GIScience (R. Weibel). B. Rohrbach (PhD candidate, GIScience) presently works on a related topic.
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