Unlocking Uralic Heritage and Diversity: URHIA's Open Data Journey in Spatial Exploration
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00:00
Computing platformGeometryInterface (computing)System programmingHill differential equationDigital signalInteractive televisionService (economics)Data analysisObservational studyTexture mappingInternetworkingInformationComputer programUniverse (mathematics)Interactive televisionWeb applicationInterface (computing)Web 2.0Programming languageEvoluteMusical ensembleLecture/ConferenceMeeting/InterviewComputer animation
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Natural languageAreaTime evolutionProgramming languageDreiecksnetzMaterialization (paranormal)Slide ruleProjective planeResultantHomographyComputer animation
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Link (knot theory)Time evolutionDigital signalProgramming languageInformationAnalogyAreaHypothesisGroup actionThermal expansionObservational studyProcess modelingUniform resource locatorSpeech synthesisAreaDigital photographyMathematicsCircleProfil (magazine)FamilyMappingBasis <Mathematik>Programming languageGroup actionDialectObservational studyMereologyResultantArrow of timeHypothesisThermal expansionPoint (geometry)Lecture/ConferenceComputer animationMeeting/Interview
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Complex (psychology)HypothesisIntegrated development environmentAreaInformationCollaborationismFeasibility studyComputer networkCommitment schemeProgramming languageDisintegrationMappingUniverse (mathematics)Service (economics)Level (video gaming)Projective planeComputer animation
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Customer relationship managementStrategy gameCommitment schemeRepository (publishing)Digital signalLibrary catalogMoment (mathematics)Menu (computing)Web pageComputer animation
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Category of beingIntegrated development environmentServer (computing)Library catalogGroup actionOpen setRevision controlSource codeUser interfaceContent management systemSoftwareService (economics)Computing platformMusical ensembleIterationField (computer science)FaktorenanalyseAreaProcess (computing)ComputerPrototypeFingerprintObservational studyFunction (mathematics)Content (media)Computing platformNatural languageLink (knot theory)Execution unitVector spacePlanck constantTime evolutionCopenhagen interpretationBinary fileOverlay-NetzCustomer relationship managementQuery languageObject-oriented programmingMorley's categoricity theoremInformationAttribute grammarScale (map)Context awarenessMultiplicationInteractive televisionPrice indexPolygonRaster graphicsTerm (mathematics)Abelian categoryCharacteristic polynomialProgramming languageTemporal logicDatabaseFrequencyModemComputer-generated imageryType theoryPoint (geometry)PermianDefault (computer science)Uniform resource nameElectric currentAreaDistribution (mathematics)Process (computing)QuicksortAttribute grammarGraph (mathematics)Programming languageData typeLink (knot theory)InformationInterface (computing)Web pageMereologyVideoconferencingElement (mathematics)Medical imagingVector spaceWindowView (database)Profil (magazine)Electronic mailing listDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Raster graphicsTemporal logicMathematicsComputing platformComputing platformFocus (optics)ResultantDebuggerVariable (mathematics)Type theoryMultiplication signZoom lensSubject indexingComputer animationLecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
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Programming languageComputing platformFunction (mathematics)Interactive televisionQuery languageFluid staticsTwin primeVisualization (computer graphics)DialectEstimationSign (mathematics)Library catalogMeasurementView (database)Letterpress printingScale (map)Digital filterDefault (computer science)Sheaf (mathematics)Computing platformSoftware developerMappingFluid staticsUniverse (mathematics)Computer animation
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Computer fontShape (magazine)Slide ruleFile formatForm (programming)DatabaseObservational studyLocal ringDigital signalComputer wormAreaMeasurementMenu (computing)EstimationFluxMeta elementOpen setRevision controlProgramming languageFunction (mathematics)DatabaseView (database)MereologyNatural numberStructural loadOcean currentComputer animation
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Computing platformInteractive televisionQuery languageProgramming languageFunction (mathematics)Default (computer science)CollaborationismBitRevision controlFlow separationSoftware developerComputing platformWindowDigital photographyTelecommunicationPoint (geometry)Filter <Stochastik>Category of beingDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Computer animationLecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
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Universe (mathematics)Goodness of fitCartesian coordinate systemCodeMereologyProgramming languageHomographyWave packetOpen sourceMathematicsAreaPoint (geometry)Server (computing)Lecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
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Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:00
My name is Meili, and as the chair already said, I'm from Finland, but I am actually originally from Tartu. I am working currently at a multidisciplinary research group. I am a geographer. We have people from many disciplines.
00:22
Today we are going to talk about the spatial data, the spatial data that is created by people who naturally doesn't work with remote sensing or geoinformatics, and how researchers access the data, and how universities have solved this question, our research group.
00:45
What is web application? First, before we started, we needed to figure out what is meant by web application.
01:00
There are many, many terms. It can be spatial data platform, web GIS, interactive atlas, and they are all providing access to the data that usually is digital maps, and they are providing visual interface.
01:27
About our team, University of Turku has a very long tradition of interdisciplinary language evolution and human history research.
01:45
The team works with data from the human past, and it's truly multidisciplinary. It combines materials and results from many fields, historical linguistics, genetics, archaeology, landscape ecology.
02:03
The logos here are all from the last decades, all the different projects. The last project which I started with the team was Uralic Triangulation 21, and the current team is on this slide.
02:22
It is the most recent 2023 human diversity big consortium funded by the Academy of Finland, and it is part of Turku's strategic research profile.
02:41
As you can see, here is the linguistics, genetics, archaeology, landscape ecology, using geospatial methods and quantitative research to have an outcome of the human past of the Uralic speaker area. So, these people are all connected by the interest of human history in Uralic speaking area.
03:05
What is Uralic language family? Uralic language family consists of 30 to 50 languages all over Eurasia.
03:20
This photo here is the starting point when the researchers need location-based data of some language speaking groups. They have this starting point. This is a paper map or maps from the books from other researchers who have drawn with their hands sometimes or with available tools,
03:44
and this is the basis. We know that the Finnish language is spoken in Finland, but there are many other languages which are also from Russia, for example, Uralic language family, and they are digitized or drawn by other researchers, and it is not so easy to get it.
04:07
In the last couple of, let's say, five years, there was one researcher working especially by digitizing all this data and compiling all this big material into maps.
04:24
Here is the result of this work. Timo Randan published his data 22, all together with a big team, and this data is scientifically collected.
04:44
As you can see, the Uralic language family is quite large, having lots of dialects, and it is very important where exactly those dialects locate. So, what do exactly then we need to do, or we do with this data in the group?
05:07
Here is one example of the study hypothesis of the human expansion. We study the change of language, the extinctions of languages, study between
05:27
the location of the languages, associations, and we also model the human past. And also the contacts between the groups. The red arrow here indicates that it is where exactly we, Uralic speaking people, came from.
05:50
We came from the east, so the three circles here represent the hypothetical areas where researchers has assured
06:02
that these may be the areas where Uralic people started to come to the north and scattered to Siberia. This is another example of the archaeological data and how exactly we support all these hypotheses. Archaeological items represent cultures, and when one item is found in one place and another item is found in another place,
06:29
then it indicates that the groups, people groups, have been moving around. All these maps are also available in Senotó. If you are interested, you can browse this collection.
06:44
About the collaboration, very quickly, the goal of the project currently is the outcome of the previous steps, which was that we already had so much data, so we also had a goal for transparent science and that the work will be used.
07:09
So we need to share it somehow, we need to give it to the researchers, we need to give it to the researchers who usually doesn't work with GIS. Now I'm going to the topic of our service at the university level.
07:26
My colleague Nzile Kale, who is actually working on this service, was not able to come, but I will cover it as I can. University of Turku has developed or used already many years geospatial data service, which is the web page where you can browse the data,
07:47
you can upload the data, it doesn't matter which scientific field, you are maybe a student, you want to upload your data for a master's thesis, all kinds of backgrounds can upload there.
08:02
Here is the catalogue of the data. At the moment I just made a screenshot of the one menu I had open. There is now uploaded archaeological data, some climate data, some environmental layers. It can be raster or vector or, yeah, exactly.
08:28
The infrastructure behind this is GeoNode. GeoNode is the front end and we use GeoServer and, yeah, thank you.
08:45
Then let's go to this solution that we have. We had the solution to create our own platform. So University of Turku has their platform and there is all kinds of data, but we have many layers.
09:02
We cannot just upload one layer after another there and expect that somebody is actually finding exactly what they need. So our aim was to create a platform where we can combine all Uralic-related human history research data from all those disciplines that we have.
09:25
We started with the language data we already have. It is written its prototype, but actually we already considered this language data part to be ready.
09:42
I am going to show you also another part which is now recently added there, which is the archaeological data. This is the main view of the map window. We are going to explore around there, but what was very important for
10:00
us as geographers, as archaeologists, linguists, was that we actually needed to figure out. It is not like we just have a map window and then we browse around there. We needed to ask our end users what do they want. Before we actually started developing the idea, we worked together with all the end users.
10:26
We had the workshop with archaeologists and linguists. It was Corona times and nobody was able to come to the room, gather and start discussing or showing their needs. We held it in Zoom and from Finland there were over 30 people.
10:46
Everybody was extremely interested. Is there really coming some sort of map application for us? It was really nice. We have one publication of all the processes, how we did it, how we discussed with the people, what were the outcomes.
11:03
Here is one graph of the result, what the process consists of, what people are involved. Geographers, IT people, then are the end users and what kind of profiles the users have.
11:24
Some people only want to work with CSVs, they want to have the data in R. Some people want only to browse around. Just to look at the map. Some people want to have ready maps, some people want to download this map and do it themselves because they are able to use QGIS, for example.
11:42
So many, many profiles. Also, very quickly, we also went through all possible platforms relating human history. We had the coverage of Europe, we did not go further to the world, we had the Europe focus. So we took, there was like 30 platforms we found and we narrowed down to like over 10
12:05
to actually figure out what kind of solutions there is, how people handle temporal data because historical data has always this time aspect. You need to somehow show the change of variable.
12:25
So we made a review. Here is like one example. We first figured out what kind of type of platform is it. Is it only the index map that people are clicking and browsing or is it actually interactive map? Can you zoom in?
12:41
Or is it the encyclopedic type of map? Because these are the types that actually historians are using. How to manage the layers, how to query the layers, how, what kind of map elements are involved, how the attributes which are the most important for scientists are presented,
13:03
are they like clicking or do they open automatically somewhere? Here is the whole inventory table, one third of this. So you can see. And this table, if you're really interested to find yourself as well, all kind of different historical platforms, you can find it in our article which is published here.
13:28
So very quickly about the themes. All these themes are described in our article as well. The context, the filtering types.
13:41
These are the results of the data types that are used. Point, polygons, polylines, very rarely. Raster, very rarely. And non-spatial data which you can see that it is very important part which is non-spatial.
14:03
It contains phylogenetic trees, some reference links. So very much of the information is not actually spatial data. Then quickly about the results.
14:22
We understood that the most important question we have is the link between the researchers and the mapping interface. And also the user center design process.
14:47
So about those platforms, here are the two images. There are screenshots of the windows, map windows, URL language atlas, archaeological atlas.
15:01
Here is one video of the web page itself. You have the map window open, the researcher is coming. They have the menu, there are all the language listed. It is just the button, you click it on, you click it off.
15:21
And the temporal aspect is solved in this way that one layer is historical and another layer is current. You have that Finnic branch, you zoom in, you put the labels on, you can see what is your area of interest.
15:40
Then about the language change, this is Karelian language from 900. And this is the current distribution of that language. So researcher can actually very quickly just click it on and off, doesn't need to load it somewhere and to see the change of the areas.
16:08
Then one interesting aspect is also that the researchers are using actually very much static maps, which is just PDF. They use it in their articles. And in our platform we have a section of the maps themselves which they can use, which actually is under current development.
16:31
But this static map here, which is just the image, they can click it here, it will jump to the university platform
16:41
and you can actually, with the same colours and with the same setting, you can go here and see exactly what layer it is and you can download it from here. Here is the download button. So about the archaeological artefacts, this is our most recent work.
17:08
Over 10 years archaeologists have been sitting in the museum photographing artefacts and cataloguing it in Excel. And how to use it, load Excel and start figuring out.
17:24
We created a database and we created a map view for this. Currently you can see that we have one part of the data available. Yesterday the whole data and the idea was published in Nature Scientific Data.
17:46
Let me go to the main view. Here is the example of the archaeological platform map window. So it's point data, you click it on and off, the same similar idea.
18:07
Here you can see that in archaeological data you have a cemetery and there can be findings of several artefacts in the same location. So a little bit different approach needed. You need to have, for example, the cluster map.
18:23
And then on cluster map first and then you can browse in to see more closer what are the categories below this clustered area. Here is again another cluster map. Then the same layer has also got a categorised version where you can see exactly what kind of data is available.
18:51
So our future development is that we would like to add all those photographs to the map. We would like to click it and you can see immediately what kind of pottery or sword is available in this location.
19:10
We want to improve the data query, also the timeline filtering. GeoNode has actually a very good feature for this but this is our next steps.
19:24
And thank you, you can find our communication in X and also here is the webpage over here. Thank you.
19:42
Thank you very much Milly, that was super interesting. Who of you speaks a Finno-Ugric language? So that's always very interesting that looks so different from most of the things we know in Europe. So thanks for presenting that. Do we have questions?
20:08
Mind-blowing topic. So you showed us that you use GeoNode, right? Yes. So what's your experience with GeoNode? We have a good experience with GeoNode.
20:23
I do not know the specific, like why exactly we have chosen the GeoNode as this has been decided already previously. But GeoNode is easy to use and it's modifiable by a person who actually knows how to make the changes in the code.
20:44
For example, me myself have worked with a GeoServer, I'm a geographer, I am not IT specialist. They have very good user guides, they have trainings. So our university geographers have participated in trainings and we try to maintain and do everything ourselves, you know, academics.
21:09
So I think that's the easy part. That was really my point. So mostly the scientists and the researchers in the university use that as their tool and it works for them.
21:22
And you have a nice outreach and people interested in the culture and the archaeology can come and look and it works out nicely for the community. Yes. That's good, that's really great to know. Thanks for the talk, I really enjoyed it, it was very interesting.
21:42
Just about the outreach, so I observed that many open source people are on Mastodon, so maybe you can also have an account on Mastodon as well. Yes, you can reach more people of the open source world. And the second thing, I also like that you targeted your application towards many
22:01
use cases, so for data people or only people who want to view the map. And what I observed is that a lot of these languages are in the north of the northern hemisphere, so then the map is a bit distorted, so it might be an idea to use a protection which is more…
22:21
Another protection. Yes, especially because this Webmer cartridge, especially towards the northern pole, the areas are way bigger than they are in reality. I'm sure there is a code in map server where I can change the projection. I think with this we can break up a completely different discussion, because
22:41
do we have open street map tiles available in a polar stereographic projection? No, because most of the web maps work only with the Mac hatter projection. Yes, that's actually… Sorry?
23:01
You wanted to say something? Yes, I think I agree with you that what is available, we are using this, what is available first, and if we need to, if it's necessary, we try to start to figure out… We had a similar situation in Estonia. Estonia has its own national grid as well, and
23:23
I think it's changed now, but the autofoto were basically only shared in the Estonian one. It was very difficult to get those as web map service into a normal web map where you had to use things like other backgrounds with open street map, for example, or other tile-based ones.
23:45
Because you would have to re-project and that makes… It's possible, but it's not as intuitive in the web especially. But I think it's a good point that those tile-based systems maybe should consider that as well.
24:01
That's good.