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This study assesses soil productivity in a 15-hectare cotton field using an integrated approach combining field data, laboratory analysis, and remote sensing techniques. Soil samples were collected and analyzed for key parameters including nitrogen (N), humus, phosphorus (P2O5), potassium (K2O), carbonates, pH, and electrical conductivity (EC). In addition to low salinity, these analyses showed low results for humus and nutrient parameters. A Pearson correlation analysis showed that low organic matter and high salinity had a strong negative correlation with crop productivity, explaining 37% of the variation in NDVI values. Remote sensing indices (NDVI, SAVI, NDMI, and NDSI) confirmed these findings by highlighting the relationship between soil properties and spectral reflectance. This research demonstrates the effectiveness of remote sensing in soil assessment, emphasizing its critical role in sustainable agricultural planning. By integrating traditional methods with advanced remote sensing technologies, this study provides actionable insights for policymakers and practitioners to improve soil productivity and ensure food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual geographic environments are established and still emerging in various fields of science, including geography and cartography (Çöltekin et al., 2020). The potential usage of geographic data within such an environment includes generating digital twins (Batty, 2018), which can be used for simulations of situations that are unable or hard to perform in a real environment. This advantage can be crucial for Crisis Management in performing emergency evacuation (Stachoň et al., 2023), evaluating navigation systems, etc. As build-up areas and individual buildings are becoming increasingly complex, there is an increasing demand for assisting humans in navigation and other tasks in such environments. One of the possible navigation systems is emergency evacuation signs and indoor navigation maps/plans. It is still unclear if current map design principles are fully transferable to indoor maps (Griffin, White, et al., 2017), or what methods of map interactions might best support uses of maps in such contexts (Nossum, 2013) as well as what field methods can be used to study these map uses in ecologically valid ways (Roth et al., 2017). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landmarks play an important role in navigation especially when people in the familiar and unfamiliar environment. These landmarks are usually used for expressing their spatial knowledge. This prior knowledge is related to the spatial familiarity that the spatial knowledge is acquired by individuals as a function of their experience in the environment (Gale et al., 1990). Individuals prefers to take into highly account their familiar route within the environment. Furthermore, the route descriptions include the differed types of landmarks in familiar/unfamiliar routes (Lovelace et al., 1999). The user's level of spatial familiarity for people is a key factor of how they navigate in the environment (Savage et al., 2012). In human navigation or wayfinding, the dependency on familiar landmarks is the highest priority (Golledge, 2003). Landmarks are more distinguishably salient and prominent than the another spatial features (Sorrows and Hirtle, 1999). Therefore, the landmark salience refers to how easily this prominent spatial feature can be regarded as a landmark (Raubal and Winter, 2002). The landmark salience mainly divided into visual, structural (important location), and cognitive (semantic). Visual salience refers to the visual characteristics of spatial features such as color contrast with surroundings. Some visual characteristics include facade areas, shapes, colors and other properties. Semantic salience refers to the spatial knowledge related features such as a cultural importance of building. Structural salience refers to the spatial features play an important role in the structure of the spatial environment. The level of spatial knowledge of the individual also an important factor in landmark selection (Nuhn and Timpf, 2018). Hamburger and Röser (2014) investigated landmark semantics and showed that famous buildings were better recognized than unfamiliar ones. Quesnot and Roche (2015) found that the familiar individuals prefer the semantic landmarks in environment while the unfamiliar individuals prefer the landmark with the prominent visual and structural. In contrast, people unfamiliar with an environment prefer landmarks with outstanding visual and structural characteristics. The existing literature studies the method that landmark indicators to be considered are not comprehensive while can't reflect on the landmark characteristics. The reason is that the method of calculation and extraction for landmarks can't conform the individual preference needs of navigation. Compared with the traditional subjective evaluation method, the eye-tracking method provide objectivity and reliability. For example, a mobile eye tracking system was used by Kiefer et al. (2014) to investigate the process of self-localization. They discovered that test persons directed their attention longer on landmarks on the map and aligned them with objects in the surroundings during successful localization of their own position. Schwarzkopf et al. (2013) used fixed and mobile eye tracking devices to study that participates selected the navigation landmarks in the virtual environment and the real-world of the airport. In general, there are an only limited number of works related to the influence of spatial familiarity on landmark by using eye tracking method. At present, many navigation systems are providing users with route directions under different travel modes. These navigation systems have the "distance-to-turn" method in route directions, however the landmark knowledge has not been conformed to user's habits and spatial cognitive in wayfinding. In order to solve these problems, this paper aims to study the characteristics of the user's spatial familiarity and landmark salience evaluation method in navigation. The following questions are addressed in this study: 1) What's the relationship between the spatial familiarity with the landmark selection in navigation for individuals? 2) What is the quantitative evaluation model to connect between the spatial familiarity with the landmark salience by using the eye-tracking data? In our experiments, we will use eye tracking to explore the influence of spatial familiarity on landmark salience. The experimental path is part of the campus area of Nanjing Normal University. The subjects are divided into novice students and senior students from Nanjing Normal University as unfamiliar and familiar groups respectively. The procedures are divided into two parts, namely, the subjects should walk the experimental path within the fixation time and then they are asked to wear VR eye tracking module a Glass DK ? special for HTC view (China; https://www.7invensun.com/) to do three types of tasks about landmark picture with the characteristics of visual, semantic and structural. With this research, we expect to establish a landmark salience evaluation method through eye movement data and analyse the landmark selection rules of groups with different spatial familiarity. It is helpful to design the pedestrian navigation system based on landmarks, improve the pertinence and reliability of navigation services and reduce the cognitive load for users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of uncertainty as a generic phenomenon in the natural world has been at the centre of both the cartographic and GI communities since the beginning of geographic data quality research. In accordance with the development of theoretical aspects of cartographic visualization and methods of uncertainty propagation in models, the generally accepted opinion is that uncertainty has to be presented to users in an unambiguous and understandable way. Despite reasonable amounts of work done in the field of uncertainty visualization methods (MacEachren1992, Leitner and Buttenfield 2000) and the testing of impact of visualization on decision making (Senaratne et al. 2012; Kinkeldy et al. 2015), there is still a wide gap between the uncertainty visualization theory and widely accepted use of uncertainty representation within decision making process. MacEachren et al. (2012), Fabrikant et al. (2010) initiated the discussion towards optimization of uncertainty visualization regarding visual semiotics and use of specific representations of uncertainty within complex mapping compositions and application context. However, their studies left also some open questions to be solved regarding the international audience of users. The presented study focused on two unresolved topics, namely how would users perceive the uncertainty point map signs within a complex map field and what would be the appropriate visualization in case if there is a need to combine value and uncertainty together. Moreover, we performed the testing in two different cultural environments in Brno (Czech Republic, Europe) and Nanjing (China). At the beginning, we replicated the empirical study performed by MacEachren et al (2012) and asked participants to rate on a scale of 1-7 (Likert) the intuitiveness of a sign set to represent a category of attribute uncertainty (fig. 1a). Based on the results of MacEachren et al. (2012) we used two visual variables with high intuitiveness (fuzziness and colour value) and one control variable scoring below average (orientation). In the following six tasks we used the point signs in the map field (fig. 1b) asked users to estimate the certainty/uncertainty of the selected sign. Both data value and its attribute uncertainty are often visualized together in a form of bivariate visualization. In the second part of the test visual (bivariate) signs represented environmental sensors measurements and their uncertainty (fig. 3). We used the combination of size and value for one set of signs and size and fuzziness for the other. Users were asked to identify a single value or uncertainty level of the selected sign (six tasks) and then a combination of both variables (value and uncertainty together, six tasks). The final section was focused on the ability of users to identify not only a single sign but also a simple pattern. We marked four areas on the map and asked the users to choose the area with a specific spatial pattern (least certain with high values, fig. 4). The Czech part of the testing is still going on, however, the preliminary results (70 participants) from China confirm the high intuitiveness of both value and fuzziness and low performance of orientation. The results for a map composition and bivariate visualization are pending and will be presented at the conference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of population brings increasing vulnerability of the society to different disasters and emergencies. The maps provide spatial information, which is useful on different levels of decision making during emergencies from strategic planning to single person decision making. To fit the user needs maps can be optimized for a particular user, user group, available technology or external conditions. Evacuation is a crucial part of the process dealing with most of the emergencies. In case of building the standard ISO 23601:2009, Safety identification - Escape and evacuation plan signs was developed to provide the guidelines for the design, materials, installation and other attributes of the evacuation plans. It is mostly based on the ISO 7010:2003, Graphical symbols - Safety colours and safety signs - Safety signs that are widely used in the buildings all around the world. The symbols were designed with the purpose to attract user attention under any circumstances and across the different cultural background. It can be a disadvantage in case of cartographic visualization, while the symbols on the map are not easy to identify the anchor point, increase the graphics clutter of the map (see figure 1). In our research, we have decided to focus on the evaluation of user's abilities to use and understand of designed evacuation signs and plans. As the standard is intended to be used worldwide, we have designed study focused on the comparison of the understanding to the meaning of evacuation symbols in general and also in the form of cartographic visualization. We have designed the user study performed in the first step in Nanjing (China) and in Brno (Czech Republic) in order to verify the cross-cultural universality of evacuation symbols. There were about seventy participants in China and seventy participants in the Czech Republic, who performed similar tasks. The tasks consist of separate symbol meaning selection, a separate symbol meaning estimation, identification of a particular symbol on the map and basic interpretation of the map content. The original and modified map signs were used as stimuli in case of cartographic visualization. Results were statistically processed and discussed. The results bring a new perspective on the standardized cartographic visualization for purposes of building evacuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]