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Geospatial data catalogs enable users to discover and access geographical information. Prevailing solutions are document oriented and fragment the spatial continuum of the geospatial data into independent and disconnected resources described through metadata. Due to this, the complete answer for a query may be scattered across multiple resources, making its discovery and access more difficult. This paper proposes an improved information retrieval process for geospatial data catalogs that aggregates the search results by identifying the implicit spatial/thematic relations between the metadata records of the resources. These aggregations are constructed in such a way that they match better the user query than each resource individually. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Jurisdictional domains are generally accepted political divisions of the earth surface that cover specific territorial and functional scopes over time. They are frequently used in information retrieval (IR) to classify and locate resources by means of their geographical location. However, the changes they suffer over time reduce their applicability in historical collections. In this context, and with the objective of improving the use of jurisdictional domains, this article proposes an ontology schema that combines in a single model the administrative structure, the spatial components, and the temporal evolution of jurisdictional domains. This ontology schema has been used to create the Spanish jurisdictional model. Additionally, as an example of its applicability in the IR context, the Spanish model has been used as part of a location-based query component for the Spanish Official State Gazette. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient access to the contents provided through OGC web services, widely used in environmental information systems, is usually achieved by means of caching strategies. Service-owners may be interested in expressing the conditions required to allow for this. If these conditions are expressed in a machine-readable way, automatic harvesters can be programmed to follow them.This paper proposes a protocol to specify and follow cache policies for OGC web services expressed in a machine-readable language. A preliminary implementation of this protocol has been tested in the EuroGeoSource project, where a number of Web Feature Services providing mineral deposits and energy resources are periodically cached to improve the efficiency and availability of several applications. The protocol addresses a nowadays common case, and can possibly be extended to allow for more detailed policies. Further work will help to determine how it could be integrated into a full Digital Rights Management system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Metadata are a key element for the development of information infrastructures because they facilitate the semantic description of contents and services. However, the diversity and heterogeneity of metadata standards have become a barrier for the generation of these metadata. Many metadata editors are not useful anymore because they do not support the latest version of metadata standards or the new profiles arisen in the market. Thus, this work proposes a model driven approach for the development of metadata editors, more focused on the generic treatment of metadata models than on the development of specific edition forms for a reduced set of metadata standards. This approach has been tested in the context of Spatial Data Infrastructures for the development of an Open Source tool called CatMDEdit. Additionally, the approach could be also applied to improve the efficiency of any metadata editor using a metamodeling development strategy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]