Author(s): Ochneva, Agafia
Date: 2013
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/9202
Origin: Repositório Institucional da UNL
Subject(s): GIS Applications; Pollen allergy; RESTful web application; Volunteered geographic information; Public health data; Climate data
Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.
Geoinformation technologies (GIS) are becoming increasingly popular and can be valuable in a large numbers of disciplines, both in the scientific and the commercial sector. Particularly, GIS technologies have a big potential in the health sector. One of the research challenges in the field of health is how pollen allergy variation depends on the geographic location of the patient. In this work we are motivated to show capabilities of geoinformation technologies in studies of pollen allergy. An analysis of the phenomenon of pollen allergy based on the project Alergologia-2005 and the example of allergy monitoring in the Hospital De Sagunto in Spain, allows to formulate requirements to the technologies used. The client application and server system, integrated in a web service, help scientists explore pollen allergy and attempt to handle it, as well as help patients to be able to control the disease. The designed client interface provides a platform for collecting volunteered geographic information (VGI) from people suffering from allergies and supply them with information about pollen counts. At the same time, the server side of the application provides secure storage of geoinformation and opportunities for its retrieval for analysis, including visualization on a map. Health practitioners can display information from patients and compare it with other characteristics of the place, such as weather conditions. The thesis contributes to the field of geospatial technologies, offering unique solutions for studies of pollen allergy in the province of Castellón, Spain.
