Protocols for Secure Internet of Things

Abstract

This article recounts information gleaned from a case study of three indige-nous tribes in Taiwan regarding the origin and nature of their spatial knowledge. Sketched mental maps and GIS 3D virtual environment (VE) are used by indigenous elders and hunters to delineate their traditional territories. Spatial components repre-senting the predominant spatial elements are identified. Spatial structures used for loca-tional positioning are analyzed, as are spatial reference systems for orientation and movement. The results show that spatial components are used for daily activities, as well as having historical and cultural meaning; a quadrant structure is used for spatial posi-tioning; and instead of using the directional reference system of east, south, west, and north, these indigenous people rely on the orientation analogies of uphill, downhill, upstream, and downstream for direction. Spatial knowledge exists in our minds, and the only way of understanding it is through external content, such as spatial behavior or spatial language. Researchers in various disciplines have used different methods of externaliza-tion to study human spatial knowledge. For example, psychologists have focused on the recognition of different kinds of space experienced by people grouped by such categories as gender, age, educational level, and background (Cohen and Schuepfer 1980; Norman 1980; Thorndyke and Stasz 1980). Siegel and White (1975) developed a spatial-representation model based on significant landmarks and arrived at the concept of procedural knowledge. According to procedural knowledge, a unique route connects significant landmarks in a sequence and a number of such routes make up configurational knowledge—a network of spatial knowledge—leading to a comprehensive recognition of loca-tion and direction within the area covered by the network. Thorndyke (1981) proposed a similar concept, suggesting that human spatial knowledge is orga-nized in a node-link structure. Linguists have used the analysis of space vocabulary and route description to study spatial knowledge (Wassmann 1977; Talmy 1990). Jiang (2006) derived the spatial knowledge of the Kavalan, a tribe of indigenous residents in Taiwan, from the structure of the tribe's language and the residents' description of routes. Li (2004) studied the Taiwanese Paiwan people's spatial representation by examining their route description and the vocabulary of their spatial reference frame. k DR. TSAI is an associate professor of geography at the National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; [tsaibw@ntu.edu.tw]; Mr. Lo is a graduate student at the Institute of Cultural Anthro-pology and Development Sociology, Leiden University, the Netherlands; [d93228002@gmail.com].