eStorys: A visual storyboard system supporting back-channel communication for emergencies

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Journal of Visual Languages & Computing. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2010 Elsevier B.V.In this paper we present a new web mashup system for helping people and professionals to retrieve information about emergencies and disasters. Today, the use of the web during emergencies, is confirmed by the employment of systems like Flickr, Twitter or Facebook as demonstrated in the cases of Hurricane Katrina, the July 7, 2005 London bombings, and the April 16, 2007 shootings at Virginia Polytechnic University. Many pieces of information are currently available on the web that can be useful for emergency purposes and range from messages on forums and blogs to georeferenced photos. We present here a system that, by mixing information available on the web, is able to help both people and emergency professionals in rapidly obtaining data on emergency situations by using multiple web channels. In this paper we introduce a visual system, providing a combination of tools that demonstrated to be effective in such emergency situations, such as spatio/temporal search features, recommendation and filtering tools, and storyboards. We demonstrated the efficacy of our system by means of an analytic evaluation (comparing it with others available on the web), an usability evaluation made by expert users (students adequately trained) and an experimental evaluation with 34 participants.Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and Banco Santander

A tour about Isaac Newton's life

Here we propose a tour about the life of Isaac Newton, using a georeferenced method, based on the free satellite maps. Our tour is modelled on the time-line of the great scientist's life, as an ancient "itinerarium" was modelled on the Roman roads, providing a listing of places and intervening distances, sometimes with short description or symbols concerning the places. KML language and Google Earth, with its Street View and 3D images are powerful tools to create this virtual tour.Comment: Georeferencing, Satellite Maps, KML, XML, Acme Mapper, History of Physic

How Can Geography and Mobile Phones Contribute to Psychotherapy?

Interdisciplinary relationships between Geography and Psychotherapy are an opportunity for innovation. Indeed, scientific works found on bibliographic databases and concerning this theme are scarce. Geographical sub-fields, such as the Geography of Emotions or Psychoanalytical Geography have started to emerge, theorizing about and interpreting feelings, emotions, moods, sufferings, of the chronically ill or diversified social groups and sites. But a less theoretical and more practical approach, in the sense of proposing, predicting and intervening, is lacking; as well as research into the possibilities offered by communication technologies and mobile phones. In the present work, we present the results of a review of the most relevant scientific works published internationally; we reflect on the contributions of Geography and mobile phones to psychosocial therapies and define the orientation and questions that should be posed in future research, from the point of view of geography and regarding psychotherapy. We conclude that the production of georeferenced data via mobile phones concerning the daily lives of people opens great possibilities for cognitive behavioural therapy and mental health. They allow for the development of personalized mood maps that locate the places where a person experiences greater or lesser stress on a daily basis; they allow for a cartography of emotions, a cognitive cartography of the places we access physically or through the Internet, of our feelings and psychosocial experiences. They open the door to the possibility of offering personalized psychotherapy treatments focusing on the ecological-environmental analysis of the places frequented by the person on a daily basis

Extracting Personal Behavioral Patterns from Geo-Referenced Tweets

This paper presents an exploratory study of the potential of geo-referenced Twitter data for extracting knowledge about significant personal places, behaviors and potential interests of people. The study was done analysing two months’ worth of tweets from residents of the greater Seattle area

A Landscape Perspective on Bird Beak Deformity: An Epizootic of Unknown Etiology

Although birds with beak deformities have been documented throughout the literature, the recent spike in occurrences in certain regions has caused concern in the scientific community. A major concern relates to the role of contaminants and environmental degradation in causing or exacerbating this epizootic. This study used spatial and statistical analyses to examine the problem from a landscape perspective. The objectives of this study were to 1) locate and compile a database of known bird beak occurrences, 2) conduct a preliminary assessment of the environmental correlates of this epizootic in order to identify patterns, and 3) make recommendations that could guide future research and data collection. Logistic regression models were generated using known occurrences of bird beak deformity as well as randomly generated points compared with spatial data on relevant environmental variables. Generalized linear models predicted high probability (p(deformity)=0.88) of deformity occurring when all environmental variables were present. With more collaboration among researchers and data sharing, this method could provide insight into the currently unknown etiology of bird beak deformity

Visual analysis of social networks in space and time using smartphone logs

We designed and applied novel interactive visualisation to investigate how social networks - derived from smartphone logs - are embedded in time and space. Social networks were identified through direct calls between participants and calls to mutual contacts of participants. Direct contact between participants was sparse and deriving networks through mutual contacts helped enrich the social networks. Our resulting interactive visualisation tool offers four linked and co-ordinated views of spatial, temporal, individual and social network aspects of the data. Brushing and altering techniques help us investigate how these aspects relate. We also simultaneously display some demographic and attitudinal variables to help add context to the behaviours we observe. Using these techniques, we were able to characterise spatial and temporal aspects of participants' social networks and suggest explanations for some of them. We reflect on the extent to which such analysis helps us understand social communication behaviour

Vagrant Lives: 14,789 Vagrants Processed by the County of Middlesex, 1777-1786

Date of Acceptance: 12/09/2015 © 2015 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedThis dataset makes accessible the uniquely comprehensive records of vagrant removal from, through, and back to Middlesex, encompassing the details of some 14,789 removals (either forcibly or voluntarily) of people as vagrants between 1777 and 1786. It includes people ejected from London as vagrants, and those sent back to London from counties beyond. Each record has been georeferenced (where possible). Significant background material is available on the ‘London Lives’ website, which provides additional context for these records. The authors also recommend the following article: Hitchcock, T, Crymble, A, Falcini, L 2014 Loose, Idle and Disorderly: Vagrant Removal in Late Eighteenth-Century Middlesex. Social History 39(4). DOI: 10.1080/03071022.2014.975943.Peer reviewe

Using Georeferenced Data in Social Science Survey Research: The Method of Spatial Linking and Its Application with the German General Social Survey and the GESIS Panel

This book demonstrates the use of georeferenced data for social science survey research which builds upon survey data enriched with geo-coordinates. It reviews the prerequisites and challenges of applying these data to different social science research questions, highlighting the different branches of an interdisciplinary effort. At the center of this presentation is the method of spatial linking: the combination of georeferenced survey data with information from auxiliary geospatial data sources. A collection of spatial linking methods is applied in this book’s empirical applications which underline these methods’ flexibility in different social science sub-disciplines, such as health and family, political attitudes, and environmental inequalities. For this purpose, georeferenced survey data from the German General Social Survey (GGSS) 2014 and the GESIS Panel are used. These empirical applications are part of an emerging field of research for social scientists, requiring new analytic skills from diverse and foreign disciplines, like ecology and engineering. Navigating the organizational and technical requirements for the analysis of georeferenced survey data enables researchers to answer new and innovative research questions.Dieses Buch beschäftigt sich mit der Nutzung georeferenzierter Daten in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Umfrageforschung, deren Ausgangspunkt Umfragedaten sind, die mit Geokoordinaten angereichert wurden. Es widmet sich den Voraussetzungen und Herausforderungen, solche Daten für verschiedene sozialwissenschaftliche Fragestellungen nutzbar zu machen und betont dabei die verschiedenen interdisziplinären Verzweigungen dieses Unterfangens. Im Mittelpunkt der Präsentation steht die Methode der räumlichen Verknüpfung: die Kombination georeferenzierter Umfragedaten mit Informationen aus externen Geodatenquellen. Anhand mehrerer, aus unterschiedlichen Subdisziplinen der Sozialwissenschaften stammender empirischer Anwendungen im Bereich Familie und Gesundheit, politische Einstellungen sowie Umwelt und Ungleichheit wird die Flexibilität der Methode in Form verschiedener räumlicher Verknüpfungen betont. Dazu werden georeferenzierte Umfragedaten der Allgemeinen Bevölkerungsumfrage Sozialwissenschaften (ALLBUS) 2014 und dem GESIS Panel 2014 verwendet. Diese empirischen Anwendungen sind Teil eines aufstrebenden Forschungsfelds für Sozialforschende, welches neue analytische Fertigkeiten aus verschiedenen anderen Fachbereichen wie der Ökologie oder des Ingenieurswesen erfordert. Werden die organisatorischen und technischen Anforderungen zur Analyse georeferenzierter Umfragedaten gemeistert, eröffnet sich Forschenden die Möglichkeit, neue und innovative Fragestellungen zu beantworten

Documenting Georeferenced Social Science Survey Data: Limits of Metadata Standards and Possible Solutions

In this article, we present documentation of the georeferenced social science survey data that are spatially linked to geospatial data attributes. We introduce the challenges of documentation, as different metadata standards are used for both data sources: social science survey data and geospatial data. In particular, we analyze the extent to which the social sciences metadata standard DDI Lifecycle is capable of incorporating the geosciences metadata standard ISO 19115. We find that the most challenging attributes to describe are those concerning the geographic structure of the geospatial data, especially if they stem from different sources. To navigate these issues, we developed and evaluated four workaround approaches which we demonstrate in a case study on the georeferenced German General Social Survey. Because not all of the approaches apply equally to every research project and institution, we provide a scheme to assist in making informed and weighted decisions

Urban dynamics in the Flemish countryside: a comparative study on morphological patterns and local economy dynamics

The article examines two aspects of urbanisation in the rural areas of Flanders, the northern part of Belgium. On the one hand, the evolution of the built environment is studied in terms of built-up density and the corresponding morphological sprawl pattern, from the beginning of the 19th century up until now. On the other hand, the economy dynamics in the rural areas are investigated. This shift in economic activities can be seen as part of a broader urbanisation process, with aspects such as tertiarisation and broadening of agriculture. The main driving factors behind these transformations are discussed based on literature study. It becomes clear that urbanisation of the countryside is the combined result of economic, physical, cultural and political evolutions. The comparative study in eight case municipalities with different spatial characteristics maps the evolution of the built environment and continuity of the economic activities. Temporal and regional differences are analysed and related to more location-specific driving factors. The sprawl pattern seems to have a historical ground, whereas the difference in density is related to the evolution path. Regarding the local economy dynamics, no clear regional differences can be found. The professions and other business services category has the highest density. The amount of tertiary activities proves the importance of tertiarisation on the countryside. Both studied evolutions tend to change the open space profoundly. Therefore, insights are crucial in order to develop location specific policies