A natural language processing and geospatial clustering framework for harvesting local place names from geotagged housing advertisements

Local place names are frequently used by residents living in a geographic region. Such place names may not be recorded in existing gazetteers, due to their vernacular nature, relative insignificance to a gazetteer covering a large area (e.g. the entire world), recent establishment (e.g. the name of a newly-opened shopping center) or other reasons. While not always recorded, local place names play important roles in many applications, from supporting public participation in urban planning to locating victims in disaster response. In this paper, we propose a computational framework for harvesting local place names from geotagged housing advertisements. We make use of those advertisements posted on local-oriented websites, such as Craigslist, where local place names are often mentioned. The proposed framework consists of two stages: natural language processing (NLP) and geospatial clustering. The NLP stage examines the textual content of housing advertisements and extracts place name candidates. The geospatial stage focuses on the coordinates associated with the extracted place name candidates and performs multiscale geospatial clustering to filter out the non-place names. We evaluate our framework by comparing its performance with those of six baselines. We also compare our result with four existing gazetteers to demonstrate the not-yet-recorded local place names discovered by our framework.     

生态地理学概念界定及其经典案例分析

对生态地理学的概念进行了详细讨论和辨析,并将它与相近学科如生物地理学、生态地理区划、宏生态学等进行了比较分析,界定了生态地理学的概念。研究认为：生态地理学是生态学和地理学的交叉学科,是研究生态系统各组分关系和生态过程的地理空间分布格局或/和时间演变规律及其与地理环境耦合机制的学科。生态地理学的目的是揭示不同环境梯度下或不同时间尺度上生态系统各组分关系和生态过程的普适性规律及其成因。同时,结合国内外野外实验平台介绍,在全球变化等研究领域列举了经典案例进行分析：① 全球不同气候带森林凋落物分解和碳汇功能的研究;② 中国不同陆地生态系统碳通量和碳汇功能研究;③ 中国东北样带和南北样带陆地生态系统的脆弱性与适应性研究;④ 中国北方草地样带尺度的生态系统生态学研究。主要目的是在辨析生态地理学概念的基础上指出未来发展方向,推动生态地理学的发展。     

GIS空间过程建模系统初探

阐述了GIS空间过程和空间过程建模的概念，提出了空间过程建模系统的概念框架，分析了其功能需求和主要的支撑技术。     

地理空间元数据和基于网络的数据分发技术

首先介绍了元数据、地理空间元数据的概念，探讨了在互联网时代研究地理空间元数据的迫切性和必要性；其次，论述了构建基于网络的数据分发方案的可行性，并就其中的关键技术实现做了深入的探讨；最后，提出了一个以地理空间元数据标准为依据，以Internet为依托的数据分发站点的整体设计方案以及实现这项技术还应考虑的问题。     

自适应空间信息移动服务

空间信息移动服务系统是空间信息系统继由传统PC计算环境向有线Web分布式计算环境扩展后，向移动计算环境的新发展。文中在分析移动计算环境概念和特点的基础上，讨论了空间信息移动服务的若干特点及关键技术，研究了自适应空间信息移动服务方案。     

基于受限汉语的GIS路径重建研究

主要研究基于自然语言 (汉语 )的GIS路径重建问题 ,通过分析带有路径表述信息的汉语文本 ,建立了汉语的NLRP句法模型 ,它是由带有空间语义的动作以及作为动作对象的地理要素构成的集合。考虑到自然语言理解实现的需求 ,论文基于NLRP句法模型定义了受限汉语的NLRP文法 ,在此基础上 ,描述了路径重建算法PRA ,并探讨了算法实现中由于空间认知原因带来的不确定性问题以及其解决方案。最后 ,基于该算法进行了相关实例研究 ,从而验证了该算法的正确性     

多尺度邻域特征下的机载LiDAR点云电力线分类

利用机载激光雷达技术三维测量精度高且获取快速的优点进行电力线自动分类提取已成为点云数据处理与电力应用的重要领域。针对电力线分类模型的自动化和高精度需求，本文提出了基于三维多尺度邻域特征的机载LiDAR点云电力线分类提取模型框架，主要包括4个步骤：电力线候选点滤波、多尺度邻域类型选取、形状结构特征提取和支持向量机分类。通过对2个复杂城市区域的试验数据集和8种不同邻域类型的详细结果对比分析，发现基于多尺度圆球邻域形状结构特征的分类模型结果准确率、召回率和质量分别达到97%、94%和93%，同时整体处理时间在2个试验数据中分别从366、256 s减少到274、160 s。试验结果表明，该方法在多种复杂城市场景中能够实现机载LiDAR数据的电力线较高精度分类提取。     

Identifying geospatial services across heterogeneous taxonomies

Geospatial services with different functions are assembled together to solve complex problems. Different taxonomies are developed to categorize these services into classes. As differences in granularity and semantics exist among these taxonomies, the identification of services across different taxonomies has become a challenge. In this paper, an approach to identify geospatial services across heterogeneous taxonomies is proposed. Using formal concept analysis, existing heterogeneous taxonomies are decomposed into semantic factors and their various combinations. With these semantic factors, a super taxonomy is established to integrate the original heterogeneous taxonomies. Finally, with the super taxonomy as a cross-referencing system, geospatial services with classes in original taxonomies are identifiable across taxonomies. Experiments in service registries and a social media-based spatial-temporal analysis project are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of this approach.     

Modelling tropical cyclone risks for present and future climate change scenarios using geospatial techniques

Tropical cyclones and their devastating impacts are of great concern to coastal communities globally. An appropriate approach integrating climate change scenarios at local scales is essential for producing detailed risk models to support cyclone mitigation measures. This study developed a simple cyclone risk-modelling approach under present and future climate change scenarios using geospatial techniques at local scales, and tested using a case study in Sarankhola Upazila from coastal Bangladesh. Linear storm-surge models were developed up to 100-year return periods. A local sea level rise scenario of 0.34?m for the year 2050 was integrated with surge models to assess the climate change impact. The resultant storm-surge models were used in the risk-modelling procedures. The developed risk models successfully identified the spatial extent and levels of risk that match with actual extent and levels within an acceptable limit of deviation. The result showed that cyclone risk areas increased with the increase of return period. The study also revealed that climate change scenario intensified the cyclone risk area by 5–10% in every return period. The findings indicate this approach has the potential to model cyclone risk in other similar coastal environments for developing mitigation plans and strategies.     

A novel approach to leveraging social media for rapid flood mapping: a case study of the 2015 South Carolina floods

Rapid flood mapping is critical for local authorities and emergency responders to identify areas in need of immediate attention. However, traditional data collection practices such as remote sensing and field surveying often fail to offer timely information during or right after a flooding event. Social media such as Twitter have emerged as a new data source for disaster management and flood mapping. Using the 2015 South Carolina floods as the study case, this paper introduces a novel approach to mapping the flood in near real time by leveraging Twitter data in geospatial processes. Specifically, in this study, we first analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns of flood-related tweets using quantitative methods to better understand how Twitter activity is related to flood phenomena. Then, a kernel-based flood mapping model was developed to map the flooding possibility for the study area based on the water height points derived from tweets and stream gauges. The identified patterns of Twitter activity were used to assign the weights of flood model parameters. The feasibility and accuracy of the model was evaluated by comparing the model output with official inundation maps. Results show that the proposed approach could provide a consistent and comparable estimation of the flood situation in near real time, which is essential for improving the situational awareness during a flooding event to support decision-making.