Making a Mark: a computational and visual analysis of one researcher’s intellectual domain

Dr. David Mark is widely regarded as a path-breaking researcher in geographic information science. What are the structural and temporal characteristics of his intellectual contributions, as seen through the eyes of the broader academic community? Aiming to answer that question, this article presents a scientometric analysis of publications that have been cited alongside David Mark’s papers. In deliberate contrast to the widespread focus on using citation data to condense scientific impact into a handful of indicators, the methodological contribution of this study lies in its mix of computational and visualization approaches. In the search for latent domain structures, state-of-the-art practices in information science, bibliometrics, and network visualization are combined and extended. An initial network of 50,000+ publications and 4,000,000+ document co-citations undergoes a series of transformations reducing it to 9000 publications that are then clustered in a two-stage process, leading to 678 communities whose co-citation linkages are used to delineate 19 super-communities. To enable replication of this approach for other studies, much focus in this article is on detailed discussion of that workflow as well as on highlighting the reasoning behind the choices made among data sources and analytical methods. The topical evolution of David Mark’s domain of influence is explored in some detail, based on tabular and graphic representations of extracted community structures. Results confirm not only the enormous overall breadth of his influence but also how lasting and recurrent it has been in some areas.     

卡斯特“网络社会理论”对于人文地理学的知识贡献

以引用曼纽尔·卡斯特《网络社会的崛起》的898篇英文文献和363篇中文文献为数据基础,综合运用引文内容分析和引文情境分析方法,基于中外引文的分析与对比,研究了“网络社会理论”对于人文地理学的知识贡献。研究发现：“流动空间”是国内外文献引用最多的理论观点,且国内研究的引用比例明显高于国外研究;国内外研究对于“网络社会理论”的关注点存在差异,国内研究主要聚焦于网络社会的外在空间形态及其的转型,而国外研究则更加关注网络社会的内在空间动力;引文内容承担着9种引用功能以及3类知识贡献,体现了“网络社会理论”对于人文地理学不同程度的影响。其中,批判性引用揭示了“网络社会理论”的不足之处,指出了“空间二元论”的抽象性、地方空间的重要性以及研究数据、方法和时代背景的局限性,为未来“网络社会理论”在人文地理学领域的应用与创新提供了新的启示。     

David Mark’s contribution to ethnophysiography research

This article describes Professor David Mark’s considerable contributions over the last 11 years to research in Ethnophysiography, the study of terms used for landscape features in different languages, and toponyms (place-names). His preceding research is briefly discussed to provide a summary of the foundation from which ethnophysiography emerged. This article describes the key stages of development of this new field, including David Mark’s collaborations with Andrew Turk, David Stea, and others. It briefly summarizes the key theories used and the two ethnophysiography case studies undertaken thus far. This article provides an overview of how this collaborative transdisciplinary area of research has developed. It highlights the importance of David Mark’s scholarship in this process and indicates some of the impacts of the research.     

Pow Choon-Piew's contributions to urban China studies

This commentary serves as a tribute to the late Pow, a remarkable scholar in urban geography and urban studies, summarizing his contributions to urban China studies. It aims to showcase the way in which Pow's work manoeuvred adroitly with an implicit comparative gesture—building a bridge between situated Chinese cases and wider theoretical debates in urban studies in order to enrich both domains. The essay then summarizes Pow's work in the field of urban China studies by focusing on two most emblematic topics that he delved into in great depth, i.e., gated communities and eco-city developments. The final section develops a brief quantitative analysis of the impact that Pow's work has generated. Using the software packages CiteSpace and HistCite, I unpack how his publications are cited and used by scholars, journals, and different areas of research.     

Geographers in Business,Government, and Nonprofit Organizations: Skills,Challenges, and Professional Identities

This study examines the experiences of geography graduates who work in business, government, and nonprofit organizations. We analyzed 352 logs from eighty-two professionals detailing professional activities, challenges, and opportunities during one work week each month, over a period of six months. Our analysis explores interpersonal relationships and working conditions affecting participants’ progress toward work goals, workplace climate, and professional identity. Geographic information systems and technology accounted for more than half of the geographic skills respondents reported using on the job, and administrative and leadership factors were the most commonly cited types of transferable skills. Professional geographers value collaborative workplaces as well as opportunities to work independently with the confidence of their supervisors, and their sense of a professional identity is enhanced when they feel valued and are recognized for their work. Professional development activities are important because they reinforce geographers’ sense of positively contributing to their organizations, enhance interpersonal interactions, facilitate work on specific projects, and expand individuals’ knowledge and skills. Moreover, our findings suggest that nearly half of the reported workplace difficulties could potentially be reduced or eliminated as a result of more and better professional development. Nonetheless, many employers do not consistently provide opportunities for professional development to their employees. Based on our analysis, we contend that professional development is a beneficial investment for lifelong learning, from undergraduate and graduate education throughout the entire course of a professional career.     

中国娱乐传媒产业全球生产网络的发展路径与地理特征

利用2012年和2017年《福布斯中国名人榜单》中娱乐明星行动轨迹数据探索中国娱乐传媒产业全球生产网络的空间组织模式。研究发现：① 中国娱乐传媒产业的全球化经历了“产品引进”“产品输出”“对外投资并购与跨国生产”几个阶段,具有明显的内需驱动式全球化特点;② 中国娱乐传媒产业生产网络形成较为明显的“核心-边缘”结构,相较于典型制造业生产网络表现出更加快速的动态演化特征;③ 娱乐传媒产业各类价值活动的地理分布呈现出显著的差异,反映出不同价值环节的需求与各区域平台、资源或市场条件的战略耦合关系;④ 中国娱乐传媒产业的国外活动呈现出向西方发达国家和亚洲邻近国家集聚的趋势,体现出发达国家主导的全球娱乐传媒市场结构以及“地理-文化邻近效应”的作用。     

基于文献引用关系和知识图谱的时空关系研究热点分析

本文采用“Web of Science”数据库收录的1999-2013年期间发表的探讨时空关系相关文献,包括2263篇直接文献和这些文献引用的78139篇参考文献为基础数据,采用Histcite软件构建时空关系研究文献数据库,结合Citespace软件对该数据库进行文献引用关系和知识图谱的可视化处理,并对热点文献进行解读与分析,从而分析时空关系研究的研究热点和发展趋势。研究发现:2000年前后,时空关系研究与GIS结合逐步突破了传统时间地理学研究的技术瓶颈和研究框架,迅速进入了一个文献爆炸的阶段,研究的内容逐步从时空行为的描述转向对时空关系的解释。随着时空GIS技术的不断成熟,本领域的研究更多地把时空行为作为一种变量,对各种时空现象和社会问题进行解释,而不仅仅是一个被描述和解释的对象,其学科应用价值将逐步突显。     

More than gentrification: geographies of capitalist displacement in Los Angeles 1994–1999

Little is understood about displacement in urban contexts. While some of the difficulties are methodological, the more serious problem is conceptual. Outside of the rent gap hypothesis or the philosophy of property rights, there has been little theoretical inquiry into the causal dynamics of displacement. In this article, I present a study of evictions in Los Angeles that addresses these conceptual and empirical shortcomings. A spatial analysis of more than 70,000 georeferenced evictions between 1994 and 1999 documents the existence of four distinct geographies of displacement, each produced by separate types of causal circumstances. Gentrification explains only one of the four displacement geographies, while the other three are nongentrifying or pre-gentrifying contexts and more appropriately described through growth machine models, global city theory, and financial restructuring. The extent of displacement in pre- and nongentrifying areas reinforces Mark Davidson’s emphasis on Lefebvre’s production of space as a crucial framework for understanding displacement processes.     

胡焕庸的地缘战略思想及其时代价值

胡焕庸是著名地理学家、地理教育家,中国人文地理学奠基人之一、地缘政治研究先驱和杰出的地缘战略家。本文首次系统梳理胡焕庸鲜为人知的地缘战略研究成果及学术思想,发掘其在当今复杂国际地缘政治形势下的时代价值。胡焕庸以时代问题为导向,以历史使命为驱动,发表诸多地缘战略研究成果,为后世留下许多经典隽永的学术思想,包括系统论证南海诸岛属于中国,并首次命名南沙群岛,全面分析中国发展的地缘安全形势,预判日本侵华企图及美日冲突的必然性,重视边疆治理与国防建设,多次强烈呼吁收回琉球群岛,强调地理学家是国家开疆拓土先锋,倡导地理学与国防教育结合等。在世界百年未有之大变局和中华民族伟大复兴的时代背景下,传承和弘扬胡焕庸的地缘战略思想,尤具现实意义。     

Geographic space as a living structure for predicting human activities using big data

Inspired by Christopher Alexander’s conception of the world – space is not lifeless or neutral, but a living structure involving far more small things than large ones – a topological representation has been previously developed to characterize the living structure or the wholeness of geographic space. This paper further develops the topological representation and living structure for predicting human activities in geographic space. Based on millions of street nodes of the United Kingdom extracted from OpenStreetMap, we established living structures at different levels of scale in a nested manner. We found that tweet locations at different levels of scale, such as country and city, can be well predicted by the underlying living structure. The high predictability demonstrates that the living structure and the topological representation are efficient and effective for better understanding geographic forms. Based on this major finding, we argue that the topological representation is a truly multiscale representation, and point out that existing geographic representations are essentially single scale, so they bear many scale problems such as modifiable areal unit problem, the conundrum of length and the ecological fallacy. We further discuss on why the living structure is an efficient and effective instrument for structuring geospatial big data, and why Alexander’s organic worldview constitutes the third view of space.     

日常活动地建成环境对老年人主观幸福感的影响

建成环境对老年人主观幸福感的影响是老龄化地理学的热点话题,仅从居住地视角探讨建成环境影响可能导致研究结果偏差。为更精确揭示老年人日常活动所处场所建成环境与主观幸福感的关系,利用问卷调查等数据,基于老年人日常活动的时空模式及活动地建成环境特征,采用逻辑回归模型对比不同日常活动地建成环境要素对广州市老年人主观幸福感的影响。研究发现：老年人的主观幸福感受到不同活动地建成环境的共同影响,其中,居住地与日常活动空间建成环境对老年人主观幸福感影响的模型伪R²最大,而维护性活动地与休闲性活动地能反映出仅考虑居住地视角下忽略的部分建成环境变量。由于老年人在不同活动地的停驻时长、频率和目的不同,日常活动地建成环境对老年人主观幸福感的影响机制也存在差异,主要通过影响不同活动地相应的活动机会和出行环境产生作用。结论从老年人群日常活动的角度补充了时空间行为研究,有助于为老年主动健康服务供给与老龄宜居城市建设提供科学支撑。     

The world,the computer,and the mind: how Andrew Frank helped make human language and cognition cornerstones of geographic information science

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, cognitive science was included as one of the key disciplines in the emerging multidisciplinary field of geographic information science (GIScience). One of the key proponents and popularizers of the study of human cognition as part of GIScience – and one of its major researchers – has been Andrew U. Frank. In this essay, we review the history of Andrew Frank’s role as an innovator and champion for cognitive GIScience, and summarize some of his research contributions in this domain. Taken along with his contributions to other areas of GIScience, this review shows that Andrew Frank has been one of the primary figures in modern GIScience, and among its very broadest and intellectually-diverse contributors.     

The fractal nature of maps and mapping

A fractal can be simply understood as a set or pattern in which there are far more small things than large ones, for example, far more small geographic features than large ones on the earth surface, or far more large-scale maps than small-scale maps for a geographic region. This article attempts to argue and provide evidence for the fractal nature of maps and mapping. It is the underlying fractal structure of geographic features, either natural or man-made, that make reality mappable, large-scale maps generalizable, and cities imageable. The fractal nature is also what underlies the beauty of maps. After introducing some key fractal concepts such as recursion, self-similarity, scaling ratio, and scaling exponent, this article demonstrates that fractal thought is rooted in long-standing map-making practices such as series maps subdivision, visual hierarchy, and Töpfer’s radical law. Drawing on previous studies on head/tail breaks, mapping can be considered a head/tail breaks process; that is to divide things around an average, according to their geometric, topological and/or semantic properties, into the head (for those above the average) and the tail (for those below the average), and recursively continue the dividing process for the head for map generalization, statistical mapping, and cognitive mapping. Given the fractal nature of maps and mapping, cartography should be considered a perfect combination of science and art, and scaling must be formulated as a law of cartography or that of geography in general.     

Emergy-based environmental accounting toward a sustainable Mongolia

An emergy-based environmental accounting of Mongolia is presented based on the data from 1995 to 2012. By calculating natural and economic inputs and a series of emergy indicators, this paper discusses Mongolia’s resource use structure, economic situation, trade status and societal sustainability. The results show that the total emergy use for Mongolia changed from 2.83×10²² sej in 1995 to 4.96×10²² sej in 2012, representing a 75% increase over the 18 years of this study, yet its emergy per capita remains one of the lowest in the world (1.74×10¹⁶ sej/capita). The emergy money ratio (EMR) of Mongolia during 1995–2012 decreased from 1.99×10¹³ sej/USD to 7.75×10¹² sej/USD, which indicates that the power of a dollar for purchasing real wealth in Mongolia was declining, while the relatively high absolute values compared to its trading partners and even the world average EMR suggests that Mongolia is continuing a trade disadvantage. Mongolia’s emergy exchange ratio is increasingly less than one to the point that in 2012 the ratio was 0.3 suggesting that the exported emergy was over 3.3 times greater than the imported emergy. The growing dependence on imports and the dramatic increase in exports suggests that Mongolia’s economy is increasingly vulnerable to downturns in the world economy.     

A Road to Conflict: Stakeholder’s and Social Network Analysis of the Media Portrayals of a Social-Environmental Conflict in Bolivia

Society’s understanding of a conflict is mediated by information provided in mass media, for which researchers stress the importance of analyzing media portrays of stakeholders in a conflict. We analyze information from the Bolivian press regarding the construction of a road crossing the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS). Using stakeholder’s and social network analyses, we explore stakeholder’s positions and alliances as represented in the media and contrast it with previous scholarly work. We found that some actors cited as central in scholar analyses of the conflict are largely absent in the media (e.g., private investors, conservationist sector) and that the media tend to present stakeholders as having more homogeneous positions than the academic literature does while also neglecting some important alliances in their account. The media also suggests that Indigenous communities are forging stronger alliances with urban sectors and civil society, alliances not stressed by researchers.     

Rewriting the book of the city: on old signs,new technologies,and reinventing Adelaide

Can a sense of ownership over constantly changing urban places be generated through pedestrian exploration and everyday digital media practice? This paper begins with the author’s visit to the city of Adelaide, where a chance encounter – an intriguing sign painted on the wall of a city building – led to a hunt through the city for ghost signs, the remnants of old hand-painted advertisements. This spontaneous activity, combined with the online exploration and image sharing that followed, generated a renewed feeling of connection to, and ownership over, an erstwhile familiar locale. The experience is analysed through the work of theorists investigating change and belonging in modern cities including Guy Debord, Doreen Massey, Michel de Certeau, Andreas Huyssen, and Mark Crinson, as well as the contemporary growth in both politically inspired urban exploring (“Urbex” or “place hacking”) and the digital documentation and sharing of ghost signs and other urban ephemera.     

中国户外旅游回顾与展望——基于外国学者视角①

本文中我从一个外国学者的视角,透视了中国近30多年来户外旅游的成长与发展。虽然不懂中文,但在过去很多年中我屡次受中国科学院之邀,有幸探访了中国一些优秀的户外旅游目的地,观察到了其在社会、经济和环境方面发生的变化。外国学者的视角总会比中国学者有更大的局限性,但也仍然有可能提供一个有益的参照或者补充。     

Reflections and speculations on the progress in Geographic Information Systems (GIS): a geographic perspective

Great strides have been made in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) research over the past half-century. However, this progress has created both opportunities and challenges. From a geographic perspective, certain challenges remain, including the modelling of geographic-featured environments with GIS data model, the enhancement of GIS’s analysis functions for comprehensive geographic analysis and achieving human-oriented geographic information presentation. Several basic theoretical and technical ideas that follow the workflow and processes of geographic information induction, geographic scenario modelling, geographic process analysis and geographic environment representation are proposed to fill the gaps between GIS and geography. We also call for designing methods for big geographic data-oriented analysis, making best use of videos and developing virtual geographic scenario-based GIS for further evolution.     

Folk housing revisited

As Fred Kniffen observed, vernacular buildings identify culture and record our relationships with physical and social environment. Influenced by Kniffen, twentieth‐century cultural geographers used spatially correlated log homebuilding attributes as diagnostics. The present study used a qualitative meta‐study approach to evaluate studies citing such correlations in the eastern temperate forests of North America. Forty‐two studies involving sixty‐three geographic entities and twenty‐two attribute types were evaluated. The meta‐study's findings were consistent with an Eastern Woodlands regional model described by Kniffen, Terry Jordan, and Wilbur Zelinsky. A majority of the spatially correlated attributes involved building materials, cited cultural and/or environmental influences to explain their findings, and cited correlations at state/province or county scales. Today, identification of building culture undoubtedly continues to offer potential guidance to sustainability efforts, and, although untapped, vernacular building continues to offer potential as a key diagnostic.