Ontological considerations in GIScience

Ontology is a significant research theme in GIScience. While some researchers believe that the progress in GIScience is being directed through an engagement with the concept of ontology, some dismiss it as irrelevant. This paper is aimed at (i) exploring the theoretical and practical roles of ontologies; (ii) making the definitions and terminology explicit; (iii) assessing the applicability of ontology to problems in the geographical domain; and (iv) assessing whether a unified approach to ontology exists in GIScience. The results will be helpful for GIScientists in (i) understanding the validity of employing ontology within their own work, (ii) assessing what operational framework of terms and methods to use for developing their own ontology, and (iii) to assess what existing ontological models are available and applicable within their domain or application. A comprehensive and critical review will also help in identifying the signficant issues and directing future research agenda in GIScience.     

融合式研究趋势下的地理信息教学体系探索

城市研究的范式在大数据和人工智能的影响下已经发生了巨大变化。本文根据城市研究及地理信息科学的发展历程和学科脉络,提出城市空间信息学是社会和产业需求导向的一个新兴知识领域,也是融合式研究趋势下地理信息教学和研究的一个发展方向。城市规划和地理信息科学两大类专业虽然具备孵化出城市空间信息学人才的学科基础,但是其学科体系都需要较大的改变才能实现突破;从现有的学科设置的体系看,地理空间信息工程专业由于提供了同时培养学生系统思维、空间思维和计算思维的框架,具备发展城市空间信息学本科教育的入口。本文在此基础上提出了城市空间信息工程本科专业的培养方案设计思路,期望能够对城市空间信息学的学科发展以及教学研究带来讨论契机,并推动地理信息学科和城市规划学科的可持续发展。     

Opening GIScience: A process-based approach

Many scholars have demonstrated growing interest in GIScience in recent years, including use of open data portals, shared code and options for open access publication. These practices have made both research and data more transparent and accessible for a broad audience. This research may be open only in a limited sense for populations without expertise in the technology and methods undergirding these data. Based on two case studies using RStudio’s Shiny web platform, we argue that a process-based approach focusing on how analysis is opened throughout the research process provides a supplementary way to define and reflect upon public facing geographic research. Reflecting upon decisions we made at key points in each case study project, we identify four key tensions inherent to work in open GIScience: standardized vs. flexible tools, expert vs. community-led design, single vs. multiple audiences and established vs. emerging metrics.     

Critical GIS pedagogies beyond ‘Week 10: Ethics’

Over two decades after the scholarly interventions that coalesced into ‘critical GIS’ as a field within GIScience, critical GIS remains underdeveloped in conversations on teaching and learning. The literature on GIScience education has emphasized content more than pedagogies – what to teach versus how to teach to move students toward particular learning objectives. This emphasis is reflected in dominant curricular approaches to critical GIS, in which questions around the complicated origins and complicit social, political, and economic relationships of GIS are taken up as discrete topics, tacked onto instruction that otherwise prioritizes technical dimensions of GIScience. We argue that GIScience coursework must resist such modularization by approaching critical GIS not as a set of topics, but an orientation to GIS praxis that ‘does’ GIS from within a questioning stance, to ask how we know. We outline specific curricular shifts and teaching practices we have used to foster this orientation in GIS students, offering ways of continually engaging students in practicing this orientation as they learn strong technical GIScience content. Finally, we trace the successes, challenges, and tensions sparked by these critical GIS pedagogies, drawing on student evaluation comments from our courses and reflecting on broader implications for GIScience instructors and geography faculty.     

地理计算及其前沿问题

地理计算是地理信息科学的核心内容之一, 主要研究地理信息科学的方法学问题, 内容 包括建模、算法、计算体系和一般方法学问题。本文介绍了地理计算的五个前沿问题: (1)地学数据 挖掘从地理学问题出发, 对各种数据作地理学的模型处理和结果计算以发现地理知识; (2)空间运 筹在地理学中的应用日益广泛, 它的算法更加简单严密、精度也更高; (3)多自主体系统模拟已经 成为地理学科学研究中除归纳和演绎之外的第三种重要研究方法; (4) 离散空间的定性计算是进 行地理空间计算的必要基础; (5)本体论的发展是地理信息科学乃至整个地理学发展的需要。     

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.     

GIS,Cartography, and the “Third Culture”: Geographic Imaginations in the Computer Age*

Geographic information systems (GIS) and cartography have traditionally been regarded as fields for the study of techniques. Yet the past ten years have witnessed geographers' increasing intellectual engagement with GIS and cartography. This essay recaps the recent intellectual discourses on GIS and cartography and speculates on possible development in the near future. Geocomputation, spatially integrated social sciences, social informatics, information ecology, and humanistic GIScience are identified as five areas of intensive new research, and it is argued that creative imaginations under the milieu of the “third culture” are urgently needed to address the challenging issues in this new technological era. Whether geography will become an intellectually more vibrant discipline hinges on the extent to which we can rekindle geographic imaginations in this computer age via GIScience to address issues of great societal concern.     

地理信息科学领域国际学术期刊等级的调查分析

2013 年7 月至8 月,作者开展了首次“中国地理信息科学（GISci） 领域科研人员心目中的本领域国际学术期刊等级”问卷调查,对回收的37 份问卷进行分析后得出了中国（含港澳台地区） GISci 领域科研人员心目中的本领域55 种国际学术期刊排名情况。比较了本次调查结果与国际上此前公布的唯一一次、但无中国学者参与的GISci 领域国际学术期刊等级问卷调查结果间的异同。与SCI/SSCI 期刊影响因子相比照,发现目前SCI/SSCI 检索期刊总体上能较好地覆盖GISci 领域的国际学术期刊,但SCI/SSCI 期刊影响因子尚不能较好体现中国学者心目中本领域期刊的等级。本次问卷调查结果的公布能够促进GISci 领域的中国青年科研人员及研究生对本领域学术期刊的了解,避免目前常常仅以影响因子来评价本领域国际学术期刊所产生的偏颇。     

Integrated Approaches,Multiple Scales: Snag Dynamics in Burned Versus Unburned Landscapes*

By studying landscape form and patterns, we can study processes at multiple scales and determine how collectively those processes inform us about function(s). Integrating landscape ecology from a biogeographical perspective with geographic information science (GIScience) practices offers new ways to study how landscapes change over time and space, including how they can be measured, analyzed, and modeled for management needs. This article presents methodologies and selected results of analyzing spatial patterns from field data across multiple scales by examining standing dead tree (snag) processes across wildfire‐disturbed landscapes in Arizona. Our primary motivation was to illustrate a particular type of work benefiting from the coalescing of landscape ecology and GIScience, functioning at the methodological and practical overlap of these two contributing fields. Our management goals were to (1) describe spatial patterns and characteristics of snags in pairs of burned and unburned ponderosa pine forests of Arizona in four recent (within the past ten years) wildfires, (2) document bird response to wildfires by combining landscape ecology and GIScience methods, and (3) link these patterns to snag monitoring plots and cavity‐nesting bird use to predict the probability of snag use by birds and cavity nesters based on snag characteristics (snag use model). The methods and results demonstrate how integration of landscape ecology with both GIS and GIScience improves the ways to study landscapes and land management issues, in this case offering guidelines for retention of snags that provide habitat for wildlife.     

A scientometric analysis of selected GIScience journals

A set of 12,436 papers published in 20 GIScience journals in the period 2000–2014 were analysed to extract publication patterns and trends. This comprehensive scientometric study focuses on multiple aspects: output volume, citations, national output and efficiency (output adjusted with econometric indicators), collaboration, altmetrics (Altmetric score, Twitter mentions, and Mendeley bookmarking), authorship, and length. Examples of notable observations are that 5% countries account for 76% of global GIScience output; a paper published 15 years ago received a median of 12 citations; and the share of international collaborations in GIScience has more than tripled since 2000 (31% papers had authors from multiple countries in 2014, an increase from 10% in 2000).     

A preliminary application GIS in glaciological research along the traverse route from Zhongshan Station to Dome A, Antarctica

GIS is applied in glaciological research along the traverse route from Zhongshan Station to Dome A, one of the key routes in ITASE project, to display, process, manage and analyze the data obtained mainly by the 3rd Chinese Inland Expedition, together with Antarctic databases provided by ADD and BEDMAP project. The ways of ADD data merging and clipping, and coordinate projection transformation of field data and BEDMAP data are introduced. Elevation data derived by GPS navigator are corrected using ADD and ArcView's contour interpolation. Sub ice topography and ice thickness along the route are extracted from BEDMAP database. Slope and aspect data are derived at each positioning station. GIS is a convenient and useful tool for us to record, query and display a variety of data in detail along the traverse route.     

Social Network Analysis of the Academic GIScience Community

There is mounting interest among scientists regarding the use of scientometric social network analysis, or quantitative analysis of the evolution of science as defined by individual researchers and the networks they form. Given that geographers have seldom used this approach compared to researchers in other fields, its implications for research and policy need to be assessed. We applied scientometric social network analysis to geographic information science (GIScience) to understand how the field has evolved over the last sixteen years and to assess the applicability of the standard logistic model of the growth of scientific disciplines. In particular, we examined collaboration in the field at multiple scales, namely, the evolution of the entire research network structure, the nature of subnetworks in defining geographic information science, and the roles individuals play within the community. By delineating how collaborations and research networks have evolved in GIScience, the study addresses the potential of scientometric social network analysis for geography.     

Using Digital Earth to Expose Students to GIScience

Students in U.S. geography programs face particular challenges that may discourage them from taking advanced GIScience courses and considering geospatial careers. This article provides a preliminary discussion of the development, delivery, and evaluation of a University of Colorado Colorado Springs sophomore-level, required geography course designed to address this concern. The course, Digital Earth (DE), introduces students to the principles, concepts, and applications of major geographic information technologies (GITs) early in their academic careers. The success of DE is evaluated by examining the extent to which the course excited students about GIScience and motivated them to take higher level elective geospatial courses. Results suggest that DE generates considerable student interest in GIScience, prepares students reasonably well for elective courses, and greatly inspires them to seek a geospatial career.     

A Review of “Economic Geography: Places,Networks, and Flows”

Landing a rescue helicopter in a wilderness environment, such as Yosemite National Park, requires suitable areas that are flat, devoid of tree canopy, and not within close proximity to other hazards. The objective of this study was to identify helicopter landing areas that are most likely to exist based on available geographic data using two GIScience methods. The first approach produced an expert model that was derived from predefined feature constraints based on existing knowledge of helicopter landing area requirements (weighted overlay algorithm). The second model is derived using a machine learning technique (maximum entropy algorithm, Maxent) that derives feature constraints from existing presence-only points; that is, geographic one-class data. Both models yielded similar output and successfully classified test coordinates, but Maxent was more efficient and required no user-defined weighting that is typically subject to human bias or disagreement. The pros and cons of each approach are discussed and the comparison reveals important considerations for a variety of future land suitability studies, including ecological niche modeling. The conclusion is that the two approaches complement each other. Overall, we produced an effective geographic information system product to support the identification of suitable landing areas in emergent rescue situations. To our knowledge, this is the first GIScience study focused on estimating the location of landing zones for a search-and-rescue application.     

GIS research to address tensions in geography

The rise of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies has been producing powerful tools for spatial data processing, management, analysis, modeling, and visualization. While supporting many tasks, GIS technologies have evoked new thinking and advanced intellectual inquiries in geography. Technological advances in other fields often stimulate new research questions and lead to revolutionary discoveries. The Hubble telescope revolutionizes our understanding of the universe, and 3D digital microscopes transform our knowledge of the coordination among biological, neurological, and physiological systems in living organisms. Can GIS claim similar revolutionary effects on geography? The answer is much up for debate. With GIS technologies, geographic studies can explore a broader extent across multiple scales in space and time and tackle problems through increasingly complex spatial statistics, visual analytics, computation, simulation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Both the Hubble telescope and 3D digital microscope were built based on scientific research that subserves the technological advances for inquiries into space and life systems. Likewise, GIScience research innovates GIS methods that enable novel geographic investigations and therefore contribute to geographic knowledge production. For the sake of simplicity, the term GIS used here represents both GIScience and GIS technologies. This essay attempts to clarify the intellectual contributions of GIS to geography on the following two questions: (1) What novel geographic thinking is driven by GIS? (2) How may GIS provoke new geographic inquiries and knowledge? Building on Nystuen's notion of four tensions that trigger geographic questions, the essay discusses how GIS innovations mediate historical tension, space‐time tension, dimensional tension and scale tensions.     

人文社会科学领域区域差异研究现状与趋势的文献计量分析

以SCIE/SSCI数据库为基础,对1990-2012年研究区域差异的国际论文进行科技文献计量分析,阐释国际区域差异领域的研究成果概况,揭示该领域的主要研究力量,发现不同作者、不同国家之间的合作情况,总结主要研究国家的研究差异并分析该领域主要研究趋势和未来研究热点。通过分析发现：哈佛大学、加州大学洛杉矶分校及伦敦热带和医学学院为该领域有突出贡献的主要研究机构。美国是在该领域研究成果数量和质量居首位的国家,中国发表文献数量不多,且文献质量有待提高,但海外华人学者对于亚洲和中国问题的研究使得其在该研究领域具有重要地位。区域差异研究国际合作在绝对数量和国家分布范围均呈明显增长和扩大趋势。国际区域差异的研究区域主要集中在国土面积较大的国家或区域,尤其是发展中国家及地区。研究内容重点由经济差异转向经济与社会差异并重,但由于不同研究区域又有所差异。研究方法在综合运用多种分析方法的趋势上,经济学分析方法和地理学方法的融合,特别是地理空间分析技术和方法在解决空间复杂现象和机制中的作用凸显。研究热点上全球化、教育、公共卫生与健康将会是未来区域差异研究热点方向。     

国内网站信息对人流导引作用机理研究综述

以多种期刊数据库和搜索引擎为检索源,评述国内网站信息流对人流导引作用研究的进展及需解决的问题,将国内该领域的研究分为导引作用相关要素间关系框架构建及单要素的研究、导引过程和导引机理的透视、网站信息流与现实人流的关联、信息流对人流导引力的模型设计与计算4部分。网站信息流、人流和导引方式等相关要素构成导引作用机理的框架,网站功能性和信息空间等单要素的研究奠定了网站信息流对人流导引作用机理的研究基础;通过综合旅游网站、留学网站和户外运动网站的实证研究,证明了网站信息流对人流的导引是一个信息决策和执行的过程;网站信息流与现实人流的关联研究不仅体现了网站访问者日内、周内、年内行为的时间分布特征,也构建了网站和访问者供需行为关系的多种模型;信息流自身具有极强的导引力,在距离衰减和替代效应问题上表现显著,将传统地理学区域研究推向一个新的阶段。     

1992-2012年国际生态足迹研究文献计量分析

生态足迹是可持续发展领域进行定量研究的重要方法。由于较强的可操作性和全球可比性等优点,自1992 年首次提出以来,得到相关研究机构和学者的广泛关注。以SCIE/SSCI 数据库为基础,对近20 年来有关生态足迹的文献进行计量分析,阐释该领域的研究概况,揭示主要研究力量,呈现不同作者、机构和国家之间的合作情况,分析主要国家的研究差异并探讨该领域未来研究趋势和热点。研究发现：① 加拿大生态经济学者Wackernagel是该领域重要的学者,不列颠哥伦比亚大学和悉尼大学是在该领域有突出贡献的研究机构,中国科学院和北京师范大学是在该领域有较大影响的中国研究机构;② 美国是在该领域研究成果数量与质量均居首位的国家,中国虽然文献数量排第三位,但文献质量有待提高;③ 该领域文献总量不多,但增长迅速,且国际合作呈显著扩大趋势;研究尺度日趋多元化且不断深入微观领域;研究方法日趋丰富与完善,与投入产出分析法、产品生命周期及能值分析等方法相结合是近期主要研究趋势,但不同国家的研究重点亦有所差异;④ 气候变化、碳足迹、生态足迹区域转移等将有可能成为生态足迹领域未来的研究热点。     

Are prominent mountains frequently mentioned in text? Exploring the spatial expressiveness of text frequency

Data-driven GIScience shows a growing interest in making spatial information from large text data. In this paper, we quantify and thus evaluate the relation between text frequency and properties of the outer-text, geographic setting by comparing text frequencies of mountain names to the respective geomorphometric characteristics. We focus on some 2000 unique mountain names that appear some 50,000 times in a large compilation of texts on Swiss alpine history. The results on the full data set suggest only a weak relation: only 5–10% of the variation in the text frequency being explained by the respective geomorphometric characteristics. However, an analysis of multiple scales allows us to identify a Simpson’s Paradox. What appears to be ‘noise’ in the analysis of all mountains in the whole of Switzerland shows significant local signals. Small spatial extents, found all over Switzerland, can show considerably strong correlations between text frequency and spatial prominence, with up to 90% of the total variation explained. We argue that our findings have practical implications for data-driven GIScience. Retrieving meaningful spatial information from text might only be possible if the spatial scale of analysis reflects the spatial scale described in the input text documents.     

Intelligent Transportation Systems and Travel Behavior in Connecticut

In the past decade, there has been significant investment in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technologies that provide information to both en‐route and pre‐trip travelers. However, there is no definitive evidence that en‐route travelers actually use the information and alter their travel patterns. Previous research employed surveys that relied on motorists' written or spoken responses to questions involving travel information and hypothetical roadway scenarios. This research examines travel behavior on freeways equipped with ITS technologies in Connecticut using collected real‐time traffic count data from the diversionary roadways. Results find that more travel is occurring on the diversionary routes during periods of variable message sign (VMS) messages than during equivalent periods having no messages, indicating a motorist travel response to these messages.