A Review of “An Everyday Geography of the Global South”

Human interactions with the marine environment and pollution hold broad lessons for understanding environmental change. Expanding geographical inquiry beyond its traditional, land-based foci and delving deeper into marine environment and risk issues offers fruitful avenues by which to elaborate and refine our understanding of nature-society relationships. I present a case study of marine petroleum transportation risks in the Straits of Malacca to illustrate the complex history of political and economic processes across a range of scales and shaping the risks in the Straits. The inescapable tension between generalizing global social and environmental processes and recognizing the array of local differences drives ongoing policy debates in the Straits, as it does increasingly for many global environmental problems.     

THE FAILURE OF FEDERALISM IN CENTRAL AFRICA: A POLITICO-GEOGRAPHICAL POSTMORTEM

Basic concepts of cultural historical geography have been applied to a variety of community issues in St. Paul, MN. Through the process a sense of place has been developed at several scales. This inclusive sense of place has provided a link among various factions and made possible several compromises in land use and economic development issues. Most of the work was done through undergraduate field seminars.     

Constructing Risk: multi-scale change,livelihoods and vulnerability in the Mekong Delta,Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Change has been at the heart of the livelihoods concept since its inception, allowing for a clear focus on how people perceive, respond to and experience risk. The ardent focus on ‘the local’ within livelihoods work, both in research and programmatic terms, has to some extent overshadowed attention on the role of wider-scale political economic and environmental processes in generating change and determining responses to change. Livelihoods in the Mekong Delta have never been ‘local’, having long been historically embedded in international, regional and national economic, political and environmental transformations. Drivers of change at these wider scales have intensified, complicating local responses to change, whether through economic, social or political means. A more nuanced appreciation of how scaled relations can be supported is required to better anticipate and respond to the political ecology of risk.     

Statistical Power Analysis And Geography 1

The genesis of most urban problems can only be understood in the context of the capitalist global economy in which the geography of development is necessarily countered by a geography of underdevelopment, at all spatial scales. Realization of this fundamental point implies that urban problems can never be solved within a capitalist context, only spatially rearranged. Geographers concerned with inequalities are therefore faced with a dilemma: either they work to redistribute welfare and illfare in the world or they work for the unmasking and replacement of capitalism.     

The role for a geographical information system in a large environmental project

Abstract

A geographical information system (GIS) has proved to be a valuable tool in the Direct/Delayed Response Project—a comprehensive examination of the future, long-term chemical response of surface waters to acidic deposition. The role of the GIS within the project includes aggregation, analysis and display of various forms, scales and projections of environmental data related to acidic deposition. The GIS is particularly valuable for effectively communicating key scientific findings and results of regional, national and international importance to a diverse audience.     

A geographical information system for some Mediterranean benthic communities

Abstract

This paper describes a regional geographical information system (GIS) for some Mediterranean benthic communities. The area covered by the GIS lies between the cities of La Ciotat and Giens in southeast France. The distinctive characteristics of this GIS compared with others usually described in the literature, are that all its layers describe the same theme but as seen at different moments with different scales and techniques used by different oceanographers. A method was devised to synthesize, on a pixel basis, the content of all these layers. Each pixel within each layer is weighted with a function relating to the year of survey, the sampling technique and the scale of the original map corresponding to that layer. The synthesis map is composed of the highest weighted values found in the set of layers. Also at each pixel, conflicts between the contents of layers are quantified and mapped.     

Using multi-scale and hierarchical deep convolutional features for 3D semantic classification of TLS point clouds

ABSTRACT

Point cloud classification, which provides meaningful semantic labels to the points in a point cloud, is essential for generating three-dimensional (3D) models. Its automation, however, remains challenging due to varying point densities and irregular point distributions. Adapting existing deep-learning approaches for two-dimensional (2D) image classification to point cloud classification is inefficient and results in the loss of information valuable for point cloud classification. In this article, a new approach that classifies point cloud directly in 3D is proposed. The approach uses multi-scale features generated by deep learning. It comprises three steps: (1) extract single-scale deep features using 3D convolutional neural network (CNN); (2) subsample the input point cloud at multiple scales, with the point cloud at each scale being an input to the 3D CNN, and combine deep features at multiple scales to form multi-scale and hierarchical features; and (3) retrieve the probabilities that each point belongs to the intended semantic category using a softmax regression classifier. The proposed approach was tested against two publicly available point cloud datasets to demonstrate its performance and compared to the results produced by other existing approaches. The experiment results achieved 96.89% overall accuracy on the Oakland dataset and 91.89% overall accuracy on the Europe dataset, which are the highest among the considered methods.     

Addressing Integration Challenges of Interdisciplinary Research in Social-Ecological Systems

Abstract

Conducting research on coupled social-ecological systems (SESs) presents inherent challenges, such as coordination across disparate disciplines or integrating across multiple scales and levels of governance. To overcome these common challenges, we propose that structuring the research design itself according to SES principles provides for integrative execution of SES science. First, starting with pilot work, human and natural science researchers should work as a team to identify and access multi-level entry points (i.e. points of direct engagement) within the system, relative to the spatiotemporal scales under investigation. Second, teams should implement an adaptive process that begins with the proposed research design and uses shared experiences from pilot work to refine protocols prior to subsequent data collection. We provide examples of multi-level and multi-scale entry points, and show that adaptive management of research design through coordinated iteration allows for better research integration and applicable outcomes.     

Size and spatial distribution of loess slides on the Chinese Loess Plateau

ABSTRACT

The size and spatial distribution of loess slides are important for estimating the yield of eroded materials and determining the landslide risk. While previous studies have investigated landslide size distributions, the spatial distribution pattern of landslides at different spatial scales is poorly understood. The results indicate that the loess slide distribution exhibits a power-law scaling across a range of the size distribution. The mean landslide size and size distribution in the different geomorphic types are different. The double Pareto and inverse gamma functions can coincide well with the empirical probability distribution of the loess slide areas and can quantitatively reveal the rollover location, maximum probability, and scaling exponents. The frequency of loess slides increases with mean monthly precipitation. Moreover, point distance analysis showed that > 80% of landslides are located < 3 km from other loess slides. We found that the loess slides at the two study sites (Zhidan and Luochuan County) in northern Shaanxi Province, China show a significant clustered distribution. Furthermore, analysis results of the correlated fractal dimension show that the landslides exhibit a dispersed distribution at smaller spatial scales and a clustered distribution at larger spatial scales.     

A Multiresolution topographic surface database

Abstract

Multiresolution data structures provide a means of retrieving geographical features from a database at levels of detail which are adaptable to different scales of representation. A database design is presented which integrates multi-scale storage of point, linear and polygonal features, based on the line generalization tree, with a multi-scale surface model based on the Delaunay pyramid. The constituent vertices of topologically-structured geographical features are thus distributed between the triangulated levels of a Delaunay pyramid in which triangle edges are constrained to follow those features at differing degrees of generalization. Efficient locational access is achieved by imposing a spatial index on each level of the pyramid.     

Variable complexity of the US Continental Divide trace

Abstract

Map-view complexity of 65 contiguous segments of the conterminous US Continental Divide trace was evaluated by the divider method, with each segment’s geometry approximated by a fractal dimension (D) value, or two D values applying to fine and coarse scales of inspection. Results support a generalization that D values in the range 1.05–1.12 are typical for drainage divides viewed at regional to national scales. However about 20% of cases reviewed in this study are smoother (D = 1.01–1.04) or more complex (D = 1.13–1.18) traces. Complexities of these watershed boundary segments show no significant correlation with physiographic province or local relief. The primary influence of bedrock lithology and surface process is seen in zones of Quaternary volcanism, where uncommonly smooth and highly complex divide trace segments are more the rule than exception. Uncommonly smooth divide traces are also found descending mountain pediments in areas of parallel drainage, and some of the most tortuous traces are associated with drainage patterns disrupted by non-fluvial processes. Divide trace segments crossing terrain with uniform lithology show decreased complexity, but traces with the broadest range of complexity, including highest D values, occur in areas with moderate, not extreme, degrees of bedrock diversity.     

Mapping the Geographical Diffusion of a Finnish Smallpox Epidemic from Historical Population Records

Smallpox mortality from an early 19th century epidemic in Finland is mapped at the parish village level. First, geographically referenced historical materials are used to construct a map showing the spread of smallpox mortality among villages. Next, the diffusion of smallpox morbidity is simulated by computer for the same set of villages. These two maps are then compared. Results indicate that at this scale maps of mortality diffusion can show general trends but have no direct spatial correspondence to the underlying pattern of morbidity diffusion. Mortality maps cannot be used as a surrogate measure of infectious contact behavior at micro scales of analysis.     

Assessment as a Diagnostic Tool

Abstract

This paper introduces the development and validation of the Test of Geography-Related Attitudes (ToGRA). The ToGRA measures student attitude on four discrete scales: 1) leisure interest in geography; 2) enjoyment of geographic education; 3) career interest in geography; and 4) interest in place. The ToGRA was validated from a field test sample of 388 ninth-grade World Geography students who responded to the Web-based instrument. Statistical analyses were performed on these data in order to enhance the overall scale characteristics and to determine construct validity. The resultant survey is the first validated affective-trait measurement instrument available to secondary-level researchers and practitioners.     

Lessons Learned from Reviewing Research in GIS Education

Abstract

Traditional lectures generally force students to play a passive role in the classroom. In an effort to promote active learning, we added discussion sections to a large lecture hall course. Field trips, student journals, and group-based assignments, in particular, enhanced the learning experience. To ensure the success of the new format, course planners must enlist the sustained cooperation of key faculty and administrators on campus, as well as teaching assistants assigned to the new sections. The new discussion sections allowed students to acknowledge the environmental impact their actions have on campus and to recognize that environmental problems occur at multiple scales.     

A regionalization method for clustering and partitioning based on trajectories from NLP perspective

ABSTRACT

Regionalization attempts to group units into a few subsets to partition the entire area. The results represent the underlying spatial structure and facilitate decision-making. Massive amounts of trajectories produced in the urban space provide a new opportunity for regionalization from human mobility. This paper proposes and applies a novel regionalization method to cluster similar areal units and visualize the spatial structure by considering all trajectories in an area into a word embedding model. In this model, nodes in a trajectory are regarded as words in a sentence, and nodes can be clustered in the feature space. The result depicts the underlying socio-economic structure at multiple spatial scales. To our knowledge, this is the first regionalization method from trajectories with natural language processing technology. A case study of mobile phone trajectory data in Beijing is used to validate our method, and then we evaluate its performance by predicting the next location of an individual’s trajectory. The case study indicates that the method is fast, flexible and scalable to large trajectory datasets, and moreover, represents the structure of trajectory more effectively.     

Sensitivity of disease cluster detection to spatial scales: an analysis with the spatial scan statistic method

ABSTRACT

The spatial scan statistic method has been widely used for detecting disease clusters. Its results may be affected by scales, including the aggregation level of the input data and the population threshold used in the detection. Previous studies offered inconsistent findings, and few had considered both types of scales at the same time. Using 24 simulated datasets and two real disease datasets, we investigated the method’s sensitivity to the two types of scales. We aggregated the individual-level data into areal units of three levels, including county, town, and a 900 m grid. We detected clusters with three population thresholds, including 10%, 25%, and 50%. We used two measurements, distance between cluster centres and the Jaccard index, to quantify the consistency of clusters detected with different scale settings. We find: (1) the method is not greatly sensitive to the data aggregation level when the cluster is strong and in a place with high population density; (2) the method’s sensitivity to the population threshold is determined by the actual size of the true cluster; and (3) a regular grid with fine resolution is advantageous over the subjectively defined areal units. The process and findings may have broader meanings to similar spatial analyses.     

Statistical Tests In The Absence Of Samples: A Comment

Abstract

Manufacturing employment has steadily declined in the Charlotte metropolitan area, with significant losses occurring in textiles, apparel, and related industries. Production activity remains widespread in the region, however, both in terms of the number of manufacturers and workers and the wide range of industries in which they are involved. Evidence from a survey of manufacturers within the Charlotte region indicates that a number of firms continue to succeed despite various competitive issues on the local and national scales. This article examines these challenges, their implications, and the strategies used to address these issues. Overall, manufacturers across the region are in a period of rapid change.     

Teachers as Learners Examine Land-Use Change in the Local Environment Using Remote Sensing Imagery

Abstract

In environmental science education, learners are exposed to earth phenomena that occur across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. However, it is challenging for learners to grasp the significance of spatial and temporal change because they have limited perspectives of the Earth. Within the scientific community, remotely sensed imagery is used for observing the Earth as a system. These same tools can be applied at all levels in environmental science education to help learners understand and visualize earth change. In this article, the experiences of teachers as learners are described as they conducted a temporal analysis of a local wetland using aerial photography in an inquiry-based activity.     

青藏高原不同时段气候变化的研究综述

1 Introduction The annual mean world temperature increased by about 0.6℃ from the late 1800s to the 1980s (Wang, 1994). The global environmental change is marked with “global warming” and its possible effects on the ecosystem as well as the production …