Head/Tail Breaks: A New Classification Scheme for Data with a Heavy-Tailed Distribution

This article introduces a new classification scheme—head/tail breaks—to find groupings or hierarchy for data with a heavy-tailed distribution. The heavy-tailed distributions are heavily right skewed, with a minority of large values in the head and a majority of small values in the tail, commonly characterized by a power law, a lognormal, or an exponential function. For example, a country's population is often distributed in such a heavy-tailed manner, with a minority of people (e.g., 20 percent) in the countryside and the vast majority (e.g., 80 percent) in urban areas. This new classification scheme partitions all of the data values around the mean into two parts and continues the process iteratively for the values (above the mean) in the head until the head part values are no longer heavy-tailed distributed. Thus, the number of classes and the class intervals are both naturally determined. I therefore claim that the new classification scheme is more natural than the natural breaks in finding the groupings or hierarchy for data with a heavy-tailed distribution. I demonstrate the advantages of the head/tail breaks method over Jenks's natural breaks in capturing the underlying hierarchy of the data.     

The Geography of Mutual Fund Assets

Mutual funds are the primary investment vehicle for individual retirement savings, but the spatial aspects of mutual fund investments have not been examined. This paper discusses the characteristics of the mutual fund industry and compares them to other financial industries. Previous studies of the financial industry and quaternary location theory are used to formulate three hypotheses predicting the distribution of mutual fund assets: (1) mutual fund assets will concentrate in the largest urban centers; (2) mutual fund assets will become increasingly concentrated in financial centers over the 1986-1996 period; and (3) the distribution of mutual fund assets will be similar to the distribution of other financial activities. Examination of mutual fund asset data from 1986 and 1996 did not fully support any of the three hypotheses. These findings suggest that the standard elements of quaternary location theory may need to be reevaluated.     

Population landscape: a geometric approach to studying spatial patterns of the US urban hierarchy

We present a geometric and graphic approach to studying spatial patterns of urban hierarchy in the US. The multiplicatively weighted Voronoi diagram is found to be effective for visualizing theoretical regions delineated by socio‐economic variables. The population landscape of the continental US demonstrates overall and stepwise patterns reflecting population, neighborhood and distance, with overwhelming influence from huge metropolitan areas. Stepwise exploration and cluster analysis of the spatial pattern reveal an urban hierarchy. Attributes and arrangement are the two important factors of urban hierarchy, with attribute having a stronger local influence and arrangement having a stronger global influence. The study also presents a variation of Zipf's law to visualize the rank‐size distribution from tabular and statistical space to map space.     

The temporal hierarchy of shelters: a hierarchical location model for earthquake-shelter planning

The problem of emergency facility location is a critical component in evacuation planning. The emergence of geographic information systems (GIS) has provided a useful operational platform to assist this issue. A previously overlooked facet is the consideration of a hierarchical structure in the placement of emergency shelters. Due to the fact that survivors' needs change over time during post-disaster evacuations, shelters have now been categorized on a temporal scale based on their functions at different evacuation phases. This article proposes a three-level hierarchical location model for optimizing the placement of earthquake shelters by taking into account this temporal variance. The article not only scrutinizes the modeling procedure but also implements the model in a planning area with many real-world details. Based on the optimization results derived from a GIS context, we have found that the quality of the earthquake response procedure is not only dependent on the placement strategy of shelters, but more importantly on the financial constraints imposed on the planning and construction of these shelters. A discussion has been proposed to balance the trade-off between budget planning and evacuation efficiency. As the first attempt to model the hierarchical configuration of emergency shelters with specific focus on evacuees' escalating sheltering demands, this article will be of great significance in helping policy makers consider both the spatial and financial aspects of the strategic placement of emergency shelters.     

Integration of linear and areal hierarchies for continuous multi-scale representation of road networks

Spatial data can be represented at different scales, and this leads to the issue of multi-scale spatial representation. Multi-scale spatial representation has been widely applied to online mapping products (e.g., Google Maps and Yahoo Maps). However, in most current products, multi-scale representation can only be achieved through a series of maps at fixed scales, resulting in a discontinuity (i.e., with jumps) in the transformation between scales and a mismatch between the available scales and users' desired scales. Therefore, it is very desirable to achieve smoothly continuous multi-scale spatial representations. This article describes an integrated approach to build a hierarchical structure of a road network for continuous multi-scale representation purposes, especially continuous selective omission of roads in a network. In this hierarchical structure, the linear and areal hierarchies are constructed, respectively, using two existing approaches for the linear and areal patterns in a road network. Continuous multi-scale representation of a road network can be achieved by searching in these hierarchies. This approach is validated by applying it to two study areas, and the results are evaluated by both quantitative analysis with two measures (i.e., similarity and average connectivity) and visual inspection. Experimental results show that this integrated approach performs better than existing approaches, especially in terms of preservation of connectivity and patterns of a road network. With this approach, efficient and continuous multi-scale selective omission of road networks becomes feasible.     

IMPACT OF THE SOUTHERN OSCILLATION ON THE NORTH AMERICAN SOUTHWEST MONSOON

The intensity and spatial variations in the North American Southwest Monsoon are examined to determine the influence of the Southern Oscillation. Sixty-five years (1920–1984) of July and August monthly precipitation data from Arizona and New Mexico are normalized using a square root transformation, converted into z-scores, and stratified according to onset and following years for Warm Events and Cold Events of the Southern Oscillation. The results for July reveal different spatial patterns in the monsoonal precipitation for the extremes of the Southern Oscillation. Warm-Event onset years are associated with positive precipitation anomalies that decline along a northeast-to-southwest gradient across the study area whereas the Cold-Event onset years produce highest positive values in west-central Arizona and negative values throughout the eastern two-thirds of the study area. Spatial patterns for the August precipitation data do not appear to be influenced by the extremes of the Southern Oscillation. [Key words: Southwest Monsoon, Southern Oscillation, Arizona, New Mexico.]     

Interrelations between socio-economic development and environmental quality: a simulation integrating system dynamics models with GIS

System dynamics (SD) theory has long been deployed in modeling complex non-linear interrelationships but, so far it has not been common to do the kind of modeling in support of bringing environmental sustainability policies to practice. This is largely because the challenge of including spatial data has not yet been well met. Potential for adoption of SD and GIS methods in combination is exemplified with the results of a decision-support exercise designed for simulation and prediction of the dynamic inter-relationships between socio-economic development and environmental quality for the “Wen, Pi, Du” county in Sichuan province, southwestern China.     

城市群经济发展水平综合评价指标体系及方法研究—以中原城市群为例

在全球化和区域经济一体化的背景下,区域之间的竞争已经演变成以中心城市及其周边紧密结合所形成的城市群之间的竞争.城市群已经成为区域参与全球分工、竞争和合作的重要经济实体.本文构建了城市群经济发展水平综合评价指标体系,利用AHP法确定了各指标的权重,提出了综合评价模型.以中原城市群为例,利用2004年和2007年两个发展时...     

基于层次分析法的隧道综合地质预报优化

隧道综合地质预报是解决隧道施工期地质问题、降低施工风险的一项重要技术手段.鉴于目前综合预报多为简单的数量上的综合,为更加有效地利用综合预报技术,首先归纳地质分析辨识常见不良地质体的方法,通过地质分析法初步判定隧道掌子面前方可能存在的地质异常,并结合层次分析法的基本思路,将影响预报手段的指标量化,即赋予预报方法权重,建立...     

层次分析法在新疆卡姆斯特煤矿区煤炭资源评价中的应用

卡姆斯特煤矿区煤炭资源储量丰富,但煤田地质工作程度低,勘探开发滞后,已不能适应阿勒泰地区经济发展对矿产开发的需求。为缓解阿勒泰地区煤炭紧缺状况,依据勘探程度、构造复杂程度、煤层露头线及煤层1 000m深部界线等因素圈定三巴斯陶、塔哈拉巴斯塔乌、喀拉萨依等3个含煤远景区作为煤炭资源评价单元,将资源条件、开采技术条件、开发条件和开发效益等影响煤炭资源评价的要素细化为29个评价参数,运用层次分析法（AHP）建立煤炭资源评价模型,构建对比矩阵,确定评价参数权值总排序。根据各评价对象的调查成果,结合专家意见给出各参数隶属度权值,利用乘积法得出评价对象的综合评价隶属度：三巴斯陶为0.627 5,塔哈拉巴斯塔乌为0.700 5,喀拉萨依为0.682 7。根据该结果,认为塔哈拉巴斯塔乌含煤远景区煤炭资源综合条件较好,可作为下一步勘查工作的首选区。