Digital Commons Network^™

Beyond The Tide: A Comprehensive Guide To Sea-Level-Rise Inundation Mapping Using Foss4g, Levente Juhasz, Jinwen Xu, Randall W. Parkinson

GIS Center

No abstract provided.

Towards Understanding The Geospatial Skills Of Chatgpt: Taking A Geographic Information Systems (Gis) Exam, Peter Mooney, Wencong Cui, Boyuan Guan, Levente Juhasz

GIS Center

This paper examines the performance of ChatGPT, a large language model (LLM), in a geographic information systems (GIS) exam. As LLMs like ChatGPT become increasingly prevalent in various domains, including education, it is important to understand their capabilities and limitations in specialized subject areas such as GIS. Human learning of spatial concepts significantly differs from LLM training methodologies. Therefore, this study aims to assess ChatGPT's performance and ability to grasp geospatial concepts by challenging it with a real GIS exam. By analyzing ChatGPT's responses and evaluating its understanding of GIS principles, we gain insights into the potential applications and challenges …

Ethical Data Considerations For Engaging In Reparative Archival Practice, Jamie Rogers, Rhia Rae

Works of the FIU Libraries

Archival textually-rich materials--such as warranty deeds, mortgages, legal documents, and letter correspondence--can provide valuable historical insights, and if transcribed and analyzed, can produce data points in the form of unstructured text, tabular data, and geospatial assets. This presentation will provide an overview of the process Florida International University librarians went through to turn the papers of Dana A. Dorsey, Miami's first Black Millionaire, into data. Their work is guided by the concept of "collections as data" as a form of reparative archival practice, enabling the elevation of marginalized individuals' histories. The goal of reparative archival practice is to create a …

Utilizing Large Language Models In Geographic Contexts - Experiences From The Fiu Gis Center, Levente Juhasz, Boyuan Guan

GIS Center

South Florida GIS Explo 2023. West Palm Beach, FL

Spatial And Temporal Analysis Of Location And Usage Of Public Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure In The United States, Levente Juhasz, Hartwig H. Hochmair

GIS Center

Switching to electric vehicles (EVs) has increased rapidly over recent years. This paradigm change provides an important pillar in the United States transport sector to reach sustainability goals. EVs rely on a network of charging locations to operate. This study analyses the spatial distribution, accessibility and usage patterns of the public EV infrastructure in the US. First, using a negative binomial regression model, the influence of socio-economic and other factors on the abundance of EV charging locations in a state is investigated. Second, analysis of the network’s use and of service areas generated around charging locations provides insight into the …

National Endowment For The Humanities Grant: Dana Dorsey, Rhia Rae, Rebecca Bakker, Molly Castro

Works of the FIU Libraries

Presented at the 5^th Annual Library Symposium by the Peer Review & Research Committee:
This brief presentation will highlight our current work on the recently awarded National Endowment for the Humanities grant, "Enhancing Access and Research Possibilities through Critical Engagement with Historical Data." The goal of this initiative is to produce a set of open data resources, based on the papers of Dana A. Dorsey (1868 - 1940). The papers record Dorsey’s business transactions and consists of warranty deeds, mortgages, legal documents, and correspondence, which detail the properties and locations of what were the newly created Miami sub-divisions from …

Comparing The Data Quality Of Crowdsourced Maps - The Case Of Waze And Openstreetmap In Miami, Flora Beleznay, Levente Juhasz

GIS Center

No abstract provided.

Tracking Elusive And Shifting Identities Of The Global Fishing Fleet, Jaeyoon Park, Jennifer Van Osdel, Joanna Turner, Courtney M. Farthing, Nathan A. Miller, Hannah L. Linder, Guillermo Ortuno Crespo, Gabrielle Carmine, David A. Kroosma

Security Research Hub Reports

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing costs billions of dollars per year and is enabled by vessels obfuscating their identity. Here, we combine identities of ~35,000 vessels with a decade of GPS data to provide a global assessment of fishing compliance, reflagging patterns, and fishing by foreign-owned vessels. About 17% of high seas fishing is by potentially unauthorized or internationally unregulated vessels, with hot spots of this activity in the west Indian and the southwest Atlantic Oceans. In addition, reflagging, a tactic often used to obscure oversight, occurs in just a few ports primarily by fleets with high foreign ownership. …

“I Think I Discovered A Military Base In The Middle Of The Ocean”—Null Island, The Most Real Of Fictional Places, Levente Juhasz, Peter Mooney

GIS Center

This paper explores Null Island, a fictional place located at 0° latitude and 0° longitude in the WGS84 (World Geodetic System 1984) geographic coordinate system. Null Island is erroneously associated with large amounts of geographic data in a wide variety of location-based services, place databases, social media and web-based maps. Whereas it was originally considered a joke within the geospatial community, this article will demonstrate implications of its existence, both technological and social in nature, promoting Null Island as a fundamental issue of geographic information that requires more widespread awareness. The article summarizes error sources that lead to data being …

Three Essays On Understanding Social And Economic Responses To Crisis And Disaster Events, Shahnawaz Mohammad Rafi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation comprises three chapters that analyze the social and economic responses to crises and disasters. In the first chapter, I have investigated whether media affects the US official foreign aid channel or crisis related aid. I have examined natural disaster citations in four mainstream US newspapers to analyze whether they influence the Official Development Assistance (ODA) or the short-term crisis related aid need of a recipient following a natural disaster. I created three new media variables to measure the strength of media effect on US ODA, humanitarian aid, and food aid. The empirical analyses indicate that media citation only …

Change Analysis Of Urban Tree Canopy In Miami-Dade County, Hartwig H. Hochmair, Adam Benjamin, Daniel Gann, Levente Juhasz, Paulo Olivas, Jennifer Fu

GIS Center

No abstract provided.

Species Richness, Stem Density, And Canopy In Food Forests: Contributions To Ecosystem Services In An Urban Environment, Cara A. Rockwell, Alex Crow, Érika R. Guimarães, Eduardo Recinoa, Deboarch La Belle

Department of Earth and Environment

Food forests expand the traditional concepts of urban forestry and agriculture, providing a broad diversity of tree-related ecosystem services and goods. Even though food forest systems bridge an obvious gap between agriculture and forestry, their potential value in the urban landscape is often undervalued. The inclusion of edible species in urban forest stands can enhance nutrition and well-being in the urban landscape, where food deserts are common. The potential for ecosystem services is especially pronounced in subtropical and tropical regions, where there is a heightened need for shade due to climate change-related heat waves. For this study, we investigated the …

Making The Grade: What's Motivating China's Educational Outreach In Lac?, Margaret Myers, Brian Fonseca

Research Publications

This paper considers the multiple motivations for China’s educational outreach in the region, drawing from Chinese policy and analysis and many dozens of examples of academic linkages forged between China and Latin America and the Caribbean in recent years. Whether initiated by Chinese or LAC institutions, these programs are an increasingly central feature of China-LAC relations, a part of the extension of China’s BRI to LAC, and a useful measure of China’s varied and evolving interests throughout the region.

The Patterns Of Occurrence, Management, And Behavioral Ecology Of Fish Spawning Aggregations In Southeast Florida, Benjamin Binder

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The formation of fish spawning aggregations (FSAs) is an essential life history process for more than 150 species worldwide. Decades of research have provided a wealth of information to describe FSA dynamics, but there are many regions where their occurrence, behavior, and susceptibility to environmental variation remain uncharacterized. Even in regions that host an extensive research infrastructure such as South Florida, a standardized survey program to locate, validate, and monitor FSAs has not been established. This dissertation addresses those shortcomings in several ways. First, I present a comprehensive synthesis of available FSA literature from the region, which was combined with …

Osm Science - The Academic Study Of The Openstreetmap Project, Data, Contributors, Community, And Applications, A. Yair Grinberger, Marco Minghini, Levente Juhasz, Godwin Yeboah, Peter Mooney

GIS Center

This paper is an Editorial for the Special Issue titled “OpenStreetMap as a multidisciplinary nexus: perspectives, practices and procedures”. The Special Issue is largely based on the talks presented in the 2019 and 2020 editions of the Academic Track at the State of the Map conferences. As such, it represents the most pressing and relevant issues and topics considered by the academic community in relation to OpenStreetMap (OSM)—a global project and community aimed to create and maintain a free and editable database and map of the world. In this Editorial, we survey the papers included in the Special Issue, grouping …

Do Home Invasion Serial Killers Warrant A Distinct Classification From Other Serial Killer Location Types? A Retrospective Comparative Examination, Caroline V. Comerford

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to address the research gap in serial homicide regarding home invasion serial killers (HISKs) and add to existing policy by providing insight and approaches to assist in serial murder investigations of such killers. Data for the study was obtained from the 2019 Radford University/Florida Gulf Coast University Serial Killer Database (RU/FGCU SKD) and additional public information searches. A retrospective comparative design and proportionate stratified random sampling of 326 serial killers from the RU/FGCU SKD (2019) were used to examine the differences and classifications of HISKs and non-home invasion serial killers (non-HISKs) in three investigations: (1) common characteristics; …

Marginal Deterrence: The Association Between The Certainty Of Arrest And Monetary Reward On Robbery Escalation, Christopher E. Torres

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation serves as the seminal large-scale empirical analysis of the marginal deterrence principle. The extant literature on deterrence suffers from a great deal of controversy for two distinct reasons. First, prior research adheres to a myopic view of criminal offender decision-making because it focuses solely on the binary “yes” or “no” decision to commit a crime. It is thus plausible that prior work suppressed deterrent effects to some degree because the use of a binary outcome ignores any intermediate decision made by the criminal offender. Second, while the determination to perpetrate a crime is dependent on the sum of …

Toc As A Growing Threat To Regional, Global Security, Marcus A. Boyd, Samuel Henkin

Global Security Review

No abstract provided.

Library-Based Data Curation, Management And Interdisciplinary Research At Florida International University: Reciprocal Use Of Data Through Collaboration, Zhaohui Fu, Levente Juhasz, Jill V. Krefft, Boyuan Guan

Works of the FIU Libraries

This paper shows the Florida International University (FIU) Libraries' efforts in research data management, implementation, and practice. The FIU Library-based data team has led research projects that are directly built upon institutional and other data repositories, data hubs, and data visualization tools, through collaboration with the user community. We will present the technology setup and configuration of such a data framework, which includes Dataverse, ESRI’s ArcGIS Data Hub, and other data collection and visualization tools. We will also discuss the fiscal and organizational structure needed to support research data management initiatives. Using a couple of our applied research projects, we …

Examining The Effects Of Neighborhood Factors And Geography On Racial/Ethnic Disparities In Achieving Sustained Viral Suppression, Rahel Dawit

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sustained viral suppression (all viral load tests/mL in a year) decreases the risk of HIV transmission and disease progression to AIDS for people with HIV. Racial/ethnic minorities living with HIV are particularly challenged by barriers, including neighborhood factors, to maintain viral suppression. This dissertation examined the contribution of neighborhood and geographic factors on racial/ethnic disparities in achieving sustained viral suppression. A cross-sectional analysis of secondary data collected in 2017 for 6491 clients enrolled in the Miami-Dade County Ryan White Program (RWP) was conducted.

The first study examined the moderating role of neighborhood level factors on the association between race/ethnicity and …

Harnessing The Neon Data Revolution To Advance Open Environmental Science With A Diverse And Data-Capable Community, R. Chelsea Nagy, Jennifer K. Balch, Erin K. Bissell, Megan E. Cattau, Nancy F. Glenn, Benjamin S. Halpern, Nayani Ilangakoon, Brian Johnson, Maxwell B. Joseph, Sergio Marconi, Catherine O’Riordan, James Sanovia, Tyson L. Swetnam, William R. Travis, Leah A. Wasser, Elizabeth Woolner, Phoebe Zarnetske, Mujahid Abdulrahim, John Adler, Grenville Barnes

All Faculty

It is a critical time to reflect on the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) science to date as well as envision what research can be done right now with NEON (and other) data and what training is needed to enable a diverse user community. NEON became fully operational in May 2019 and has pivoted from planning and construction to operation and maintenance. In this overview, the history of and foundational thinking around NEON are discussed. A framework of open science is described with a discussion of how NEON can be situated as part of a larger data constellation—across existing networks …

Characterization Of Chemical And Bacterial Concentrations In Floor Dust Samples In Southeast Texas Households, Felica R. Davis, Hanan H. Ali, Jason A. Rosenzweig, Daniel Vrinceanu, Balaji Bhaskar Maruthi Sridhar

All Faculty

Indoor dust can be a major source of heavy metals, nutrients, and bacterial contamination in residential environments and may cause serious health problems. The goal of this research is to characterize chemical and bacterial contaminants of indoor, settled house dust in the Houston Metropolitan region. To achieve this, a total of 31 indoor dust samples were collected, along with household survey data, which were subsequently analyzed for elemental and bacterial concentrations. Microscopic and geospatial analysis was conducted to characterize and map potential hotspots of contamination. Interestingly Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, and Zn concentrations of all 31 indoor dust samples were …

Batch-Produced, Gis-Informed Range Maps For Birds Based On Provenanced, Crowd-Sourced Data Inform Conservation Assessments, Ryan M. Huang, Wilderson Medina, Thomas M. Brooks, Stuart H. M. Butchart, John W. Fitzpatrick, Claudia Hermes, Clinton N. Jenkins, Alison Johnston, Daniel J. Lebbin, Binbin V. Li, Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela, Mike Parr, Hannah Wheatley, David A. Wiedenfeld, Christopher Wood, Stuart L. Pimm

Department of Earth and Environment

Accurate maps of species ranges are essential to inform conservation, but time-consuming to produce and update. Given the pace of change of knowledge about species distributions and shifts in ranges under climate change and land use, a need exists for timely mapping approaches that enable batch processing employing widely available data. We develop a systematic approach of batch-processing range maps and derived Area of Habitat maps for terrestrial bird species with published ranges below 125,000 km2 in Central and South America. (Area of Habitat is the habitat available to a species within its range.) We combine existing range maps with …

Dynamic Flood Management At The Watershed Scale, Linlong S. Bian

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Floods have threatened people’s lives and property for all of human history. Consequently, developing and implementing effective flood mitigation strategies is a constant necessity to protect against the damage caused by floods. This dissertation proposes a dynamic water storage management strategy for flood mitigation at the watershed scale. This strategy aims to release water in a coordinated manner from water storage units before a rainfall event, leading to the entire watershed becoming more effective for flood mitigation.

Three main contributions were developed to achieve this strategy. First, a Deterministic Topographic Wetland Index (DTWI) was developed for rapidly identifying the existing …

Actually-Existing Resilience: The Adaptive Actions Of Miami’S Redland Farmers And Potential Pathways For Transformation, Melissa Bernardo

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The concept of resilience has been applied to questions surrounding agricultural production and food security in the face of global climate change, gripping the attention of policymakers and scholars alike. In South Florida, the Redland represents a unique, biodiverse farming community of national importance as Florida is second only to California in terms of vegetable production and Miami-Dade is the second highest producing county in the state. With Greater Miami recognized as one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to sea level rise, this vital U.S. agricultural community is placed in doubt. Yet, little research engages directly with …

Enhancing Serviceability And Resiliency Of Transportation Networks Based On Topological Credentials And Systematic Design Interventions, Md Ashraf Ahmed

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent advancements in network science showed that the topological credentials (i.e., rank of relative importance) of network components (such as nodes and links), carry significant implications as it is critical to know which components contribute the most to the overall network performance. For transportation networks, critical components (roads, bridges) may become inaccessible for adjacent traffic due to day-to-day congestion or external disruptions (i.e., man-made or natural hazards) that significantly reduce the level of service. Hence, topological credentials of critical network components based on their connectivity need to be assessed to enhance the serviceability, i.e., improved travel time experience as well …

Hydrology And Fire History Drive Patterns In Post-Fire Recovery In Everglades Wetland Ecosystem, Jenisha Oli

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although fire-adapted ecosystems in Everglades require regular burning to maintain wetland ecosystems, land management and climate-change have altered natural fire-regime. Due to changes in climate and hydrology, historical fire-regimes may become irrelevant. To understand changing fire return intervals, I look at patterns in ecosystem recovery, where fast recovery is indicative of resilience and adaption with an objective of understanding post-fire recovery time in Everglades. I evaluated how post-fire recovery rates were influenced by hydrology and fire-history (1948-2019) by measuring changes in normalized difference vegetation index following fires that burned between 2005-2019 within Everglades. Hydrology had stronger effect on post-fire recovery …

Mapping And Monitoring Zero-Deforestation Commitments, Kemen G. Austin, Robert Heilmayr, Jason J. Benedict, David N. Burns, Michael Eggen, Hedley Grantham, Aida Greenbury, Jane K. Hill, Clinton Jenkins, Et Al

Department of Earth and Environment

A growing number of companies have announced zero-deforestation commitments (ZDCs) to eliminate commodities produced at the expense of forests from their supply chains. Translating these aspirational goals into forest conservation requires forest mapping and monitoring (M&M) systems that are technically adequate and therefore credible, salient so that they address the needs of decision makers, legitimate in that they are fair and unbiased, and scalable over space and time. We identify 12 attributes of M&M that contribute to these goals and assess how two prominent ZDC programs, the Amazon Soy Moratorium and the High Carbon Stock Approach, integrate these attributes into …

Towards Understanding The Temporal Accuracy Of Openstreetmap: A Quantitative Experiment, Levente Juhasz

GIS Center

No abstract provided.

Openstreetmap Data Use Cases During The Early Months Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Peter Mooney, A. Yair Grinberger, Marco Minghini, Serena Coetzee, Levente Juhasz, Godwin Yeboah

GIS Center

No abstract provided.