Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

No More Hidden Secrets: Human Rights Violations And Remote Sensing, Tommy O'Connell, Stephen Young

Stephen Young

Aim: This study used both high resolution and medium resolution satellite imagery to test three semi-automated remote sensing methods, in an attempt to identify useful tools to support eye-witness testimony and reports on human rights violations. As huts are routinely burned down during attacks on a village, particularly in Sudan, the number of huts and villages burned can be used to corroborate on-the-ground reports.

Methods: Three remote sensing methods (Supervised Classification, Change Detection, and Feature Extraction) were performed on imagery from both before the attacks in February 2006 and after the attacks to examine any useful trends that could be …

Towards Querying And Visualization Of Large Spatio-Temporal Databases, Sugam Sharma

Sugam Sharma

In any database model, data analysis can be eased by extracting a smaller set of the data of interest, called subset, from the mammoth original dataset. Thus, a subset helps enhance the performance of a system by avoiding the iteration through the huge parental data in further analysis. A subset, its specification, or the formal process for its extraction can be complex. In the database community, subsets are extracted through SQL-like queries and through visualization in the Geographic Information System (GIS) community. Both are iterative processes. An SQL query can be a composition of subqueries. Each subquery can be seen …

Study Of Potential Risk Of Dengue Disease Outbreak In Sri Lanka Using Gis And Statistical Modelling, Sumith Pathirana, Masato Kawabata, Rohitha Goonatilake

Adjunct Associate Professor Sumith Pathirana

The increasing incidence of dengue fever has become a priority health issue for Sri Lanka. Recent dengue outbreaks in Sri Lanka show two trends: yearly increase of total number of dengue incidence and increasing dengue outbreaks outside the endemic urbanised areas in the south and the west. Identification of factors responsible for dengue outbreaks and the mapping of potential risk areas in Sri Lanka are long overdue. This study examines the association between weekly rainfall patterns and dengue outbreaks in the western province between 2000 and 2004. Methods: The study develops a model to quantitatively assess the relationship between rainfall …

Field Validation Of Dem And Gis Derived Longitudinal Stream Profiles, Kathryn Schroeder, Eric Peterson, Toby Dogwiler

Eric Wade Peterson

Longitudinal stream profiles provide valuable information concerning geomorphic features and energy states in a stream. Traditionally, stream profiles have been generated by field surveying or topographic map analysis. The continued growth of digital data and Geographic Information Systems (GISs) provide another method by which to achieve stream profile generation. This work examines the effectiveness of digital data, digital elevation models (DEM), and GIS to construct stream profiles. To determine the most effective and accurate data for profile generation, profiles were created using 1-meter (1-m) and 3-meter (3-m) DEMs developed from LiDAR data. Additionally, stream profiles were created from unfilled DEMs …

An Assessment Of South China Tiger Reintroduction Potential In Hupingshan And Houhe National Nature Reserves, China, Yiyuan Qin, Philip J. Nyhus, Courtney L. Larson, Charles J.W. Carroll, Jeff Muntifering, Thomas D. Dahmer, Lu Jun, Ronald L. Tilson

Philip J. Nyhus

Human-caused biodiversity loss is a global problem, large carnivores are particularly threatened, and the tiger (Panthera tigris) is among the world’s most endangered large carnivores. The South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis) is the most critically endangered tiger subspecies and is considered functionally extinct in the wild. The government of China has expressed its intent to reintroduce a small population of South China tigers into a portion of their historic range as part of a larger goal to recover wild tiger populations in China. This would be the world’s first major tiger reintroduction program. A free-ranging population of 15–20 tigers …

Use Of Geographical Information Systems To Identify Counties In Georgia With High Risk For Childhood Lead Poisoning, R. Christopher Rustin, Christy Kuriatnyk, Byron Lobsinger, Simone Charles

R. Christopher Rustin

Assessing The Recent (1834-2002) Morphological Evolution Of A Rapidly Prograding Delta Within A Gis Framework: Macquarie Rivulet Delta, Lake Illawarra, New South Wales, Marjetta Puotinen, Brian Jones, Carl Hopley

B. G. Jones

No abstract provided.

Morphological Changes, Assessed Within A Gis Framework, In The Prograding Macquarie Rivulet Delta, New South Wales, Carl Hopley, Brian Jones, Marjetta Puotinen

B. G. Jones

No abstract provided.

Approaching Cave Level Identification With Gis: A Case Study Of Carter Caves, Brianne Jacoby, Eric Wade Peterson, John C. Kostelnick, Toby J. Dogwiler

Eric Wade Peterson

Cave passages that are found at similar elevations are grouped together and called levels. The current understanding is that passages within a level are speleogenetically linked to a common static baselevel or stratigraphic control. Cave levels have provided an interpretive framework for deciphering cave development, landscape evolution, and climatic changes. Cosmogenic dating has been successfully used to interpret levels in Mammoth Cave and the Cumberland Plateau; however, this technique is expensive and there are limited funding resources available. Geographic information systems may be used as preliminary procedures to identify cave levels and constrain the timing of level development. A GIS …

E-Government Challenge In Disaster Evacuation Response: The Role Of Rfid Technology In Building Safe And Secure Local Communities, A. Chatfield, S. F. Wamba, T. Hirokazu

Dr Akemi Chatfield

While geographic information systems (GIS) can provide information on the static locations of critical infrastructure and evacuation routes, they do not provide the dynamically changing locations of things and people on the move. In contrast, radio frequency identification (RFID) wireless network technology can automatically identify and track the movement of assets (i.e., fire engines, ambulances, and rescue workers) and vulnerable citizens on the move (i.e., the elderly and the disabled), and hence providing local governments and communities with real-time information and enhanced decision-making capabilities, during chaotic disaster response operations (i.e., evacuation). Although the potential high impact and strategic value of …

A Pragmatic Gis-Oriented Ontology For Location Based Services, Jun Shen, Aneesh Krishna, Shuai Yuan, Ke Cai, Yuemin Qin

Dr Jun Shen

With advances in automatic position sensing and wireless connectivity, location-based services (LBS) are rapidly developing, particularly in fields of geographic, tourism and logistic information systems. Currently, Web service has been viewed as one of most significant innovations in business industry, and designed on demand to provide spatial related information for LBS consumption. However, the traditional Web Service Description Language (WSDL) cannot meet those requirements, as WSDL is not able to support semantic content and information. In recent years, Ontology came up with an effective approach to enhance service description, automated discovery, dynamic composition, enactment, and other tasks such as managing …

Nearest Neighbor Methods Applied To Dune Field Organization: The Coral Pink Sand Dunes, Kane County, Utah, Usa, David Wilkins, Richard Ford

David E. Wilkins

Dune fields have recently come to be recognized as self-organizing systems that can be seen progressing from states of disorganization or randomness to uniformity. Dune systems can be highly sensitive to changes in factors, such as climate and sediment transport, that determine system state. Changes in climate and sediment state can take time to work their way through a dune system; this, in turn, leads to spatial heterogeneity in dune field organization. Using the Coral Pink Sand Dunes in southern Utah as a model, this study tests nearest neighbor analysis adapted as a method to objectively identify and characterize differences …

Identifying The Stream Erosion Potential Of Cave Levels In Carter Cave State Resort Park, Kentucky, Usa, Eric Peterson, Brianne Jacoby, Toby Dogwiler

Eric Wade Peterson

Cave levels, passages found at similar elevations and formed during the same constant stream base level event, reveal information about paleoclimates and karst geomorphology. The investigation presented here examines how Stream Power Index (SPI) relates to cave levels. The study area, Carter Caves State Resort Park (CCSRP), is a fluviokarst system in northeastern Kentucky containing multiple cave levels. SPI deter-mines the erosive power overland flow based on the assumption that flow accumulation and slope are proportional to potential for sediment entrainment. Part of this digital terrain analysis requires the creation of a flow accumulation raster from a digital elevation model …

Estimating The Timing Of Cave Level Development With Gis, Brianne Jacoby, Eric Peterson, Toby Dogwiler, John Kostelnicj

Eric Wade Peterson

Identifying cave levels provides insight into cave development and climatic changes that have affected a karst system over time. Cosmogenic dating has been used to interpret levels in Mammoth Cave and the Cumberland Plateau. This absolute dating technique has proven successful in determining cave paleoclimates and regional geomorphic history, but is expensive. The study presented here is a preliminary method to cosmogenic dating that can outline a region’s speleogenesis using a Geographic Information System (GIS) and published denudation rates. The Carter Cave system in northeastern Kentucky is within the karst landscape found along the western edge of the Appalachians and …

Gis And Paleoanthropology: Incorporating New Approaches From The Geospatial Sciences In The Analysis Of Primate And Human Evolution, Robert L. Anemone, Glenn C. Conroy, Charles W. Emerson

Robert L. Anemone

The incorporation of research tools and analytical approaches from the geospatial sciences is a welcome trend for the study of primate and human evolution. The use of remote sensing (RS) imagery and geographic information systems (GIS) allows vertebrate paleontologists, paleoanthropologists, and functional morphologists to study fossil localities, landscapes, and individual specimens in new and innovative ways that recognize and analyze the spatial nature of much paleoanthropological data. Whether one is interested in locating and mapping fossiliferous rock units in the field, creating a searchable and georeferenced database to catalog fossil localities and specimens, or studying the functional morphology of fossil …

E-Government Challenge In Disaster Evacuation Response: The Role Of Rfid Technology In Building Safe And Secure Local Communities, A. Chatfield, S. F. Wamba, T. Hirokazu

Dr Samuel Fosso Wamba

While geographic information systems (GIS) can provide information on the static locations of critical infrastructure and evacuation routes, they do not provide the dynamically changing locations of things and people on the move. In contrast, radio frequency identification (RFID) wireless network technology can automatically identify and track the movement of assets (i.e., fire engines, ambulances, and rescue workers) and vulnerable citizens on the move (i.e., the elderly and the disabled), and hence providing local governments and communities with real-time information and enhanced decision-making capabilities, during chaotic disaster response operations (i.e., evacuation). Although the potential high impact and strategic value of …

Estimation Of The Area Of Sealed Soil Using Gis Technology And Remote Sensing, Stanisław Białousz, Przemysław Kupidura

Przemysław Kupidura

Soil sealing can be defined as the destruction or covering of soil by buildings, constructions and artificial layers completely or partly impermeable (asphalt, concrete, etc.) It is the most intense form of land consumption and is essentially an irreversible process. Soil is sealed when agricultural or other biologically land is taken into the built environment. It is also a continuing process within existing urban areas, especially where urban population and the density of built structures is increasing and residual inner-city green zones are reduced. The paper concerns the methodology for an estimation of the area of sealed soil using GIS …

Investigating Urban Sprawl Using Remote Sensing And Gis Technology, Przemysław Kupidura

Przemysław Kupidura

The paper concerns the analysis of urban sprawl. The presented example of Lomianki – the municipality situated in the neighbourhood of Warsaw – capital city of Poland, shows dynamic changes of rural-urban fringe, called sub-urbanization. This kind of process is characterized by incoherence of spatial structure, disproportions between development of built-up areas and transport network, underdevelopment of service built-up areas and public spaces and mixing of urban and rural structures. Such a dynamic development leads also to an increasing of area of sealed (impermeable) zones, what is very important due to water economics. The multi-temporal dataset of aerial and satellite …

Fundamentals For Using Geographic Information Science To Measure The Effectiveness Of Land Conservation Projects, Robert G. Pontius Jr., Shaily Menon, Joseph Duncan, Shalini Gupta

Shaily Menon

Some humans spend a tremendous amount of effort to change landscapes from a “natural” state to a “developed” state for a variety of desirable economic uses, such as urban, agriculture, transportation, and mining. Others spend a tremendous amount of effort to prevent such development in order to conserve the landscapes for a variety of important environmental uses, such as biodiversity maintenance, carbon storage, water filtration, and landslide prevention. It would be efficient in theory if a society were to focus its development efforts at locations that give the largest economic utility per area developed, and to focus its conservation efforts …

A Vegetation Based Approach To Biodiversity Gap Analysis In The Agastyamalai Region, Western Ghats, India, B. R. Ramesh, Shaily Menon, Kamaljit S. Bawa

Shaily Menon

Protected areas in India have historically been established on an ad hoc basis with little attention to the conservation value of an area. This study focuses on a set of protected areas in the Agastyamalai region of the Western Ghats (WG), India. We examine forest loss and land-use changes in the study area from the early 1900s to 1960 and from 1960 to 1990. We use GIS to perform a biodiversity gap analysis of the protected areas in the study site. We produce a detailed map of existing floristic types and use it to generate layers corresponding to floristic species …

Applications Of Geographic Information Systems, Remote-Sensing, And A Landscape Ecology Approach To Biodiversity Conservation In The Western Ghats, Shaily Menon, Kamaljit S. Bawa

Shaily Menon

The mountains along the west coast of peninsular India, the Western Ghats, constitute one of the unique biological regions of the world. Rapidly occurring land-cover and land-use change in the Western Ghats has serious implications for the biodiversity of the region. Both landscape changes as well as the distribution of biodiversity are phenomena with strong spatial correlates. Recent developments in remote-sensing technology and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) allow the use of a landscape ecology and spatial analysis approach to the problem of deforestation and biodiversity conservation in the Western Ghats. Applications of this approach include analyses of land-cover and land-use …