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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The University of Maine

Spatial analysis Statistics

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Strategies For Handling Spatial Uncertainty Due To Discretization, Thomas Windholz May 2001

Strategies For Handling Spatial Uncertainty Due To Discretization, Thomas Windholz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Geographic information systems (GISs) allow users to analyze geographic phenomena within areas of interest that lead to an understanding of their relationships and thus provide a helpful tool in decision-making. Neglecting the inherent uncertainties in spatial representations may result in undesired misinterpretations. There are several sources of uncertainty contributing to the quality of spatial data within a GIS: imperfections (e.g., inaccuracy and imprecision) and effects of discretization. An example for discretization in the thematic domain is the chosen number of classes to represent a spatial phenomenon (e.g., air temperature). In order to improve the utility of a GIS an inclusion …


Towards A Spatial Model Of Rurality, Gillian Avruskin Aug 2000

Towards A Spatial Model Of Rurality, Gillian Avruskin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The term rural is used to describe people, places, traditions, and spaces. It is often employed as a setting for study as well as an object of study. People’s perceptions of rural are confused and differ considerably. For over a century researchers have attempted to define more precisely this term using social, economic, and or ecological components. However, problems of interpreting official definitions and measurements exist. These definitions require extensions in order to capture a more objective meaning of the word. This thesis presents the foundations of a new approach to measuring and defining rurality. A spatial based approach is …


Integrated Spatial Reasoning In Geographic Information Systems: Combining Topology And Direction, Jayant Sharma May 1996

Integrated Spatial Reasoning In Geographic Information Systems: Combining Topology And Direction, Jayant Sharma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As Geographic Information Systems (GISs) have gained wider acceptance and application, the interest in spatial modeling and reasoning has deepened. The purpose of a model and reasoning framework is to permit a user to experiment and study causal relationships in the real world by operating on the model only. Traditionally GISs employ purely quantitative methods to represent and infer spatial information. This approach has serious shortcomings when dealing with qualitative spatial information, which may be incomplete or imprecise and does not contain knowledge of the geometry of the spatial objects, which humans are particularly adept at utilizing in their daily …