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Articles 151 - 180 of 202

Full-Text Articles in Geography

Ir-Tree: An Efficient Index For Geographic Document Search, Zhisheng Li, Ken C. K. Lee, Baihua Zheng, Wang-Chien Lee, Dik Lun Lee, Xufa Wang Apr 2011

Ir-Tree: An Efficient Index For Geographic Document Search, Zhisheng Li, Ken C. K. Lee, Baihua Zheng, Wang-Chien Lee, Dik Lun Lee, Xufa Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Given a geographic query that is composed of query keywords and a location, a geographic search engine retrieves documents that are the most textually and spatially relevant to the query keywords and the location, respectively, and ranks the retrieved documents according to their joint textual and spatial relevances to the query. The lack of an efficient index that can simultaneously handle both the textual and spatial aspects of the documents makes existing geographic search engines inefficient in answering geographic queries. In this paper, we propose an efficient index, called IR-tree, that together with a top-k document search algorithm facilitates four …


Global Shifts, Theoretical Shifts: Changing Geographies Of Religion, Lily Kong Dec 2010

Global Shifts, Theoretical Shifts: Changing Geographies Of Religion, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The paper evaluates the burst in geographical research on religion in the last decade. It examines: (1) the relative emphases and silences in analyses of different sites of religious practice, sensuous geographies, population constituents, religions, geographies and scales of analyses; (2) the rise in the discourse of postsecularization; and (3) four contemporary global shifts (growing urbanization and social inequality, deteriorating environments, ageing populations, and increasing human mobilities), the ways in which religion shapes human response to them, and the implications for new research agendas. © 2010 The Author(s).


Introduction: Culture, Economy, Policy: Trends And Developments, Lily Kong Nov 2010

Introduction: Culture, Economy, Policy: Trends And Developments, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The important nexus between culture and economy is by no means a recent development nor a novel inclusion on the social science agenda. As Harvey pointed out in his foreword to Zukin's (1988)Loft Living, the artist, as one `representative' of the cultural class, has always shared a position in the market system, whether as artisans or as “cultural producers working to the command of hegemonic class interest”. In the last two to three decades, in the US and more lately, in western Europe, cultural activities have become increasingly significant in the economic regeneration strategies in many cities. Geographers, however, have …


Rich Internet Geoweb For Spatial Data Infrastructure, Tin Seong Kam Oct 2010

Rich Internet Geoweb For Spatial Data Infrastructure, Tin Seong Kam

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this information age, more and more public statistical data such as population census, household living, local economy and business establishment are distributed over the internet within the framework of spatial data infrastructure. By and large, these data are organized geographically such as region, province as well as district. Usually, they are published in the form of digital maps over the internet as simple points, lines and polygons markers limited or no analytical function available to transform these data into useful information. To meet the analytical needs of casual public data users, we contribute RIGVAT, a rich internet geospatial visual …


China And Geography In The 21st Century: A Cultural (Geographical) Revolution?, Lily Kong Sep 2010

China And Geography In The 21st Century: A Cultural (Geographical) Revolution?, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A noted Singapore-based cultural geographer and specialist on Asia reviews the recent emergence of cultural geographic research on and within China and the implications of China's rise for the study of 21st century cultural geography more broadly. She identifies six major issues modern China is confronting that, when addressed from a cultural geographical perspective, may both enhance an understanding of the country and reshape the practice of cultural geography as a subdiscipline: agricultural reform, economic reform, urban change, rural-urban migration and related social inequalities, the changing family structure, and environmental change. The author argues that if China's cultural geography is …


Introduction: Contested Landscapes, Asian Cities, Lily Kong, Lisa Law Sep 2010

Introduction: Contested Landscapes, Asian Cities, Lily Kong, Lisa Law

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A decade and a half after Cosgrove and Jackson (1987) wrote their seminal piece on ‘new’ cultural geography, the discipline of geography has experienced a ‘cultural’ turn. Economic geography, for instance, has been infleected through perspectives that take on board cultural retheorisations (see Thrift and Olds, 1996; Thrift, 2000). Within urban studies, the acknowledgement of culture’s powers is not new (see, for example, Agnew et al., 1984). Yet, geographers scrutinising urban landscapes have moved the field, using some of the retheorised perspectives that Cosgrove and Jackson (1987) encapsulated. Of most pertinence to this volume is the retheorised notion of culture …


A Hidden Markov Model For Earthquake Declustering, Zhengxiao Wu Mar 2010

A Hidden Markov Model For Earthquake Declustering, Zhengxiao Wu

Research Collection School of Economics

The hidden Markov model (HMM) and related algorithms provide a powerful framework for statistical inference on partially observed stochastic processes. HMMs have been successfully implemented in many disciplines, though not as widely applied as they should be in earthquake modeling. In this article, a simple HMM earthquake occurrence model is proposed. Its performance in declustering is compared with the epidemic-type aftershock sequence model, using a data set of the central and western regions of Japan. The earthquake clusters and the single earthquakes separated using our model show some interesting geophysical differences. In particular, the log-linear Gutenberg-Richter frequency-magnitude law (G-R law) …


The Cartography Of National Humiliation And The Emergence Of China’S Geobody, William A. Callahan Dec 2009

The Cartography Of National Humiliation And The Emergence Of China’S Geobody, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Maps are an important site of the production and consumption of the national image. This essay examines modern Chinese maps to show how the very material borders between foreign and domestic space are the outgrowth of the symbolic workings of historical geography and the conventions of Chinese cartography. These maps do much more than celebrate the extent of Chinese sovereignty; they also mourn the loss of national territories through a cartography of national humiliation. The goal of this essay is to shift our attention from the diplomatic issues of international borders to examine what Chinese maps of China can tell …


A Cluster Identification Framework Illustrated By A Filtering Model For Earthquake Occurrences, Zhengxiao Wu Jan 2009

A Cluster Identification Framework Illustrated By A Filtering Model For Earthquake Occurrences, Zhengxiao Wu

Research Collection School of Economics

A general dynamical cluster identification framework including both modeling and computation is developed.The earthquake declustering problem is studied to demonstrate how this framework applies.A stochastic model is proposed for earthquake occurrences that considers the sequence of occurrencesas composed of two parts: earthquake clusters and single earthquakes. We suggest that earthquake clusterscontain a “mother quake” and her “offspring.” Applying the filtering techniques, we use the solution offiltering equations as criteria for declustering. A procedure for calculating maximum likelihood estimations(MLE’s) and the most likely cluster sequence is also presented.


Making Sustainable Creative/Cultural Space In Shanghai And Singapore, Lily Kong Jan 2009

Making Sustainable Creative/Cultural Space In Shanghai And Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Shanghai and Singapore are two economically vibrant Asian cities that have recently adopted creative/cultural economy strategies. In this article I examine new spatial expressions of cultural and economic interests in the two cities: state-vaunted cultural edifices and organically evolved cultural spaces. I discuss the simultaneous precariousness and sustainability of these spaces, focusing on Shanghai's Grand Theatre and Moganshan Lu and on Singapore's Esplanade-Theatres by the Bay and Wessex Estate. Their cultural sustainability is understood as their ability to support the development of indigenous content and local idioms in artistic work. Their social sustainability is examined in terms of the social …


Computing Medoids In Large Spatial Datasets, Kyriakos Mouratidis, Dimitris Papadias, Spiros Papadimitriou Jan 2009

Computing Medoids In Large Spatial Datasets, Kyriakos Mouratidis, Dimitris Papadias, Spiros Papadimitriou

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this chapter, we consider a class of queries that arise in spatial decision making and resource allocation applications. Assume that a company wants to open a number of warehouses in a city. Let P be the set of residential blocks in the city. P represents customer locations to be potentially served by the company. At the same time, P also comprises the candidate warehouse locations because the warehouses themselves must be opened in some residential blocks.


Mapping Better Business Strategies With Gis, Tin Seong Kam Aug 2007

Mapping Better Business Strategies With Gis, Tin Seong Kam

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The value of location as a business measure is fast becoming an important consideration for organisations. GIS (Geographical Information Systems), with its capability to manage, display, analyse business information spatially, is emerging as a powerful location intelligence tool. In the US, Starbucks, Blockbuster, Hyundai, and thousands of other businesses use census data and GIS software to help them understand what types of people buy their products and services, and how to better market to these consumers. For example, McDonald’s in Japan uses a GIS system to overlay demographic information on maps to help identify promising new store sites. Singapore Management …


Cultural Icons And Urban Development In Asia: Economic Imperative, National Identity, And Global City Status, Lily Kong May 2007

Cultural Icons And Urban Development In Asia: Economic Imperative, National Identity, And Global City Status, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Global cities are characterized by the multiplicity of flows that they are implicated in - flows of people, goods, services, ideas, and images. Yet, global cities do not derive their status only on the basis that they are networked nodes. They also require particular forms of cultural capital. Cities with global aspirations have thus increasingly recognized the need to accumulate cultural capital, for which one means is to create new urban spaces, in particular, new cultural urban spaces (e.g. grand theatres, museums, libraries). These often monumental structures are intended to support a vibrant cultural life, in order to attract and …


Marketing The Chinese Dream Home: Gated Communities And Representations Of The Good Life In (Post-)Socialist Shanghai, Choon-Piew Pow, Lily Kong Feb 2007

Marketing The Chinese Dream Home: Gated Communities And Representations Of The Good Life In (Post-)Socialist Shanghai, Choon-Piew Pow, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper examines the advertising themes and rhetoric that have been assembled in the place-marketing of Shanghai's newly built gated communities. We demonstrate how place-marketing strategies, in this case selling the Chinese dream home, draws upon specific landscape meanings and values that are embedded in Chinese/ Shanghainese history, even as symbolic and cultural capital from the contemporary scene also exert their influences. Collectively, these representations of the good life both reflect and reinforce the exclusivist housing aspirations and privatist visions of middle-class residents of gated communities in contemporary Shanghai. While advertisements do not always achieve the outcomes that property developers …


The Promises And Prospects Of Geography In Higher Education, Lily Kong Jan 2007

The Promises And Prospects Of Geography In Higher Education, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The idea for this JGHE symposium came to me as I reflected on the spatial turn in the humanities and social sciences, and felt encouraged by the growing influence of geography in the intellectual spaces of other disciplines. Amidst positive thoughts, I wondered if the institutional position of the discipline had strengthened with its recently enhanced intellectual position, and what the geography of geography's institutional presence and strength was. For sure, anecdotal stories circulate regarding the opening or closure of a geography department, a renaming, a split and so forth…. A symposium of papers from different parts of the world …


Geography's Place In Higher Education In Singapore, Lily Kong Jan 2007

Geography's Place In Higher Education In Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Unlike the other papers in this symposium, which deal with countries where there are large numbers of universities, and comparison can be made over time and across space of geography's place in higher education, this paper focuses on a country that was for a long time described as a 'one-university town': Singapore. What interesting story call there be when geography's presence in higher education is so circumscribed? In this paper, the author illustrates how geography's,fate in higher education in Singapore is closely bound up with developments in other parts of the world, not unlike the way in which the country's …


Understanding User Perceptions On Usefulness And Usability Of An Integrated Wiki-G-Portal, Yin-Leng Theng, Yuanyuan Li, Ee Peng Lim, Zhe Wang, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Chew-Hung Chang, Kalyani Chatterjea, Jun Zhang Nov 2006

Understanding User Perceptions On Usefulness And Usability Of An Integrated Wiki-G-Portal, Yin-Leng Theng, Yuanyuan Li, Ee Peng Lim, Zhe Wang, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Chew-Hung Chang, Kalyani Chatterjea, Jun Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper describes a pilot study on Wiki-G-Portal, a project integrating Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, into G-Portal, a Web-based digital library, of geography resources. Initial findings from the pilot study seemed to suggest positive perceptions on usefulness and usability of Wiki-G-Portal, as well as subjects' attitude and intention to use.


The Development Of Social And Cultural Geographies In Taiwan: Knowledge Production And Social Relevance, Hsin-Ling Wu, Sue-Ching Jou, Lily Kong Oct 2006

The Development Of Social And Cultural Geographies In Taiwan: Knowledge Production And Social Relevance, Hsin-Ling Wu, Sue-Ching Jou, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Social and cultural geographies have long occupied a marginal position in Taiwan's scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. Despite the influence of the so-called ‘cultural turn’ that has characterized much of Anglo-American scholarship since the 1990s (Barnett 1998), Taiwan's scholarship in the social sciences in general and human geography more specifically has remained relatively untouched by these intellectual currents till very recent years. This paper seeks to examine the social, intellectual and institutional contexts that explain this marginalization, and consider the possibilities for social and cultural geographies' emergence from marginality in Taiwan in the future. This possibility is considered …


Music And Moral Geographies: Constructions Of "Nation" And Identity In Singapore, Lily Kong Feb 2006

Music And Moral Geographies: Constructions Of "Nation" And Identity In Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper, I attempt to pull together sociological and geographical perspectives in the study of music to understand the ways in which pop and rock music are socio-cultural products with political and moral meanings and implications. I examine state engineering of moral panics, focusing on a case study of pop and rock music in post-independence Singapore. Such engineering is aimed at political and ideological ends, in particular, "nation"- building outcomes. In engineering moral panics through both discursive and legislative acts, the contours of a moral geography are delineated at various spatial scales. First, at the scale of the national …


The Roles Of Digital Libraries In Teaching And Learning Geography, Chew-Hung Chang, John Hedberg, Tiong-Sa Teh, Ee Peng Lim Jan 2006

The Roles Of Digital Libraries In Teaching And Learning Geography, Chew-Hung Chang, John Hedberg, Tiong-Sa Teh, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Adopting a problem-centred approach helps students to learn Geography more effectively as they are able to identify and generalize about where different resources or activities are spatially located and they learn to associate certain patterns and processes with geographical changes. In an era where web-based student-centred inquiry is gaining popularity as a mode of learning Geography, the role of digital libraries as delivery trucks (in Clark’s terminology, 1983) needs to be better understood. An obvious affordance of the digital library is that it organizes information around themes for problems to be solved. This paper describes a developmental project to build …


Cultural Economy: A Critical Review, Chris Gibson, Lily Kong Oct 2005

Cultural Economy: A Critical Review, Chris Gibson, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article reviews work on 'cultural economy', particularly from within geography, and from other disciplines, where there are links to overtly geographical debates. We seek to clarify different interpretations of the term and to steer a course through this multivalency to suggest productive new research agendas. We review and critique work on cultural economy that represents a relatively straightforward economic geography, based on empirical observation while theoretically informed and driven by debates about Fordism and post-Fordism, agglomeration and cluster theory. Some of these ideas about cultural economy have proven attractive to policy-makers and we map a normative script of cultural …


Geogdl: A Web-Based Approach To Geography Examination, Ee Peng Lim, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Yin-Leng Theng Aug 2005

Geogdl: A Web-Based Approach To Geography Examination, Ee Peng Lim, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Yin-Leng Theng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The traditional educational approach with students as passive recipients has been the subject of criticism. A constructivist learner-centered approach towards education has been argued to produce greater internalization and application of knowledge compared to the traditional teacher-centered, transmission-oriented approach. Nevertheless, contemporary instructional design models argue for the use and integration of both approaches especially in complex learning tasks. This paper describes GeogDL, a Web-based application developed above a digital library of geographical resources for Singapore students preparing to take a national examination in geography. GeogDL is unique in that it not only provides an environment for active learning, it also …


Re-Presenting The Religious: Nation, Community And Identity In Museums, Lily Kong Aug 2005

Re-Presenting The Religious: Nation, Community And Identity In Museums, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper examines the roles that museums play as 'unofficially sacred' places, underscoring or challenging the religious life of a people and 'nation'. It focuses on three key questions: (1) Do sub-national and transnational religious formations pose a challenge to or present opportunities for nation-building strategies, and what part do museums play in this struggle? (2) In what ways do re-presentations of religion in museums contest or reinforce religious community and identity? and (3) What challenges do museum displays pose to the understanding of religious meanings? This paper explores these three key questions about the intersection of religion with politics …


On Assigning Place Names To Geography Related Web Pages, Wenbo Zong, Dan Wu, Aixin Sun, Ee Peng Lim, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh Jun 2005

On Assigning Place Names To Geography Related Web Pages, Wenbo Zong, Dan Wu, Aixin Sun, Ee Peng Lim, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we attempt to give spatial semantics to web pages by assigning them place names. The entire assignment task is divided into three sub-problems, namely place name extraction, place name disambiguation and place name assignment. We propose our approaches to address these sub-problems. In particular, we have modified GATE, a well-known named entity extraction software, to perform place name extraction using a US Census gazetteer. A rule-based place name disambiguation method and a place name assignment method capable of assigning place names to web page segments have also been proposed. We have evaluated our proposed disambiguation and assignment …


Social And Cultural Geographies Of South-East Asia, Tim Bunnell, Lily Kong, Lisa Law Feb 2005

Social And Cultural Geographies Of South-East Asia, Tim Bunnell, Lily Kong, Lisa Law

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The paper is an overview of English language publications that discuss what might be considered 'social' and 'cultural' geographies in Southeast Asia over the past two decades. We have strategically chosen two major themes that help us shape the mass of material into digestible strands: (1) the politics of social and cultural change; and (2) constructing identities. The former addresses various politics: the politics of nationhood; the politics of national development; the politics of cultural sites; the politics of urban change; and the politics of the global-local.


An Interactive Learning Environment For A Dynamic Educational Digital Library, Ee Peng Lim, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Yin-Leng Theng, Eng-Kai Suen Jul 2004

An Interactive Learning Environment For A Dynamic Educational Digital Library, Ee Peng Lim, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Yin-Leng Theng, Eng-Kai Suen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

GeogDL is a digital library of geography examination resources designed to assist students in preparing for a national geography examination in Singapore. We describe an interactive learning environment built into GeogDL that consists of four major components. The practice and review module allows students to attempt individual examination questions, the mock exam provides a simulation of the actual geography examination, the trends analysis tool provides an overview of the types of questions asked in previous examinations, while the contributions module allows students and teachers to create and share knowledge within the digital library.


Cultural Geography: By Whom, For Whom?, Lily Kong Feb 2004

Cultural Geography: By Whom, For Whom?, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The "cultural turn," coupled by the "spatial turn" in recent years has drawn significant attention to cultural geography from those in other subdisciplines and disciplines. One might forgive those who sometimes mistake particular research as cultural geography which is in fact conducted by non-geographers or geographers who would not ordinarily identify themselves as cultural geographers. A pointed moment that illustrated this to me was when a sociology colleague insisted that he had read cultural geography, and when asked, indicated that he had read Nigel Thrift and Ash Amin. One interpretation of this is, as Shurmer-Smith (1996) offered through her title …


Java-Based Digital Library Portal For Geography Education, Zehua Liu, Hai Yuan, Ee Peng Lim, Ming Yin, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Yin-Leng Theng, Wee-Keong Ng Jan 2004

Java-Based Digital Library Portal For Geography Education, Zehua Liu, Hai Yuan, Ee Peng Lim, Ming Yin, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Yin-Leng Theng, Wee-Keong Ng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

G-Portal is a Java-based digital library system for managing the metadata of geography related resources on the Web. In addition to providing a flexible repository subsystem to accommodate metadata of different formats using XML and XML Schemas, G-Portal organizes metadata into projects and layers, and supports an integrated and synchronized classification and map-based interfaces over the stored metadata. G-Portal also includes a classification subsystem that creates category structures and classifies metadata resources into categories based on user-specified classification schemas. Furthermore, G-Portal users can annotate resources and make their annotations available to others. In this paper, we describe the design and …


G-Portal : A Map-Based Digital Library For Distributed Geospatial And Georeferenced Resources, Ee Peng Lim, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh Jul 2002

G-Portal : A Map-Based Digital Library For Distributed Geospatial And Georeferenced Resources, Ee Peng Lim, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As the World Wide Web evolves into an immense information network, it is tempting to build new digital library services and expand existing digital library services to make use of web content. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of G-Portal, a web portal that aims to provide digital library services over geospatial and georeferenced content found on the World Wide Web. G-Portal adopts a map-based user interface to visualize and manipulate the distributed geospatial and georeferenced content. Annotation capabilities are supported, allowing users to contribute geospatial and georeferenced objects as well as their associated metadata. The other …


Religion And Technology: Refiguring Place, Space, Identity And Community, Lily Kong Dec 2001

Religion And Technology: Refiguring Place, Space, Identity And Community, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper reviews the literature on the religion-technology nexus, drawing up a research agenda and offering preliminary empirical insights. Firsts I stress the need to explore the new politics of space as a consequence of technological development, emphasizing questions about the role of religion in effecting a form of religious (neo)imperialism, and uneven access to techno-religious spaces. Second, I highlight the need to examine the politics of identity and community, since cyberspace is not an isotropic surface. Third, I underscore the need to engage with questions about the poetics of religious community as social relations become mediated by technology. Finally, …