Geographic Information Sciences Commons^™

Gis Enhancements Using Gps Technology, Marc R. Beckel

Dissertations and Theses

Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is a viable tool for the collection and creation of Geographic Information System (GIS) databases. Organizations have turned their attention to using this tool to develop new databases for their existing GIS. The integration of these new GPS derived databases with older existing databases leads to both technical and organizational repercussions. With the integration of GPS derived data, an organization's existing GIS requires enhancements to GIS databases and the organization must be prepared to manage the integration.

This thesis examines the technical issues that occur due to integration and conflation of GPS data in an …

Monitoring Cattle Behavior And Pasture Use With Gps And Gis, L. W. Turner, M. C. Udal, B. T. Larson, S. A. Shearer

Management and Monitoring of Farm Animals Collection

Precision agriculture is already being used commercially to improve variability management in row crop agriculture. In the same way, understanding how spatial and temporal variability of animal, forage, soil and landscape features affect grazing behavior and forage utilization provides potential to modify pasture management, improve efficiency of utilization, and maximize profits. Recent advances in global positioning system (GPS) technology have allowed the development of lightweight GPS collar receivers suitable for monitoring animal position at 5-min intervals. The GPS data can be imported into a geographic information system (GIS) to assess animal behavior characteristics and pasture utilization. This paper describes application …

Spatial Modeling In Emergency Medical Systems: Analysis Of A Regional Trauma System With Two Centers, Christopher A. Bangs

Dissertations and Theses

The allocation of trauma patients to one of two trauma centers based on multiple criteria presents significant challenges in modeling network-based solutions for Emergency Medical Services (EMS). Capabilities in a desktop Geographic Information Systems (GIS) include spatial analysis and map visualizations that contribute to improved understanding of EMS and the trauma allocation. Using a common desktop GIS application and a statistical analysis application, key spatial and temporal characteristics of both penetrating and blunt trauma are described, and the EMS allocation system is analyzed.

As a sub-group of all emergencies, trauma-system patients represent the most severely injured. Understanding the spatial-temporal distributions …

Crop-Raiding Elephants And Conservation Implications At Way Kambas National Park, Sumatra, Indonesia, Philip J. Nyhus, Sumianto, Ronald Tilson

Faculty Scholarship

Crop raiding by wild elephants is one of the most significant sources of park–people conflict in Sumatra, Indonesia. The distribution, impact and conservation implications of elephant crop-raiding in 13 villages that border Way Kambas National Park in southern Sumatra were studied for 18 months. The data are based on rapid village and field assessments, data logs maintained by village observers and a quantitative household survey. Elephants raided crops year-round at a mean rate of 0.53 elephants per day for the entire study area. The frequency of crop raiding was related to vegetation type along the park border, the size and …

Using Gis To Model The Timbershed Of A Wood Based Manufacturing Facility, Robert Brewington, Richard A. Williams, Jeffery Earl

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

A geographic information system (GIS) is an excellent tool for determining timber procurement zones. This study focuses on the procurement zones of two wood processing facilities in Arkansas, one in Fort Smith and one near Menifee. Since the two mills began operation in 1995, there have been questions about the long-term effect on the hardwood timber resource of the region. The "wood basket" for these mills must first be determined before their effects can be studied. Transportation from the harvest site to the primary processing facility accounts for a large portion of the total mill-delivered cost for raw material and …

Field Interpretation Of Latitude And Longitude In Arkansas: A Portable Coordinate Projection, William R. Teague

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

Two- and three-dimensional coordinate systems are fundamental to most quantitative mapping applications. The Geodetic, Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM),and State Plane systems have traditional roles in various science, surveying, and government agency engineering applications. The coordinates of three-dimensional Geodetic system are latitude, longitude, and height above ellipsoid (HAE).Because of its ability to cope with the intrinsically three dimensional character of the earth's surface, the Geodetic system is capable of supporting precise relative positioning and very high accuracy computations of distance between any two positions on or near the earth's surface. The two-dimensional UTMand State Plane systems are extremely useful for the …

Census 2000 Demographic And Housing Profile Reports, Mark Salling, Ellen Cyran, Sharon Bliss

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

Method To Predict The Potential Regional Long-Term Timber Supply Using Gis And Other Publicly Available Data, Jeffery Earl, Richard A. Kluender, Robert Brewington

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

While the global demand for wood products is on the rise, timber production has shifted from the Pacific Northwest to the southeastern United States in recent times. The increase in harvesting makes accurate assessment of the South's wood supply essential. Anew method is proposed for looking at the potential supply of raw woody material. The test area was three southeastern Arkansas counties. A geographic information system (GIS) using ArcView software incorporates two sources of public information. First, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data from the USDA Forest Service were queried to find land areas and volumes by timber type, as …

Assessing The Role Of Geographical Information Systems (Gis) In The Classroom, Christopher D. Storie

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Only within the past few years has the diffusion of geographical information systems (GIS) technologies made their way down the educational ladder. Until recently GIS was largely restricted to the confines of upper year university and college programs in Canada. Over time, the instruction of GIS has made its way towards first and second year post secondary students. Recently, GIS has been gaining popularity within the High School curriculum and continues to filter its way down the educational hierarchy. This thesis covers two major areas pertaining to GIS in education. The first area deals with the literature pertaining to GIS, …

Shoreline Bluff Failures: A Gis Assessment Of Susceptibility And Risk For Lake Erie's North Central Shore (Ontario), Nathan Joel Badger

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

One of the characteristic features of the north shore of Lake Erie is its steep, eroding bluffs. Combined with an increase in human presence and pressures at the shoreline, the failure of these slopes has become hazardous. Over the past two decades alone, slope failures have been responsible for millions of dollars of damage to shoreline property, as well as the deaths and near deaths of a number of individuals. Despite the seriousness of this hazard, few studies have identified specific hazard areas and their associated risk of failure along Lake Erie's north shore, and other reaches in the Great …

Working Towards A Cartographic Lexicon: The Role Of Units, Structure, Content, And Expression In Geographic Information, Michael Charles Fabbri

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis was conceived from an interdisciplinary perspective towards the advancement of cartographic research and geographic education. The primary focus is to understand the cognitive process of cartographic communication as an approach both to improvements in design and to teaching and learning of the cartographic language. Specifically, it attempts to understand more about how the map functions. It accepts that the map is a functional graphic display, whose main purpose is to represent, communicate, and store geographical information, which allows a focus on what that geographical information is conceptually. The essential goal of map use is geographic comprehension, and if …

Intelligent Visualization And Automated Processing For Large Scale Geographic Information Systems, Yu Jiang

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on developing a new output system that compacts maps in multiple projections into a single Geographic Information System (GIS) without visual errors, through constructing a discrete GIS database that is managed by a Relational Data Base Management System (RDBMS). Unlike in a traditional large GIS database, the data are "physically discrete but logically continuous." In a new discrete GIS database, every map keeps its individuality without a relationship to any other map, and the relationships among the maps are centrally managed by a RDBMS. A study site was chosen at the boundary of the state of Indiana …

A Spatial And Temporal Analysis Of Riparian Vegetation Along Satus Creek On The Yakama Indian Reservation, Kathryn Gellenbeck

All Master's Theses

Satus Creek provides critical habitat for the Yakima River Basin steelhead. A diverse community of riparian vegetation is important for healthy fish habitat; vegetation changes can affect shade, cover, channel structure, water quality, and food availability. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and illustrate riparian vegetation change, both temporally and spatially, along three separate reaches of Satus Creek. A Geographic Information Systems approach was applied to assess the vegetation change by comparing plant species composition and density on 1949 and 1995 aerial photographs. The GIS approach allowed patterns and trends in the vegetation to be identified. In less …

Visualizing Uncertainty Of The Great Plains Boundary, Sonja Lynn Rossum

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Geographic regions all have some degree of uncertainty, though this is seldom represented on their maps. The Great Plains is an excellent example of how even a well known and widely accepted region can be a source of cartographic confusion. This region is fuzzy in nature, with few landforms or sharp changes in characteristics to help locate the boundary line. Also, the act ofregionalization itself is a highly subjective process, using defining criteria and methods of mapping selected by the cartographer.

The uncertainty of the Great Plains boundary location is shown by comparing many such interpretations from individual cartographers, all …

Mojave Desert - Land Ownership And Administration, Robert J. Johnson, R. Douglas Ramsey, Alan Falconer

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Produced for the Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program under the United States Department of Defense Legacy Program in cooperation with the Department of the Interior.

Cartography and image processing by:

Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems Laboratory

Department of Geography and Earth Resources

College of Natural Resources

Utah State University

Logan, Utah 84322–5240

Cartographic preparation and printing by U.S. Geological Survey, 1998.

Land ownership compiled from 1:100,000-scale Bureau of Land Management Surface Management Status maps.

Populated places produced from USGS Geographic Names Information System.

Roads and water bodies produced from USGS 1:100,000-scale Digital Line Graph data.

Project boundary based on the …

Mojave Desert - Shaded Relief, Robert J. Johnson, R. Douglas Ramsey, Alan Falconer

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Produced for the Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program

under the United States Department of Defense Legacy Program in cooperation with the Department of the Interior.

Cartography and image processing by:

Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems Laboratory

Department of Geography and Earth Resources

College of Natural Resources

Utah State University

Logan, Utah 84322–5240

Cartographic preparation and printing by U.S. Geological Survey, 1998.

Shaded Relief derived from U.S> Geological Survey (USGS) National Elevation Database.

Solar elevation 25°, azimuth 315°, exaggeration 5x, ambient light 0.5

Land ownership compiled from 1:100,000-scale Bureau of Land Management Surface Management Status maps.

Populated places produced from USGS …

Mojave Desert - Satellite Image Map, Robert J. Johnson, R. Douglas Ramsey, Alan Falconer

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Produced for the Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program under the United States Department of Defense Legacy Program in cooperation with the Department of the Interior.

Cartography and image processing by:

Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems Laboratory

Department of Geography and Earth Resources

College of Natural Resources

Utah State University

Logan, Utah 84322–5240

Cartographic preparation and printing by U.S. Geological Survey, 1998.

Image map produced from 15 Landsat Thematic Mapper images recorded from 1991–1993, provided by U.S.

Geological Survey (USGS), as part of the Multi–Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium Activities.

Bands 7, 4, 2. Simulated natural color composite.

Land ownership compiled from …

Issues In Representing Ethnic Residential Segregation, Wanda Teresa Gayle Smith

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study will look at some of the issues involved in representing ethnic residential segregation. Segregation studies rely heavily upon indices and maps. However, both of these are sensitive to the spatial boundaries used. As well, maps have a visual element which affects the nature and degree of representation. Toronto has been chosen as the area of study because of its high degree of ethnic diversity. Five indices that describe the five dimensions of segregation (Massey and Denton, 1988) will be calculated at four standard levels of aggregation. As well, several types of maps will be produced to illustrate the …

Modelling Spatial Processes: The Identification And Analysis Of Spatial Relationships In Regression Residuals By Means Of Moran's I (Germany), Michael Tiefelsdorf

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis deals with the implementation, identification and analysis of relationships between geo-referenced objects. Significant spatial relationships manifest themselves in a spatial process which is modelled on a combination of spatial structure and spatial autocorrelation levels. Simple spatial structures reflect plain spill-over effects between adjacent spatial objects, whereas theoretical guided spatial structure mirror functional exchange relationships within the system of spatial objects. In empirical work, the underlying spatial process is unknown. The linking mechanism between a hypothetical spatial structure and a stochastic input must be identified from the observed data. This is accomplished here by means of the test statistic …

An Evaluation Of Ambulance Service Performance Using A Geographic Information System, Jeremy Peters

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The accessibility, distribution and utilization of emergency health care services have a great impact on the effectiveness, efficiency and equity of health service delivery. The impact of these factors is heightened by the fact that ambulance resources, which are an important component of emergency health care, are often insufficient, resulting in performances below those required to respond reliably to emergency calls from demand areas. Measures of realized geographic accessibility of ambulances to call locations are of considerable importance in planning the deployment of this service as they allow planners to account for response time variations, often caused when ambulances are …

Geographic Information Systems In High School Geography Education: A Feasibility Study, C. Sonia Wardley

Masters Theses

This research focused on three aspects of the integration of GIS into the high school curriculum. Firstly, the investigation strove to demonstrate how GIS could enrich the high school geography curriculum in Michigan. Secondly, GIS software programs were evaluated for suitability using three techniques, and thirdly, the study area high schools were assessed for their technological capabilities relative to GIS.

The pedagogical and cognitive benefits of using GIS as a tool were established _ from the pertinent literature and the feasibility of incorporating GIS into the curriculum was examined with the reference to the Michigan geography content standards and benchmarks. …

Stratigraphy And Deposystem Analysis Of Middle Pennsylvanian Strata (Breathitt Group/ Pottsville And Allegheny Formations) In The Vicinity Of Greenup, Kentucky And Ironton, Ohio, Terry Hamrick

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Twelve facies are described from 40 measured sections the Breathitt Group from Greenup, Kentucky and Ironton, Ohio. The project area is approximately 260 square mi 1 c-s covering strata from the Mississippian age Borden formation to Middle Pennsylvanian age Allegheny formation. Facies include: 1) conglomeratic channel lags, 2) small scale, cross stratified channel sandstones, 3) large scale, cross stratified, channel sandstones, 4) small scale, tabular sandstones, 5) small epsilon cross bedded sandstones, 6) large scale, dark gray, channel form shale deposits, 7) fossiliferous silty shales, 8) bioturbated shales, 9) heterolithic channel fills, 10) biomicrites, 11) black platy shales, and 12) …

Assessing The Cost Of Best Management Practices In Arkansas, Richard A. Kluender, Robert C. Weih Jr., M. Corrigan, J. Pickett

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

A geographic information system (GIS) is a set of powerful, computer-based, analytical algorithms for solving spatial data problems. Recently, due to increases in memory size, computing speed, and programming advances, personal computers have been used in spatial analysis problems. This study reports the benefits of using a PC-based GIS system to solve a common, but complicated problem in forest management: assignment of harvesting areas with harvesting exclusion zones. Two stands each from the USDA Crossett Experimental Forest, the University of Arkansas Forest, and the Ouachita National Forest (total six) were analyzed to determine the changes due to following best management …

The Ohio Gis Network: Stage 2 1996 Investment Fund Grant First Year Progress Report To The Ohio Board Of Regents (Ohio Gis Network), Mark Salling

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

The Ohio Geographic Information Systems Network (Ohio GIS-Net) is an innovative consortium of Ohio’s urban and rural universities. The consortium is building a center of excellence where state-of-the-art geographic information systems (GIS) technology is applied to a research agenda that is critical to Ohio's economic development and central to research issues in policy sciences, civil engineering, public administration, economics and the environmental, urban and regional sciences. This cutting edge technology is an essential component of the basic research infrastructure of universities. It is also a critical resource in state and local economic development efforts, building and maintaining public infrastructure, and …

The Ohio Gis Network: Stage 1 1993 Investment Fund Development Grant Progress Report To The Ohio Board Of Regents (Ohio Gis Network), Mark Salling

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

The Ohio Geographic Information Systems Network (Ohio GIS-Net) is an innovative consortium of Ohio’s urban and rural universities. The consortium is building a center of excellence where state-of-the-art geographic information systems (GIS) technology is applied to a research agenda that is critical to Ohio's economic development and central to research issues in policy sciences, civil engineering, public administration, economics and the environmental, urban and regional sciences. This cutting edge technology is an essential component of the basic research infrastructure of universities. It is also a critical resource in state and local economic development efforts, building and maintaining public infrastructure, and …

Integrating Gis And Remote Sensing With Ecosystem Research, Suzanne Wiley, Robert C. Weih Jr.

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

In the Phase II Ecosystem Management Research Program in the Ouachita and Ozark National Forests, an interdisciplinary group of scientists are evaluating the effects and trade-offs of partial cutting methods in a replicated stand level study. Information from approximately 2,000 plots is being collected by more than fifty researchers during this five-year project with plans to continue data collection long term. To evaluate the effects of different management strategies and their interactions with forest resources, data must be brought into a common format and made available to all researchers. To this end, a data support system was developed which utilizes …

Teaching Secondary School Geography With The Use Of A Geographical Information System (Gis), Angela Louise Crechiolo

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Until quite recently, geographical information systems have been limited to the resources and students of post-secondary institutions. This situation is now changing in Ontario. In the early 1990's the Ministry of Education adopted mandates to develop curriculum guidelines for the integration of computers into all areas of the curriculum. Although the process is well underway in Ontario, limited access to hardware and software, insufficient pre-service and in-service training, and a paucity of teaching resources has lead to mounting teacher frustration. Although the literature base on teaching GIS at the pre-collegiate level is increasing, it lacks clearly defined examples of how …

Socio-Economic Factors And The Journey To Work: A Case Study Of At&T Gis Employees, Thomas A. Hammers

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Individuals who must commute to work are often concerned with the spatial separation of their home and job site. In many of these cases the socio-economic characteristics of these individual's lives play an important part in deciding how long this commute is, in terms of both time and distance. The following study seeks to identify the relationships between several selected socio-economic characteristics and the journey to work distances for employees at AT&T GIS. The factors being examined in this study are age, education level, number of dependents, income, length of service to the company, occupation type and gender. Significant differences …

Regional Variation In Temperature Humidity Index For Poultry Housing, Richard S. Gates, Hanzhong Zhang, Donald G. Colliver, Douglas G. Overhults

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

A building thermal model was used to compute hourly values of temperature humidity index (THI) for a broiler house with and without an evaporative misting system. Hourly summer time weather data for 238 U.S.A. locations covering 30 years were used to develop extreme occurrences of THI. Results were incorporated into a Geographical Information System (GIS) database to create isolines of THI and percentage of hours exceeding a heat stress threshold. Regional variations in misting as a suitable cooling technique are presented in terms of hours reduction in annual heat stress. The technique may be used for assisting in management decisions …

Maps As A Visual Language: A Chinese Perspective, Zhaoyuan Li

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

One primary goal of cartographic research is to improve cartographic communication. Psychophysical and cognitive research has assisted our understanding of the map use process. The present study is from a perspective of maps as a visual language. This study hypothesizes that (1) the map symbol system constitutes a visual ideographic language and (2) cartographic communication may be improved by applying the methods of teaching visual ideographic languages as a second language. Chinese script originated in primitive drawings of concrete things--pictographs--and ideographs. These became stylized and combined, and were expanded greatly in number. Although the characters came to include phonetic symbols, …