CENTER FOR GEOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS NEWSLETTER
December 2007
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HIGHLIGHTS
- Milton Fund Supports AfricaMap
- PBS Shoots Scene at CGA
- Call for Posters – AAG Conference Harvard Tour and Reception
- Satellite Imagery for Understanding China N0x Production
- MassGIS Provides Access Via Open Services
- Michael Goodchild Starts Spatial Center
- GIS Models Ethnic Violence
- Ancient Map: Spain to India
- Practical Batch Geocoding Tool
- GoogleMap Adds Vernacular Script for Major Countries
- Google Launches Street View Nationally
- Oxford Word of the Year: “Locavore”
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CGA NEWS
Tutorial for Creating Spatial Metadata
A tutorial has been published for using GoogleMaps to quickly obtain coordinate information in support of spatial metadata creation.
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic109643.files/getLatLongPlus.pdf
The Milton Fund Supports AfricaMap
The Center for Geographic Analysis has received funding from Milton for the first phase of AfricaMap development. AfricaMap is a project to build a collaborative, web-map-based framework for sharing all types of information about the continent.
PBS Shoots Scene at CGA
A scene for Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s upcoming four part PBS series, “African American Lives 2” was recently filmed at the Center. The series will air in early February.
http://pressroom.pbs.org/programs/african_american_lives
Workshop on Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI)
The workshop, which was organized by Michael Goodchild of UC Santa Barbara, took place December 13-14. The event brought together individuals from around the world to discuss the burgeoning phenomena of amateur mapping, neogeography, volunteer GIS. Ben Lewis of CGA attended and gave a paper.
http://ncgia.ucsb.edu/projects/vgi/
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HARVARD GIS COMMUNITY NEWS
Call for Posters: AAG Conference Harvard Tour and Reception
In conjunction with the Harvard Map Collection, the CGA is hosting a Geography Tour at Harvard for attendees of the American Association of Geographers conference in Boston April 15 - 19, 2008. Anyone in the Harvard community that wants to showcase how they’ve used mapping, geography, or geographic analysis is welcome to submit a poster for inclusion. More details at:
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic35229.files/Call_for_Posters_AAG2008.pdf
Satellite Imagery for Understanding China’s N0x Production
A talk will be given by Dr. Wang YuXuan of the Department of Engineering and Applied Sciences in early 2008 on measuring N0X production using remote sensing.
http://chinaproject.harvard.edu/seminars/2007-1/wang-yuxuan
And for more information: http://chinaproject.harvard.edu/
MassGIS Provides Access Via Open Services
MassGIS is making many of their datasets available via web services. Now you don’t have to download them to use them. This is particularly useful when it comes to imagery.
http://lyceum.massgis.state.ma.us/wiki/doku.php
Harvard Extension School “Operational GIS”
Wendy Guan and Guoping Huang will teach a new course in Spring of ‘08 which uses real world cases to teach students practical GIS project design and implementation.
http://www.extension.harvard.edu/2007-08/courses/22871.jsp?caller=dce
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CONFERENCES
International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling
The International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling (SDH) is the premier international research forum for Geographic Information Science. It commenced in 1984, in Zurich, Switzerland, organized by the International Geographical Union Commission. The conference is run biannually and is coming to Montpellier (South of France) in 2008. Abstract submission deadline is January 15, 2008.
http://sdh-sageo.teledetection.fr/
Location Intelligence Conference 2008
This commercially oriented, forward looking conference is organized by Directions Magazine. April 28-30, Santa Clara, CA.
http://www.locationintelligence.net/overview/
O’Reilly Where 2.0
This O’Reilly Conference has become very hot in the last couple years. Here they explain part of the reason: “GIS has been around for decades, but is no longer only the realm of specialists. The Web is now flush with geographic data, being harnessed in a usable and searchable format. The right tools to easily create geo content have finally emerged and the outcome is the ability to represent and search the physical world online…” May 12-18, Burlingame, CA.
http://en.oreilly.com/where2008/public/content/home
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NEWS ON GIS RESEARCH AND SERVICES
Michael Goodchild Starts Spatial Center
UC Santa Barbara Geography professor Michael Goodchild is starting a Spatial Center. From the website: “Spatial@ucsb is an innovative university-wide resource and research center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Its mission is to facilitate the integration of spatial thinking into processes for learning and discovery in the natural, social, and behavioral sciences, to promote excellence in engineering and applied sciences, and to enhance creativity in the arts and humanities.” The brochure:
http://www.spatial.ucsb.edu/docs/spatial_brochure.academic_high.pdf
The powerpoint: http://www.spatial.ucsb.edu/docs/trustees.pdf
GIS Models Ethnic Violence
Researchers from NECSI, Brandeis, and MIT develop a GIS model capable of predicting outbreaks of ethnic violence.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/317/5844/1540?ijkey=S.Kb5wAK45Q5.&keytype=ref&siteid=sci
Ancient Map: Spain to India
The Tabula Peutingeriana is, according to this article, the only map of the ancient world, and at seven meters long, depicts route and traveler information from Spain to India.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7113810.stm
Book Review: “A Geospatial Industry Series”
Adena Schultzberg of Directions Magazine reviews a book on the relationship between particular industries and GIS with an eye to what students need to learn to prepare themselves for the job world.
http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=2632&trv=1
Practical Batch Geocoding Tool
Here is a nice tool built on top of Yahoo’s geocoder API which allows users to copy/paste address or other location text? to the system and get it back with lat/longs.
http://www.batchgeocode.com
Incredible Urban Visualization
Take a look at the mapping work by Edushi.com, part of the Aladdin Information and Technology Corporation. The level of detail in the 2D+ renderings for large swaths of major Chinese cities is simply unbelievable.
http://www.edushi.com/
ArcExplorer Adds Time Bar
ESRI’s free data viewer, ArcExplorer has added a time bar feature. Geographic data coded with time information can now be displayed by dragging a time bar.
http://www.esri.com/software/arcexplorer/explorer.html
GPS Vest as Secret Cricket Weapon
The Australian cricket coach claims that a new GPS vest which gathers locational and other information about players will provide an advantage as they prepare for the World Cup.
http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/04D7D7D4FB5C701D652573AD002E0D55?OpenDocument
GoogleMap Adds Vernacular Script for Selected Countries
Now for at least for Russia, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan Google provides place names in the native script.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=15.940202,101.392822&spn=6.598906,10.041504&z=7&om=1
Google Launches Street View Nationally
For large portions of more than twenty major cities, Google now provides detailed, street level photography.
http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/
New Book on Maps from the Library of Congress Collection
Vincent Virga sifted though millions of maps, and selected these maps to create Cartographia which, as one reviewer put it, attempts to map the human imagination.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17173936
New Brainland
Creative cartographers represent the brain as an archipelago.
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/30/brain-visualized-as.html
Oxford Word of the Year: Locavore
http://blog.oup.com/2007/11/locavore/
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Editor of this issue: Ben Lewis
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