March 2007

cga_newsletter

CENTER FOR GEOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS NEWSLETTER 
March 2007 
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HIGHLIGHTS

  • Report on Spatially Enabling HMDC Social Science Data
  • Introduction to the Michigan China Data Center
  • Announcing the Environmental Statistics Lecture Series
  • CGA Presentations at ABCD
  • URISA GIS in Public Health Conference
  • Lloyd’s of London to Use Google Earth to Depict Risk Maps
  • GE Energy Partners with Oracle
  • ESRI Plans to Support Open Source RDBMS at 9.3
  • OpenStreetMap Makes Baghdad Mapping Available

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CGA NEWS

Report: Spatially Enabling HMDC Social Science Data 
Last July, Dr. Nicole Alexander, a CGA Visiting Researcher, worked on a HMDC/VDC Users Survey on spatially enabling the social science data sets. Since then, Nicole has been documenting the user requirements gathered, and examining the HMDC data. She will present her findings to HMDC/VDC users on April 10th, 12:00-1:30pm in CGIS South Building (1730 Cambridge St.), the Belfer Case Study room (S020). Lunch will be provided. Please RSVP.

Seminar: Introduction to the China Data Center and the Integration of GIS with China Population Census Data 
The China Data Center at the University of Michigan is an international center for advancing the study and understanding of China. This presentation will give an introduction to the Center and demonstrate China data products, data services, and recent research projects. Projects include statistical data, financial data, spatial data, a survey data network, and the applications of China data in research and education. New toolkits (desktop software and web-based services) will be introduced for advanced spatial data analysis and mapping. Dr. Shuming Bao, China Data Center, University of Michigan will present on Friday, March 23, 11:00am-12:00pm, CGIS Knafel Building (1737 Cambridge St.), Rm. N354.

Guoping Huang and Lex Berman to Present at ABCD TIE Meeting 
Guoping will discuss a project, funded by the Harvard Provost Fund for Instructional Technology, to build a historical spatial database for the class “History 1111: The Fall of the Roman Empire”. The database is created from georeferenced paper maps and other related resources and will give students the freedom to query historical places spatially and interactively. The database is suitable for continuous improvement and adaptation in future teaching and research.

Lex will discuss the Geographic Information Sharing Tool for Google Earth developed with the support of a Harvard Provost Innovation Grant. The tool has been developed to provide faculty and students a means of working with geospatial information in using the free version of Google Earth as the user interface. With Google Earth, users create their own Folders and Placemarks, then save them as KML format files. GIST provides a web-based form that allows users to upload KML files, and also a parser that ingests the features and their coordinates to a relational database. You are welcome to create your own user in the PUBLIC area of the working application at http://gist.fas.harvard.edu . 

The two talks will be on April 2, 12:15 - 1:45 in the Harvard University Lamont Library Forum Room. A light lunch will be provided.

CGA Introduced at LiMIT Program 
Wendy Guan will introduce GIS and CGA services in a break-out session of the Libraries, Museums, and Instructional Technology (LiMIT) Program, March 28, invitation only. For more information contact Mary Spidle, the Project Manager for Academic Computing.

China Historical GIS - Version 4 CDROM Now Shipping 
The latest version of CHGIS is now available on CDROM from http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~chgis/

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HARVARD GIS COMMUNITY NEWS

Announcing the Environmental Statistics Lecture Series 
Announcing Space-Time Statistical Modeling: an introductory lecture series by Michael Stein, Department of Statistics and Center for Integrating Statistical and Environmental Science from the University of Chicago.

  • Wed 4/25, 3:30-5, HSPH Kresge G1, simulcast to CGIS N031
  • Wed 4/26, 3:30-5, HSPH Kresge G2, simulcast to CGIS N031
  • Wed 4/27, 3:30-5, CGIS N354, simulcast to HSPH Kresge G3


Sponsored by:

  • Department of Biostatistics, HSPH
  • Department of Statistics, FAS
  • Harvard University Center for the Environment
  • Center for Geographic Analysis
  • Generous support from the Harvard University Center for the Environment


Please contact Chris Paciorek for more information.

Street Data Available in Convenient Format 
An alternative to downloading US streets files for the entire US is now available. The Harvard Geospatial Library (HGL) has created a layer file (.lyr) available which can be loaded to ArcMap and which makes the necessary connections to SDE on the HGL server to provide access to the Street Map data. See StreetMapUSA.lyr athttp://www.gis.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k235&pageid=icb.page28957

One important note on using the layer file: you must provide the IP address of your machine to HGL to enable this functionality. Contact CGA with your name and IP address, and please allow up to 24 hours for the request to be processed.

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CONFERENCES

URISA GIS in Public Health Conference 
“URISA is pleased to present this new specialty conference, to explore the many uses of GIS for public health access, processes, and decision-making. A dedicated committee of well-known and respected professionals in the field has spearheaded this effort to create a specialty conference to promote sharing of information and networking within the discipline.” http://www.urisa.org/conferences/health The conference begins with full-day preconference workshops, followed by 2 ½ days of educational sessions, exhibits and networking events.
May 20-23, 2007
New Orleans, Louisiana

2007 ESRI Health Conference 
“The ESRI Health GIS Conference provides a forum for you to examine capabilities and opportunities for managing and sharing geospatial data and analysis in a GIS framework for community health programs, health care delivery, hospitals, epidemiology, disease surveillance, health research, and more.” www.esri.com/healthgis 
October 7-10, 2007
Scottsdale, Arizona

Complimentary Seats Available for the ESRI User Conference 
Harvard University has 10 complementary registration seats to the ESRI International User Conference (San Diego, June 18-22, 2007). Please email CGA if you would like to use one. First come, first served.

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NEWS ON GIS RESEARCH AND SERVICES

Lloyd’s of London to Use Google Earth to Depict Risk Maps 
The service being offered features a continuous color scheme that helps draw underwriters’ eyes to areas of greatest risk exposure, plotting this on a map of a territory so that they can take this into account when writing new risks.http://www.lloyds.com/News_Centre/Features_from_Lloyds/Lloyds_uses_Google_Earth_to_prepare_for_the_worst.htm

GE Energy Partners with Oracle 
GE Energy is making a major shift in GIS platform for its Utility market clients by collaborating with Oracle to develop a network design and maintenance application based on Oracle 10g. http://www.directionsmag.com/press.releases/?duty=Show&id=16718&trv=1

ESRI Plans to Support Open Source RDBMS at 9.3 
From the recent Developers Summit in Palm Springs: “ArcGIS Server (ArcSDE technology) will support the PostgreSQL database at the ArcGIS 9.3 release. This will further enhance ESRI’s commitment to make its technology compatible and integrated with Open Source software technologies.” PostGIS will also be supported.

OpenStreetMap Makes Baghdad Mapping Available 
OpenStreetMap, which is building a free and open collaborative map of the world, has the most comprehensive map of Baghdad available. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Baghdad

Worldmapper Releases Carbon Emissions Map 
You may have seen other proportional maps by Worldmapper. A new map shows global carbon emissions by country:http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=295. For information on the technology behind these maps, see Mark Newman’s site: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~Emejn/

Remote Controlled Google Earth 
Skype + Unype = Remote Controlled Google Earth. As you zoom and pan in Google Earth, the person at the other end of your Skype phone connection sees what you see. http://www.unype.com/

The 500th Anniversary of the Naming of the Americas by the Waldseemuller Map 
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/03/16/18377599.php

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Editor of this issue: Ben Lewis
The CGA Newsletter is published monthly.
For the latest information, please visit our website http://www.gis.harvard.edu
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