GISSG Sponsored Sessions (as of Sep. 24, 2007):

 

 

1.       Name of the session: Applications of Fuzzy Sets and Systems in Geography

Organizers:

Ola Ahlqvist

Department of Geography; the Ohio State University

E-mail:  ahlqvist.1@osu.edu

Liem Tran

Department of Geography; the University of Tennessee at Knoxville

E-mail:  ltran1@utk.edu

Session Description: Regular paper session. The session is an avenue for geographers and other professionals to present their cutting-edge applications of fuzzy sets and systems in various fields of geography, including human geography, physical geography, and GIS & remote sensing.

 

2.       Name of the session: Current Status and Future of Fuzzy Sets and Systems in Geography

Organizers:

Ola Ahlqvist

Department of Geography; the Ohio State University

E-mail:  ahlqvist.1@osu.edu

Liem Tran

Department of Geography; the University of Tennessee at Knoxville

E-mail:  ltran1@utk.edu

Session Description: Panel discussion. Since the introduction of fuzzy logic in 1970's, fuzzy sets and systems have been applied widely and successfully in many fields. However, except from those in GIS and remote sensing, the fuzzy applications in geography arguably are still rare (e.g., human geography) and unbalanced from one subfield to another.  The session is to discuss the current status and future of fuzzy sets and systems and different subfields of geography.

 

 

3.       Name of the session: Geospatial Technology and Tools for Urban Water Resources

Organizer:

Patrick Lawrence

Department of Geography and Planning

University of Toledo

E-mail:  patrick.lawrence@utoledo.edu

Session Description: This session will consist of paper presentations focusing on the application of GIS and remote sensing to address varied water resource issues in urban areas. Topics could include: water quality assessment, storm water management, hydrographic modeling, water management, surface runoff studies, wetland and riparian evaluations, environmental monitoring, data management, spatial data analysis, information management, water policy and planning implications.

 

4.       Name of the session: Time Geography: Emerging Theoretical Developments, Implementations, and Applications

 

Organizers:

Hongbo Yu, Oklahoma State University, Email: hongbo.yu@okstate.edu

Shih-Lung Shaw, The University of Tennessee, Email: sshaw@utk.edu

 

Session Description: Originally designed to investigate various constraints of human activities in time and space, the time-geographic framework provides an integrated space-time environment to effectively and efficiently investigate the spatio-temporal characteristics of human activities and their interactions. There have been revived research interests in time geography in recent years. These research efforts include extending the time-geographic framework to accommodate the emerging hybrid environment of physical and virtual spaces, providing computational models and representations of the framework, developing GIS designs to implement the framework, and applying the framework to facilitate studies such as travel behaviors, activity patterns, accessibility assessment, urban structure, animal ecology, etc. This session will provide researchers a forum to share experiences and exchange ideas on recent theoretical developments, implementations, and applications of time geography.

 

 

5.       Name of the session:   GIS in public health.

 

Organizer: 

Zhiyong Hu, University of West Florida,  zhu@uwf.edu

Session description:  In recent years, GIS has become a popular research and analytical tool in public health. This session covers the use of GIS and remote sensing in public health. Example topics include mapping disease patterns, environmental exposure assessment using remote sensing and GIS, spatial statistics and GIS for public health data, analyzing spatial and temporal trends of diseases, assessing medical resource allocation, analyzing the geographical relationship between environments and diseases.

 

 

6.       Name of the session: Marine Geomorphology as a Determinant for Essential Life Habitat:  An Ecosystem Management Approach to Planning for Marine Reserve Networks

 

Organizers:

Will Heyman, Texas A&M University, wheyman@geog.tamu.edu

Dawn Wright, Oregon State University, dawn@dusk.geo.orst.edu

 

Session description: Marine resources are in decline throughout most of the world・s oceans and traditional, species-specific and/or catch based means to manage these resources are failing and are instead turning to ecosystem-based approaches.  As attractive as it sounds, the concept has not yet been effectively translated into action.  The reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management as the Sustainable Fisheries Act in 2006 provides renewed incentive for innovative ways to implement ecosystem-based management.  The goal of these three sessions is to examine critically the growing body of data suggesting that the underlying geology and geomorphology of marine environments dictates the location of critical life habitat for a variety marine species. For example, it is becoming clearer that spawning aggregations of many species of commercially important reef fishes commonly occur at the windward edge of reef promontories that jut into deep water. As another example, seamounts serve as attractors for pelagic fishes. 

The broad implications of these findings suggest that geomorphology might be used as a proxy for (or at least help to identify) critical life habitat for marine species, and thus serve to advance the application of the ecosystem-based management and the design of marine reserve networks.  Our goal is to bring together a group of experts who are examining this problem specifically, present papers, and publish them all together with a synthesis and policy statement, within a special issue of a peer-reviewed journal. In this way, we hope to advance collaboration between scientists from various disciplines and marine managers towards more efficient conservation and management of marine systems.

 

Papers are welcome in the areas of:

- essential benthic habitat and geomorphology

- marine GIS and/or remote sensing for the purposes of integrating geomorphology and biology

- applications for marine reserve network design

 

These will be combined into at least 3 sessions that will include invited presenters as well.

 

 

7.       Name of the session: Critical GIS and Urban Governance

Organizers:

Wen Lin (wenlin@uwm.edu), Geography Department, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee;

Falguni Mukherjee (falguni@uwm.edu), Geography Department, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

 

Session description: Recently, critical GIS studies have presented a vibrant and diverse body of work, investigating the dynamic and complex interrelations and interactions between geospatial technologies and society (Harvey, Kwan and Pavlovskaya 2005; O・Sullivan 2006). Efforts have been made to document the ongoing engagement of critical GIS and potential directions (e.g., Sheppard 2005; Chrisman 2005) as well as to explore methodological challenges (e.g., the ．Research design and methodologies for critical GIS research・ sessions organized at 2007 AAG meeting). Nonetheless, much remains to be explored on GIS as social constructions in the realm of urban governance, as geospatial technologies have increasingly been involved in urban governance practices in various societies. This paper session thus is an attempt to contribute to critical GIS research through the aspect of examining GIS-related practices in urban governance.

 

8.       Name of session: Geospatial Semantic Web Technologies for geospatial interoperability

Organizers:

Chuanrong Zhang (Department of Geography, Kent State University, czhang2@kent.edu),

Zhong-Ren Peng (Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Florida), zpeng@uwm.edu,

Tian Zhao (Department of Computer Science, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, tzhao@uwm.edu )

Session description: The advancement of Geospatial Semantic Web technologies is making an important contribution to facilitate geospatial interoperability at the semantic level. Many Geospatial Semantic Web applications have been developed in diverse fields. There is a great need to organize a session or multiple sessions to demonstrate recent development of Geospatial Semantic Web technologies and their innovative applications in different fields.
Topics include, but are not limited to:

 

 

9.       Name of the session: Geographic Information Retrieval

Organizer:

Brian Tomaszewski, Penn State University

bmt139@psu.edu

Session description: This session welcomes the submission of abstracts dealing with any aspect of Geographic Information Retrieval (GIR), which can be defined as the retrieval and relevance ranking of unstructured or partially structured information sources based on theme and geographic scope (Purves and Jones 2006).

 

 Paper topics include (but are not limited to):

 

10.    Name of session: Spatial Data Mining and Exploratory Data Analysis

Organizers:

Diansheng Guo, Department of Geography, University of South Carolina
http://people.cas.sc.edu/guod

Jeremy Mennis, Department of Geography and Urban Studies
Temple University, Email: jmennis@temple.edu

Session description: This session will address new research in the theory, design, implementation, and application of data mining and exploratory data analysis techniques to spatial and spatio-temporal data.  Potential topics include:
*   Spatial data mining and knowledge discovery
*   Visualization/visual data mining/visual analytics
*   Exploratory spatial data analysis

*   New software tools
*   Applications of spatial data mining to social and physical science data

 

11.    Name of session: Perspectives on Geographic Complexity

Organizers: Li An, San Diego State University, lan@mail.sdsu.edu

Alison Heppenstall, University of Leeds, A.J.Heppenstall@leeds.ac.uk

Dawn Parker, George Mason University, dparker3@gmu.edu

Moira Zellner, University of Illinois at Chicago, mzellner@uic.edu

Session description: There is growing interest in understanding the complexity

of human, socioeconomic, and biophysical systems. In parallel, an

ever-increasing number of complexity-based models (e.g., agent-based

models, genetic algorithms, and cellular automata) have appeared in the

geographical literature. The growing sophistication and range of

applications of these models in complexity-based research has

precipitated thought about potential and challenges in this area, and

future directions for research. The proposed sessions will focus on the

following areas:

 

1. Theory: Common and unique complexity characteristics/factors in

geographic systems, current and evolving geographical and complexity

theories, epistemological and ontological considerations, role of

deterministic complexity (e.g., chaos, non-linearity).

 

2. Methods: cellular automata, agent-based models, genetic algorithms,

genetic programs, networks, hybrid models, adaptation of classic

statistical models.

 

3. Issues: spatiotemporal patterning and space-time dynamic analysis,

representation of complex systems, rule development, multiple-scale

interactions and structure, self organizing systems, adaptation,

learning and evolution, validation and verification, tool integration.

 

4. Applications: Political, institutional and socio-economic systems,

human-environment interactions, earth systems and ecology, landscape

ecology, policy decision support. Exemplar applications may include

analysis of land-use and land-cover change, natural resource management

and sustainability, and adaptive institutions for public goods problems.

 

 

12.     Name of the session: "Emerging Computational Techniques and Technologies in GeoComputation"

Organizers: Sanjay Rana, University College London, s.rana@ucl.ac.uk

Session description: The aim of the session is to bring together the research on any topic in computational techniques and technologies used in GeoComputation. The motivation behind the session is to provide a generic and interdisciplinary platform to researchers whose research incorporates a considerable amount of computational resources and techniques, thus somehow different from the more geography and technology-application oriented topics at the conference.

The choice of topic is solely at the discretion of the researcher however this year we would particularly like to welcome research in Health Informatics.

 

 

 

13.    Name of the Session: ：Urban growth and its impact on the environment；
Organized by: Chandana Mitra, Department of Geography, University of Georgia, Athens, USA
Session description: Although currently only 1.2% of the Earth・s land is considered urban, the spatial coverage and density of cities are expected to rapidly increase in the near future. It is estimated that by the year 2025, 60% of the world population will live in cities (UNFP, 1999, Shepehrd 2005). Thus, it is necessary for us to understand how the urban environment affects the physical and climatic pattern in and around the city.

 

The aim of this paper session is to provide a platform for scholars dealing with urban atmospheres, including observational, modeling, theoretical, forecasting, and applied studies. 


Potential topics may include the following:

-       Observational studies, using urban land use projection models as well as weather/environmental and regional / global climate models, including remote sensing, GIS and different datasets.
-       Studies dealing with urban climate like urban heat island, wind movement and                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     precipitation.

-       Empirical and observational studies on the influence of urban growth on air quality

-       Studies on city planning and its direct/indirect influence on urban environment.

-       Studies on coastal-urban interactions;

-       Water and energy balances

 


Please send an email stating your paper title, PIN, and abstract no later than *October 31* to Chandana Mitra at chandana@uga.edu. Persons with additional program suggestions are encouraged to contact the program chair.

 

14.    Name of the session: Species Distribution Modeling Roundtable

Organized by:  Jennifer A. Miller, Department of Geography and the Environment, The University of Texas at Austin

Session description: Research focused on species distribution modeling (SDM), predicting plant or animal species distributions as a function of environmental relationships, has dramatically increased in the past 20 years. The habitat maps generated by SDM are an important component in resource management and conservation efforts and, as they are based on an analytical paradigm, the data can be managed more efficiently and presented more effectively than allowed by traditional cartographic formats. The modeling aspect of SDM (where, for example, changes in spatial scale, data, methods, ecological assumptions, and even how the maps are produced can be explored extensively) has been a more recent focus of attention, particularly in the context of examining the potential effects of changing environmental conditions on species distributions.
As SDM draws upon GIS (systems and science), biogeography, and spatial analysis, Geography can provide a unique framework for exploring these issues. This panel session will consist of 10-14 short presentations on research (or research-in-progress) on aspects of SDM such as (but not limited to):
Model conceptualization:

Data issues:

Evaluation/Assessment:

Technical details (．notes from the field・):

 

The presentations will be followed by an interactive roundtable (see http://aag.org/annualmeetings/2008/papers.htm#isp for more information on the session format).
If you are interested in participating in this session or would like more information, please email me (jennifer.miller@austin.utexas.edu) as soon as possible.