The latest outputs from researchers, alumni and friends at the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA).
We’ve long been fans of artist Stephen Walter’s monochromatic cartographical style and have featured numerous map-based artworks by him over the years. It’s been interesting seeing his style subtly evolve, from intense and slightly angry detections of “seas” of houses and caustic comments, to the slightly more restrained, but still very distinctive, style of his […]
Continue reading »Fulong Wu and his colleagues from the Bartlett School of Planning together with Peking University with several sponsors (see web site) ran a great meeting Friday and Saturday 5-6 May in UCL which gathered together some 200 researchers and academics … Continue reading →
Continue reading »If you are a PyQGIS developer, you probably already stumbled upon a situation where you needed to look at the signature of a QGIS function, and you dive into the C++ documentation or source code. This is not the friendliest … Continue reading →
Continue reading »
If you are a PyQGIS developer, you probably already stumbled upon a situation where you needed to look at the signature of a QGIS function, and you dive into the C++ documentation or source code. This is not the friendliest … Continue reading →
In November 1986 I visited SunYatSen University and gave a public lecture about Urban Modelling. China was a very different world then, no cars, no computers, no email, barely functioning electricity. And of course it was before laptops, networks, hand-held … Continue reading →
Thanks to the power of Reddit the “Population Lines” print (buy here) I created back in 2013 has attracted a huge amount of interest in the past week or so (a Europe only version made by Henrik Lindberg made the Reddit front page). There’s been lots of subsequent discussion about it’s inspiration, effectiveness as a form of […]
Continue reading »GIM International (press release) (subscription) (blog) |
Counting Down: Looking Ahead to GEO Business 2017
GIM International (press release) (subscription) (blog) are panellists Ed Manley, lecturer in smart cities at the University College London’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA); Miranda Sharp, head of smart cities practice at Ordnance Survey; Ed Parsons, geospatial technologist at Google; and Mike … |
GIM International (press release) (subscription) (blog) |
Counting Down: Looking Ahead to GEO Business 2017
GIM International (press release) (subscription) (blog) are panellists Ed Manley, lecturer in smart cities at the University College London’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA); Miranda Sharp, head of smart cities practice at Ordnance Survey; Ed Parsons, geospatial technologist at Google; and Mike … |
|
Unmissable conference line-up featuring keynote presentations from HS2’s Sadie Morgan, Ordnance Survey’s CEO …
DirectionsMag.com (press release) are panellists Ed Manley, lecturer in smart cities at the University College London’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA); Miranda Sharp, head of smart cities practice at Ordnance Survey; Ed Parsons, geospatial technologist at Google; and Mike … |
|
Unmissable conference line-up featuring keynote presentations from HS2’s Sadie Morgan, Ordnance Survey’s CEO …
DirectionsMag.com (press release) are panellists Ed Manley, lecturer in smart cities at the University College London’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA); Miranda Sharp, head of smart cities practice at Ordnance Survey; Ed Parsons, geospatial technologist at Google; and Mike … |
Unmissable conference line-up featuring keynote presentations from HS2’s Sadie Morgan, Ordnance Survey’s CEO Nigel Clifford, & ESRI’s Charles Kennelly DirectionsMag.com-Leading organisations from across the geospatial industry, including Ord…
Continue reading »
Specifically we combined actors (e.g. twitter uses), locations (e.g. where the tweets originated) and concepts (e.g. emerging narratives such as pregnancy) to gain insights on the mechanisms that drive participation, contributions, and interactions on social media during a disease outbreak. Below you can read a summary of our paper along with some of the figures which highlight our methodology and findings.
 |
| An overview of the Twitter narrative analysis approach, starting with data collection, and proceeding with preprocessing and data analysis to identify narrative events, which can be used to build an event storyline. |
Abstract:
Background: The recent Zika outbreak witnessed the disease evolving from a regional health concern to a global epidemic. During this process, different communities across the globe became involved in Twitter, discussing the disease and key issues associated with it. This paper presents a study of this discussion in Twitter, at the nexus of location, actors, and concepts.
Objective: Our objective in this study was to demonstrate the significance of 3 types of events: location related, actor related, and concept- related for understanding how a public health emergency of international concern plays out in social media, and Twitter in particular. Accordingly, the study contributes to research efforts toward gaining insights on the mechanisms that drive participation, contributions, and interaction in this social media platform during a disease outbreak.
Methods: We collected 6,249,626 tweets referring to the Zika outbreak over a period of 12 weeks early in the outbreak (December 2015 through March 2016). We analyzed this data corpus in terms of its geographical footprint, the actors participating in the discourse, and emerging concepts associated with the issue. Data were visualized and evaluated with spatiotemporal and network analysis tools to capture the evolution of interest on the topic and to reveal connections between locations, actors, and concepts in the form of interaction networks.
Results: The spatiotemporal analysis of Twitter contributions reflects the spread of interest in Zika from its original hotspot in South America to North America and then across the globe. The Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization had a prominent presence in social media discussions. Tweets about pregnancy and abortion increased as more information about this emerging infectious disease was presented to the public and public figures became involved in this.
Conclusions: The results of this study show the utility of analyzing temporal variations in the analytic triad of locations, actors, and concepts. This contributes to advancing our understanding of social media discourse during a public health emergency of international concern.
Keywords: Zika Virus; Social Media; Twitter Messaging; Geographic Information Systems.
 |
| Spatiotemporal participation patterns and identifiable clusters over 4 of our twelve week study. The top left panel shows the data during the first week, and time progresses from left to right and from top to bottom towards . |
 |
| Subsets of the full retweet network pertaining to the WHO (left) and CDC (right), and clusters identified within them. Magenta clusters are centered upon health entities, green upon news organizations, orange upon political entities. |
 |
| Visualizing a narrative storyline across locations (blue), actors (red), and concepts (green). |
Full Reference:
Stefanidis, A., Vraga, E., Lamprianidis, G., Radzikowski, J., Delamater, P.L., Jacobsen, K.H., Pfoser, D., Croitoru, A. and Crooks, A.T. (2017). “Zika in Twitter: Temporal Variations of Locations, Actors, and Concepts”, JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 3 (2): e22. (pdf)
As normal, any feedback or comments are most welcome.
Specifically we combined actors (e.g. twitter uses), locations (e.g. where the tweets originated) and concepts (e.g. emerging narratives such as pregnancy) to gain insights on the mechanisms that drive participation, contributions, and interactions on social media during a disease outbreak. Below you can read a summary of our paper along with some of the figures which highlight our methodology and findings.
|
| An overview of the Twitter narrative analysis approach, starting with data collection, and proceeding with preprocessing and data analysis to identify narrative events, which can be used to build an event storyline. |
Abstract:
Background: The recent Zika outbreak witnessed the disease evolving from a regional health concern to a global epidemic. During this process, different communities across the globe became involved in Twitter, discussing the disease and key issues associated with it. This paper presents a study of this discussion in Twitter, at the nexus of location, actors, and concepts.
Objective: Our objective in this study was to demonstrate the significance of 3 types of events: location related, actor related, and concept- related for understanding how a public health emergency of international concern plays out in social media, and Twitter in particular. Accordingly, the study contributes to research efforts toward gaining insights on the mechanisms that drive participation, contributions, and interaction in this social media platform during a disease outbreak.
Methods: We collected 6,249,626 tweets referring to the Zika outbreak over a period of 12 weeks early in the outbreak (December 2015 through March 2016). We analyzed this data corpus in terms of its geographical footprint, the actors participating in the discourse, and emerging concepts associated with the issue. Data were visualized and evaluated with spatiotemporal and network analysis tools to capture the evolution of interest on the topic and to reveal connections between locations, actors, and concepts in the form of interaction networks.
Results: The spatiotemporal analysis of Twitter contributions reflects the spread of interest in Zika from its original hotspot in South America to North America and then across the globe. The Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization had a prominent presence in social media discussions. Tweets about pregnancy and abortion increased as more information about this emerging infectious disease was presented to the public and public figures became involved in this.
Conclusions: The results of this study show the utility of analyzing temporal variations in the analytic triad of locations, actors, and concepts. This contributes to advancing our understanding of social media discourse during a public health emergency of international concern.
Keywords: Zika Virus; Social Media; Twitter Messaging; Geographic Information Systems.
|
| Spatiotemporal participation patterns and identifiable clusters over 4 of our twelve week study. The top left panel shows the data during the first week, and time progresses from left to right and from top to bottom towards . |
|
| Subsets of the full retweet network pertaining to the WHO (left) and CDC (right), and clusters identified within them. Magenta clusters are centered upon health entities, green upon news organizations, orange upon political entities. |
|
| Visualizing a narrative storyline across locations (blue), actors (red), and concepts (green). |
Full Reference:
Stefanidis, A., Vraga, E., Lamprianidis, G., Radzikowski, J., Delamater, P.L., Jacobsen, K.H., Pfoser, D., Croitoru, A. and Crooks, A.T. (2017). “Zika in Twitter: Temporal Variations of Locations, Actors, and Concepts”, JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 3 (2): e22. (pdf)
As normal, any feedback or comments are most welcome.
Londoners will be very familiar with the crowded London Underground services and their famous diagrammatic Tube Map, but might be less familiar with another public transport network – boats on the River Thames. Yes, you can commute to work by catamaran – as long as you live and work close to the river. London’s river […]
Continue reading »A fruitful finale to Internet Economy Summit7thSpace Interactive (press release)… the City of Los Angeles, Ms Lilian Coral; the Chairman of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis of the University College London, Professor Michael Batty; and the Co…
Continue reading »|
Opening address by S for IT at Internet Economy Summit 2017 Thematic Forum “Smart City for Better Living”
7thSpace Interactive (press release) Today, we are privileged to have Ms Lilian Coral, Chief Data Officer for the City of Los Angeles from the United States, and Professor Michael Batty, Chair of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis of University College London, who will speak to us … |
The last few days I have been attending the Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting in Boston. A common theme at the AAG sessions I attended (to me at least) seemed to be the rise of new sources of data which give us …
Continue reading »
The last few days I have been attending the Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting in Boston. A common theme at the AAG sessions I attended (to me at least) seemed to be the rise of new sources of data which give us …
Continue reading »
The last few days I have been attending the Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting in Boston. A common theme at the AAG sessions I attended (to me at least) seemed to be the rise of new sources of data which give us …
Continue reading »There is motion in architecture. Not at first glance, but if one starts looking it appears in most aspects, being this the movement of people, goods or materials to building parts such as doors, windows or blinds. Even by design buildings can move. See…
Continue reading »There is motion in architecture. Not at first glance, but if one starts looking it appears in most aspects, being this the movement of people, goods or materials to building parts such as doors, windows or blinds. Even by design buildings can move. See…
Continue reading »There is motion in architecture. Not at first glance, but if one starts looking it appears in most aspects, being this the movement of people, goods or materials to building parts such as doors, windows or blinds. Even by design buildings can move. See for example designs by Frank Gerry, Himmelb(l)au or the late Zaha Hadid.
However, noting makes architecture move more than light. It continually transforms and changes the shape and appearance of buildings.
Shifting Concrete — Video Mapping. Video by WECOMEINPEACE on Vimeo.
edited, 2017-10-25
Full Reference to the Introduction:
Crooks, A.T., Schechtner, K., Day, A.K and Hudson-Smith, A (2017), Creating Smart Buildings and Cities, IEEE Pervasive Computing, 16 (2): 23-25. (pdf)
Full Reference to the Introduction:
Crooks, A.T., Schechtner, K., Day, A.K and Hudson-Smith, A (2017), Creating Smart Buildings and Cities, IEEE Pervasive Computing, 16 (2): 23-25. (pdf)
This year is the 50th Anniversary of Regional Studies, the journal. Peter Hall was the first editor and my early years as a lecturer coincided with his stewardship of the journal and his role as Head of Department of Geography … Continue reading →
Continue reading »Creating a giant dot density map using R.
Continue reading »The Register |
Dr Hannah Fry: We need to be wary of algorithms behind closed doors
The Register Dr Fry is a lecturer in the mathematics of cities at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at UCL, where her research “revolves around the study of complex social and economic systems at various scales, from the individual to the urban, regional and … |
Dr Hannah Fry: We need to be wary of algorithms behind closed doors The Register
Continue reading »Dr Hannah Fry: We need to be wary of algorithms behind closed doors The RegisterInterview Sure, algorithms are insanely useful, but we need to watch we don’t become complacent and unable to question them, University College London’s Dr …
Continue reading »Dr Hannah Fry: We need to be wary of algorithms behind closed doors The RegisterInterview Sure, algorithms are insanely useful, but we need to watch we don’t become complacent and unable to question them, University College London’s Dr …
Continue reading »Dr Hannah Fry: We need to be wary of algorithms behind closed doors The RegisterInterview Sure, algorithms are insanely useful, but we need to watch we don’t become complacent and unable to question them, University College London’s Dr …
Continue reading »Read our paper by Batty, Lin and Chen on Virtual Realities, Analogies and Technologies in Geography, where we continue to parade the idea of virtual geographic environments – VGE From the publisher’s blurb: This Handbook offers an insightful and comprehensive overview from … Continue reading →
Continue reading »
Following a data release of Southwark’s publically maintained trees a couple of years back, the Greater London Authority recently published a map which shows street trees (trees along roads and public paths, and trees in public open spaces, such as small parks and other minor green areas). Each borough has its own tree database and […]
Continue reading »
Figure 1: Map Mashup of Twitter data, where eachdotrepresents a tweet, the text corresponds to the selected tweet marked with a starIn the recently released “The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technolo…
Continue reading »
Figure 1: Map Mashup of Twitter data, where eachdotrepresents a tweet, the text corresponds to the selected tweet marked with a starIn the recently released “The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technolo…
Continue reading »
In the recently released “The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology” I was asked to write a brief entry on “Cellular Automata“. Below is the abstract to my chapter, along some of the images I used in my discussion, the full reference to the chapter.
Abstract:
Cellular Automata (CA) are a class of models where one can explore how local actions generate global patterns through well specified rules. In such models, decisions are made locally by each cell which are often arranged on a regular lattice and the patterns that emerge, be it urban growth or deforestation are not coordinated centrally but arise from the bottom up. Such patterns emerge through the cell changing its state based on specific transition rules and the states of their surrounding cells. This entry reviews the principles of CA models, provides a background on how CA models have developed, explores a range of applications of where they have been used within the geographical sciences, prior to concluding with future directions for CA modeling.
 |
| Figure 1: Two-Dimensional Cellular Automata Neighborhoods |
 |
| Figure 2: Voronoi Tessellations Of Space Where Each Polygon Has A Different Number Of Neighbors Based On A Shared Edge. |
 |
| Figure 3: Example of Cells Changing State from Dead (White) To Alive (Black) Over Time Depending On The States of its Neighboring Cells. |
 |
| Figure 4: A One-Dimensional CA Model Implementing “Rule 30” Where Successive Iterations Are Presented Below Each Other. |
Full Reference:
Continue reading »Crooks, A.T. (2017), Cellular Automata, in Richardson, D., Castree, N., Goodchild, M. F., Kobayashi, A. L., Liu, W. and Marston, R. (eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology, Wiley Blackwell. DOI: 10.1002/9781118786352.wbieg0578. (pdf)
In the recently released “The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology” I was asked to write a brief entry on “Cellular Automata“. Below is the abstract to my chapter, along some of the images I used in my discussion, the full reference to the chapter.
Abstract:
Cellular Automata (CA) are a class of models where one can explore how local actions generate global patterns through well specified rules. In such models, decisions are made locally by each cell which are often arranged on a regular lattice and the patterns that emerge, be it urban growth or deforestation are not coordinated centrally but arise from the bottom up. Such patterns emerge through the cell changing its state based on specific transition rules and the states of their surrounding cells. This entry reviews the principles of CA models, provides a background on how CA models have developed, explores a range of applications of where they have been used within the geographical sciences, prior to concluding with future directions for CA modeling.
|
| Figure 1: Two-Dimensional Cellular Automata Neighborhoods |
|
| Figure 2: Voronoi Tessellations Of Space Where Each Polygon Has A Different Number Of Neighbors Based On A Shared Edge. |
|
| Figure 3: Example of Cells Changing State from Dead (White) To Alive (Black) Over Time Depending On The States of its Neighboring Cells. |
|
| Figure 4: A One-Dimensional CA Model Implementing “Rule 30” Where Successive Iterations Are Presented Below Each Other. |
Full Reference:
Continue reading »Crooks, A.T. (2017), Cellular Automata, in Richardson, D., Castree, N., Goodchild, M. F., Kobayashi, A. L., Liu, W. and Marston, R. (eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology, Wiley Blackwell. DOI: 10.1002/9781118786352.wbieg0578. (pdf)
Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation is a new open access journal, addressing the interdisciplinary field that links different aspects of remote sensing (the use of different imaging and sensing technologies) and the field of ecology and conservation. It is publishing its papers in Open Access, so the papers are free to download and share. … Continue reading Call for Papers in a special issue of Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation on citizen science
I recently stumbled upon a great dataset. It’s the first to provide comprehensive data for world city sizes as far back as 3700BC. The authors (Meredith Reba, Femke Reitsma & Karen Seto) write: How were cities distributed globally in the past? How many people lived in these cities? How did cities influence their local and regional […]
Continue reading »In a previous blog post, I presented QGIS enhancement #91, which aims at providing the infrastructure in QGIS to author, consume and share standards-based metadata (e.g.: ISO). In this post I would like to focus on a specific WP which … Continue reading →