Brian M. Tomaszewski

Situation awareness and virtual globes: Applications for disaster management

This paper presents research on the use of virtual globes to support the development of disaster event situation awareness in humans via open source information analysis and visualization. The key technology used for this research is the Context Discovery Application (CDA), which is a geovisual analytic environment designed to integrate implicit geographic information with Google Earth(TM). A case study of humanitarian disaster management is used to demonstrate the unique abilities of the CDA and Google Earth^T^M to support situation awareness. The paper provides some of the first empirical evidence on the utility of the virtual globes to support situation awareness for disaster management using implicit geographic information. The evidence presented was derived from evaluations by disaster management practitioners at the United Nations (UN) ReliefWeb project, an extremely relevant, yet difficult group to access for conducting academic disaster management research. Finally, ideas for future research on developing virtual globe applications to support situation awareness are described.

Supporting geographically-aware web document foraging and sensemaking

This paper reports on the development and application of strategies and tools for geographic information seeking and knowledge building that leverages unstructured text resources found on the web. Geographic knowledge building from unstructured web sources starts with web document foraging during which the quantity, scope and diversity of web-based information create incredible cognitive burdens on an analyst’s or researcher’s ability to judge information relevancy. Determining information relevancy is ultimately a process of sensemaking. In this paper, we present our research on visually supporting web document foraging and sensemaking. In particular, we present the Sense-of-Place (SensePlace) analytic environment. The scientific goal of SensePlace is to visually and computationally support analyst sensemaking with text artifacts that have potential place, time, and thematic relevance to an analytical problem through identification and visual highlighting of named entities (people, places, times, and organizations) in documents, automated inference to determine document relevance using stored knowledge, and a visual interface with coupled geographic map, timeline, and concept graph displays that are used to contextualize the contexts of potentially relevant documents. We present the results of a case study analysis using SensePlace to uncover potential population migration, geopolitical, and other infectious disease dynamics drivers for measles and other epidemics in Niger. Our analysis allowed us to demonstrate how our approach can support analysis of complex situations along (a) multi-scale geographic dimensions (i.e., vaccine coverage areas), (b) temporal dimensions (i.e., seasonal population movement and migrations), and (c) diverse thematic dimensions (effects of political upheaval, food security, transient movement, etc.).

Producing Geo-historical Context from Implicit Sources: A Geovisual Analytics Approach

Abstract Geo-historical context, or GHC, is a contextual setting based on the interconnectedness of phenomena, events, and place across multiple spatial and temporal scales. GHC allows for situations to be understood and reasoned with, often with aid of visual representations such as maps. This paper introduces a conceptual model of GHC that theoretically motivates a Geovisual Analytics application called the Context Discovery Application (CDA), which is also presented. The CDA is designed to aid in the production of geo-historical context by using computational processes to identify and extract potentially relevant context information from heterogeneous, implicit situation information. This information can then be explored through visual interfaces to help users explain and understand the information. A hypothetical humanitarian context analysis case study is used to show how the CDA can be applied to real world problems.

Geo-historical context support for information foraging and sensemaking: Conceptual model, implementation, and assessment

Information foraging and sensemaking with heterogeneous information are context-dependent activities. Thus visual analytics tools to support these activities must incorporate context. But, context is a difficult concept to define, model, and represent. Creating and representing context in support of visually-enabled reasoning about complex problems with complex information is a complementary but different challenge than that addressed in context-aware computing. In the latter, the goal is automated adaptation of the system to meet user needs for applications such as mobile location-based services where information about the location, the user, and the user goals filters what gets presented on a small mobile device. In contrast, for visual analytics-enabled information foraging and sensemaking, the user is likely to take an active role in foraging for the contextual information needed to support sensemaking in relation to some multifaceted problem. In this paper, we address the challenges of constructing and representing context within visual interfaces that support analytical reasoning in crisis management and humanitarian relief. The challenges stem from the diverse forms of information that can provide context and difficulty in defining and operationalizing context itself. Here, we pay particular attention to document foraging to support construction of the geographic and historical context within which monitoring and sensemaking can be carried out. Specifically, we present the concept of geo-historical context (GHC) and outline an empirical assessment of both the concept and its implementation in the Context Discovery Application, a web-based tool that supports document foraging and sensemaking.

An Open GeoSpatial Standards-Enabled Google Earth Application to Support Crisis Management

Google Earth (GE) and related open geospatial technologies have changed both the accessibility of and audience for geospatial information dramatically. Through data rich applications with easy to use interfaces, these technologies bring personalized geospatial information directly to the non-specialist. When coupled with open geospatial data standards, such as Web Map Services (WMS), Web Features Services (WFS), and GeoRSS, the resulting web-based technologies have the potential to assimilate heterogeneous data from distributed sources rapidly enough to support time-critical activities such as crisis response. Although the ability to view and interact with data in these environments is important, this functionality alone is not sufficient for the demands of crisis response activity. For example, GE’s standard version currently lacks geoanalysis capabilities such as geographic buffering and topology functions. In this paper, we present development of the “Google Earth Dashboard” (GED), a web-based interface powered by open geospatial standards and designed for supplementing and enhancing the geospatial capabilities of GE. The GED allows users to create custom maps through WMS layer addition to GE and perform traditional GIS analysis functions. Utility of the GED is presented in a usecase scenario where GIS operations implemented to work with GE are applied to support crisis management activities. The GED represents an important first step towards combining the ubiquity of GE and geospatial standards into an easy-to-use, data rich, geo-analytically powerful environment that can support crisis management activity.

Tracing conceptual and geospatial diffusion of knowledge

Understanding the dynamics of knowledge diffusion has profound theoretical and practical implications across a wide variety of domains, ranging from scientific disciplines to education and understanding emergent social phenomena. On the other hand, it involves many challenging issues due to the inherited complexity of knowledge diffusion. In this article, we describe a unifying framework that is designed to facilitate the study of knowledge diffusion through multiple geospatial and semantic perspectives. In particular, we address the role of intrinsic and extrinsic geospatial properties of underlying phenomena in understanding conceptual and geospatial diffusion of knowledge. We illustrate the use of visualizations of geographic distributions of terrorist incidents, the structural evolution of research networks on terrorism and avian flu, and concept-location relations extracted from news stories.

Supporting humanitarian relief logistics operations through online geocollaborative knowledge management

Over the past two years, horrific disasters such as the Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and the Pakistan Earthquake have demonstrated the critical need for effective technological infrastructure that is scientifically grounded in geo-visual group interaction theory [1] and humanitarian knowledge management procedures [2] to quickly and effectively facilitate planning for predictable events and post-event response. In this demonstration, we address specific issues that negatively impact the effectiveness of geocollaborative process in disaster relief. These include lack of common group operating picture, lack of command structure understanding and blatant miscommunication and misunderstanding about where relief supplies needed to be delivered, who will deliver them, when they need to be delivered, and the relevancy of deliveries to stricken areas. Our approach improves on existing systems by using methods and technologies that meet the challenges of coordinating the efforts of diverse and spatially distributed private, public, and governmental agencies throughout the world responding to disasters. This is accomplished by applying new forms of distributed geospatial data, technology, and collaboration functionality. We present our progress on the development of the Geocollaborative Web Portal (GWP), an asynchronous, open source geospatial information framework designed to support international group interaction and knowledge management in the context of humanitarian relief logistics.

Geovisual analytics to support crisis management: information foraging for geo-historical context

Information foraging and sense-making with heterogeneous information are context-dependent activities. Thus visual analytics tools to support these activities must incorporate context. But, context is a difficult concept to define, model, and represent. Creating and representing context in support of visually-enabled reasoning about complex problems with complex information is a complementary but different challenge than that addressed in context-aware computing. In the latter, the goal is automated system adaptation to meet user application needs such as location-based services where information about the location, the user, and user goals filters what gets presented on a small mobile device. In contrast, for visual analytics-enabled information foraging and sense-making, the user generally takes an active role in foraging for the contextual information needed to support sense-making in relation to some multifaceted problem. In this paper, we address the challenges of constructing and representing context within visual interfaces that support analytic reasoning in crisis management and humanitarian relief. The challenges stem from the diverse forms of information that can provide context and difficulty in defining and operationalizing context itself. Here, we focus on document foraging to support construction of geographic and historical context for facilitating monitoring and sense-making. Specifically, we present the concept of geo-historical context and outline an empirical assessment of both the concept and its implementation in the Context Discovery Application (CDA), a web-based tool that supports document foraging and sense-making. We also discuss the CDA’s transition into applied use for the United Nations to demonstrate the generality of underlying CDA concepts.

Spatial Thinking Ability Assessment in Rwandan Secondary Schools: Baseline Results

This article discusses use and modification of Lee and Bednarz’s (2012) Spatial Thinking Ability Test (STAT) as a spatial thinking assessment device in Rwandan secondary schools. After piloting and modifying the STAT, 222 students total from our rural and urban test schools and one control school were tested. Statistical analysis revealed that urban test school students outperformed rural test school students and that males outperformed females. Also observed were significant differences in performance for particular STAT question categories that can be used to inform strategies for spatial thinking curricular development and further modifications to the STAT in other contexts.

Community-Level Access Divides: A Refugee Camp Case Study

Despite the appearance of uniform availability of mobile services, in many locales granular network analyses reveal the persistence of physical access divides. It stands to reason these divides, similar to those at larger scales, are also reflections of community-level social and economic divides. In this research, we examine community-level physical access divides in the context of a Syrian refugee camp. The investigation combines detailed network and organizational analyses to characterize the divides and identify factors influencing their creation and potential solutions. Our findings show that even in the limited confines of a refugee camp, coverage patterns and bandwidth availability differ significantly both within and between the networks of three mobile cellular carriers. These patterns, together with the overall configuration of network infrastructure, demonstrate three community level divides: an inter-carrier congestion divide, a spatial distribution divide, and an inter-network divide. We identify a number of linkages between these divides and the social, organizational and humanitarian context of the camp. Building on these analyses, we provide recommendations to ameliorate these divides for both residents and camp management.