Christopher C Miller

Obesity and access to chain grocers.

abstract Recent empirical work in the obesity literature has highlighted the role of the built environment and its potential influence in the increasing prevalence of obesity in adults and children. One feature of the built environment that has gained increasing attention is the role of access to chain grocers and their impact on body mass index (BMI). The assessment of the impacts of spatial access to chain grocers on BMI is complicated by two empirical regularities in the data. There is evidence that health outcomes such as BMI are clustered in space and that there is spatial dependence across individuals. In this article, we use an econometric model that takes into account the spatial dependence, and we allow the effect of access to differ for a person depending on whether he or she lives in a low-income community or peer group. We categorize this community using the characteristics of the people who immediately surround the individual rather than using census tracts. Using georeferenced survey data on adults in Marion County, Indiana, we find that the effect of improvements in chain grocer access on BMI varies depending on community characteristics.

Librarian Roles in Institutional Repository Data Set Collecting: Outcomes of a Research Library Task Force

The collection development role of the academic librarian in the research university library is increasingly subject to significant change as opportunities to build new types of library collections proliferate, particularly with respect to research data. A Purdue Libraries task force was charged with building faculty-produced collections for a data repository prototype. One purpose of the project was to inventory and characterize the resources and skills required of the libraries and its data-collecting librarians. This paper examines the librarian roles and activities that were identified during the project and suggests ways the experience of the task force can inform the roles and activities of librarians who are similarly charged.

Isoscapes to address large-scale Earth science challenges

Sugar cane cropping for biofuel production reduces water discharge from a northern Indian basin and threatens downstream communities. Regulators want to partition blame between climate change—induced declines in mountain snowpack and excessive evaporation from poorly managed fields. In the same basin, a tiger is found shot. Is it the nuisance animal that has been tormenting local communities, or is it a different animal poached from the upland forests?

Cyberinfrastructure for isotope analysis and modeling

As the quantity and complexity of scientific data expand, accessible interfaces for data manipulation and analysis are needed to support broad and efficient data use. The Isoscapes Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction (IsoMAP; http://isomap.org) Web-based geographical information system (GIS) gateway is an example of such a resource. Recently launched with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Biological Infrastructure, IsoMAP enables analysis and integration of diverse light stable isotope and environmental data by a broad-based user community. It provides an intuitive, spatial interface that streamlines data analysis, modeling, and exploration in research ranging from greenhouse gas biogeochemistry to food science.

Adding value to digitizing with GIS

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a project that digitized the 1906 Soil Survey of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, extracted its contents into full‐text and geospatial datasets, and then built them into a web application designed to approximate but improve upon the way soil surveys are typically used by soil scientists in their research and field work.Design/methodology/approach – The components of a 1906 soil survey document were scanned and their contents were extracted using several different methods, chief among them imagery segmentation and classification. The resulting datasets included a full‐text version of the original narrative and two georeferenced versions of the soil survey map.Findings – Going several steps beyond just scanning, including the application of geographic information system (GIS) capabilities, adds significant value to geospatial materials whose contents are still relevant but whose formats are cumbersome. In addition, this allows for a GIS platform to which other ma...

Work in progress — Development and integration of an online soil mapping Web application

Mapping technologies are abundant on the Web as well as through boxed software; however, the ability to overlay ones own maps onto the surface in order to provide enriched detail is not found in most typical software. “Integrating Spatial Educational Experiences (Isee) into Crop, Soil, and Environmental Science Curricula” is a USDA-funded project focused on making soil data in the form of maps more accessible and easy-to-use for undergraduate students. The current solution integrates the Google Earth API, GeoWebCache, PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript in the form of a website. Although the differences in GIS software usability are generally unknown, the Isee prototype may serve as a viable model of an approach applicable at other universities. The purpose of the research is to collect quantitative data to determine if differences in software with various interfaces influence a students satisfaction and performance. The “Isee” website will be among the compared software, in which students will attempt to answer questions based on the information they can find with the software. The researcher will record performance data quantitatively throughout the session. Afterwards, students will report preferences and perceptions in a survey.