Scott Bell

Are Sex Differences in Navigation Caused by Sexually Dimorphic Strategies or by Differences in the Ability to Use the Strategies

When navigating, women typically focus on landmarks within the environment, whereas men tend to focus on the Euclidean properties of the environment. However, it is unclear whether these observed differences in navigational skill result from disparate strategies or disparate ability. To remove this confound, the present study required participants to follow either landmark- or Euclidean-based instructions during a navigation task (either in the real-world or on paper). Men performed best when using Euclidean information, whereas women performed best when using landmark information, suggesting a dimorphic capacity to use these 2 types of spatial information. Further, a significant correlation was observed between the mental rotation task and the ability to use Euclidean information, but not the ability to use landmark information.

Neighbourhoods and potential access to health care: The role of spatial and aspatial factors

The availability of, and access to, primary health care is one neighbourhood characteristic that has the potential to impact health thus representing an important area of focus for neighbourhood-health research. This research examines neighbourhood access to primary health care in the city of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. A modification of the Two Step Floating Catchment Area method is used to measure multiple spatial and aspatial (social) dimensions of potential access to primary health care in natural neighbourhoods of Mississauga. The analysis reveals that neighbourhood-level potential access to primary care is dependant on spatial and aspatial dimensions of access selected for examination. The results also show that potential accessibility is reduced for linguistic minorities as well as for recent immigrant populations who appear, on the surface, to have better access to walk-in clinics than dedicated physicians. The research results reinforce the importance of focusing on intra-urban variations in access to care and demonstrate the utility of a new approach for studying neighbourhood impacts that better represents spatial variations in health care access and demand.

Access to Primary Health Care: Does Neighborhood of Residence Matter?

Neighborhood social and physical contexts have the ability to impact health and health behaviors of residents. One neighborhood characteristic that remains underexamined in the research is access to health care resources. This research examines potential (geographical) access to primary health care in the city of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. A modification of the two-step floating catchment area method that better suits the study of locally relevant natural neighborhood units is presented. Potential access to health care is measured in each of Mississaugas neighborhoods considering several spatial and aspatial (i.e., social) characteristics of the population and of physicians, including the raw abundance of physicians, languages spoken by physicians and patients, and whether physicians are accepting new patients. Neighborhood-level results are compared to census tracts. The results of this analysis reveal that potential access significantly differs between neighborhoods for all spatial and aspatial dimensions of access. Accessibility is considerably reduced for linguistic minorities and for those who might not have a dedicated family physician as compared to the general population. This research contributes to the existing body of literature on neighborhoods and health by demonstrating the utility of an alternative methodology for developing a more comprehensive understanding of access to health care within natural geographical neighborhoods.

Using the Internet to Support International Collaborations for Global Geography Education

This paper reports the results of a pilot study that evaluated a prototype instructional module designed to support international collaborative learning in the World Wide Web. The module, Migration, was tested at four higher education institu tions in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Students valued the opportunity to learn global geography by collaborating electronically in multinational teams, yet many students complained about confusing instructional procedures and uncooperative team members. The results of the module evaluation provide useful suggestions for managing pedagogical issues related to the process of online international collaborative learning.

WiFi-based enhanced positioning systems: accuracy through mapping, calibration, and classification

Enhanced-positioning systems are able to support the acquisition of accurate location information using wireless technology other than the Global Positioning System (GPS). These systems have the potential to supplement GPS where GPS is unreliable. In particular, enhanced-positioning systems can provide location information for navigational support and Location Based Services (LBS) indoors and in dense urban canyons and natural environments with extreme relief. The emergence of LBS and the widespread adoption of GPS-based navigation systems are largely a result of the accuracy with which GPS devices can determine location. The purpose of this study is to validate Wireless internet access points (WiFi APs) for determining location. A WiFi-based positioning system, tentatively called SaskEPS (Saskatchewan Enhanced Positioning System) has been developed, calibrated, and implemented for two multi-floor buildings on the University of Saskatchewan campus. Locations are calculated using four discrete steps (or sub-routines). Step 1. Creation of an accurate database of AP locations, 2. Calibration of signal strength and conversion to distance 3. Determination of line-of-sight from non-line-of-sight APs and assignment of correction factor to non-line-of-sight, and 4. Trilateration based on three or more router locations and derived distances. The results of an experiment testing the accuracy and reliability of locations calculated with the system show GPS-like accuracy with relatively low continuous (distance) and nominal (placement on correct floor of a multifloor building) uncertainty.

Relationship among Environmental Pointing Accuracy, Mental Rotation, Sex, and Hormones

Humans rely on internal representations to solve a variety of spatial problems including navigation. Navigation employs specific information to compose a representation of space that is distinct from that obtained through static bird’s-eye or horizontal perspectives. The ability to point to on-route locations, off-route locations, and the route origin illustrates the unique types of spatial knowledge that can be acquired during navigation. This research explores the accuracy with which men and women perform these types of pointing tasks to better understand the development and structure of their cognitive maps as a result of experience in the environment. Interestingly, it appears that endogenous concentrations of the sex hormone testosterone significantly predict pointing accuracy. This pattern is consistent with what is observed with pencil-and-paper tasks of spatial ability that may relate to environmental spatial abilities such as navigation.

iEpi: an end to end solution for collecting, conditioning and utilizing epidemiologically relevant data

Smartphones have the potential to revolutionize health monitoring and delivery. Significant attention has been given to personal health devices and systems to help individuals and medical practitioners monitor health and treatment compliance. The data collected from these systems also has significant value to public health workers and epidemiologists. However, requirements for backend analysis and supplemental data differ between personal and public health applications. In this paper we describe iEpi, an end-to-end system for collecting, analyzing, and utilizing contextual microdata through smartphones for epidemiological and public health applications.

Investigating impacts of positional error on potential health care accessibility.

Accessibility to health services at the local or community level is an effective approach to measuring health care delivery in various constituencies in Canada and the United States. GIS and spatial methods play an important role in measuring potential access to health services. The Three-Step Floating Catchment Area (3SFCA) method is a GIS based procedure developed to calculate potential (spatial) accessibility as a ratio of primary health care (PHC) providers to the surrounding population in urban settings. This method uses PHC provider locations in textual/address format supplied by local, regional, or national health authorities. An automated geocoding procedure is normally used to convert such addresses to a pair of geographic coordinates. The accuracy of geocoding depends on the type of reference data and the amount of value-added effort applied. This research investigates the success and accuracy of six geocoding methods as well as how geocoding error affects the 3SFCA method. ArcGIS software is used for geocoding and spatial accessibility estimation. Results will focus on two implications of geocoding: (1) the success and accuracy of different automated and value-added geocoding; and (2) the implications of these geocoding methods for GIS-based methods that generalise results based on location data.

Adapting to the Machine: Integrating GIS into Qualitative Research

Geographic information systems (GIS) represent a technology developed over the past 30 years to facilitate the storage of spatial data and the solution of spatial problems. Recently, encouraging work in geography has begun to show the power of this technology for studying diverse social issues at a variety of scales. In this paper we demonstrate how social and spatial linkages might be effectively illustrated using GIS in qualitative, action-oriented research. In particular we focus on a component of the discipline that has traditionally not used GIS technology: feminist, community-based action research. We do this through a hypothetical dialogue between two geographers: a researcher with expertise in GIS and GIScience, and a researcher using feminist participatory and case-study methods who is interested in incorporating GIS into her studies. The dialogue will illustrate how a research strategy that combines GIS and qualitative methods might be advanced, using a specific study as the focus or the discussion.

Realizing neighbourhood potential? The role of the availability of health care services on contact with a primary care physician.

Access to health services research has traditionally focused on demographic, socioeconomic, and need-based factors, resulting in a relative lack of knowledge regarding place-based determinants. Further, much of what we know comes from international, national, and regional study. This study analyzes survey data (n=1635) to explore the relationship between neighbourhood-level potential access (i.e., availability) and realized access (i.e., use) in two Canadian cities. Controlling for predisposing, enabling and need factors, living in a well-served neighbourhood was a significant predictor of realized access, particularly in Saskatoon. This suggests that the relationship between potential and realized access may be modified by place-based factors.