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Science as a whole is organized into broad fields, and as a consequence, research, resources, students, etc., are also classified, assigned, or invited following a similar structure. Some fields have been established for centuries, and some others are just flourishing. Funding, staff, etc., to support fields are offered if there is some activity on it, commonly measured in terms of the number of published scientific papers. How to find them? There exist well-respected listings where scientific journals are ascribed to one or more knowledge fields. Such lists are human-made, but the complexity begins when a field covers more than one area of knowledge. How to discern if a particular paper is devoted to a field not considered in such lists? In this work, we propose a methodology able to classify the universe of papers into two classes; those belonging to the field of interest, and those that do not. This proposed procedure learns from the title and abstract of papers published in monothematic or "pure" journals. Provided that such journals exist, the procedure could be applied to any field of knowledge. We tested the process with Geographic Information Science. The field has contacts with Computer Science, Mathematics, Cartography, and others, a fact which makes the task very difficult. We also tested our procedure and analyzed its results with three different criteria, illustrating its power and capabilities. Interesting findings were found, where our proposed solution reached similar results as human taggers also similar results compared with state-of-the-art related work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Let H be a Hilbert space and let C be a closed convex nonempty subset of H and $$T : C\rightarrow H$$ a non-self nonexpansive mapping. A map $$h : C\rightarrow R$$ defined by $$h(x) := \inf \{\lambda \ge 0 : \lambda x+(1-\lambda )Tx \in C \}$$ . Then, for a fixed $$x_0 \in C$$ and for $$\begin{aligned}{\alpha _0} = \max \left\{ {\frac{1}{2},h({x_0})} \right\}\end{aligned}$$ , Krasnoselskii-Mann algorithm is defined by $$x_{n+1}=\alpha _n+(1-\alpha _n)Tx_n,$$ where $$\alpha _{n+1}=\max \{\alpha _n, h(x_{x_{n+1}})\}$$ . Recently, Colao and Marino (Fixed Point Theory Appl 2015:39, 2015) have proved both weak and strong convergence theorems when C is a strictly convex set and T is an inward mapping. Meanwhile, they proposed a open question for a countable family of non-self nonexpansive mappings. In this article, authors will give an answer and will prove the further generalized results with the examples to support them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores an interdisciplinary approach that researchers can use to understand how people feel about their movement in the cityscape and their risk-taking activities by visualizing it. Author 1, a visual artist, and Author 2, a criminologist, used a psychogeography method where participants hand-drew maps of their everyday operations in the sex marketplace. Researchers, artists, and activists have used mapmaking to elucidate how individuals conceptualize physical space and place or their subjective, emotional relationship to the city's geography. Psychogeographers Lynch and Debord have used it to understand how participants feel about moving, inhabiting, navigating risk, and subverting space in the metropolis. We use this method as a vehicle to show how sex market facilitators' imagine the physical geographic space where they work in the nighttime economy, their embodiment in managing a business in the urban landscape, their emotions in this risk-taking activity, and how they feel rerouting city blocks and subverting formal capitalism. In addition, this technique enabled participants to feel and recall emotions of this lived experience, such as excitement, control, authenticity, shame, and freedom. Sixty participants who worked in New York City hand drew mental maps or visual depictions of where they worked within the city. This visual storytelling method provides an avenue for what O'Neill terms an ethno-mimetic process where images/performances make lived experiences palpable to viewers. In this case, we see a glimpse of the sensations of this high-risk activity in the sex marketplace, allowing us to understand participants' social relations, lived experiences, and motivations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capacity to aspire for young people is significant, as they cannot choose to be what they cannot experience or imagine becoming. Student exchange programmes that expand experiences of STEM may increase opportunities, interests, and participation for rural young people in the STEM subject field. This paper creates a cartography with data created from self-reported Year 10 students' affective responses to experiences undergone during a three-week rural exchange (RE) programme. Students reported increased feelings of belonging to both school and STEM subjects during and after participating in the RE programme. The data created with students during this study provided a deep insight into the positive affective impact of the experiences undergone. Students' increased aspirations and motivation to continue in STEM fields were reported as sustained on return to their home rural school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cartography is a technique for creating maps, which are graphical representations of spatial information. Traditional cartography involves the creation of geographical data, such as locations of countries, geographical features of mountains, rivers, and oceans, and celestial objects. However, cartography has recently been utilized to display various data, such as antigenic signatures, graphically. Hence, it is natural to consider a new cartography that can flexibly deal with various data types. This study proposes a model of Siamese topological neural networks consisting of a pair of hierarchical neural networks, each with a low-dimensional internal layer for creating context-flexible maps. The proposed Siamese topological neural network transfers high-dimensional data with various contexts into their low-dimensional spatial representations on a map that humans can use to gain insights from the data. Here, it is enough to define a metric of difference between an arbitrary pair of data instances for training the proposed neural network. As the metric can be arbitrarily defined, the proposed neural network realizes context-flexible cartography useful for visual data analysis. This paper applies the proposed network for visualizing various demographic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A previous paper of the author introduced a graphical method, allowing anyone interested to form one's own opinion on data published in the form of computer-maps to re-compute the map data by means of a simple and efficient use of commonly available computer-graphic products. This was shown to allow a data re-analysis of sound metrological quality—there applied to a NASA video concerning the ice coverage on the Earth's surface. In the present paper, the same procedure shows an efficient way to (re-)compute the annual value of the so-called Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST)—a parameter normally provided by dedicated International Organizations, such as the ONU-supported IPCC—from whole-Earth maps of different types, often obtaining different results. A cartographic reason for this is given and discussed, explaining the differences found, some of which might have remained implicit in the published information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital maps are important for many decision-making tasks that require situational awareness, navigation, or location-specific data. Often, digital mapping tools must generate a map that displays labels near associated features in a visually appealing manner, without occluding important information. Automated label placement systems generally accomplish this nontrivial task through a combination of heuristic algorithms and cartography rules, but the resulting maps often do not reflect the preferences and needs of the map user. To achieve higher quality map views, research is needed to identify cognitive and computational approaches for generating high-quality maps that meet user needs and expectations. In this paper, we present a study that explores the visual preferences of map users and supports the development of a preference model for digital map displays. In particular, we found that participants demonstrated consistent preferences for how labels are placed near their point of interest, and that they were more likely to choose positions that prioritized alignment over distance when ranking labels that made trade-offs between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nicolas-Auguste Tissot (1824-1897) published a series of papers on cartography in which he introduced a tool which became known later on, among geographers, under the name of the Tissot indicatrix. This tool was broadly used during the twentieth century in the theory and in the practical aspects of the drawing of geographical maps. The Tissot indicatrix is a graphical representation of a field of ellipses on a map that describes its distortion. Tissot studied extensively, from a mathematical viewpoint, the distortion of mappings from the sphere onto the Euclidean plane that are used in drawing geographical maps, and more generally he developed a theory for the distortion of mappings between general surfaces. His ideas are at the heart of the work on quasiconformal mappings that was developed several decades after him by Grötzsch, Lavrentieff, Ahlfors and Teichmüller. Grötzsch mentions the work of Tissot, and he uses the terminology related to his name (in particular, Grötzsch uses the Tissot indicatrix). Teichmüller mentions the name of Tissot in a historical section in one of his fundamental papers where he claims that quasiconformal mappings were used by geographers, but without giving any hint about the nature of Tissot's work. The name of Tissot is missing from all the historical surveys on quasiconformal mappings. In the present paper, we report on this work of Tissot. We shall mention some related works on cartography, on the differential geometry of surfaces, and on the theory of quasiconformal mappings. This will place Tissot's work in its proper context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, ontology matching and mapping research has shown a measurable progress. This topic draws substantial attention within the research community, though it is not fully researched so far and new complex and effective solutions are needed. Current works are limited in finding alignments or mappings between concepts of heterogeneous ontologies. But, once ontology mappings are found, then how they (or their class expressions) are to be integrated automatically is left open for the ontology merging research. This paper elaborates the mapping of class expressions of concepts and contributes an algorithm for their merging in an automatic ontology merging process without any human intervention. However, the challenge of mapping axiomatic definitions is the most difficult task for merging concept definitions of the source ontologies, but it reveals significant increase in precision and recall values. In addition, with the study of these algorithms, we conclude that ontology merging facilitates when one wants to get ontology with the better quality as the combined rich axioms are added in the merged ontology. We also discuss the results of our first successful participation in the Conference, OA4QA and Anatomy track of OAEI 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is an introduction to the special issue entitled "Beyond (within, through) the Grid: Mapping and Historical Archaeology." The papers in this issue emerge from a 2017 Society for American Archaeology session, in which archaeologists considered the intersections of mapping and historical archaeology. In this volume, the papers expand upon these discussions and explore the ways in which mapping can generate new archaeological data and contribute to methodological and theoretical problems in historical archaeology. Together, they consider the interplay between visibility and invisibility, the visualization of embodied experience, mapping power and resistance, and the use of mapping in heritage practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Image stylization refers to the process of converting input images to a specific representation that enhances image content using several designed patterns. The critical steps to a successful image stylization are the design of patterns and arrangements. However, only skilled artists master such tasks because these tasks are challenging for most users. In this paper, a novel image stylization system based on anisotropic reaction diffusion is proposed to facilitate pattern generation and stylized image design. The system begins with self-organized patterns generated by reaction diffusion. To extend the style of reaction diffusion, the proposed method involves using a set of modifications of anisotropic diffusion to deform shape and introducing a flow field to guide pattern arrangement. A pattern picker is proposed to facilitate the pattern selection from these modifications. In the post-process step, a new thresholding and color mapping method is introduced to refine the sizes, densities, and colors of patterns. From the experimental results and a user study, several image stylizations, including paper-cut, stylized halftone, and motion illusion, are generated using our method, demonstrating the feasibility and flexibility of the proposed system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study is mainly devoted to the integration, analysis, and interpretation of the available geologic, remote sensing, and potential field data (mainly magnetic) to delineate the subsurface geologic structural elements controlling the western part of Baranes, South Eastern Desert, Egypt, and its relation to the southwestern desert structural regime. Additionally, to detect potential mineralization zones for future mining plans in the study area. The Western part of Baranes has not had enough geomorphological mapping, consequently, potential discoveries of mineralization zones are very low. So, in this paper, an attempt is initiated to better understand the evolution of the geomorphology and structural regime of the region and construct a digital geological map and structural patterns showing the possible locations of mineralization zones based on the previous knowledge from similar potential sites and focus on the future economic importance of the region. To achieve this purpose, processed Landsat-8 images successfully revealed the lithological contacts and fault zones helping in distinguishing between the different rock units; moreover, the aeromagnetic data available in the area is used and several filters are applied including reduction to the pole, Euler homogeneity equation, analytic Signal (AS), and advanced grid filtering are sequentially used aiming to detect the possible subsurface distribution of mineralization zones from the integrated interpretation of magnetic susceptibilities and available geologic and remote sensing data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, it is argued that sentences with sai2mat1 'needn't' in Cantonese are rhetorical questions and sai2mat1 'needn't' is a root modal that undergoes movement to a higher position above TP, exhibiting epistemic-like properties. Under the cartographic approach, the rhetorical reading is derived by an interrogative feature [Int] of C, a null negative operator in CP, and an interpretable assertive feature [Assert] of F collectively. Rhetorical questions should be used in root contexts, implying that indirect rhetorical questions do not exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the benefactive and malefactive applicatives in Taiwan Southern Min (TSM). The malefactive applicative discussed in the present study is introduced in the adversative passives which appear with the hoo...ka configuration. Unlike Japanese adversative passives, the additional argument in the adversative passives in TSM is the repeated patient subject, which always occurs with a pronominal form. The added argument is assumed to enhance the transitivity of the predicate. The two functional words, hoo and ka, are assumed to interact in the adversative passive hoo...ka construction. Like the malefactive applicative, the TSM benefactive applicative structure is also licensed by the word ka. The paper thus examines the syntactic and semantic properties of the ka construction. The present study further postulates a hierarchical order of ka-applicatives, modals and wh-adverbials in terms of their structural height. In line with Tsai's () three-way applicative assumption, the paper argues that the benefactive and malefactive ka-applicatives are both situated at the lexical layer; the malefactive ka-phrase is higher than the benefactive applicative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  Experiments are essential ingredients of science, both to confirm/refute a theory and to discover new theories. It is a common belief that experimentation in mobile robotics has not yet reached a level of maturity comparable with that reached in science, for example in physics, considered as the paradigm of a mature, stable, and well-founded scientific discipline. In this paper, starting from a representative sample of the current state of the art, we identify some basic issues of experiments in mobile robot localization and mapping. These issues, when viewed in the context of some general principles about experiments in science and engineering, lead us to derive some insightful considerations on the role of experiments in mobile robotics. Reflecting the background of the authors, the paper has an interdisciplinary nature at the meeting point of mobile robotics and philosophy of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued in this paper that a sentence should consist of at least three layers, namely proposition, grounding, and response, which are formed by a number of functional categories, such as Event, Temp, Focus, Degree, and CoA. A cartographic analysis of the performative projections can be supported by the data of the sentence-final particles in Cantonese, focusing on the sentence-final particle ho and other members of the h-family, which may allow us to have a better understanding of the syntax of the speech act domain and should have implications for the cross-linguistic study of the performatives and the theory of the Universal Grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is generally accepted that the concept of sustainability is not straightforward, but is subject to ongoing ambiguities, uncertainties and contestations. Yet literature on sustainability transitions has so far only engaged in limited ways with the resulting tough questions around what sustainability means, to whom and in which contexts. This paper makes a contribution to this debate by unpacking sustainability in India and Thailand in the context of solar photovoltaic and urban mobility experimentation. Building on a database of sustainability experiments and multicriteria mapping techniques applied in two workshops, the paper concludes that sustainability transition scholarship and associated governance strategies must engage with such questions in at least three important ways. First, there is a need for extreme caution in assuming any objective status for the sustainability of innovations, and for greater reflection on the normative implications of case study choices. Second, sustainability transition scholarship and governance must engage more with the unpacking of uncertainties and diverse possible socio-technical configurations even within (apparently) singular technological fields. Third, sustainability transition scholarship must be more explicit and reflective about the specific geographical contexts within which the sustainability of experimentation is addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with the so-called spatial turn and goes on to examine one of its most recent offshoots: the cartographic turn. After analysing the implications that this turn, particularly its digital aspect, may have on a possible mappability of literature and on the definition of an emerging field like spatial humanities, the paper will discuss the broad disciplinary spectrum of digital humanities and its possible convergences with this cartographic and spatialising trend through the changes experienced by the contemporary textual condition (from the large-scale digitation of texts to the spread of multimedia). The paper also explores the split between an eminently quantitative approach and a qualitative one, within both digital and spatial humanities, when tackling the study of texts, whether they be literary or otherwise. This duality leads to the current debate between defenders and detractors of what Franco Moretti dubbed distant reading, a critical practice that opposes the traditional method of close reading. As the paper attempts to argue, that distant perspective is closely linked to the cartographic turn and does not necessarily involve using exclusively quantitative tools and giving up close reading as a means of accessing texts. In this sense, through the underlying concept of some literary GIS and of the emerging notion of deep or thick mapping, the paper argues for the possibility of a telescopic reading which, as part of the approaches and interests of spatial and digital humanities, combines quantitative and qualitative methods and makes a distant focus (that is, cartographic) compatible with a close reading of texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We take advantage of ISCCP simulator data available for many models that participated in CMIP5, in order to introduce a framework for comparing model cloud output with corresponding ISCCP observations based on the cloud regime (CR) concept. Simplified global CRs are employed derived from the co-variations of three variables, namely cloud optical thickness, cloud top pressure and cloud fraction ( τ, p , CF). Following evaluation criteria established in a companion paper of ours (Jin et al. 2016), we assess model cloud simulation performance based on how well the simplified CRs are simulated in terms of similarity of centroids, global values and map correlations of relative-frequency-of-occurrence, and long-term total cloud amounts. Mirroring prior results, modeled clouds tend to be too optically thick and not as extensive as in observations. CRs with high-altitude clouds from storm activity are not as well simulated here compared to the previous study, but other regimes containing near-overcast low clouds show improvement. Models that have performed well in the companion paper against CRs defined by joint τ- p histograms distinguish themselves again here, but improvements for previously underperforming models are also seen. Averaging across models does not yield a drastically better picture, except for cloud geographical locations. Cloud evaluation with simplified regimes seems thus more forgiving than that using histogram-based CRs while still strict enough to reveal model weaknesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comprehensive study of socioeconomic factors affecting the situation of children and families with children in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation is a social requirement and an important scientific problem. In this paper, a method for estimating the child well-being index based on the threshold indicator aggregation model is considered. Three ways of ranking the indicators are presented. The results of the pilot experiments are shown in the cartogram of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of the first stage of works on the creation of a digital version of the State Soil Map (SSM) in vector and raster formats are discussed. The inventory of all the sheets of the SSM has been performed. The map has been vectorized in strict correspondence to the scale and projections of the initial map sheets in paper format; i.e., the digitized version of the map exactly reproduces the soil polygons shown on the original map sheets. The methods and challenges of digital soil cartography are considered. With respect to the SSM, the importance of two major advantages of the digitized version of this map is emphasized: (a) the preservation of the initial materials in the new electronic formats and (b) the possibility to improve the map with the use of new materials, including satellite images, digital elevation models, and various thematic maps after the transformation of their scales and projections. The analysis of the SSM in the vector format makes it possible to systematize and formulate the major problems and difficulties related to this project and to suggest the particular technologies and methods of their solution; certain directions requiring the elaboration of new methods are outlined. The final goal of the project on the development of the digital version of the SSM is the creation of a unified consistent soil map of Russia on a scale of 1: 1 M. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the recent developments in sensor technology including Microsoft Kinect, it has now become much easier to augment visual data with three-dimensional depth information. In this paper, we propose a new approach to RGB-D based topological place representation-building on bubble space. While bubble space representation is in principle transparent to the type and number of sensory inputs employed, practically, this has been only verified with visual data that are acquired either via a two degrees of freedom camera head or an omnidirectional camera. The primary contribution of this paper is of practical nature in this perspective. We show that bubble space representation can easily be used to combine RGB and depth data while affording acceptable recognition performance even with limited field of view sensing and simple features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generally, any database is developed for the purpose of providing certain services for retrieval or management of data. If rules or processes designed to extract and analyze data in consideration of data characteristics are simplified and services are provided to users by visualizing analysis results in an easy-to-understand fashion, users will be able to get diverse insights easily without much cost or effort. If this kind of database is constructed and provided in NTIS database as well (e.g., project data, research outcome data such as paper and patent, personnel information, etc.) users might be able to get varied insights on national R&D data. The approach proposed in this study is significant in that it provides platform-based analysis services which can create a knowledge map after extracting and analyzing user-interested data and subsequently visualizing the results. Furthermore, this study is intended to make users obtain insight on a research institute more easily by providing analyzable additional information, not only as a list of research institutes in user-preferred subjects after providing the results of the analysis on R&D expenses, but also in regional distribution and annual changes in core research institutes, focusing on those taking part in national R&D programs in certain fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the real world, the route/path with the shortest travel time in a road network is more meaningful than that with the shortest network distance for location-based services (LBS). However, not every LBS provider has adequate resources to compute/estimate travel time for routes by themselves. A cost-effective way for LBS providers to estimate travel time for routes is to issue external route requests to Web mapping services (e.g., Google Maps, Bing Maps, and MapQuest Maps). Due to the high cost of processing such external route requests and the usage limits of Web mapping services, we take the advantage of direction sharing, parallel requesting and waypoints supported by Web mapping services to reduce the number of external route requests and the query response time for shortest travel-time route queries in this paper. We first give the definition of sharing ability to reflect the possibility of sharing the direction information of a route with others, and find out the queries that their query routes are independent with each other for parallel processing. Then, we model the problem of selecting the optimal waypoints for an external route request as finding the longest simple path in a weighted complete digraph. As it is a MAX SNP-hard problem, we propose a greedy algorithm with performance guarantee to find the best set of waypoints in an external route request. We evaluate the performance of our approach using a real Web mapping service, a real road network, real and synthetic data sets. Experimental results show the efficiency, scalability, and applicability of our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the term 'volunteered geographic information' (VGI) has become a buzzword in debates on the geoweb, online cartography and digital geoinformation, the scope and reach of VGI remains underexplored. Drawing on literature on social implications of VGI, this article, firstly, explores differences between VGI initiatives at the example of a comparative case study on social biases within data of OSM and Wikimapia in the fragmented social setting of Jerusalem, Israel. The results of this analysis turn out to be highly contradictive between both projects, which challenges widely accepted assumptions on the imprint of social inequalities and digital divides on VGI. This observation guides, secondly, a discussion of diversity within the category of VGI. Arguing that mapping communities, data formats and knowledge types behind VGI are extremely dissimilar, the paper proceeds by questioning the consistency and utility of VGI as a category. Seeking for a more comprehensive typology of VGI, Edney's notion of cartographic modes will be presented as an approach towards a more contextualized understanding of VGI projects by embracing their underlying cultural, social and technical relations. Consequently, the paper suggests empirical research on the cartographic modes of a broad series of VGI projects through qualitative and quantitative methods alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ego-motion technology holds great significance for computer vision applications, robotics, augmented reality and visual simultaneous localization and mapping. This paper is a study of ego-motion estimation basic concepts, equipment, algorithms, challenges and its real world applications. First, we provide an overview for motion estimation in general with special focus on ego-motion estimation and its basic concepts. For ego-motion estimation it's necessary to understand the notion of independent moving objects, focus of expansion, motion field, and optical flow. Vital algorithms that are used for ego-motion estimation are critically discussed in the following section of the paper. Various camera setups and their potential weakness and strength are also studied in context of ego-motion estimation. We also briefly specify some ego-motion applications used in the real world. We conclude the paper by discussing some open problems, provide some future directions and finally summarize the entire paper in the conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge maps are useful tools, now beginning to be widely applied to the management and sharing of large-scale hierarchical knowledge. In this paper, we discuss how knowledge maps can be generated using Memory Island. Memory Island is our cartographic visualization technique, which was inspired by the ancient 'Art of Memory'. It consists of automatically creating the spatial cartographic representation of a given hierarchical knowledge (e.g., ontology). With the help of its interactive functions, users can navigate through an artificial landscape, to learn and retrieve information from the knowledge. We also present some preliminary results of representing different hierarchical knowledge to show how the knowledge maps created by our technique work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essential support for environmental monitoring activities is a rigorous definition of a homogeneous cartographic system, required to correctly georeference and analyse the acquired data. Furthermore, since 2007, the European Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) Directive affirms the necessity to harmonise the European maps for permitting cross-border analysis. For satisfying these requirements, the authors have developed a procedure for the cartographic harmonisation in the cross-border area studied during the European project Alpes Latines-Coopération Transfrontalière (ALCOTRA)-Alpes Latines-Individuation Resources Hydriques Souterraines (ALIRHyS). It concerns the hydrogeological study of various springs and other water resources in an area between Italy and France including their constitution in a cross-border system. The basic cartographic information is obtained from existing national maps (Italian and French data), which use different coordinate systems or projection methods and are produced from different data acquisitions and processes. In this paper, the authors describe the methods used to obtain well-harmonised middle-scale maps (aerial orthophotos, digital terrain model and digital maps). The processing has been performed using geographic information system (GIS) solutions or image analysis software in order to obtain useful and correct cartographic support for the monitoring data, even if the obtained maps could be further analysed or refined in future works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High dynamic range images are used to store and transfer an extended range of intensities to render them on a display. To reproduce such images on displays with a lower range, tone mapping algorithms are used. The tone mapping algorithm described in this paper is a modification of the globally optimized linear windowed tone mapping algorithm. This modification is based on the human vision system model; it makes it possible to improve the results produced by the algorithm and replaces the nonintuitive parameters with a number of intuitively clear ones the variation of which in a high range does not visually distort the image. The high quality of the results produced by the algorithm is confirmed by the high TMQI index and the low value of the DRIM metric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the historical origins and theoretical underpinnings of the maps of the city of Chicago produced by sociologists at the University of Chicago between 1920 and 1934. I argue that the three mapping schemes produced in those years-the concentric zone map of The City (1925), the base map of 75 community areas and the census tract maps published in three volumes of Census Data of the City of Chicago (1920, 1930, 1934)-draw upon distinct historical antecedents and have distinct theoretical implications. The first scheme exhibits the strong influence of Johann Heinrich von Thünen's location theory and maps produced by early Chicago city boosters, the second most clearly exhibits the influence of the Social Survey Movement and of pragmatist philosophy and the third, the influence of the financial and governmental interests of the organizations that made up the Chicago Census Committee. Literature on early urban sociology and mapping in Chicago has hitherto not adequately differentiated these three mapping schemes or problematized the implications of their differences for our understanding of the theoretical commitments of the 'Chicago School.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we are concerned with the study of an iterative scheme with errors involving two hemicontractive mappings. We approximate the common fixed points of these two mappings by weak and strong convergence of the iteration process in Hilbert space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In map generalization various operators are applied to the features of a map in order to maintain and improve the legibility of the map after the scale has been changed. These operators must be applied in the proper sequence and the quality of the results must be continuously evaluated. Cartographic constraints can be used to define the conditions that have to be met in order to make a map legible and compliant to the user needs. The combinatorial optimization approaches shown in this paper use cartographic constraints to control and restrict the selection and application of a variety of different independent generalization operators into an optimal sequence. Different optimization techniques including hill climbing, simulated annealing and genetic deep search are presented and evaluated experimentally by the example of the generalization of buildings in blocks. All algorithms used in this paper have been implemented in a web services framework. This allows the use of distributed and parallel processing in order to speed up the search for optimized generalization operator sequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  This paper presents a new map joining algorithm and a set of metrics for evaluating the performance of mapping techniques. The input to the new map joining algorithm is a sequence of local maps containing the feature positions and the final robot pose in a local frame of reference. The output is a global map containing the global positions of all the features but without any robot poses. The algorithm is built on the D-SLAM mapping algorithm (Wang et al. in Int. J. Robot. Res. 26(2):187–204, 2007) and uses iterations to improve the estimates in the map joining step. So it is called Iterated D-SLAM Map Joining (I-DMJ). When joining maps I-DMJ ignores the odometry information connecting successive maps. This is the key to I-DMJ efficiency, because it makes both the information matrix exactly sparse and the size of the state vector bounded by the number of features. The paper proposes metrics for quantifying the performance of different mapping algorithms focusing on evaluating their consistency, accuracy and efficiency. The I-DMJ algorithm and a number of existing SLAM algorithms are evaluated using the proposed metrics. The simulation data sets and a preprocessed Victoria Park data set used in this paper are made available to enable interested researchers to compare their mapping algorithms with I-DMJ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  This paper presents the map evaluation methodology developed for the Virtual Robots Rescue competition held as part of RoboCup. The procedure aims to evaluate the quality of maps produced by multi-robot systems with respect to a number of factors, including usability, exploration, annotation and other aspects relevant to robots and first responders. In addition to the design choices, we illustrate practical examples of maps and scores coming from the latest RoboCup contest, outlining strengths and weaknesses of our modus operandi. We also show how a benchmarking methodology developed for a simulation testbed effortlessly and faithfully transfers to maps built by a real robot. A number of conclusions may be derived from the experience reported in this paper and a thorough discussion is offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I read Leïla Sebbar’s staging in her novel Shérazade: 17 ans, brune, frisée, les yeux verts of the resistance by children of North African and other immigrants in the early 1980s to the French state’s cartographic modes and documents of control. The paper will consider the many uses to which the map was put by the French state in its colonization of North Africa and particularly Algeria, and later in its attempts to control the banlieues its policies of citizenship and cartographic control yielded on the margins of Paris. In this context, I will explore the ways in which the novel’s characters, living clandestinely in a squatt, simultaneously resist, put to use, and even supercede state documents of control as they disrupt everyday life and conduct heists across the city of Paris. The paper will explore unofficial cartographies of Paris, from those afforded by the radios libres and alternative publications such as Libération and Sans Frontièrez, to oral and almost proverbial networks of knowledge criss-crossing the city of Paris, while also tracing the uses to which supplemental cartographic sketches and counterfeit identity cards are put in the pages of the novel. The paper will be in dialogue with theoretical and critical formulations of space, cartography, and state control put forward by Michel de Certeau, Henri Lefebvre, Michel Foucault, and Tom Conley. The paper will conclude with a consideration of the means and limits of resistance by the novel’s characters in the context of this body of theory and criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearest neighbor query is one of the most important operations in spatial databases and their application domains, such as location-based services and advanced traveler information systems. This paper addresses the problem of finding the in-route nearest neighbor (IRNN) for a query object tuple which consists of a given route with a destination and a current location on it. The IRNN is a facility instance via which the detour from the original route on the way to the destination is smallest. This paper addresses four alternative solution methods. Comparisons among them are presented using an experimental framework. Extensive experiments using real road map datasets are conducted to examine the behaviors of the solutions in terms of five parameters affecting the performance. The overall experiments show that our strategy to reduce the expensive path computations to minimize the response time is reasonable. The spatial distance join-based method always shows better performance with fewer path computations compared to the recursive methods. The computation costs for all methods except the precomputed zone-based method increase with increases in the road map size and the query route length but decrease with increases in the facility density. The precomputed zone-based method shows the most efficiency when there are no updates on the road map. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the proliferation of multi-temporal census data products and the increased capabilities of geospatial analysis and visualization techniques have encouraged longitudinal analyses of socioeconomic census data. Traditional cartographic methods for illustrating socioeconomic change tend to rely either on comparison of multiple temporal snapshots or on explicit representation of the magnitude of change occurring between different time periods. This paper proposes to add another perspective to the visualization of temporal change, by linking multi-temporal observations to a geometric configuration that is not based on geographic space, but on a spatialized representation ofn-dimensional attribute space. The presented methodology aims at providing a cognitively plausible representation of changes occurring inside census areas by representing their attribute space trajectories as line features traversing a two-dimensional display space. First, the self-organizing map (SOM) method is used to transformn-dimensional data such that the resulting two-dimensional configuration can be represented with standard GIS data structures. Then, individual census observations are mapped onto the neural network and linked as temporal vertices to represent attribute space trajectories as directed graphs. This method is demonstrated for a data set containing 254 counties and 32 demographic variables. Various transformations and visual results are presented and discussed in the paper, from the visualization of individual component planes and trajectory clusters to the mapping of different attributes onto temporal trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the existence theorems of solutions for generalized weak vector equilibrium problems are developed in real reflexive Banach spaces. Based on recession method and scalarization technique, we derive a characterization of nonemptiness and boundedness of solution set for generalized weak vector equilibrium problems. Moreover, Painlevé-Kuratowski upper convergence of solution set is also discussed as an application, when both the objective mapping and the constraint set are perturbed by difference parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper describes the research of the optical device for two-dimensional straightness measurement of technological machines. Mathematical study of an optical device, operating on the phase principle and measuring transversal displacements of machine parts in two directions ( X and Y) during their linear longitudinal motion in a machine (alongside the Z axis), is presented. How to estimate the range of travel along the Z axis is analytically shown. At this range, the measurer gives correct measurements of transverse displacement. The necessary distance from the objective focus to the image plane was defined mathematically. The sample results of measuring the displacement of the table of a technological machine by using the optical device are presented in the paper. This optical device for non-contact straightness measurement can be used for measurement straightness in turning, milling, drilling, grinding machines and other technological machines, also in geodesy and cartography, and for moving accuracy testing of mechatronic devices, robotics and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents rainfall-induced landslide thresholds and predicts landslide hazard in Kuala Lumpur metropolitan city and surrounding areas. Landslide events from 2000 to 2012 were collected. The long and short antecedent rainfall days were prepared for landslide and non-landslide days simultaneously. First, threshold analysis was conducted by using data obtained from rainfall stations located in highly urbanized areas of Kuala Lumpur metropolis. Six rainfall gauges were selected, and the study area was divided into six zones according to rainfall gauges: Taman Desa Station (TD-KL), Genting Klang (GK-KL), LDG Edinburgh Station (LDGE-KL), SG Raya Hulu Langat Station (SRHL-Slg), Puchong Drop Station (PD-Slg), and Bukit Antarabangsa (BTA-Slg). After the threshold analysis was conducted for different periods (10, 15, and 30 days) in each station, reliability index test was conducted to optimize the best threshold that limits the predicted events along the study period for each region. Second, the threshold analysis results were used as input in the Poisson probability model to estimate landslide temporal probability ( P). Third, the spatial probability ( P) analysis was prepared by using the evidential belief function multiplied by the P to obtain the hazard maps for 1-, 3-, and 5-year scenarios. Finally, a validation process was conducted to test the prediction performance of the resultant hazard map for a 1- and 2-year prediction by using the landslide inventory of 2012 to early 2014, which was not included in the modeling of the hazard map. Results showed a valid correlation between the high and moderate hazardous areas for the six zones. The predicted hazard maps indicated a quantitative assessment of the prone areas and proved to be a valid disaster management tool. The produced hazard maps may play a vital role as input component in risk analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article delves into the historical and cartographic significance of the Manganari Atlas, a monumental work that marked a pivotal moment in the maritime cartography of the Black Sea during the nineteenth century. Originating from the Russian Empire's strategic desire to enhance navigation and assert its presence in the Black Sea, the atlas represents not only a technical achievement in mapping but also a cultural and political artifact of its time. Through a meticulous analysis of the atlas, this study highlights the challenges encountered in its creation, the technical innovations employed, and the political motivations driving its development. The atlas is examined not merely as a collection of maps but as a synthesis of the cultural, linguistic, and geopolitical landscape of the era, reflecting the Russian Empire's aspirations. The panoramic images by Kukharevsky are particularly noted for their potential to aid in coastal geomorphological studies and the reconstruction of various geographical landscapes. The article also addresses the necessity of understanding the technical aspects of cartography for accurate analysis and comparison of historical maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over 20 years, the concept of "food deserts" has served as an evocative metaphor, signifying spatialized patterns of injustice associated with low access to nutritious foods through retail and social exclusion. Yet in spite of its pithy appeal, scholars and activists increasingly critique the food desert concept as stigmatizing, inaccurate, and insufficient to characterize entrenched structural inequities. These well-founded critiques demonstrate a convincing need to reframe approaches to spatialized food injustice. We argue that food desert maps, which aim to visually illustrate food inequality, can reproduce problematic assumptions, stigmas, and inaccuracies that form the crux of scholarly critiques. For example, food desert maps typically overlook community assets and also utilize decontextualized and overdetermined indicators, such as proximity to supermarkets and transportation access. Although we acknowledge the contributions of food desert maps, in this paper we propose a reimagining of food access mapping. To illustrate our argument, we present a course-based food justice mapping study in Providence, Rhode Island. Our project draws inspiration from studies that interrogate the deficit-oriented framing of food deserts, as well as several alternative mapping practices: critical cartography and counter-mapping, community asset mapping, participatory geographic information systems, and radical cartography. We suggest these alternative mapping approaches have potential to move practitioners and viewers beyond the desolate "desert" vantage point and toward a more textured understanding of community food access that inspires engaged exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the problem of minimizing the regularized empirical risk function which is represented as the average of a large number of convex loss functions plus a possibly non-smooth convex regularization term. In this paper, we propose a fast variance reducing (VR) stochastic method called Prox2-SAGA. Different from traditional VR stochastic methods, Prox2-SAGA replaces the stochastic gradient of the loss function with the corresponding gradient mapping. In addition, Prox2-SAGA also computes the gradient mapping of the regularization term. These two gradient mappings constitute a Douglas-Rachford splitting step. For strongly convex and smooth loss functions, we prove that Prox2-SAGA can achieve a linear convergence rate comparable to other accelerated VR stochastic methods. In addition, Prox2-SAGA is more practical as it involves only the stepsize to tune. When each loss function is smooth but non-strongly convex, we prove a convergence rate of O (1 / k) for the proposed Prox2-SAGA method, where k is the number of iterations. Moreover, experiments show that Prox2-SAGA is valid for non-smooth loss functions, and for strongly convex and smooth loss functions, Prox2-SAGA is prominently faster when loss functions are ill-conditioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk mapping is the foundation of the risk prevention strategy. It allows for the understanding of all factors that may affect the activities. It is a collective decision based on negotiation between the actors. Argument-based negotiation accelerates the negotiation process and converges it toward a final and common decision. It is in this context that this paper aims to illustrate the contribution of the improved PCA and AHP tools, considered as arguments, to the classification of major accident risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographical thematic mapping based on spatial information can effectively support scientific decision-making in Geosciences. To obtain finer spatial decision information, this paper proposes a geo-parcel-based thematic mapping methodology for evaluating cash crop planting suitability using C5.0 decision tree (DT). In this study, geo-parcels are utilized as basic mapping units. Multi-source data are firstly employed to increase geo-parcel units' attributes and a decision table then is constructed under a multi-attribute index system. Next, rules are mined using a C5.0 DT algorithm according to local geo-parcels in this decision table. Finally, rules are referred as thematic-distinguishing knowledge for inferential mapping in global geo-parcels. A case study of sugarcane planting suitability evaluation is conduct based on the proposed methodology. The experimental results showed that the cross-validation accuracy of the rules is 81.34% and the sum of the very suitable area and suitable area in the generated evaluation map is close to that of historical selected high-yield and high-sugar-content sugarcane bases, which indicated that the mapping result is in good agreement with the actual selection situation. These also demonstrate the effectiveness of our method and thus may be extended to other domains requiring fine geographical thematic mapping of cash crop planting suitability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cartography of danger has recently expanded to turn several hotspots worldwide. This proves true when it comes to the Middle East where military interventions escalate and internal conflicts leverage. Implicating on the folkloric perception of the real geostrategic threats, this paper uses linguistic cues to explore the conceptualization of geopolitical concerns in a large-scale corpus of Egyptian tweets (2012-2017). Results reveal that the Conspiratorial Ideation is widely enabled and ushered to relieve the increasing anxiety ad hoc the rapidly changing political scene in Egypt and the pan-region. There, America, Israel, Iran and Cyprus are defined as the outsider plotters where the reigning regimes are accused of conspiring against the Egyptians. The threatened Egyptian geostrategic territories are claimed to be Sinai, Tiran strait, Halayeb triangle and Mediterranean gas fields. The suggested plotting scenarios are bootstrapped and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel semi-reference inspired color-to-gray conversion model for faithfully preserving the contrast details of the color image, essentially differs from most of the no-reference and reference approaches. In the proposed model, on the basic assumption that a good gray conversion should make the conveyed gradient values (i.e., contrast) to be maximal, we present a projection maximum function to model the decolorization procedure. We further incorporate weights of the original gradients into the maximum function. The Gaussian weighted factor consisting of the gradients of each channel of the input color image is employed to better reflect the degree of preserving feature discriminability and color ordering in color-to-gray conversion. The projected gradient descent and discrete searching techniques are developed to solve the proposed model with and without nonnegative constraint, respectively. Extensive experimental evaluations on two existing datasets, containing abundant colors and patterns, show that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods quantitatively and qualitatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a risk matrix for Risk mapping constitutes the basis of risk management strategy. It aims to classify the identified risks with regards to their management and control. This risk classification, which is based on the frequency and the severity dimensions, is often carried out according to a procedure founded on experts' judgments. In order to overcome the subjectivity bias of this classification, this paper presents the contribution of the Principal Components Analysis (PCA) method: an exploratory method for graphing risks based on factors that allow a better visualized classification of scenarios accidents. Still, the commonly encountered problem in the data classified by the PCA method resides in the main factors of classification; we judged useful to frame these letters by an algebraic formulation to make an improvement of this classification possible. The obtained results show that the suggested method is a promising alternative to solve the recurring problems of risk matrices, notably in accident scenarios' classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a hurricane event-based method to construct a map for heavy rainfall-induced translational landslides. This method involves five steps: (1) construct a GIS-based geotechnical database; (2) identify the areas in the vicinity which are susceptible to translational landslides based on the slope of the terrain and the geological information available; (3) characterize the heavy rainfall hazard due to hurricanes (typhoon) as a set of collectively exhaustive and mutually exclusive stochastic events, that fully describe spatial distribution and annual frequency of occurrence (in accordance with storm category, storm position, distance between the eye of the storm and the site of interest, among others factors); (4) compute the ratio between the steady-state rainfall produced by a hurricane event affecting the tributary area of the slope under analysis, Q, and the critical steady-state rainfall necessary to trigger slope instability, Q, and finally; (5) carry out a probabilistic translational landslide hazard analysis to estimate the exceedance rate of a given ratio Q/ Q. This method is applied to maps of Mexico for return periods of 50 and 150 years. The results shown in these maps are estimates of where the translational landslides may occur, and they should be useful to carry out local studies and to elaborate recommendations of site-specific hazard reduction plans as well as to calculate insurance rates. In addition to this, these results are useful for identifying actions of civil protection, regional and local risk management, and land use planning, as well as the promotion of more detailed vulnerability and risk studies on different scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]