Day: April 16, 2010

Geographical Information Systems as a Tool for Monitoring Tobacco Industry Advertising

/ Matt Artz

Tobacco Control, 2009; 18:190-196

C I Vardavas, G N Connolly, and A G Kafatos

“Background: Although the use of a geographical information systems (GIS) approach is usually applied to epidemiological disease outbreaks and environmental exposure mapping, it has significant potential as a tobacco control research tool in monitoring point-of-purchase (POP) tobacco advertising.

“Design: An ecological study design approach was applied so as to primarily evaluate and interpret the spatial density and intensity of POP and tobacco industry advertisements within <300 m to high schools in Greece with the application of GIS methodology combining mapping, photographing and global positioning data.

“Results: The GIS approach identified 133 POP and 44 billboards within 300 m of the school gates of Heraklion schools. On average 13 POP (range 4–21) and 4.4 billboards (range 1–9) were located per school, and all had at least 1 POP within 20 m of the school gate. On average (SD) 9 (6) tobacco advertisements per POP (range 0–25) were noted, and 80% of them were below child height. The GIS protocol identified that kiosks, that were excepted from the Greek ban on tobacco advertising, in comparison to other POP, were found not only to be closer and visible from the school gates (44.1% vs 10.8%, p<0.001) but were also found to have more external advertisements (8 (5) vs 5 (3), p<0.001).

“Conclusions: This study demonstrates the effectiveness of a GIS system in monitoring tobacco industry advertising on a large population-based scale and implies its use as a standardised method for monitoring tobacco industry strategies and tobacco control efforts. ”

An Automated Image Analysis Approach for Classification and Mapping of Woody Vegetation from Digital Aerial Photograph

/ Matt Artz

World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, 2010 – Vol. 7, No.1/2 pp. 13 – 23

Xihua Yang and David Tien

“This paper presents a recent study on woody vegetation delineation and mapping using digital aerial photograph and geographic information system (GIS) in Hunter Region, Australia. The aim of the study was to develop automated and repeatable digital image processing methods for woody vegetation classification and mapping using aerial photograph or high-resolution satellite images and GIS. Parallelepiped classification or density slice method was used to classify woody and non-woody vegetation, and ancillary GIS data were used as quality controls in the classification processing. Specific scripts were developed for automated image processing in a GIS environment. The classification accuracy was assessed against traditional aerial photograph interpretation using adequate random points. The automated process reached an overall classification accuracy of 94% and 97% after post-classification correction. The automated approach can be applied to any other type of high-resolution imagery such as SPOT 5, ALOS, IKONOS and QuickBird images.”

Sustainability in Aeolian Systems

/ Matt Artz

Aeolian Research, Volume 1, Issues 3-4, January 2010, Pages 95-99

Andrew Warren

“I first examine four constraints on sustainability: the technical fix; complexity; uncertainty; environmental change. I then focus on what sustainability might mean in the aeolian context. Examples are drawn from four areas of aeolian activity: agricultural wind erosion, “soil-derived” atmospheric dust, and coastal and, very briefly, inland dunes (where the problem of sustainability is less complicated). Although there is excellent aeolian research on which to build concepts about sustainability, there is very little discussion of sustainability itself. This is partly because the term still needs to be better defined in this context. Changing climate will sharpen our thinking.”

International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems (ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS 2010), 2-5 Nov 2010, San Jose

/ Matt Artz

18th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems
(ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS 2010)

2-5 November 2010, San Jose, California

“The ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems 2010 (ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS 2010) is the eighteenth event in a series of symposia and workshops that began in 1993 with the aim of bringing together researchers, developers, users, and practitioners carrying out research and development in novel systems based on geo-spatial data and knowledge, and fostering interdisciplinary discussions and research in all aspects of geographic information systems. The conference provides a forum for original research contributions covering all conceptual, design, and implementation aspects of GIS ranging from applications, user interfaces, and visualization to storage management and indexing issues. This conference is the premier annual event of the ACM Special Interest Group on Spatial Information (ACM SIGSPATIAL). Researchers, students, and practitioners are invited to submit their contributions to ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS 2010.”

Meteorological Simulations with Use of Satellite Data for Assessing Urban Heat Island under Summertime Anticyclonic Conditions

/ Matt Artz

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2010 – Vol. 40, No.1/2/3 pp. 123 – 135

Theodoros Nitis, Zvjezdana B. Klaic, Dimitra Kitsiou, and Nicolas Moussiopoulos

“The aim of this study was to investigate the formation, evolution and evaluation of topography effects on the urban heat island over the city of Zagreb. For this purpose, the non-hydrostatic mesoscale meteorological model MEMO was used and high-resolution simulations were carried out for two summertime anticyclonic periods. Satellite data were used to improve the model’s performance. The simulation results were compared to available observations and it was proved that the model is capable of simulating the mesoscale wind flow reasonably well. The importance of the impact of nearby mountains on the urban heat island was also examined showing that local topography had an important role on its formation and damping.”