Friday, January 27, 2012

Social Media and the Emergence of Open-Source Geospatial Intelligence

Sample of geolocated tweets referring
Occupy Wall Street.
We have just finished a paper entitled 'Social Media and the Emergence of Open-Source Geospatial Intelligence' for Socio-Cultural Dynamics and Global Security. For those interested below is the abstract:

The emergence of social media has provided the public with an effective and irrepressible real-time mechanism to broadcast information. The great popularity of platforms such as twitter and YouTube, and the substantial amount of content that is communicated through them are making social media an essential component of open-source intelligence. The information communicated through such feeds conveys the interests and opinions of individuals, and reveals links and the complex structure of social networks. However, this information is only partially exploited if one does not consider its geographical aspect. Indeed, social media feeds more often than not have some sort of geographic content, as they may communicate the location from where a particular report is contributed, the geolocation of an image, or they may refer to a specific sociocultural hotspot. By harvesting this geographic content from social media feeds we can transfer the extracted knowledge from the amorphous cyberspace to the geographic space, and gain a unique understanding of the human lansdscape, its structure and organization, and its evolution over time. This new-found opportunity signals the emergence of open-source geospatial intelligence, whereby social media contributions can be analyzed and mined to gain unparalleled situational awareness. In this paper we showcase a number of sample applications that highlight the capabilities of harvesting geospatial intelligence from social media feeds, focusing particularly on twitter as a representative data source.
Selection of geolocated pairs of tweeters and retweeters in Tokyo at the time immediately
following the Sendai earthquake
Full reference:
Stefanidis, A., Crooks, A.T., Radzikowski, J., Croitoru, A. and Rice, M. (2014), Social Media and the Emergence of Open-Source Geospatial Intelligence, in Murdock, D.G., Tomes, R. and Tucker, C. (eds.), Human Geography: Socio-Cultural Dynamics and Global Security, US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), Herndon, VA, pp. 109-123. (pdf)

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Agent-based Models and Geographical Systems at the AAG


As Agent-based modeling (ABM) within geographical systems is starting to mature as a methodology in geography and across the social sciences. We (Alison Heppenstall, Mike Batty, Mark Birkin, Christopher Bone and Andrew Crooks) have organized several sessions under the topic of  "Agent-based Models and Geographical Systems"at the forthcoming AAG Annual meeting in NY. These start nice and early on Saturday the 25th of February and go until Sunday the 26th.

The aim of the sessions is to bring together researchers utilizing agent-based models (and associated methodologies) to discuss topics relating to: theory, technical issues and applications domains of ABM within geographical systems.

If you plan on attending the AAG, feel free to pass by and say hello. For Saturday, all talks will be in the Carnegie Suite West, Third Floor, Sheraton Hotel starting at 8am. For Sunday,  all talks will be in the Carnegie Suite East, Third Floor, Sheraton Hotel

Agent-based Models and Geographical Systems: Applications (1)

8:00 AM - 9:40 AM, Chair: Mark Birkin

*Neeraj G Baruah, Robert P. Haining Mike Bithell,
*Ateen Patel
*Elenna R. Dugundji & László Gulyás
*Alison Heppenstall & Kirk Harland
 *René Janelle Jordan, Mark Birkin & Andrew Evans
Agent-Based Models and Geographical Systems: Applications (2)

10:00 AM - 11:40 AM, Chair: Alison Heppenstall

*Handi Chandra Putra & Clinton J Andrews
*Regina Ryan
*Sebastien Rey Coyrehourcq & *Clara Schmitt
Agent-Based Models and Geographical Systems: Decision Making

12:40 PM - 2:20 PM, Chair: Andrew Crooks

*David Bennett, Jerry Schnoo, Marian Muste, Silvia Secchi, Deng Ding, Sudipta Mishra & Umashanker Rapol
*Christopher Bone
*Dawn Parker, Tianyi Yang, Qingxu Huang, Shipeng Sun, & Raymond Cabrera
Tyler Bonnell, *Raja Sengupta, Colin ChapmanTony Goldberg
*Roger White
Agent-Based Models and Geographical Systems: GIS and Geocomputation

2:40 PM - 4:20 PM, Chair: Alison Heppenstall

*Majeed Pooyandeh & Danielle Marceau
*Gabriel Wainer & Mariano Zapatero 
*Andrew Crooks, Mark Coletti, Sarah Wise & Keith Sullivan
Christopher McCreadie, David Blackwood, Mark Rounsevell, & *Ruth E Falconer
Agent-Based Models and Geographical Systems: Land Use Change

4:40 PM - 6:20 PM, Chair: Mike Batty

*Shipeng Sun, Dawn Parker, Dan Brown, Qingxu Huang, Tatiana Filatova, Derek Robinson, Meghan Hutchins & Rick Riolo
*Peter Deadman & Raymond Cabrera
*Nicholas Magliocca, Erle Ellis & Daniel Brown
*Fang Wang & Danielle Marceau
*Patrick Harrison & *Seth Spielman
161 Agent-Based Models and Geographical Systems: Methodological Advances

Sunday, 8:00 AM - 9:40 AM in Carnegie Suite East, Third Floor, Sheraton Hotel, Chair: Andrew Crooks

*Sanna Iltanen
*Kenneth Steif
*David O'Sullivan
*Paul Torrens
*Hyeyoung Kim & Chulmin Jun
Agent-Based Models and Geographical Systems: Policy Modelling

10:00 AM - 11:40 AM, Chair: Mark Birki

*Claudio Cioffi-Revilla, Andrew Crooks, Kenneth De Jong, Timothy Gulden, William Kennedy, Sean Luke & Mark Coletti
*Johannes Flacke
*Atesmachew Hailegiorgis
*Amit Patel, Andrew Crooks & Naoru Koizumi
 *Elfie Swerts
Agent-Based Models and Geographical Systems: Urban Networks

12:40 PM - 2:20 PM, Chair: Mike Batty


*Einar Holm & Lena Sanders
*Clémentine Cottineau
Timothy Gulden & *Ross Hammond
*Thomas LOUAIL
*Marie-Noelle Comin
Agent-based Models and Geographical Systems: Urban Simulation

2:40 PM - 4:20 PM, Chair: Andrew Crooks

*Ed Manley, Tao Cheng, Alan Penn & Andy Emmonds
*Huiye Ma, Theo A. Arentze  & Harry Timmermans
*Mark Birkin & Nick Malleson
*Mike Batty & Erez Hatna 
*Denise Pumain

 *Denotes speaker(s)