Andy Turner's Digital Geography in a Web2.0 World 2008-02-20 Event Web Page @ School of Geography, University of Leeds

Introduction
- For information about the Digital Geography in a Web2.0 World 2008-02-20 Event in London.
- If you want any changes made to this page, please just ask me. It is draft until Version 1.0.0 (see bottom of the page).
- Contents:
People
- Delegate list with paper programme, but not everyone turned up.
- Attendees:
  - Sinesio Alves Junior (UCL : CASA)
  - Pragya Agarwal (UCL)
  - Kenny Baird (NCeSS Hub)
  - Chris Brunsdon
  - Mike Batty (UCL : CASA)
  - Mark Birkin (UoL : CSAP/MoSeS)
  - Mercedes Arg�ello Casteleiro (NCeSS Hub)
  - Martin Clarke (UoL : CSAP/MoSeS)
  - Tao Cheng (UCL : CEGE)
  - Joel Dearden (UCL : CASA)
  - Paul Dolby (ReDReSS)
  - Stuart Dunn
  - Peter Elias
  - June Finch (NCeSS Hub)
  - Maurizio Gibin (UCL : CASA)
  - Peter Halfpenny (NCeSS Hub)
  - Richard Harris
  - Andy Hudson-Smith (UCL : CASA/GeoVUE)
  - Paul Longley (UCL : CASA)
  - Pablo Mateos (UCL : CASA)
  - Eric Meyer (OeSS)
  - Gail Millin
  - Richard Milton (UCL : CASA/GeoVUE)
  - Meik Poschen (NCeSS Hub)
  - Rob Proctor (NCeSS Hub)
  - Dave Rawnsley
  - Humphrey Southall
  - Andy Turner (UoL : CCG/MoSeS)
  - Alan Wilson (UCL : CASA)
  - ...
Agenda
- Digital Geography in a Web2.0 World 2008-02-20 Event Programme
Documentation
- Digital Geography in a Web2.0 World 2008-02-20 Event Programme
- Nice paper programme with a delegate list...
- Presentation slides available via the following URL:
  - http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/barbican/
- ...
Notes
- Arrival
  - Picked up a nice paper programme with a delegate list and a badge...
  - This looks to be a reasonably big event with around 200 people.
  - Chat with Eric Meyer:
    - Oxford e-Research Conference 2008
    - Perhaps I should submit an abstract for this by the deadline in March...
      - "Andy Turner's Experience of MoSeS"
        
        Sounds too mememe for my liking, maybe I can think of something else...
  - Met Joel Dearden from CASA :-)
  - Chat with Alan Wilson from CASA
    - We are looking forward to working together on GENESIS :-)
- Early Bird Session
  - My laptop isn�t finding any wireless (including "The Cloud")
    - That is disappointing I wonder if what I need to do to get an Internet connection?
  - It is good to see Paul Dolby making an attempt to capture the talks in the ReDReSS style :-)
  - Introduction to GeoVUE and SpLinT
    - Paul Longley
    - http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/barbican/presentation1.html
  - The Names Projects
    - Pablo Mateos
    - http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/barbican/presentation2.html
    - Surname profiler
      - http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames
      - Surnames have not in general moved much in the last 100 or so years.
      - Interesting links between ethnicity and placenames and surnames.
      - It is becoming increasingly difficult to get telephone directory and electoral role data.
        
        Best telephone directories are from around 2000. After this they started to be made available online triggering people to remove themselves from the directory.
        
        Electoral role too doesn�t cover everyone as those not entitled to vote are not in a database, and this is also an opt out register of names.
      - Using a gridded/raster output display form rather than administrative boundaries because of problems with data licenses for using the latter in many countries.
    - ONOMAP
      - http://www.onomap.org
  - The London Profiler
    - Maurizio Gibin
    - http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/barbican/presentation3.html
    - GoogleMapCreator is a Web mapping client that uses the browser to display prerendered images, so it does not communicate with a Web Map Server or Web Feature Server to pull new data/images as needed.
    - Nestoria
      - Property for sale in the UK
      - This could be worth scraping:
        
        I wonder what the data licence is like�
  - This was a great session, well worth being early to catch it.
  - I am pleased that we are using GeoServer in MoSeS although I do rate the work CASA/GeoVUE are doing :-)
- Coffee
  - laptop on charge in a hallway! Perhaps I could do with spare batteries�
  - Chat with Peter Halfpenny
    - He really was making good use of the NCeSS Sakai Portal : ESRC e-IP Worksite : Wiki content development I was doing in the NCeSS e-Infrastructure for the Social Sciences Project Away Day Meeting 2008-02-13.
      - Peter is hearing impaired and he found the notes I was making a help. Fantastic!
  - Chat with Meik Poschen
    - Social networking
      - I want to be his friend on myExperiment
      - SciSpace
      - ourSpaces
        
        This seems more like a concept/mock up rather than an active development:
        
        Miek pointed out that that might be due to staffing problems at Aberdeeen
        
        Is there really a need for yet another social networking site?
    - We looked forward to being back in the rave, computing with arm waving :-)
    - Considered various events and participation.
    - I wonder if I am managing a good level of event participation:
      - I think I do well with going to events, but perhaps don�t do enough presentation of work.
- Session 1
  - Only half power on the laptop� I hope it makes it to lunch when there is a potentially longer recharge period.
  - The person in front of me seems to have an Internet connection. I wonder how it is done.
  - Welcome
    - Peter Halfpenny
    - http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/barbican/presentation4.html
    - Introduction to NCeSS and e-Social Science
    - Seemless integration is very important.
  - Visual Simulation
    - Mike Batty
    - http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/barbican/presentation5.html
    - Geographical distributions (space-time-attribute).
    - History of visualisation.
    - Scatterplots
      - When dealing with massive number of data points these don�t work so well.
        
        I hit this problem before, which is why I developed density plots.
        
        Maybe this was a new idea?
        
        Mike suggested there was a dearth in literature about this.
        
        I should probably write up what I did all those years ago�
    - Mike says there is a cloud internet connection available anywhere in London
      - How do I get on that?
  - CASA technology developments
    - Richard Milton
    - http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/barbican/presentation6.html
    - Image cutter
    - Google Maplets is an altenative to GooleMapCreator
      - Maplets is more vector data based.
    - MapTube
      - http://www.maptube.org
      - Looking into putting Maplets in MapTube
    - GoogleEarthCreator
      - The future?
    - Moving to visual analysis
  - Questions/Feedback
    - Dave Rawnsley
    - Humphrey Southall
      - How does this compare to Open Layers?
        
        Open Layers is OGC Compliant, it is AJAX based and less tied to Google Maps, but it is slower...
      - I am annoyed about not managing to sort out an Internet connection for my PC :-(
        
        I want to demo MoSeS work with GeoServer.
    - It was suggested that Richard take a look at CCMaps for some bivariate analysis/visualisation techniques.
      - Conditioned Choropleth Maps And Hypothesis Generation
- Lunch
  - Pragya Agarwal said hello :-)
  - I managed to get an internet connection thanks to Sinesio Alves Junior (Junior)
  - Chat with Rob Proctor
    - He feels that there are insufficient use cases/driver projects to engage the social science community and get them to use the technology being developed.
      - I talked about analysing road accident data as a potential project.
        
        Rob seemed interested.
  - I showed MoSeS Geoserver work to Meik Poschen and Humphrey Southall
    - It seemed well received
  - I bow to the enevitable, my laptop will run out of battery power in the next session.
- Session 2
  - Geographical Statistics and the Grid
    - Chris Brunsdon, Richard Harris
    - http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/barbican/presentation7.html
    - Multivariate geographical statistics
    - http://rose.bris.ac.uk
    - There is a version of GWR in R.
    - GROWL, Ties van Ark and Dan Grose should be interested in this...
  - MoSeS
    - Martin Clarke
    - http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/barbican/presentation8.html
    - About 1000 man years went into the development of SIMCITY4
  - Questions/Feedback
    - What sort of Simulation is being done in MoSeS?
      - To try to understand and forecast a system.
      - Focus more on scenario analysis rather than true forecasting.
    - Peter Elias asks if MoSeS are collaborating with other agencies like ONS for Small Area Forecasting work?
      - Martin answered that ONS forecasts are at too coarse a geographical scale to be of use in service provision at a local scale.
    - Retrospective look at forecasts
      - Fortune Seekers book
        
        Looked for this, but can't find it...
      - Stuart Dunn
      - Humphrey Southall
        
        Does GWR work on potentially thousands of explanatory variables?
        
        What about when variables have different geometry? Is the only option redistricting?
      - Sinesio Alves Junior
        
        Can we use multiR for clustering
        
        The answer was yes, but I think this is variable value clustering, not searching for geographical clusters a la Openshaw et al.
    - I consider Open Source as a viable way forward as a researcher and modeller. Martin considers that close collaboration with commercial software development is the way forward. Perhaps we are both right...
- Coffee
  - Chat with Deli(?) from Brent Council and friend
    - Deli wondered why we were working at an individual level. Why is a 10% sample not enough?
    - I argued for a need to model at an individual level to represent reality:
      - An important part of any organisation is the people and to understand organisations it helps to know what people are involved in these and what roles they have.
    - Deli�s friend asked me if details of our MoSeS work are available online :-)
      - I let him know that most of my work is online and that if he searched for MoSeS and Andy Turner he should find the details...
- Session 3
  - 3D Visualisation from Lab to Field
    - Gary Priestnall(?)
    - http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/barbican/presentation9.html
    - SPLINT CETL
    - geoSpatialWidgets
    - Augmented reality
    - Viewshed work.
    - GeoCode: Multi-player orienteering game.
  - Web 2.0, NeoGeography, Virtual Worlds and Games
    - Andy Hudson-Smith
    - http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/barbican/presentation10.html
    - All service based
    - UTube is the king of Web2.0
    - Microsofts Virtual Earth is not Web2.0, all their content has been generated by them.
    - Every Map on MapTube is in Second Life
  - Questions
    - How can we trust user content?
    - I wonder who has heard of Open Aerial Map (OAM)?
  - Conclusion
    - Peter Halfpenny
    - Alan Wilson
    - http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/barbican/presentation11.html
    - What does the future look like?
      - GENESIS
    - Bringing together modelling and visualisation
      - An intellectual challenge of our time
      - We are now mainstream like Maths and Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences in doing this.
    - Complex Systems
      - Phase transitions
      - Can we forecast?
        
        Symbiotic Modelling
    - Grand Challenge
      - Making policy making more routine, more automated
    - There is a need for resources commensurate with the effort required
  - Thanks :-)
- Wine Reception
  - Rob Proctor and June Finch agree that it has been a good day. Rob suggested all nodes might organise similar events.
    - It is a lot of work to do this.
    - In terms of MoSeS and modelling and simulation I can see potential benefit in having a conference, but perhaps it is better for us to make a splash at an event others organise.
      - Surely there are enough conferences and workshop on the circuit and that competing with these to add more is just the wrong foot forward!?!
  - Chat with Tao Cheng
    - We share interests in fuzzy logic and neural network modelling.
    - She is looking at transportation data and working with Transport for London
      - The data from Oyster Cards, Congestion charging and traffic flow measurements is fascinating.
      - I talked about my Road Accident Research Interests.
      - We considered further collaboration and I promised to make this note and email once I was back in Leeds and revising it.
  - Chat with Maurizio Gibin
    - We remembered meeting at the GRADE Informal Information Sharing Workshop, University of Sheffield.
  - Chat with Joel Dearden
    - We talked about games and I suggested he take another look at FreeCiv
Ideas
- With lidar and mastermap we can get volume of building land-use data:
  - This has to be better than just area of land-use data...
  - I wonder if Mike is using this in land-use transportation modelling work.
  - Is this in the Cities Revealed data MIMAS are getting?
- Analysing all emails/websites for names.
- Developing a global dataset of peoples names through time.
- Scrape data off Nestoria.
  - Looks easy in principal given the URLs such as:
    - http://www.nestoria.co.uk/ls2-9jt/property/buy
    - http://www.nestoria.co.uk/ls6/property/buy
  - http://www.nestoria.co.uk/help/privacy
  - http://www.nestoria.co.uk/help/terms-and-conditions
  - Hmmm I wonder... and I wonder how often it would be wise to try this if indeed it is at all. I should read the Terms And Conditions...
Action List
- Andy Turner
  - Request friendship with Meik on myExperiment
  - Find out how to get a connection on the London cloud.
  - Develop a working paper on density scatterplots.
  - Email Tao Cheng
Further Reading
References

Andy Turner's Digital Geography in a Web2.0 World 2008-02-20 Event Web Page

Introduction

People

Agenda

Documentation

Notes

Ideas

Action List

Further Reading

References

Validation and Metadata