CPGIS Workshop for Junior and Future Faculty

Organized and Chaired by Lin Liu, University of Cincinnati

Date: 2010-06-19

This workshop is designed to train junior faculty members and students who are inspired to become future faculty members how to survive and thrive in academic institutions. It covers the most important issues pertaining to research, grants, publications, teaching, advising, team work, promotion and tenure. The workshop consists of presentations by renowned professors from U.S. and China. It also serves as a venue for participants to have in-depth discussions with the speakers.

• How to prepare to become a faculty member? Lin Liu, University of Cincinnati
• How to prepare for promotion and tenure? Bin Li, Central Michigan University
• How to present and teach effectively? Guoan Tang, Nanjing Normal University
• How to publish your research and write successful grant proposal? Qiming Zhou, Hongkong Baptist University
• How to advise graduate students? Xia Li, Sun Yat-sen University
• How to work in a team environment? Jianya Gong, Wuhan University

Topological analysis of urban street networks for better understanding human mobility patterns

Instructor

Date: 2010-06-17

Aims/Learning objectives

• To introduce topological analysis based on a set of theories including space syntax, small world and scale free networks
• To further develop the understanding of human mobility behavior and patterns from the topological perspective

Description of topics

Different topological representations of urban streets, and a series of topological metrics for structural analysis of urban streets

Impact of street topological structure on human mobility behavior and patterns

Scope of the workshop

• Space syntax principle from the large- and small-scale space perspective,
• Small world and scale free properties of urban street networks,
• Operation of some freeware software for calculating topological metrics,
• How to uncover human mobility patterns from massive GPS trajectories data, and
• How to adopt topological analysis for better understanding human mobility behavior

Outline of the workshop

Conventional street network analysis is much geometry oriented in nature in the sense of accurate geometric locations and distances involved. While remaining an important means for spatial analysis, the geometry oriented network analysis suffers from a major disadvantage that is unable to get insight into the underlying structure of street networks. This workshop will introduce topological analysis based on a variety of topology oriented theories including space syntax, small world, and scale free networks. In comparison to the geometric approach, topological analysis provides a new perspective or a new paradigm towards a better understanding of geographic space, or more precisely the discrete network constrained space.

The workshop will start with why topology matters in GIS, and then introduce topological analysis methodology. In this connection, a series of space syntax inspired topological analyses are introduced and applied to both urban and nationwide streets for uncovering underlying structure of street networks, e.g., small world and scale free properties. The uncovered structure is then linked to human mobility behavior or patterns observed from massive GPS trajectories data and annual average daily traffic. For instance, it is observed that human mobility exhibits Levy flight behavior - a kind of random walk behavior statistically different from Brownian motion.

This discussion of the linkage between structure and dynamics will lead to a better understanding of complex geographic phenomena, which have shown persistent modeling interest in geographic domains. Beyond the street networks, we will further discuss how the kind of topological analysis be applied to other spatial objects. To enhance understanding the principles of topological analysis and modeling, hands-on exercises will be conducted using some specialized software.

Keywords

Street networks, space syntax, small world theory, scale-free networks, human dynamics, mobility patterns

Target Audience Information

PhD students or fresh PhD holders (within 3 years) in geographic information science/systems

Prerequisite knowledge of audience

Intended audience must have an intermediate through advanced understanding of geography and cartography, and be familiar with fundamental concepts and techniques of geographic information systems.

Instruction language

English

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