May Yuan - US grants

This POWRE project will provide the resources needed to study representations of dynamic geographic processes and methods of geospatial knowledge discovery about patterns and behaviors of these processes in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The study will address three key research questions: (1) What kinds of information are useful to understand geographic processes? (2) How should geographic processes be represented so that needed information can be computed from GIS databases? and (3) How can exploratory and analytical tools be designed with the proposed geographic representation to facilitate knowledge discovery in GIS?

Research on representation for dynamic geographic processes is urgently needed and can have a significant impact on methodologies for all sciences that use geospatial data to understand the dynamics of physical and human systems. As GIS development gradually merges into mainstream information technology (IT), innovative GIS research that emphasizes the computational fundamentals of geographic information representation and analysis requires advanced knowledge and skills in a melange of GIS, IT, and a chosen application domain. To meet such a multidisciplinary challenge, the POWRE study will start a new line of research that applies data mining and knowledge discovery methods in GIS to unveil spatial patterns of weather behaviors from meteorological and climatological data. The research framework to be developed in the study will be readily applicable to GIS knowledge discovery in other application domains.

The POWRE award will give the PI, recently granted academic tenure, a unique opportunity to develop a major research program in geographic representation and knowledge discovery in GIS at this juncture in her career. This ultimately will contribute to a greater integration of GIS and IT technologies to enhance the usefulness of volumetric scientific data that are costly acquired at a phenomenal rate.

Geography (88)
Field experience is vital for the development of qualified and effective practitioners in all aspects of geography. Unfortunately, the availability and easy access to secondary data over the past two decades has resulted in the de-emphasis of fieldwork, which now threatens to produce a generation of geographers inadequately prepared to apply and teach field methods. This project is working to correct this deficiency through the development of a field laboratory dedicated to student-led, inquiry-driven instruction. Our premise is that students learn best by doing. Our goal is to provide students the opportunity to acquire hands-on experience in an intellectually exciting environment wherein problems are investigated that they themselves have formulated. This approach is a modification of the guided-inquiry, learning-by -doing approaches created and described by Barbara Tewksbury (see B. Tewksbury, editor, "Innovative and Effective Teaching in the Geosciences," National Association of Geoscience Teachers, 1997), developed and implemented with success at Hamilton College (Geology) and Dickinson College (Geology, Geophysics), and elsewhere in Europe (see M. Kent et al, "Fieldwork in Geography Teaching: A Critical Review of the Literature and Approaches," Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1997, pages 313-332). To facilitate experiential learning, we are working in a 14,200 acre field site belonging to the University of Oklahoma. Field activities throughout the geography curriculum are being planned for this field station. Students first become acquainted with the field lab in lower division courses, when they are introduced to fundamental field techniques and instruments. Upper division courses are building on these experiences, and we are implementing a course of guided autonomous investigation. Small teams of students are working with faculty and representatives from state and federal agencies. The role of faculty is to stimulate, encourage, and guide students through the research process and advise them on the merits and the suitability of chosen field methods. Scientists from state and federal agencies are being used to provide unique insights from practical local perspectives. The students are collecting original data, performing appropriate analyses, and reporting their results in departmental colloquia. Outstanding students are provided with support to present their results at national meetings and they are encouraged to publish in appropriate journals. By experiencing the complete spectrum of problem formulation, experimental design, data analysis, report writing and dissemination of results, students are developing skills in problem-solving, critical thinking, and research collaboration. All project activities are being placed on a web site created for the purpose and are freely accessible to everyone.

While the infinite complexity and dynamics of geographic worlds have long been recognized in the geographic information science (GIScience) literature, current geographic information systems (GIS) technology has not yet incorporated data models, query functions, or analytic tools that can adequately handle geographic complexity and dynamics. This research project aims to integrate these features into GIS data models, query, and analysis. Such integration will lay a foundation for the next generations of GIS technology to further empower GIS support for scientific understanding and discovery of geographic worlds. To achieve this integration, the investigators will examine geographic complexity and dynamics. The basic premise is that geographic conceptualizations need to go beyond separate field- and object-based views of geographic worlds. The investigators will focus on geographic complexity that arises from the interwoven properties of fields and objects embedded in phenomena and relationships at different spatial and temporal scales. They will consider geographic dynamics that reflect on propagation and evolution in space and time as analyzed by Lagrangian (focusing on the stationary action of flows) or Hamiltonian (focusing on the motion of a particle of mass) dynamics. Field- or object-based conceptualization alone cannot capture complexity and dynamics critical to an accurate representation of geography. The investigators will incorporate two additional views of geographic worlds: fields of objects (o-fields) and objects of fields (f-objects) to incorporate geographic complexity and dynamics. They therefore expect to extend the dual geographic conceptualization to a spectrum of objects, f-objects, o-fields, and fields, with scale and resolution are as functions that allow a shift in perspective along the spectrum. With the spectrum of geographic conceptualizations, they will develop a data model that incorporates geographic complexity and dynamics with uncertainty, formulates queries and analytical functions, and builds a prototype system for proof of concepts.

The collaborative project brings together researchers from the University of Oklahoma, University of California-Santa Barbara, and University of Utah to expand on their work on geospatial data modeling. In separate ventures, they have examined the use of combined fields and objects on geographic representation and demonstrated that such combination effectively extends geographic representation to incorporate much richer, more complex geographic semantics. Central to the research project is the idea of modeling GIS data based on geographic complexity and dynamics, as an alternative to the conventional data models that are built upon how data are captured. The research project promises a broader, more comprehensive inspection of issues related to the integration of fields and objects and the development of a holistic theory of the representation of geographic complexity and dynamics. This new approach to GIS data modeling extends static representation to a complex and dynamic view of the world and thus enhances GIS technology to be better suited for scientific research.

This project creates a multidisciplinary research virtual organization (SOCNET) of historians, geographers, computer scientists, and mathematicians to share historical social science data and develop geographically integrated frameworks to address complex, dynamic, nonlinear systems and social networks.

Through multidisciplinary collaboration, SOCNET will fuse qualitative and quantitative data to connect humans, events, and environments, and through such connections form historical narratives within and across geographic spaces. The project's ultimate goal is to better infuse computational thinking into the historical social sciences through computational innovation and narrative knowledge creation to revolutionize research outcomes in these disciplines with a shift to Geographically-Integrated History. SOCNET's developments in Dynamics GIS (geographic information systems) and related information technologies will provide the backbone for understanding complex historical social systems with three components that define the geographically-integrated history paradigm: (1) the history of any place is shaped in significant ways by the way the place is connected to other places and by the changes in these connections over time; (2) historical periods are complex, dynamic, nonlinear systems that are spatially large, and in more recent centuries, global in extension, and these systems sometimes become unstable, leading to a phase transition, bifurcation, and the organization of new systems; and (3) within such systems, people and places are connected by social networks in a self-organizing fashion.

Focusing on the first global age (1400-1800), SOCNET will transform historical research with computational thinking on (1) new means for the representation of data for organizing, storing, manipulating, and recovering them for exploration using computational tools; (2) new spatial-temporal GIS for the visualization and analysis of real world dynamics; (3) new tools for data harmonization and text mining; (4) new approaches to the use of information that is vague, uncertain, and incomplete and of qualitative data within a computational context; (5) new forms of modeling to represent the inferences of domain experts; and (6) new metaphors beyond the map and animation-based visualization for temporal GIS. Collaborative protocols, tools, models, data structures, and algorithms developed in the project will be shaped and presented in web-based educational materials to provide interested researchers and their students with easy access.

Beyond the historical social sciences and geographic information science, SOCNET will promote innovations in computer science, mathematical modeling and simulation, environmental sciences, medical research, and transportation studies. Collaborating computer scientists and mathematicians will develop innovative computational concepts and tools to better capture the dynamism of overlapping, multi-dimensional social networks within a complex, nonlinear system. In solving the difficulties associated with using historical information within a computational environment, SOCNET will further promote the idea of 'spatial turn' within history and the historical social sciences.

Because of the higher percentage of women and minorities among majors in the historical social sciences, the project will attract such students into a technologically rich educational and employment environment. The project will support the development of an existing Master's in geographically-integrated history, a forthcoming interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Social and Environmental Dynamics, a future M.S. in Computer Science and Computational Sciences, and a new interdisciplinary degree program in Geoinformatics, providing students educational emphases on geographic information science and technology to seek better understanding of dynamic human and environmental systems.

EPS-0919466, University of Oklahoma Norman Campus, Paul Risser, linked to EPS-0919443 (University of Kansas Center for Research Inc)

Collaborative Research: EPSCoR RII Track 2 Oklahoma and Kansas:
A cyberCommons for Ecological Forecasting

Four universities (Kansas University (KU), Oklahoma University (OU), Kansas State University (KSU), and Oklahoma State University (OSU)) in two EPSCoR states, Kansas and Oklahoma, are united to create a cyberCommons, a powerful, integrated cyber environment for knowledge discovery and education across complex environmental phenomena. The cyberCommons will integrate two frameworks?the science framework of data, models, analytics and narratives, and the cyberinfrastructure framework of hardware, software, collaboration environment and integration environment. Two scientific questions underlie the understanding and forecasting of ecological systems in the Central Plains, which are in the main focus of this project: (1) What are the impacts of changes in land-use/land-cover and climate, both natural and anthropogenic, on biogeochemical cycles and ecosystem function? In turn, what are the feedbacks among these drivers and consequences? and (2) What are the impacts of changes in land-use/land-cover and climate, both natural and anthropogenic, on biodiversity?its composition, patterns and dynamics? In turn, how do these changes in biodiversity affect the spread of plant and animal diseases and invasive species, and how do these phenomena influence ecosystem structure, function and services?

Intellectual Merit. Scientists at the four universities have independently developed research expertise, web-based data portals, web applications, and models dealing with the ecological drivers and consequences. CI tools are, for the most part, advancing this research along single, independent pipelines of ecological and biotic data, models, analytics and narrative scenarios. The cyberCommons is thought to enable unified, collaborative research across these pipelines, transforming the modeling and synthesis of ecological complexity. It will build on and unite the consortium?s existing expertise and capabilities in ecological observation, data assimilation and distribution, mathematical modeling, and CI architectures. Effectively, the cyberCommons will create a new research and educational community that transcends geographic, disciplinary and institutional boundaries in promoting peer-to-peer collaboration and new pedagogy.

Broader Impacts. The cyberCommons is proposed to build upon strengths in the two states in the ecological, biodiversity and CI sciences. The researchers plan to enhance these strengths and research competitiveness through a new CI/science framework by enabling cross-domain investigation of complex environmental phenomena. The knowledge discovery advanced by the cyberCommons is expected to have immediate and long-term applicability to the management and sustainability of grassland ecosystems on the Central Plains. Using web portals, resources and tools developed for the cyberCommons, teachers and students at a wide range of institutions in OK and KS will have new opportunities for hands-on exploration of the science of ecological forecasting. Such outreach efforts will reach the growing population of minorities, help advance the curriculum at a diverse range of institutions, and improve workforce education and training in areas of vital importance to the economy of the region. New curricular content at the participating universities will help prepare the next generation of researchers to work in CI environments and virtual collaborations. By leveraging existing successful programs that serve young women, blacks, and Native Americans in both states, the cyberCommons will foster engagement in science and careers among groups traditionally underrepresented in science, engineering and eco-forecasting disciplines.

PROJECT SUMMARY Can regular mental exercises in building cognitive maps delay the onset of Alzheimer?s disease (AD) or decelerate the progression of AD? The neuropathology of Alzheimer?s disease (AD) begins in the entorhinal cortex, leading to spatial navigation impairment that differentiates patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD from healthy aging adults. Specifically, MCI and AD patients suffer declining abilities to allocentric navigation that requires developing a cognitive map (aka mental map) as an internal representation of the environment with places and features independent of one?s current location or orientation. A system of spatial cells in the hippocampal formation subserves cognitive map building with the spatial periodicity of grid- cell firing fields to form the brain?s metric coordinate system for allocentric navigation. Studies showed that grid cells could gradually lose their spatial periodicity during periods of reduced theta oscillations and hippocampal inactivation. Will mental exercises in building cognitive maps excite theta oscillations and hippocampal activation and strengthen spatial periodicity of grid-cell firing fields? Findings of structural brain changes in London taxi drivers and spatial information retrieval support the potential of such excitatory effects. Further, less is known about the role of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in the storage and retrieval of cognitive maps, and how this region changes with AD. The proposed study hypothesizes that regular mental exercises on cognitive map building can evoke such excitatory effects to delay AD onset and decelerate AD progression. In this exploratory proposal, we venture into the links amongst geographic environments, allocentric navigation, cognitive maps, and AD development: a more complex environment imposes a higher demand on cognitive maps to navigate even on daily commutes and routine errands, and frequent mental exercises of building and retrieving cognitive maps lead to preservation of spatial cognition relevant gray matter regions and consequently impede AD development. We will use data from the National Alzheimer?s Coordinating Center (NACC) and US-based Health and Retirement Study (HRS), respectively (1) to compare MCI/AD populations in geographic areas with varying degrees of environmental complexity and (2) to investigate MCI/AD populations with occupations of high dependency on cognitive maps, such as realtors, police officers, first responders, and the other occupations. The NACC databases contain participant?s 3-digit zip-codes and types of residence which will allow MCI/AD mapping to potential neighborhoods across the US, whereas HRS restricted data include occupation data and cross-wave geographic information at street-level. Findings from the exploratory project will support subsequent experimental research to model the role of gray matter volume, refine the research framework of the excitatory effects of environment complexity and cognitive mapping to MCI/AD development, and examine the potential MCI/AD detriments of GPS-enabled navigation devices.