Geocomputation

Chris Brunsdon is Professor of Geocomputation and Director of the National Centre for Geocomputation at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, having worked previously in the Universities of Newcastle, Glamorgan, Leicester and Liverpool, variously in departments focusing on both geography and computing. He has interests that span both of these disciplines, including spatial statistics, geographical information science, and exploratory spatial data analysis, and in particular the application of these ideas to crime pattern analysis, the modelling of house prices, medical and health geography and the analysis of land use data. He was one of the originators of the technique of geographically weighted regression (GWR). He has extensive experience of programming in R, going back to the late 1990s, and has developed a number of R packages which are currently available on CRAN, the Comprehensive R Archive Network. He is an advocate of free and open source software, and in particular the use of reproducible research methods, and has contributed to a large number of workshops on the use of R and of GWR in a number of countries, including the UK, Ireland, Japan, Canada, the USA, the Czech Republic and Australia. When not involved in academic work he enjoys running, collecting clocks and watches, and cooking – the last of these probably cancelling out the benefits of the first.Alex Singleton is Professor of Geographic Information Science at the University of Liverpool, where he entered as a lecturer in 2010. He holds a BSc (Hons) Geography from the University of Manchester and a PhD from University College London. To date, his research income totals around £15m, with two career highlights including the ESRC funded Consumer Data Research Centre; and the recently awarded ESRC Centre for Doctoral Training in New Forms of Data. Alex’s research is embedded within the Geographic Data Science Lab (geographicdatascience.com) and concerns various aspects of urban analytics. In particular, his work has extended a tradition of area classification within Geography where he has developed an empirically informed critique of the ways in which geodemographic methods can be refined for effective yet ethical use in public resource allocation applications.

This is a vital primer to what is ‘Big’ about geocomputation: new data (and lots of them), innovative methods of analysis, new geographic information technologies and, above all, an over-arching rethink of how we represent geography. It provides an important and strategic contribution to contemporary scientific geography and data analytics.

• IntroductionDescribing how the world looksSpatial Data Visualisation with R - James Cheshire and Robin LovelaceGeographical Agents in Three Dimensions - Paul TorrensScale, Power Laws, and Rank Size in Spatial Analysis - Michael BattyExploring movements in spaceAgent-Based Modeling and Geographical Information Systems - Andrew CrooksMicrosimulation Modelling for Social Scientists - Kirk Harland; and Mark BirkinSpatio-Temporal Knowledge Discovery - Harvey MillerCircular Statistics - David Rohde and Jonathan CorcoranMaking geographical decisionsGeodemographic Analysis - Alexandros Alexiou and Alexander SingletonSocial Area Analysis and Self Organizing Maps - Seth Spielman and David FolchKernel density estimation and Percent Volume Contours - Daniel LewisLocation-Allocation Models - Melanie Tomintz, Graham Clarke and Nawaf AlfadhliExplaining how the world worksGeographically Weighted Generalised Linear Modelling - Tomoki NakayaSpatial Interaction Models - Karyn MorrisseyPython Spatial Analysis Library (PySAL): An Update And Illustration - Sergio ReyReproducible Research: Concepts, Techniques and Issues - Chris Brunsdon and Alex SingletonEnabling interactionsUsing Crowd-Sourced Information to Analyse Changes in the Onset of the North American Spring - Chris Brunsdon and Lex ComberOpen Source GIS software - Oliver O’BrienPublic Participation in Geocomputation to Support Spatial Decision Making - Richard KingstonConclusionReferences