Yasuhiro Kawahara – författare

Geospatial information science is in the process of evolving and being systematized, with the technical and usage aspects of the real world stimulating each other. This book systematizes the technical aspects of positioning; of geography, which manages and represents what is measured in units of earth coordinates; and of data science, which aims to efficiently express and process geographic information, all by introducing contemporary examples that are systematized with regard to their use in our living spaces. Examples of geospatial information used in almost all aspects of our lives, including urban areas, transportation, disaster prevention, health and medical care, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, culture, ecology, and topography, are presented, along with examples of their use in each area. One of the major features of this book is that it describes the use of data from earthquake disasters that is unique to Japan, as well as the use of open data and personal data in Japan, which is a trend that is gaining attention in many countries.

This book is the first coherent presentation of the latest research and practices concerned with how recent advances in mobile information and communication technology (ICT) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are utilized to enhance the value of the city and change the way that city planning and management are carried out. Its salient feature is the pursuit of the individual-oriented evaluative point of view regarding the city. This view considers the value of the city to be the total of visit-values individuals feel and appreciate when they visit the city. The visit-value is conceptualized as the intangible asset value of the attractiveness of the city that visitors form in their minds based on their experiences and activities in the city, transactions with city space, and communications with other people. Visitors to the city may well be quite heterogeneous individuals with different motives and preferences. Thus, to enhance the value of the city, quite different visit values of heterogeneous individuals should be enhanced simultaneously, which necessitates the use of ICT and IoT in living spaces. Based on this view, the city utilizing ICT and IoT to enhance the value of the city is called the social city. Whereas many other books deal with the impacts of the advances in mobile ICT on the city, they only discuss how these advances change the infrastructure of the city but do not discuss how these technological advances can be utilized to enhance the city’s value. This book first develops the concept of the social city based on an individual micro-behavioral approach. Then, it presents the latest studies on technological components of the social city, such as the human-sensing technology for estimating individual behavior, decision making, and mood; the visualizing technology of the thermal 3-dimensional environment of the city; and the social-sensing technology using social networking service (SNS) for measuring and creating an atmosphere of city space. Finally,it envisages the future of the social city.