Tower-mounted camera-based wildfire detection systems provide an effective means of early forest ... more Tower-mounted camera-based wildfire detection systems provide an effective means of early forest fire detection. Historically, tower sites have been identified by foresters and locals with intimate knowledge of the terrain and without the aid of computational optimisation tools. When moving into vast new territories and without the aid of local knowledge, this process becomes cumbersome and daunting. In such instances, the optimisation of final site layouts may be streamlined if a suitable strategy is employed to limit the candidate sites to landforms which offer superior system visibility. A framework for the exploitation of landforms for these purposes is proposed. The landform classifications at 165 existing tower sites from wildfire detection systems in South Africa, Canada and the USA are analysed using the geomorphon technique, and it is noted that towers are located at or near certain landform types. A metaheuristic and integer linear programming approach is then employed to ...
Existing collaborations among public health practitioners, veterinarians, and ecologists do not s... more Existing collaborations among public health practitioners, veterinarians, and ecologists do not sufficiently consider illegal wildlife trade in their surveillance, biosafety, and security (SB&S) efforts even though the risks to health and biodiversity from these threats are significant. We highlight multiple cases to illustrate the risks posed by existing gaps in understanding the intersectionality of the illegal wildlife trade and zoonotic disease transmission. We argue for more integrative science in support of decision-making using the One Health approach. Opportunities abound to apply transdisciplinary science to sustainable wildlife trade policy and programming, such as combining on-the-ground monitoring of health, environmental, and social conditions with an understanding of the operational and spatial dynamics of illicit wildlife trade. We advocate for (1) a surveillance sample management system for enhanced diagnostic efficiency in collaboration with diverse and local partne...
International Transactions in Operational Research, 2020
Effective early detection of forest fires can be achieved by specialised systems of tower-mounted... more Effective early detection of forest fires can be achieved by specialised systems of tower-mounted cameras. Foresters and locals with intimate knowledge of the terrain traditionally plan the tower site locations – without the aid of computational optimisation tools. However, such knowledge and expertise may not be available to system planners when entering vast new territories. The process of selecting multiple tower sites from a large number of potential site locations with the aim of maximising system visibility of smoke above a prescribed region is a complex combinatorial optimisation problem. We present two recent applications of novel site-selection frameworks for tower-mounted camera-based wildfire detection systems (CWDS), which have been under development with guidance from experts from the South African developed ForestWatch wildfire detection system. A novel single-site search framework determined alternatives for 13 proposed sites in South Africa's Mpumalanga province, of which 6 alternatives were chosen over the initially proposed sites. The system site selection framework was showcased in determining a four-camera CWDS layout in South Africa's Southern Cape – significantly improving on the detection capability of the layout initially proposed by technical experts
ObjectiveThe purpose of the study was to examine geographic relationships of nutritional status (... more ObjectiveThe purpose of the study was to examine geographic relationships of nutritional status (BMI), including underweight, overweight and obesity, among Kenyan mothers and children.DesignSpatial relationships were examined concerning BMI of the mothers and BMI-for-age percentiles of their children. These included spatial statistical measures of the clustering of segments of the population, in addition to inspection of co-location of significant clusters.SettingRural and urban areas of Kenya, including the cities of Nairobi and Mombasa, and the Kisumu region.SubjectsMother–child pairs from Demographic and Health Survey data including 1541 observations in 2003 and 1592 observations in 2009. These mother–child pairs were organized into 399 locational clusters.ResultsThere is extremely strong evidence that high BMI values exhibit strong spatial clustering. There were co-locations of overweight mothers and overweight children only in the Nairobi region, while both underweight mothers ...
This chapter presents a new method for determining the most efficient spatial distribution of pol... more This chapter presents a new method for determining the most efficient spatial distribution of police patrols in a metropolitan region, termed the police patrol area covering (PPAC) model. This method employs inputs from geographic information systems (GIS) data layers, analyzes that data through an optimal covering model formulation, and provides alternative optimal solutions for presentation to decision makers. The goal of this research is to increase the level of police service by finding more efficient spatial allocations of the available law enforcement resources. Extensions to the model that incorporate variations in the priority of calls for service based on the type of crime being committed, and the need for an equitable distribution of workload among police officers are discussed. Examples of the inputs from – and outputs to – GIS are provided through a pilot study of the city of Dallas, Texas.
Using Computer Simulations and Geographic Information Systems
This chapter presents an innovative approach to the study of the journey to residential burglary.... more This chapter presents an innovative approach to the study of the journey to residential burglary. We demonstrate a simulation model that is built upon the integration of cellular automaton (CA) and multi-agent system (MAS). The model utilizes both social disorganization (SD) and routine activity (RA) theories to predict locations of residential burglary targets. The model simulates an offender as an intelligent agent of MAS that interacts with the target and place automata of CA. The likelihood of a residential burglary is modeled as a function of offender’s motivation, target desirability and place guardianship, which in turn are determined by the offender’s individual characteristics often used by RA and the target and place’s neighborhood properties frequently utilized in SD. The model was initialized and parameterized using “real” crime data from Dallas, Texas Police Department. Results under two different weighting scenarios were obtained and compared with the actual distributi...
2009 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshops, 2009
Abstract As we move increasingly towards multi-source data analysis, the assessment of similarity... more Abstract As we move increasingly towards multi-source data analysis, the assessment of similarity of complex, multilayer scenes is becoming increasingly important for spatial data mining. In this paper, we present a content-based approach for scene similarity assessment. The proposed approach is based on a graph-matching scheme that models linear feature networks (road network) as graphs and additional GIS information (eg buildings) as layer content. This allows us to combine diverse but co-located pieces of information (eg roads ...
Observers say that drug production fuels violence in Colombia, but does coca production explain d... more Observers say that drug production fuels violence in Colombia, but does coca production explain different levels of violence? This article examines the relationship between coca production and guerrilla violence by reviewing national-level data over time and studying Colombia by department, exploring the interactions among guerrilla violence, exports, development, and displacement. It uses historical analysis, cartographic visualization, and analysis of the trends in four high coca-producing and four violent Colombian departments, along with a department-level fixed effects model. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the department-level analysis suggests that coca production is not the driving force of contemporary Colombian guerrilla violence. Instead, economic factors and coca eradication emerge as prominent explanatory factors.
Tower-mounted camera-based wildfire detection systems provide an effective means of early forest ... more Tower-mounted camera-based wildfire detection systems provide an effective means of early forest fire detection. Historically, tower sites have been identified by foresters and locals with intimate knowledge of the terrain and without the aid of computational optimisation tools. When moving into vast new territories and without the aid of local knowledge, this process becomes cumbersome and daunting. In such instances, the optimisation of final site layouts may be streamlined if a suitable strategy is employed to limit the candidate sites to landforms which offer superior system visibility. A framework for the exploitation of landforms for these purposes is proposed. The landform classifications at 165 existing tower sites from wildfire detection systems in South Africa, Canada and the USA are analysed using the geomorphon technique, and it is noted that towers are located at or near certain landform types. A metaheuristic and integer linear programming approach is then employed to ...
Existing collaborations among public health practitioners, veterinarians, and ecologists do not s... more Existing collaborations among public health practitioners, veterinarians, and ecologists do not sufficiently consider illegal wildlife trade in their surveillance, biosafety, and security (SB&S) efforts even though the risks to health and biodiversity from these threats are significant. We highlight multiple cases to illustrate the risks posed by existing gaps in understanding the intersectionality of the illegal wildlife trade and zoonotic disease transmission. We argue for more integrative science in support of decision-making using the One Health approach. Opportunities abound to apply transdisciplinary science to sustainable wildlife trade policy and programming, such as combining on-the-ground monitoring of health, environmental, and social conditions with an understanding of the operational and spatial dynamics of illicit wildlife trade. We advocate for (1) a surveillance sample management system for enhanced diagnostic efficiency in collaboration with diverse and local partne...
International Transactions in Operational Research, 2020
Effective early detection of forest fires can be achieved by specialised systems of tower-mounted... more Effective early detection of forest fires can be achieved by specialised systems of tower-mounted cameras. Foresters and locals with intimate knowledge of the terrain traditionally plan the tower site locations – without the aid of computational optimisation tools. However, such knowledge and expertise may not be available to system planners when entering vast new territories. The process of selecting multiple tower sites from a large number of potential site locations with the aim of maximising system visibility of smoke above a prescribed region is a complex combinatorial optimisation problem. We present two recent applications of novel site-selection frameworks for tower-mounted camera-based wildfire detection systems (CWDS), which have been under development with guidance from experts from the South African developed ForestWatch wildfire detection system. A novel single-site search framework determined alternatives for 13 proposed sites in South Africa's Mpumalanga province, of which 6 alternatives were chosen over the initially proposed sites. The system site selection framework was showcased in determining a four-camera CWDS layout in South Africa's Southern Cape – significantly improving on the detection capability of the layout initially proposed by technical experts
ObjectiveThe purpose of the study was to examine geographic relationships of nutritional status (... more ObjectiveThe purpose of the study was to examine geographic relationships of nutritional status (BMI), including underweight, overweight and obesity, among Kenyan mothers and children.DesignSpatial relationships were examined concerning BMI of the mothers and BMI-for-age percentiles of their children. These included spatial statistical measures of the clustering of segments of the population, in addition to inspection of co-location of significant clusters.SettingRural and urban areas of Kenya, including the cities of Nairobi and Mombasa, and the Kisumu region.SubjectsMother–child pairs from Demographic and Health Survey data including 1541 observations in 2003 and 1592 observations in 2009. These mother–child pairs were organized into 399 locational clusters.ResultsThere is extremely strong evidence that high BMI values exhibit strong spatial clustering. There were co-locations of overweight mothers and overweight children only in the Nairobi region, while both underweight mothers ...
This chapter presents a new method for determining the most efficient spatial distribution of pol... more This chapter presents a new method for determining the most efficient spatial distribution of police patrols in a metropolitan region, termed the police patrol area covering (PPAC) model. This method employs inputs from geographic information systems (GIS) data layers, analyzes that data through an optimal covering model formulation, and provides alternative optimal solutions for presentation to decision makers. The goal of this research is to increase the level of police service by finding more efficient spatial allocations of the available law enforcement resources. Extensions to the model that incorporate variations in the priority of calls for service based on the type of crime being committed, and the need for an equitable distribution of workload among police officers are discussed. Examples of the inputs from – and outputs to – GIS are provided through a pilot study of the city of Dallas, Texas.
Using Computer Simulations and Geographic Information Systems
This chapter presents an innovative approach to the study of the journey to residential burglary.... more This chapter presents an innovative approach to the study of the journey to residential burglary. We demonstrate a simulation model that is built upon the integration of cellular automaton (CA) and multi-agent system (MAS). The model utilizes both social disorganization (SD) and routine activity (RA) theories to predict locations of residential burglary targets. The model simulates an offender as an intelligent agent of MAS that interacts with the target and place automata of CA. The likelihood of a residential burglary is modeled as a function of offender’s motivation, target desirability and place guardianship, which in turn are determined by the offender’s individual characteristics often used by RA and the target and place’s neighborhood properties frequently utilized in SD. The model was initialized and parameterized using “real” crime data from Dallas, Texas Police Department. Results under two different weighting scenarios were obtained and compared with the actual distributi...
2009 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshops, 2009
Abstract As we move increasingly towards multi-source data analysis, the assessment of similarity... more Abstract As we move increasingly towards multi-source data analysis, the assessment of similarity of complex, multilayer scenes is becoming increasingly important for spatial data mining. In this paper, we present a content-based approach for scene similarity assessment. The proposed approach is based on a graph-matching scheme that models linear feature networks (road network) as graphs and additional GIS information (eg buildings) as layer content. This allows us to combine diverse but co-located pieces of information (eg roads ...
Observers say that drug production fuels violence in Colombia, but does coca production explain d... more Observers say that drug production fuels violence in Colombia, but does coca production explain different levels of violence? This article examines the relationship between coca production and guerrilla violence by reviewing national-level data over time and studying Colombia by department, exploring the interactions among guerrilla violence, exports, development, and displacement. It uses historical analysis, cartographic visualization, and analysis of the trends in four high coca-producing and four violent Colombian departments, along with a department-level fixed effects model. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the department-level analysis suggests that coca production is not the driving force of contemporary Colombian guerrilla violence. Instead, economic factors and coca eradication emerge as prominent explanatory factors.
Uploads
Papers by Kevin Curtin