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Up to now the literature dealing with the cartography of the former Duchy of Pomerania has assumed that wall map of the region by Eilhardus Lubinus (Eilhard Lubin) had two editions: the first dating from 1618 and the second from 1758. Detailed analysis of correspondence between the mapmaker and his patron, the Pomeranian Duke Philip II, and later letters relating to arguments over payment and paper supplies as well as of a recently discovered copy of the map (now at the University of Szczecin), however, point to the existence of a third edition. This, it is suggested, dates from 1619–1620 and was financed by Lubin himself. Research has also revealed that the paper on which this new exemplar was printed came neither from the Pomeranian dukes' paper mill (as for the 1618 edition) nor from the Unold paper mill in Wolfegg (as for the 1758 edition). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main, and largest, part of the book contains 22 excerpts of narratives dealing with traversing the strait. The book closes with a selection of early maps and charts depicting the straits and their surroundings. The text that accompanies each map or chart first deals with the author, context and various characteristics before concentrating on the representation of the strait. [Extracted from the article]

This introduction to this special section, "Cities on Paper: On the Materiality of Paper in Urban Planning," explores the vital role played by paper documents in the practice of urban planning linked to the shaping of modern cities in Europe and the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This introductory essay considers recent literature on the materiality of paper to show the significance of examining the visual and written information transcribed on its surface in concert with assessing how it has been assembled, organized, reproduced, circulated, distributed, and archived. By exploring such uses of paper documents in urban planning practices, such cartography, arboriculture, maintenance, and the production and dissemination of expert knowledge, the five essays in this section demonstrate the relevance of the material culture of paper within the municipal and national bureaucracies that spearheaded dramatic urbanization campaigns in modern cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview is presented with Martin Brückner, director of the Winterthur Program in American Material Topics discussed include the book "The Social Life of Maps in America, 1750–1860;" the book "The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands" by Mark Catesby; and looking at early American maps and other forms of print culture.

In summary I applaud the authors for their research and writing, and for presenting the often confronting schism that occurred between the First Nations and the colonisers within the western third of the continent. Mokare was to share this same strong bond with Barker's successor, medical officer Alexander Collie, whose friendship was so strong that he requested to be buried next to Mokare upon his death. Charting Two Cultures: First Nations and Europeans in Western Australia: By Bill and Jenny Bunbury. [Extracted from the article]

In this paper, a large class of contractions is studied that contains Banach and Matkowski maps as particular cases. Sufficient conditions for the existence of fixed points are proposed in the framework of b-metric spaces. The convergence and stability of the Picard iterations are analyzed, giving error estimates for the fixed-point approximation. Afterwards, the iteration proposed by Kirk in 1971 is considered, studying its convergence, stability, and error estimates in the context of a quasi-normed space. The properties proved can be applied to other types of contractions, since the self-maps defined contain many others as particular cases. For instance, if the underlying set is a metric space, the contractions of type Kannan, Chatterjea, Zamfirescu, Ćirić, and Reich are included in the class of contractivities studied in this paper. These findings are applied to the construction of fractal surfaces on Banach algebras, and the definition of two-variable frames composed of fractal mappings with values in abstract Hilbert spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the nine sixteenth-century maps, texts, and globes that showed Sir Francis Drake's route of circumnavigation of the world. It shows the relationships between these nine artifacts and suggests the year of disclosure for each. The oldest of these is the Whitehall map, which was the direct or indirect precursor of the Drake-Mellon map, the French-Drake Van Sype map, the Dutch-Drake map, and the Hondius Broadside map. Most world maps published between 1561 and 1588 have a huge bulge on the coast of Chile. However, eight of the maps discussed in this paper shrank the bulge and moved it to the southern tip of Chile, using updated information from Drake's voyage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the re-animation of a geography departmental collection through a study of the archives and map collection of the School of Geography, University of Nottingham. The discussion is situated within parallel examples of work on geographical archives and map collections, and wider debates on engagement with archival sources. The paper considers how a previously dormant collection has been re-animated in recent years, conveys the range of source material involved, and discusses the possibilities of digitisation. The paper thereby raises questions which could be asked of the holdings of any academic department, from whatever time period. • The first detailed study of the re-animation of a geography departmental archival and map collection. • Shows a variety of original source material including photographic slides, plans, maps and posters. • Connects the study of a specific archive and map collection to wider debates on engagement with archival sources. • Examines the possibilities and implications of digitising analogue archival material. • Raises questions which could be asked of any archives and collections held by academic departments, from whatever period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The benefits of outdoor education are well known and irreplaceable. Teachers of environmental lessons frequently ask themselves what kind of cartographic support (paper maps or mobile navigators) to offer their students doing fieldwork either navigating to selected points or being engaged in the research of a selected environment. In this article, we compare the success rates of children using either a paper map or mobile navigation with respect to independence, accuracy and speed when walking (wayfinding) through an unfamiliar environment. We collected the data by observing 122 primary school students of six different schools as they individually walked through a suburban area of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The results show that the children were more independent and made fewer mistakes when using a mobile navigator than when using a paper map. They were able to use mobile navigation successfully after having received only a short (2-minute-long) demonstration, even if they had never used such a device before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes our process for creating metadata for digitized (scanned) maps, using the Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) records of the scanned maps' original paper counterparts as a starting point. Initially prompted by the need for metadata suitable for a consortial geoportal, we created new MARC records by applying a variety of programmatic edits using the software MarcEdit, as well as various manual edits as needed. These MARC records, in addition to supplying discrete records for the scans to our local catalog and WorldCat, served as the starting point for conversions to other metadata formats suitable for use in multiple discovery platforms, including the geoportal, our local digital repository, and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). The paper is therefore focused primarily on the MARC-to-MARC conversions – from descriptions of paper maps to descriptions of their scanned counterparts – that represent the first step of the conversions that followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-definition (HD) maps serve as crucial infrastructure for autonomous driving technology, facilitating vehicles in positioning, environmental perception, and motion planning without being affected by weather changes or sensor-visibility limitations. Maintaining precision and freshness in HD maps is paramount, as delayed or inaccurate information can significantly impact the safety of autonomous vehicles. Utilizing crowdsourced data for HD map updating is widely recognized as a superior method for preserving map accuracy and freshness. Although it has garnered considerable attention from researchers, there remains a lack of comprehensive exploration into the entire process of updating HD maps through crowdsourcing. For this reason, it is imperative to review and discuss crowdsourcing techniques. This paper aims to provide an overview of the overall process of crowdsourced updates, followed by a detailed examination and comparison of existing methodologies concerning the key techniques of data collection, information extraction, and change detection. Finally, this paper addresses the challenges encountered in crowdsourced updates for HD maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several revealing maps appear toward the end of Jeffrey Erbig's fascinating inquiry into imperial efforts to demarcate the border between Portuguese and Spanish South America. Border practices followed this new mode of border thinking, and not only for Europeans. Where Caciques and Mapmakers Met: Border Making in Eighteenth-Century South America: By Jeffrey Alan Erbig, Jr. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. [Extracted from the article]

Let Ω be a smooth compact Riemann surface with the boundary Γ, and let Λ : H1(Γ) ↦ L2(Γ), Λf ≔ ∂νu|Γ be its DN map, where u obeys Δgu = 0 in Ω and u = f on Γ. As is known, the genus m of the surface Ω is determined by its DN map Λ. In this paper, we prove the existence of Riemann surfaces of arbitrary genus m′ > m, with the boundary Γ, and such that their DN maps are arbitrarily close to Λ with respect to the operator norm. In other words, an arbitrarily small perturbation of the DN map may change the surface topology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maps are politically, socially, and culturally inflected objects that can communicate information and teach us about the time and society that shaped them. They are not only tools to serve present needs, but are also rich historical sources that require curation, conservation, and care. This historical legacy is well represented in the map collection of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). The stewardship of these historical maps offers many challenges, but also an opportunity for education, for example on the complex history of empire, and collaboration, for example with artists. This paper highlights the varied work of the RGS in the preservation and promotion of its large collection of maps, charts, and globes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Media comparison studies examining the effectiveness of immersive virtual reality in education have yielded inconclusive findings, leaving the question of its impact on learning compared to conventional media unanswered. To address this issue, our study employs a novel approach that combines media comparison with an investigation on the influence of broader educational context. Methods: In the experiment, 262 students from two distinct types of lower secondary schools—comprehensive school and multi‐year gymnasium (a selective academic school)—participated. The students received a lesson on topography and contour line interpretation, using either an immersive virtual environment or a PowerPoint slideshow. A transfer test was carried out before, immediately after, and 1 month after the lesson to measure knowledge application. Results: The impact of the media (immersive virtual reality vs. PowerPoint slideshow) on learning outcomes was found to be minimal, with no clear advantage of one over the other in any experimental condition. In contrast, a significant influence on learning gains was observed due to school type. Multi‐year gymnasium students consistently outperformed comprehensive school students in the pre‐test and demonstrated greater learning gains, regardless of the learning media. Conclusion: The present study employs an innovative approach by integrating a comparative analysis of different media types with an investigation into the impact of learner characteristics. By including students from distinct types of schools, the study provides insights into the differential effects of immersive virtual reality in varied educational contexts. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Media comparison studies typically assess the effectiveness of immersive virtual reality as a learning medium in comparison to other instructional methods in education.The findings of these studies differ markedly.Numerous factors impact learning outcomes in an immersive virtual environment. What this paper adds: Recommendation that research in the field should explore not only if but also when and how IVR learning is effective.Evidence that learning achievements may not be affected by the medium used.Evidence that the type of school can significantly influence learning gains.Evidence that cognitive dispositions, such as spatial abilities, can be another factor that influence learning outcomes. Implications for practice: A technology‐centred approach alone does not allow for a proper evaluation of the learning gain potential of IVR, learner characteristics and broader educational context should also be taken into account.IVR as a learning medium may not be appropriate for all students and every educational setting.To ensure reliable evaluation of learning gains, it is necessary to align the content and format of the intervention in both learning mediums as closely as possible.Measuring learning gains not only immediately after the intervention but also with a significant time delay can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The InSAR technique is known to be a powerful tool for precise monitoring of wide areas in terms of displacements. It is conceivable to also use this technique to monitor landslide areas, but geometrical distortions due to ground morphology and land cover could make InSAR processing ineffective for such applications. Because of the computational burden of InSAR processing, it is important to have preliminary knowledge about the possible suitability of the technique for the inspected area before acquiring and processing the data. This paper aims to perform a preliminary analysis of the InSAR sensitivity for the specific case of landslide monitoring. A new approach is proposed considering aspects specific to landslide displacements, which are basically tangent to the slope direction. Pre-processed coherence maps were used to account for the impact of land cover. The whole analysis can be carried out without acquiring cumbersome SAR datasets and can be used as a preliminary step. The Italian Emilia-Romagna region has been considered as the study area, with landslide areas accounting for more than 12% of its territory. The outcomes show that the inspected area has favourable morphological conditions, mainly thanks to its mild slopes and the limited number of landslides facing north, but the land cover has a strong negative impact on the InSAR sensitivity. Nevertheless, 7.5% of the landslide areas have promising conditions for monitoring using radar interferometry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the development of a world map projection intended to minimize distortion of all continents. I begin by reviewing a very similar map projection developed by Canters (2002), and address its shortcomings by carefully fine-tuning the initial constraints and the method of optimization, while retaining the most useful ideas of this earlier map. Most notably, the method described in this paper puts a great emphasis on the outline of the map, so that its aesthetics make it more suitable for atlases; the method also exclusively uses reproducible, deterministic methods. Finally, I compare the resulting world map to the original one of Canters in terms of map distortions and practical usefulness. The method presented here should work without changes if a low-distortion map of any other global-scale area is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I will establish a special case of a conjecture that intertwines the deep diagonal pentagram maps and Poncelet polygons. The special case is that of the |$3$| -diagonal map acting on affine equivalence classes of centrally symmetric octagons. The proof involves establishing that the map is Arnold-Liouville integrable in this case, and then exploring the Lagrangian surface foliation in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban villages represent informal residential areas emerging since China's rapid urbanization process. Scientific map generalization of urban villages with scientific maps aids readers in discerning their distribution and making informed decisions concerning them. However, there is still a scarcity of research on the automatic extraction and generalization of urban villages from vector data, which needs to be studied to further improve the expression of maps. To address this problem, this paper presents a methodology for the extraction and generalization of urban villages from Digital Line Graphics. Firstly, a heuristic approach is employed to analyze the atypical morphological characteristics of urban villages. Then, indices based on computational geometry and the modified Hausdorff distance are utilized to quantify these traits. Lastly, an automatic generalization principle for urban villages is offered. The approach was tested in experimental blocks and proved to be effective. It offers a novel method for the automatic extraction and cartography of urban villages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A previous paper of the author introduced a graphical method, allowing anyone interested to form one's own opinion on data published in the form of computer-maps to re-compute the map data by means of a simple and efficient use of commonly available computer-graphic products. This was shown to allow a data re-analysis of sound metrological quality—there applied to a NASA video concerning the ice coverage on the Earth's surface. In the present paper, the same procedure shows an efficient way to (re-)compute the annual value of the so-called Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST)—a parameter normally provided by dedicated International Organizations, such as the ONU-supported IPCC—from whole-Earth maps of different types, often obtaining different results. A cartographic reason for this is given and discussed, explaining the differences found, some of which might have remained implicit in the published information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a complete determination of which of the alternating groups A n and the symmetric groups S n occur as the automorphism group of some regular or chiral map on an orientable surface, and which of them occur as the automorphism group of a regular map on a non-orientable surface. The situation for some given types (m , k) is also considered, where k is the valency and m is the face-size, with special focus on types with m = 3 , and more particularly with (m , k) = (3 , 7) or (3 , 8) , or their duals. Some observations are made also about what happens for regular and orientably-regular maps with given valency, and for regular and chiral polyhedra. Much but certainly not all of what is presented follows from theorems in previous papers by the author and others, and this one brings them and some new observations together into a single reference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The importance of data quality whether in collection, analysis or presenting stage is a tangible and undeniable scientific fact and the main objects of researches implementation. Objective: This paper aims at explaining the main problems of the Iranian scientific papers for providing better data in the field of national and sub-national prevalence, incidence estimates and trends of obesity and overweight. METHODS: To assess and evaluate papers, we systematically followed an approved standard protocol. Retrieval of studies was performed through Thomson Reuters Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus, as well as Iranian databases including Irandoc, Scientific Information Database (SID), and IranMedex. Using GBD (Global Burden of Diseases) validated quality assessment forms to assess the quality and availability of data in papers, we considered the following four main domains: a) Quality of studies, b) Quality report of the results, c) Responsiveness of corresponding authors, and d) Diversity in study settings. RESULTS: We retrieved 3,253 records; of these 1,875 were from international and 1378 from national databases. After refining steps, 129 (3.97%) papers remained related to our study domain. More than 51% of relevant papers were excluded because of poor quality of studies. The number of reported total population and points of data were 22,972 and 29 for boys, and 38,985 and 47 for girls, respectively. For all measures, missing values and diversities in studies' setting limited our ability to compare and analyze the results. Moreover, we had some serious problems in contacting the corresponding authors for complementary information necessary (Receptiveness: 17.9%). CONCLUSION: As the present paper focused on the main problems of Iranian scientific papers and proposed suggestions, the results will have implications for better policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the portrayal of the Orcades and the North Atlantic in a range of seventh- to eleventh-century insular sources. It is argued that the content of early medieval insular written sources suggests that Orcades should not necessarily be translated as 'Orkney' in every case, and that it is plausible that on many occasions, a territory encompassing a wider range of the island groups of Scotland is intended. Consideration of the depiction of the Orcades on the mappa mundi within British Library Cotton MS Tiberius B.v/1 bolsters this conclusion. New multi-spectral images of the map suggest that, despite apparent adjustments to the extent of the Orcades during the process of the map's production, a very large archipelago covering an extensive territory off northern Britain was intended from the time of the map's initial creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces an innovative approach to 3D environmental mapping through the integration of a compact, handheld sensor package with a two-stage sensor fusion pipeline. The sensor package, incorporating LiDAR, IMU, RGB, and thermal cameras, enables comprehensive and robust 3D mapping of various environments. By leveraging Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) and thermal imaging, our solution offers good performance in conditions where global positioning is unavailable and in visually degraded environments. The sensor package runs a real-time LiDAR-Inertial SLAM algorithm, generating a dense point cloud map that accurately reconstructs the geometric features of the environment. Following the acquisition of that point cloud, we post-process these data by fusing them with images from the RGB and thermal cameras and produce a detailed, color-enriched 3D map that is useful and adaptable to different mission requirements. We demonstrated our system in a variety of scenarios, from indoor to outdoor conditions, and the results showcased the effectiveness and applicability of our sensor package and fusion pipeline. This system can be applied in a wide range of applications, ranging from autonomous navigation to smart agriculture, and has the potential to make a substantial benefit across diverse fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a comprehensive description of preserved copper plates used for map printing in order to enrich the existing knowledge and, at the same time, contribute with new knowledge on the topic of the engraving of old maps. The dimensions, thickness, and weight of individual printing plates were measured. Qualitative indicators of the material were also examined. Printing plates originating from countries north of the Alps (former Czech lands) and from Mediterranean regions (Malta and Italy) are represented. For the purpose of the study, the term printing plate refers to a copperplate on which the engraving was made using the burin or line etching technique. These are some of the oldest reproduction techniques used for printing old maps. The period studied covers the 18th century, approximately. Studies dealing with a large set of printing plates and their classification are rather an exception (Hameleers 1989). The issue of the qualitative properties of printing plates has not yet been comprehensively addressed in the literature focusing on the history of cartography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In late 2023, the image-reading capability added to a Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) framework provided the opportunity to potentially revolutionize the way we view and understand geographic maps, the core component of cartography, geography, and spatial data science. In this study, we explore reading and analyzing maps with the latest version of GPT-4-vision-preview (GPT-4V), to fully evaluate its advantages and disadvantages in comparison with human eye-based visual inspections. We found that GPT-4V is able to properly retrieve information from various types of maps in different scales and spatiotemporal resolutions. GPT-4V can also perform basic map analysis, such as identifying visual changes before and after a natural disaster. It has the potential to replace human efforts by examining batches of maps, accurately extracting information from maps, and linking observed patterns with its pre-trained large dataset. However, it is encumbered by limitations such as diminished accuracy in visual content extraction and a lack of validation. This paper sets an example of effectively using GPT-4V for map reading and analytical tasks, which is a promising application for large multimodal models, large language models, and artificial intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In logical terms, a 2D map is a polymorphic form of linear objects made from practical features like roads, cartos (geometrical representation of a collection of buildings or specific features), roundabouts, highways, and many more. As autonomous vehicle disrupts transportation and navigation, there is a need to detect and identify map features at a granular level with no human intervention. This paper focuses on one of the practical problems, i.e. determining whether a junction is part of roundabouts using the Map domain, which is a novel approach to the best of the knowledge of an author. In a roundabout, the junction is the node having entry or exit of roads in or away from it. Closed loops in roads are extracted by traversing each link and checking for the common junctions using a deterministic algorithm. Loops can be formed not only by roundabouts it can be present at any intersection of roads, from all the universal sets of junctions; identifying the pattern and finding the right junctions of a roundabout is a very challenging and exciting problem. The authors have solved this problem in two parts; data extraction is done by collecting all the roads of America and Europe and then features are extracted, which depend on logical and domain knowledge. Finally, for the fuzzy part of features, a machine model that provides an efficient accuracy of 81% is created as it reduces lots of manual effort for verifying and correcting junctions. This applied methodology is easy to implement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Augmented reality (AR) technology enables paper maps to dynamically express three-dimensional geographic information, realizing the fusion of virtual and real information. However, in the current mainstream AR development software, the virtual information usually consists of prefabricated components (prefabs), and the content creation for AR maps heavily relies on manual prefabrication. It leads to repetitive and error-prone prefabrication work, which restricts the design of the dynamic, interactive functions of AR maps. To solve this problem, this paper explored the possibility of automatically generating AR map prefabs using object detection models to establish a data conversion interface from paper maps to AR maps. First, we compared and analyzed various object detection models and selected YOLOv8x to recognize map point symbols. Then, we proposed a method to automatically generate AR map prefabs based on the predicted bounding boxes of the object detection model, which could generate prefabs with corresponding categories and positional information. Finally, we developed an AR map prototype system based on Android mobile devices. We designed an interaction method for information queries in the system to verify the effectiveness of the method proposed in this paper. The validation results indicate that our method can be practically applied to the AR map prefabrication process and can quickly generate AR map prefabs with high information accuracy. It alleviated the repetitive workload established through the manual prefabrication method and had specific feasibility and practicality. Moreover, it could provide solid data support for developing dynamic interactive functions of AR maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of the research on map emotional semantics is to describe and express the emotional responses caused by people observing images through computer technology. Nowadays, map application scenarios tend to be diversified, and the increasing demand for emotional information of map users bring new challenges for cartography. However, the lack of evaluation of emotions in the traditional map drawing process makes it difficult for the resulting maps to reach emotional resonance with map users. The core of solving this problem is to quantify the emotional semantics of maps, it can help mapmakers to better understand map emotions and improve user satisfaction. This paper aims to perform the quantification of map emotional semantics by applying transfer learning methods and the efficient computational power of convolutional neural networks (CNN) to establish the correspondence between visual features and emotions. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: (1) a Map Sentiment Dataset containing five discrete emotion categories; (2) three different CNNs (VGG16, VGG19, and InceptionV3) are applied for map sentiment classification task and evaluated by accuracy performance; (3) six different parameter combinations to conduct experiments that would determine the best combination of learning rate and batch size; and (4) the analysis of visual variables that affect the sentiment of a map according to the chart and visualization results. The experimental results reveal that the proposed method has good accuracy performance (around 88%) and that the emotional semantics of maps have some general rules. A Map Sentiment Dataset with five discrete emotions is constructed Map emotional semantics are classified by deep learning approaches Visual variables Influencing map sentiment are analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper maps and spatializes the Almshouse Ledger records for the children of unmarried parents in New York City in the 1820 and 1830s. Mapping the distribution of poverty and the provision of forms of welfare in the city, this paper illustrates specific areas of the city which were attracting the very poor as early as the second decade of the nineteenth century. This paper argues that migrants from countries with similar welfare systems to those established in New York may be overrepresented in the record due to familiarity with the system. This interdisciplinary paper combines archaeological approaches to GIS with archival research to illustrate the distribution of welfare provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the interwar period in Europe, cacti emerged as significant architectural devices that challenged traditional notions of architecture, offering an alternative understanding of the discipline while embodying the politics of their time. Investigating the overlooked prevalence of cacti in early modernist writings, photographs, artwork, and spaces, this paper reveals a European obsession with the desert plant in the early twentieth century that has been hidden in plain sight. The transmaterial entanglements of cacti with the architecture of the Bauhaus and its other human, vegetal, and material occupants forged a biochemical interspecies contract, signaling shifting attitudes toward gender inequities and industrialized labor. Celebrated for their machinic qualities, their mind-altering and time-bending chemical properties, and their sexual suggestiveness, many species of cacti—while objectified—were instrumental witnesses and silent provocateurs of the period, offering whimsical and exoticized additions to the modern aesthetic. They represented a different aesthetic realm coming from the desert, and spurred radical new imaginaries concerning gender, economics, and politics. Cacti emerged as trans-geographical agents, instrumentalized as both symbols of the modern environment in Europe and of the arid geographies from which they originated—shaping a new media ecology. Further, the ingestions of cactus-based chemicals in this period transformed the consciousness of early modernists, instigating lysergic experiences that challenged linear conceptions of time, fostering queer temporality and novel futurities. By examining the role of environmental elements in shaping architectural modernism, this paper suggests correspondences between the built environment and the natural world, offering a new perspective on a significant period in architectural history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Why," "what," and "how" are basic questions to be answered in augmented map research as an intersecting direction. This study summarizes dynamic visual representations and true 3D interactions as characteristics of augmented maps from the cartographic perspective through analysis of the research progress in different disciplines. From secondary viewpoints of cognition and design, the augmented map cube is presented to establish the research framework in three directions: cognitive purposes, information dimensions, and interactive devices, in which map-based spatial cognition theory, augmented visualization, and interactive features are considered. The research evaluation is carried out to determine the reasonableness of the cube and then identify different research statuses in any one or two of the directions under the cube. Based on a literature search and classification, 30 typical studies were used for structural analysis to discover research trends and new directions that can be mined. The results show that the cube can be used to evaluate the coverage of an article or provide researchers with research trends and new possibilities. Our conclusions include but are not limited to the following: Research for retrieval purposes deserves attention, augmented visualization of specific individual elements is key to understanding maps, and interactive devices become more intangible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an ethnographic and qualitative exploration of how resident-driven mapping shapes our understanding of place and space in a changing environment. Conducted from 2018 to 2022, the study collaboratively engaged community members in mapping exercises, which helped inform the study and its purpose to uncover their complex feelings related to changes in the neighborhood, including the light rail expansion. By "hanging out" with the community and embracing a participatory research stance, the study unveiled a nuanced understanding of how residents make sense of space and place in an evolving context. This paper sheds light on the dynamic interplay between space, place, and identity. The mapping component served as a counterpoint to traditional top-down power dynamics, allowing residents to visually articulate their boundaries of South Phoenix. As the co-collaborators' maps challenged government-issued maps, the project highlighted the agency of Latinas/os in redefining spatial narratives. The incorporation of mapping, often overlooked in empirical literature, has emerged as a tool of resistance and empowerment, giving voice to historically marginalized perspectives. By integrating spatial analysis into the study of community dynamics, this paper's findings contribute to a more holistic understanding of the impact of urban development on identity and sense of place. It underscores the importance of collaborative, bottom-up approaches in research and planning processes, emphasizing the role of spatial perceptions in shaping lived experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new methodology to improve territorial cohesion in clustering processes where many variables from different topics are considered. Clustering techniques provide added value to identify typologies, but there are still unsolved challenges when data contain an unbalanced number of variables from different topics. The territorial feature selection method (TFSM) is presented as a method to select the representative variable of each topic such that the interpretability of resulting clusters is preserved and the geographical cohesion is improved with respect to classical approaches. This paper also introduces the thermometer as a new knowledge acquisition tool that allows experts to transfer semantics to the data mining process. TFSM proposes the index of potential explainability ( E k ) as the criteria to select the most promising variables for clustering. E k is based on the combination of inferential testing and metrics such as support. The proposal is applied with the INSESS-COVID19 database, where territorial groups of vulnerable populations were found. A set of 195 variables with 21 unbalanced thematic blocks is used to compare the results with a traditional multiview clustering analysis with promising results from both the geographical and the thematic point of view and the capacity to support further decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cartographers have long been interested in the representation of various movements such as migration, commercial exchanges and transportation. There are several techniques for visualizing this information; this paper focuses on flow mapping. A flow map shows a set of movements through line symbols connecting an origin to a destination. Each link is associated with a value that corresponds to the volume of the movement. However, once data reach a certain volume, the maps quickly become cluttered and can be difficult to read and understand. Moreover, the values of the movements must be correctly represented to avoid inducing biased interpretations. The objective of this paper is to create flow maps displaying flows of highly variable thicknesses so that the associated values are correctly represented. The technique used to create the flow paths does not create crossings between flows. In order to remove any visual clutter, such as overlaps between flows and geographic features, some areas of the map are distorted. In other words, our method of map distortion adapts the polygon vector base map to the flows, the central information of the visualization, and not the other way around. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on land use conflicts has significantly increased in number in recent years, and keeping track has become challenging. Moreover, "land use conflict" is a rather fuzzy concept; a coherent understanding of what it encompasses is presently missing. Thus, the objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the current state of land use conflict research, with a special focus on different conceptual approaches. A systematic mapping of 306 scientific, peer-reviewed publications on land use conflicts was conducted, combined with an interpretive analysis of how the term "land use conflict" is used. This revealed an extensive research field with several well-covered subfields but also some knowledge gaps. Moreover, four different conceptual approaches that have been applied in the literature were identified. The paper thus contributes to the formulation of an evidence-based research agenda and to an improved conceptual understanding of the term "land use conflict." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, human geneticists have substantially embraced the concept of "biogeographical ancestry" to account for the racial, ethnic, and linguistic categories they use to analyze and interpret genetic difference. Understanding the ongoing role of these categories in human genetic research therefore requires attention to geneticists' representations of geography, particularly the geographic maps they use to illustrate gene distribution and migration. This article examines how the methods and imagery of international genetic geography and its major evolutionary narratives have reinforced or refashioned nationalist practices of geography in the Middle East. Geneticists simultaneously conceptualize the region's physical space as both a historical "crossroads" of human migration and the birthplace of distinct gene sequences and civilizations, alternately blurring and sharpening the boundaries between Europe and Asia. Focusing on genetic research in Turkey and Iran, this paper analyzes how geneticists draw and interpret geographic maps of the region while selectively erasing or highlighting state borders. These genetic maps negotiate between the idealized aims of international projects to reconstruct human evolutionary history, and the reality of practicing science under the constraints of nationstate politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consider a quantum cat map M associated with a matrix A ∈ Sp (2 n , Z) , which is a common toy model in quantum chaos. We show that the mass of eigenfunctions of M on any nonempty open set in the position–frequency space satisfies a lower bound which is uniform in the semiclassical limit, under two assumptions: (1) there is a unique simple eigenvalue of A of largest absolute value and (2) the characteristic polynomial of A is irreducible over the rationals. This is similar to previous work (Dyatlov and Jin in Acta Math 220(2):297–339, 2018; Dyatlov et al. in J Am Math Soc 35(2):361–465, 2022) on negatively curved surfaces and (Schwartz in The full delocalization of eigenstates for the quantized cat map, 2021) on quantum cat maps with n = 1 , but this paper gives the first results of this type which apply in any dimension. When condition (2) fails we provide a weaker version of the result and discuss relations to existing counterexamples. We also obtain corresponding statements regarding semiclassical measures and damped quantum cat maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maps are the culmination of numerous choices, with many offering multiple alternatives. Not all of these choices are inherently guided by default, clarity, or universally accepted best practices, guidelines, or recommendations. In the realm of cartography, it is a distinct feature that individual decisions can be made, particularly regarding data preparation and selection and design aspects. As each map is a product of a multitude of decisions, the confidence we place in maps hinges on the reasonableness of these decisions. The trustworthiness of maps depends on whether these decisions are sound, unquestioned, readily accessible, and supported by dependable groups of decision makers whose reliability can be assessed based on their track record as an institution, reputation, and competence. The advent of user-friendly map-making software and data manipulation tools has placed some of these decisions in the hands of the general populace and those interested in using maps to convey specific agendas. This mirrors other forms of communication and has given rise to a growing discourse on "fake news", "fake media", and "fake maps", ultimately prompting us to question how we can trust the information being conveyed and how we can differentiate between "fake" and "trustworthy" maps. This paper highlights the fundamental aspects determined by the pure nature of cartographic modeling, which influences every attempt to understand, analyze, and express the context and trustworthiness of maps. It then identifies fundamental aspects of trustworthiness with respect to maps. Combining these two fundamental considerations represents an epistemological attempt to identify a research portfolio. An example of an empirical study on identifying selected aspects of this portfolio demonstrates the potential of gaining a better understanding of the context given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lane graphs are very important for describing road semantics and enabling safe autonomous maneuvers using the localization and path-planning modules. These graphs are considered long-life details because of the rare changes occurring in road structures. On the other hand, the global position of the corresponding topological maps might be changed due to the necessity of updating or extending the maps using different positioning systems such as GNSS/INS-RTK (GIR), Dead-Reckoning (DR), or SLAM technologies. Therefore, the lane graphs should be transferred between maps accurately to describe the same semantics of lanes and landmarks. This paper proposes a unique transfer framework in the image domain based on the LiDAR intensity road surfaces, considering the challenging requirements of its implementation in critical road structures. The road surfaces in a target map are decomposed into directional sub-images with X, Y, and Yaw IDs in the global coordinate system. The XY IDs are used to detect the common areas with a reference map, whereas the Yaw IDs are utilized to reconstruct the vehicle trajectory in the reference map and determine the associated lane graphs. The directional sub-images are then matched to the reference sub-images, and the graphs are safely transferred accordingly. The experimental results have verified the robustness and reliability of the proposed framework to transfer lane graphs safely and accurately between maps, regardless of the complexity of road structures, driving scenarios, map generation methods, and map global accuracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade has witnessed the rapid development of geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) primarily due to the ground-breaking achievements in deep learning and machine learning. A growing number of scholars from cartography have demonstrated successfully that GeoAI can accelerate previously complex cartographic design tasks and even enable cartographic creativity in new ways. Despite the promise of GeoAI, researchers and practitioners have growing concerns about the ethical issues of GeoAI for cartography. In this paper, we conducted a systematic content analysis and narrative synthesis of research studies integrating GeoAI and cartography to summarize current research and development trends regarding the usage of GeoAI for cartographic design. Based on this review and synthesis, we first identify dimensions of GeoAI methods for cartography such as data sources, data formats, map evaluations, and six contemporary GeoAI models, each of which serves a variety of cartographic tasks. These models include decision trees, knowledge graph and semantic web technologies, deep convolutional neural networks, generative adversarial networks, graph neural networks, and reinforcement learning. Further, we summarize seven cartographic design applications where GeoAI have been effectively employed: generalization, symbolization, typography, map reading, map interpretation, map analysis, and map production. We also raise five potential ethical challenges that need to be addressed in the integration of GeoAI for cartography: commodification, responsibility, privacy, bias, and (together) transparency, explainability, and provenance. We conclude by identifying four potential research directions for future cartographic research with GeoAI: GeoAI-enabled active cartographic symbolism, human-in-the-loop GeoAI for cartography, GeoAI-based mapping-as-a-service, and generative GeoAI for cartography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The automation of map labeling is an ongoing research challenge. Currently, the map labeling algorithms are based on rules defined by experts for optimizing the placement of the text labels on maps. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of using well-labeled map samples as a source of knowledge for automating the labeling process. The basic idea is to train deep learning models, specifically the generative models CycleGAN and Pix2Pix, on a large number of map examples. Then, the trained models are used to predict good locations of the labels given unlabeled raster maps. We compare the results obtained by the deep learning models to manual map labeling and a state-of-the-art optimization-based labeling method. A quantitative evaluation is performed in terms of legibility, association and map readability as well as a visual evaluation performed by three professional cartographers. The evaluation indicates that the deep learning models are capable of finding appropriate positions for the labels, but that they, in this implementation, are not well suited for selecting the labels to show and to determine the size of the labels. The result provides valuable insights into the current capabilities of generative models for such task, while also identifying the key challenges that will shape future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important part of maps, road networks have always been the focus of research in map generalization. However, the fully automated quality evaluation of road network generalization has not been implemented. This paper proposes a framework of Sample-Map database to evaluate road network generalization quality using spatial similarity measures. The similarity calculation model considers spatial distribution, topological relations, and distance relations of road networks. A Sample-Maps database is created as an evaluation set for different road network types. The method is tested on multi-scale maps from Shenzhen, China, and validated by psychological cognition experiments and professional cartographers' judgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of neurons that exhibit receptive fields dependent on an organism's spatial location, such as grid, place or boundary cells typically begins by mapping their activity in space using firing rate maps. However, mapping approaches are varied and depend on multiple tuning parameters that are usually chosen qualitatively by the experimenter and thus vary significantly across studies. Small changes in parameters such as these can impact results significantly, yet, to date a quantitative investigation of firing rate maps has not been attempted. Using simulated datasets, we examined how tuning parameters, recording duration and firing field size affect the accuracy of spatial maps generated using the most widely used approaches. For each approach we found a clear subset of parameters which yielded low-error firing rate maps and isolated the parameters yielding 1) the least error possible and 2) the Pareto-optimal parameter set which balanced error, computation time, place field detection accuracy and the extrapolation of missing values. Smoothed bivariate histograms and averaged shifted histograms were consistently associated with the fastest computation times while still providing accurate maps. Adaptive smoothing and binning approaches were found to compensate for low positional sampling the most effectively. Kernel smoothed density estimation also compensated for low sampling well and resulted in accurate maps, but it was also among the slowest methods tested. Overall, the bivariate histogram, coupled with spatial smoothing, is likely the most desirable method in the majority of cases. Author summary: Spatially modulated neurons in the brain increase their activity when an animal visits specific regions of its environment. Studying these neurons often begins with the creation of a firing rate map: a statistical representation of the cell's activity in space. Different methods, relying on different parameters, are commonly used to generate these maps. These parameters can have a huge impact on the maps created and, in turn, any results derived from them. Yet, very little quantification of these parameters has been attempted and they are almost universally chosen based on qualitative, study-dependent assessments. In this paper we quantify the 'best' combinations of parameters for each method and provide a way for researchers to calculate these for their own data. Using parameters that are both consistent across studies and quantifiably demonstrated to be the most accurate will reduce the variability between future studies while improving the validity of their results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cameras and LiDARs are currently two types of sensors commonly used for 3D mapping. Vision-based methods are susceptible to textureless regions and lighting, and LiDAR-based methods easily degenerate in scenes with insignificant structural features. Most current fusion-based methods require strict synchronization between the camera and LiDAR and need auxiliary sensors, such as IMU. All of these lead to an increase in device cost and complexity. To address that, in this paper, we propose a low-cost mapping pipeline called PanoVLM that only requires a panoramic camera and a LiDAR without strict synchronization. First, camera poses are estimated by a LiDAR-assisted global Structure-from-Motion, and LiDAR poses are derived with the initial camera-LiDAR relative pose. Then, line-to-line and point-to-plane associations are established between LiDAR point clouds, which are used to further refine LiDAR poses and remove motion distortion. With the initial sensor poses, line-to-line correspondences are established between images and LiDARs to refine their poses jointly. The final step, joint panoramic Multi-View Stereo, estimates the depth map for each panoramic image and fuses them into a complete dense 3D map. Experimental results show that PanoVLM can work on various scenarios and outperforms state-of-the-art (SOTA) vision-based and LiDAR-based methods. Compared with the current SOTA LiDAR-based techniques, namely LOAM, LeGO-LOAM, and F-LOAM, PanoVLM manifests a reduction in the absolute rotation error and absolute translation error by 20% and 35%, respectively. Our code and dataset are available at https://github.com/3dv-casia/PanoVLM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Point Cloud Place Recognition (PCPR) in street scenes is an essential task in the fields of autonomous driving, robot navigation, and urban map updating. However, the domain gap between heterogeneous point clouds and the difficulty of feature characterization in large-scale complex street scenes pose significant challenges for existing PCPR methods. Most PCPR methods only take into account point clouds collected by the same platforms and sensors, thus they are with poor domain transferability. In this paper, we propose PatchAugNet, which utilizes patch feature augmentation and adaptive pyramid feature aggregation to achieve better performance and generalizability for Heterogeneous Point Cloud-based Place Recognition (HPCPR) tasks. Firstly, multi-scale local features are extracted by the pyramid feature extraction module. Secondly, local features are enhanced by the patch feature augmentation module to overcome the domain gap problem and achieve better feature representation as well as network generalizability. Finally, a global feature is generated using an adaptive pyramid feature aggregation module, which automatically adjusts and balances the proportion of intra-scale and inter-scale features according to the scene content. To evaluate the performance of PatchAugNet, a large-scale heterogeneous point cloud dataset consisting of high-precision Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS) point clouds and helmet-mounted Portable Laser Scanning (PLS) point clouds is collected. The dataset covers various street scenes with a length of over 20 km. The comprehensive experimental results indicate that PatchAugNet achieves State-Of-The-Art (SOTA) performance with 83.43 % recall@top1% and 60.34 % recall@top1 on unseen large-scale street scenes, outperforming existing SOTA PCPR methods by + 9.57 recall@top1% and + 15.50 recall@top1, while exhibiting better generalizability. For source code and detailed experimental results, please refer to: https://github.com/WHU-USI3DV/PatchAugNet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antirealism about metaphysical explanation is relatively underexplored. This paper maps out the territory for the antirealist, explaining what it would take to be an antirealist given various different conceptions of metaphysical explanation, and of the relationship between metaphysical explanation and grounding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, in the first part, we will improve and extend the main results 1 and 2 of Mishra et al. [6] in a b-metric space, and in the second and last part, we will improve and extend Theorem 5 and Theorem 6 of Shah [7] in a b-metric-like space, in both sections, we will use our new notion of occasionally weakly biased maps of type (풜). Some illustrative examples are given in order to clarify and support our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]