Browsing by Subject "spatial analysis"

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    Local in space and time: Acoustic environmental policy in Minnesota and a fine-scale spatiotemporal representation of aircraft noise impact on residential life
    (2016-03) Bonsal, Dudley
    Communities near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) have been affected by significant levels of aircraft noise. The ways that residents are sensitive to the noise have been reflected in the conflicts over how best to regulate it, including how to adopt mapping techniques that accurately reflect the degree of their exposure and how to provide the appropriate amount of mitigation. In this dissertation, a mixed-method approach is adopted to examine how the acoustic environment, and aircraft noise in particular, are configured spatiotemporally in an urban, residential context. First, the legal designation of quietude as an acoustic natural resource in Minnesota is examined in regard to its implications for how aircraft noise exposure is regulated in the vicinity of MSP and how sound research can be reconceived on a broader scale. Next, a geospatial analysis of MSP aircraft departure patterns is adopted so that temporal variations are represented to better reflect the day-to-day noise exposure of local residents. Finally, a methodology is created for representing the cumulative impact of aircraft noise, based on changing departure patterns over time and the use of demographic data for the overall population, as well as sub-populations whose exposure varies based on the time spent at home. The project is guided throughout by three overarching concerns: the impact of environmental policy on the acoustic landscape, the urban acoustic environment from a residential perspective, and geographic representations of aircraft noise exposure at finer spatial and temporal scales.
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    Spatial Analysis of Privacy Measured Through Individual Uniqueness Based on Simple U.S. Demographics Data
    (2015-05) Lin, Yilun
    Previous studies reveal that, using U.S. census data, over 60% population of the U.S. could be uniquely identied with a combination of gender, zip code, date of birth attributes in 1990 and 2000. This thesis extends these studies to examine spatial variation of individual uniqueness in 2010 at dierent scales and regions in the U.S. In this thesis, I use spatial and non-spatial statistics to study the spatial patterns on both global and local scales. Specically, I provide 1) the comparison of national level uniqueness between 2000 and 2010, 2) the investigation of spatial variation of uniqueness in different regions and at dierent scales, 3) the identication of local uniqueness clusters outliers and 4) the evaluation of urban-rural divides on individual uniqueness segregation. On the global scale, the comparison between 2000 and 2010 reveals that, although overall individual uniqueness changes little, the individual uniqueness of middle-age group members has signicantly decreased. The study of regional differences finds that low individual uniqueness for college-age population are spatially homogeneous despite that the overall uniqueness are spatially heterogeneous. The analysis at different scales discloses that overall uniqueness decreases, and the dierences between age-group uniqueness reduce, when geographical scales focus on the cores of urban area. On the local scale, the results indicate an urban-rural divides of individual uniqueness segregation. The Clusters and Outliers Analysis nd that places where low individual uniqueness cluster the most are also very urbanized area. The average individual uniqueness of urban area is computed as 58.02% whereas that of rural area is computed as 88.43%. This means, if a person is from an urban area, given the zip code, gender and date of birth information, he/she is much less likely to be identied uniquely. This study offers contributions to geographic information privacy, particularly relevant to reverse geocoding and related spatial aggregation techniques used in census data.