GIScience Research at the Thirty‐second Annual Esri International User Conference

The eight articles included in this issue of Transactions in GIS were gathered from a call for abstracts and will be presented in three research sessions scheduled for the third day of the Thirty-second Annual Esri International User Conference to be held in San Diego, California. A total of 32 abstracts were submitted and nine were selected by the journal editors for preparation of full journal articles. Each of the manuscripts has been through the usual journal peer review process and the final versions of the eight research articles included in this special issue have been revised in light of both the reviewer’s and editor’s feedback. They cover a wide range of topics and address some of the key concepts and applications of geographic information science from a variety of perspectives. Two of the articles describe new methods for movement pattern analysis, several describe ontology engineering and various ways to support data interoperability and data exchange, two consider various aspects of spatial decision system design and performance, another examines methods for assessing the vertical accuracy of surfaces, and many focus some attention on methods for spatio-temporal analysis. The first article, by Jennifer A. Miller explores how spatially explicit simulated data can be used to analyze dynamic interactions, using a case study of hyenas in northern Botswana. Five different techniques were used to quantify dynamic interactions based on GPS data of pairs of individuals, and all were compared in the context of spatially explicit simulated data intended to represent biologically realistic null models for individual movement, and subsequently paired interactions. This is but one example of the kinds of innovations that will be needed to take full advantage of the large volumes of highly accurate data on moving objects provided by GPS and related satellite tracking systems. The interactions between individuals that were the focus of this study can be considered a second order property of movement and are a fundamental aspect of a species’ behavioral ecology, including their mating and territorial behavior, resource use, and infectious disease epidemiology. The second article, by Simon Jirka, Arne Bröring, Peter C. Kjeld, Jon Maidens and Andreas Wytzisk, describes a practical scenario in which Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) technology enables the exchange of near real-time environmental data on a large scale. The main contribution of this article is a lightweight profile for the Open Geospatial bs_bs_banner