Mapping Scientific Frontiers


Book Description

This is an examination of the history and the state of the art of the quest for visualizing scientific knowledge and the dynamics of its development. Through an interdisciplinary perspective this book presents profound visions, pivotal advances, and insightful contributions made by generations of researchers and professionals, which portrays a holistic view of the underlying principles and mechanisms of the development of science. This updated and extended second edition: highlights the latest advances in mapping scientific frontiers examines the foundations of strategies, principles, and design patterns provides an integrated and holistic account of major developments across disciplinary boundaries “Anyone who tries to follow the exponential growth of the literature on citation analysis and scientometrics knows how difficult it is to keep pace. Chaomei Chen has identified the significant methods and applications in visual graphics and made them clear to the uninitiated. Derek Price would have loved this book which not only pays homage to him but also to the key players in information science and a wide variety of others in the sociology and history of science.” – Eugene Garfield “This is a wide ranging book on information visualization, with a specific focus on science mapping. Science mapping is still in its infancy and many intellectual challenges remain to be investigated and many of which are outlined in the final chapter. In this new edition Chaomei Chen has provided an essential text, useful both as a primer for new entrants and as a comprehensive overview of recent developments for the seasoned practitioner.” – Henry Small Chaomei Chen is a Professor in the College of Information Science and Technology at Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA, and a ChangJiang Scholar at Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Information Visualization and the author of Turning Points: The Nature of Creativity (Springer, 2012) and Information Visualization: Beyond the Horizon (Springer, 2004, 2006).




Cognitive Mapping


Book Description

This important work brings together international academics from a variety of disciplines to explore the topic of spatial cognition on a 'geographic' scale. It provides an overview of the historical origins of the subject, a description of current debates and suggests directions for future research.




On the Frontier of Science


Book Description

“The frontier of science” is a metaphor that has become ubiquitous in American rhetoric, from its first appearance in the public address of early twentieth-century American intellectuals and politicians who aligned a mythic national identity with scientific research, to its more recent use in scientists’ arguments in favor of increased research funding. Here, Leah Ceccarelli explores what is selected and what is deflected when this metaphor is deployed, its effects on those who use it, and what rhetorical moves are made by those who try to counter its appeal. In her research, Ceccarelli discovers that “the frontier of science” evokes a scientist who is typically male, a risk taker, an adventurous loner—someone separated from a public that both envies and distrusts him, with a manifest destiny to penetrate the unknown. It conjures a competitive desire to claim the riches of a new territory before others can do the same. Closely reading the public address of scientists and politicians and the reception of their audiences, this book shows how the frontier of science metaphor constrains American speakers, helping to guide the ends of scientific research in particular ways and sometimes blocking scientists from attaining the very goals they set out to achieve.




CiteSpace


Book Description

CiteSpace is a freely available computer program written in Java for visualizing and analyzing literature of a scientific domain. A knowledge domain is broadly defined in order to capture the notion of a logically and cohesively organized body of knowledge. It may range from specific topics such as post-traumatic stress disorder to fields of study lacking clear-cut boundaries, such as research on terrorism or regenerative medicine. CiteSpace takes bibliographic information, especially citation information from the Web of Science, and generates interactive visualizations. Users can explore various patterns and trends uncovered from scientific publications, and develop a good understanding of scientific literature much more efficiently than they would from an unguided search through literature. The full text of many scientific publications can be accessed with a single click through the interactive visualization in CiteSpace. At the end of a session, CiteSpace can generate a summary report to summarize key information about the literature analyzed. This book is a practical guide not only on how to operate the tool but also on why the tool is designed and what implications of various patterns that require special attention. This book is written with a minimum amount of jargon. It uses everyday language to explain what people may learn from the writings of scholars of all kinds.




Simultaneous Localization and Mapping


Book Description

Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is a process where an autonomous vehicle builds a map of an unknown environment while concurrently generating an estimate for its location. This book is concerned with computationally efficient solutions to the large scale SLAM problems using exactly sparse Extended Information Filters (EIF). The invaluable book also provides a comprehensive theoretical analysis of the properties of the information matrix in EIF-based algorithms for SLAM. Three exactly sparse information filters for SLAM are described in detail, together with two efficient and exact methods for recovering the state vector and the covariance matrix. Proposed algorithms are extensively evaluated both in simulation and through experiments.




Mapping Nanotechnology Innovations and Knowledge


Book Description

This book defines the application of Information Technology’s systematic and automated knowledge mapping methodology to collect, analyze and report nanotechnology research on a global basis. The result of these analyses is be a systematic presentation of the state of the art of nanotechnology, which will include basic analysis, content analysis, and citation network analysis of comprehensive nanotechnology findings across technology domains, inventors, institutions, and countries.




Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome


Book Description

There is growing enthusiasm in the scientific community about the prospect of mapping and sequencing the human genome, a monumental project that will have far-reaching consequences for medicine, biology, technology, and other fields. But how will such an effort be organized and funded? How will we develop the new technologies that are needed? What new legal, social, and ethical questions will be raised? Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome is a blueprint for this proposed project. The authors offer a highly readable explanation of the technical aspects of genetic mapping and sequencing, and they recommend specific interim and long-range research goals, organizational strategies, and funding levels. They also outline some of the legal and social questions that might arise and urge their early consideration by policymakers.




Mapping Frontiers Across Medieval Islam


Book Description

The story of the 9th-century caliphal mission from Baghdad to discover the legendary barrier against the apocalyptic nations of Gog and Magog mentioned in the Quran, has been either dismissed as superstition or treated as historical fact. By exploring the intellectual and literary history surrounding the production and early reception of this adventure, Travis Zadeh traces the conceptualization of frontiers within early 'Abbasid society and re-evaluates the modern treatment of marvels and monsters inhabiting medieval Islamic descriptions of the world. Examining the roles of translation, descriptive geography, and salvation history in the projection of early 'Abbasid imperial power, this book is essential for all those interested in Islamic studies, the 'Abbasid dynasty and its politics, geography, religion, Arabic and Persian literature and European Orientalism.




Information Visualisation and Virtual Environments


Book Description

Linking the two areas together, this book presents the latest research and development, so as to highlight the potential of information visualisation as an enabling technology in the design of new generations of virtual environments. This will be an invaluable source of reference for courses in information visualisation, user interface design, virtual environments, HCI, and information retrieval, as well as a useful resource for consultants and practitioners. The book contains 144 colour images of intriguing and influential works in information visualisation.




Information Visualization


Book Description

Information visualization is not only about creating graphical displays of complex and latent information structures. It also contributes to a broader range of cognitive, social, and collaborative activities. This is the first book to examine information visualization from this perspective. This 2nd edition continues the unique and ambitious quest for setting information visualization and virtual environments in a unifying framework. It pays special attention to the advances made over the last 5 years and potentially fruitful directions to pursue. It is particularly updated to meet the need for practitioners. The book is a valuable source for researchers and graduate students.