Surveying general prospects and challenges of GIS implementation in developing countries: a SWOT–AHP approach     

Mohammad Taleai  Ali Mansourian  Ali Sharifi 《Journal of Geographical Systems》2009,11(3):291-310

We propose a combined method based on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to investigate the challenges and prospects of adopting geographic information systems (GIS) in developing countries. In this context, we identify, group, and analyse SWOT indicators in relation to the main GIS components: data, people, and technology. The relative significance of each SWOT indicator and its related SWOT groups in each GIS component is quantified. The method is then applied in a situation assessment of GIS adoption in the governmental organisations and strategic planning. The SWOT–AHP approach proves to be very useful in identifying and quantifying the relative significance of the major factors affecting GIS implementation, and effectively facilitates GIS strategic planning.   相似文献   

Modeling relationships between the network distance and travel time dynamics for assessing equity of accessibility to urban parks     

Tahereh Ghaemi Rad  Abbas Alimohammadi 《地球空间信息科学学报》2021,24(3):509-526

Static models of accessibility are usually based on the fixed distance or Average Travel Time (ATT) models. Because of ignoring the traffic as a dynamic process affecting the accessibility through the change of Travel Time (TT), these models lead to unperceived temporal inequities. In contrast to the consideration of the temporal Variation of TT (VTT) in the previous studies, the variation of traffic- related TT and its relations with network distance has not been considered. In this study, relations between VTT and network distance to access urban parks in Tehran megacity has been modeled. Traffic maps at five times of day are used to produce TT maps of Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZs) to their 3-closest parks. Comparison of the Gini coefficients of accessibility show significant inequities of accessibility at different times of day. Relations between the distance, ATT, and TTmax are modeled by statistical analysis. Results show both TT and TTmax have significant positive relations with distance and traffic and reach their maximum at 6 p.m. Observation of significant relations between distance, ATT, TTmax, and VTT provides interesting knowledge for the conversion of temporal measures of equity (TT) to a physical measure of equity (distance). A simple application of these findings for effective management of the spatiotemporal inequities is the definition of critical distances from public services. As an example, to decrease the TTmax of TAZs to less than 12 min, their maximum distance to the closest parks should be less than 4 km. The developed approach can be adopted for the accessibility evaluation of the other public services, particularly the health and education centers.  相似文献   

Distribution of brine in grain boundaries during static recrystallization in wet, synthetic halite: insight from broad ion beam sectioning and SEM observation at cryogenic temperature     

Guillaume Desbois  Janos L. Urai  Peter A. Kukla  Uwe Wollenberg  Fabián Pérez-Willard  Zsolt Radí  Sandor Riholm 《Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology》2012,163(1):19-31

We report observations from room temperature static recrystallization experiments (annealing times from minutes to year) of cold-pressed, synthetic, coarse-grained, wet sodium chloride, prepared by broad ion beam polishing and SEM observations at cryogenic temperature to observe directly the brine in grain boundaries. At all stages of annealing, the majority of the brine in the samples is connected in 2D sections along grain boundaries. Another part of the brine is in isolated brine inclusion arrays along grain boundaries and in brine inclusions left behind by migrating brine-filled grain boundaries. Most of these boundaries are mobile because the aggregate is coarsening. We interpret that the boundaries without observable brine films (<15 nm) and brine inclusion arrays are healed and immobile. Evolution of grain boundary structure involves three major processes. First, dissolution on one side of the grain boundary and precipitation on the other side, resulting in grain boundary migration. Second, the development of facets formed by low-index crystallographic planes of the grains bounding the grain boundary brine. When both sides of a grain boundary are able to develop low-index facets in a thick brine film, the resulting impingement boundary is interpreted to be immobile and may prevent the new grain from migrating into a deformed neighbor. When one side of a faceted boundary consists of low-index crystallographic planes and the other side passively follows this faceted shape along irrational surfaces, the boundary is mobile. Third, the healing of grain boundary brine films, producing solid–solid grain boundaries without resolvable brine films.  相似文献   

Introducing a Comprehensive Data Reduction and Uncertainty Propagation Algorithm for U‐Th Geochronometry with Extraction Chromatography and Isotope Dilution MC‐ICP‐MS     

Ali Pourmand  François L. H. Tissot  Monica Arienzo  Arash Sharifi 《Geostandards and Geoanalytical Research》2014,38(2):129-148

We present an open‐source algorithm in Mathematica application (Wolfram Research) with a transparent data reduction and Monte Carlo simulation of systematic and random uncertainties for U‐Th geochronometry by multi‐collector ICP‐MS. Uranium and thorium were quantitatively separated from matrix elements through a single U/TEVA extraction chromatography step. A rigorous calibrator‐sample bracketing routine was adopted using CRM‐112A and IRMM‐035 standard solutions, doped with an IRMM‐3636a ²³³U/²³⁶U ‘double‐spike’ to account for instrumental mass bias and deviations of measured isotope ratios from certified values. The mean of ²³⁴U/²³⁸U and ²³⁰Th/²³²Th in the standard solutions varied within 0.42 and 0.25‰ (permil) of certified ratios, respectively, and were consistent with literature values within uncertainties. Based on multiple dissolutions with lithium metaborate flux fusion, U and Th concentrations in USGS BCR‐2 CRM were updated to 1739 ± 2 and 5987 ± 50 ng g^?1 (95% CI), respectively. The measurement reproducibility of our analytical technique was evaluated by analysing six aliquots of an in‐house reference material, prepared by homogenising a piece of speleothem (CC3A) from Cathedral Cave, Utah, which returned a mean age of 21483 ± 63 years (95% CI, 2.9‰). Replicate analysis of ten samples from CC3A was consistent with ages previously measured at the University of Minnesota by single‐collector ICP‐MS within uncertainties.  相似文献   

Geochemical behavior and speciation modeling of rare earth elements in acid drainages at Sarcheshmeh porphyry copper deposit,Kerman Province,Iran     

Reza Sharifi  Farid MooreBehnam Keshavarzi 《Chemie der Erde / Geochemistry》2013

Acid mine drainage is a major source of water pollution in the Sarcheshmeh porphyry copper mine area. The concentrations of heavy metals and rare earth elements (REEs) in the host rocks, natural waters and acid mine drainage (AMD) associated with mining and tailing impoundments are determined. Contrary to the solid samples, AMDs and impacted stream waters are enriched in middle rare earth elements (MREEs) and heavy rare earth elements (HREEs) relative to light rare earth elements (LREEs). This behavior suggests that REE probably fractionate during sulfide oxidation and acid generation and subsequent transport, so that MREE and HREE are preferentially enriched. Speciation modeling predict that the dominant dissolved REE inorganic species are Ln³⁺, Ln(SO₄)₂⁻, LnSO₄⁺, LnHCO₃²⁺, Ln(CO₃)₂⁻ and LnCO₃⁺. Compared to natural waters, Sarcheshmeh AMD is enriched in REEs and SO₄²⁻. High concentrations of SO₄²⁻ lead to the formation of stable LnSO₄⁺, thereby resulting in higher concentrations of REEs in AMD samples. The model indicates that LnSO₄⁺ is the dissolved form of REE in acid waters, while carbonate and dicarbonate complexes are the most abundant dissolved REE species in alkaline waters. The speciation calculations indicate that other factors besides complexation of the REE's, such as release of MREE from dissolution and/or desorption processes in soluble salts and poorly crystalline iron oxyhydroxy sulfates as well as dissolution of host rock MREE-bearing minerals control the dissolved REE concentrations and, hence, the MREE-enriched patterns of acid mine waters.  相似文献   

On lattice reduction algorithms for solving weighted integer least squares problems: comparative study   总被引：2，自引：1，他引：1  

Shahram Jazaeri  Alireza Amiri-Simkooei  Mohammad Ali Sharifi 《GPS Solutions》2014,18(1):105-114

Decorrelation or reduction theory deals with identifying appropriate lattice bases that aid in accelerating integer search to find the optimal integer solution of the weighted integer least squares problem. Orthogonality defect has been widely used to measure the degree of orthogonality of the reduced lattice bases for many years. This contribution presents an upper bound for the number of integer candidates in the integer search process. This upper bound is shown to be a product of three factors: (1) the orthogonality defect, (2) the absolute value of the determinant of the inverse of the generator matrix of the lattice, and (3) the radius of the search space raised to the power of the dimension of the integer ambiguity vector. Four well-known decorrelation algorithms, namely LLL, LAMBDA, MLAMBDA, and Seysen, are compared. Many simulated data with varying condition numbers and dimensions as well as real GPS data show that the Seysen reduction algorithm reduces the condition number much better than the other algorithms. Also, the number of integer candidates, before and after the reduction process, is counted for all algorithms. Comparing the number of integer candidates, condition numbers, and orthogonality defect reveals that reducing the condition number and the orthogonality defect may not necessarily result in decreasing the number of integer candidates in the search process. Therefore, contrary to the common belief, reducing the orthogonality defect and condition number do not always result in faster integer least squares estimation. The results indicate that LAMBDA and MLAMBDA perform much better in reducing the number of integer candidates than the other two algorithms, despite having a larger orthogonality defect and condition number in some cases. Therefore, these two algorithms can speed up the integer least squares estimation problem in general and the integer ambiguity resolution problem in particular.  相似文献   

Extracting tidal frequencies using multivariate harmonic analysis of sea level height time series   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

A. R. Amiri-Simkooei  S. Zaminpardaz  M. A. Sharifi 《Journal of Geodesy》2014,88(10):975-988

This contribution is seen as a first attempt to extract the tidal frequencies using a multivariate spectral analysis method applied to multiple time series of tide-gauge records. The existing methods are either physics-based in which the ephemeris of Moon, Sun and other planets are used, or are observation-based in which univariate analysis methods—Fourier and wavelet for instance—are applied to tidal observations. The existence of many long tide-gauge records around the world allows one to use tidal observations and extract the main tidal constituents for which efficient multivariate methods are to be developed. This contribution applies the multivariate least-squares harmonic estimation (LS-HE) to the tidal time series of the UK tide-gauge stations. The first 413 harmonics of the tidal constituents and their nonlinear components are provided using the multivariate LS-HE. A few observations of the research are highlighted: (1) the multivariate analysis takes information of multiple time series into account in an optimal least- squares sense, and thus the tidal frequencies have higher detection power compared to the univariate analysis. (2) Dominant tidal frequencies range from the long-term signals to the sixth-diurnal species interval. Higher frequencies have negligible effects. (3) The most important tidal constituents (the first 50 frequencies) ordered from their amplitudes range from 212 cm (M2) to 1 cm (OQ2) for the data set considered. There are signals in this list that are not available in the 145 main tidal frequencies of the literature. (4) Tide predictions using different lists of tidal frequencies on five different data sets around the world are compared. The prediction results using the first significant 50 constituents provided promising results on these locations of the world.  相似文献   

On weighted total least-squares with linear and quadratic constraints   总被引：3，自引：1，他引：2  

Vahid Mahboub  Mohammad Ali Sharifi 《Journal of Geodesy》2013,87(3):279-286

A weighted total least-squares (WTLS) approach with linear and quadratic constraints is developed. This method is according to the traditional Lagrange approach to optimize the target function of this problem. The WTLS and constrained total least-squares (CTLS) approach had been distinctively investigated, however, these two problems have not been simultaneously considered yet; furthermore, among the contributions on the CTLS problem, only Schaffrin and Felus considered linear and quadratic constraints together; nevertheless, in many practical examples, some elements of the design/coefficient matrix are fixed and should not be modified and this approach cannot deal with these cases. The main necessity of this research appears after the desirable property of the WTLS approach in preserving the structure of the design matrix was proven by Mahboub. In other words, currently, the WTLS approach is one of the most efficient methods for solving the so-called errors-in-variables model and an attempt for equipping it with constraints seems necessary. Also it is demonstrated that the additional constraints have a ’regularization role’ for ill-conditioned problems and the unconstrained solution suffers from ill-conditioning effects which give it an added advantage over the unconstrained WTLS algorithm. Four geodetic applications indicate the significant of this problem in the presence of colored and white noise in the data.  相似文献   

Verifying optimality of rainfed agriculture using a stochastic model for drought occurrence   总被引：1，自引：1，他引：0  

Erfaneh Sharifi  Koichi Unami  Macarius Yangyuoru  Masayuki Fujihara 《Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment (SERRA)》2016,30(5):1503-1514

It may be paradoxical but subsistence rainfed agriculture is the predominant source of food in Sub-Saharan Africa where the production uncertainty is associated with the stochastic nature of rainfall. This paper attempts to comprehend the rationale of this situation by a mathematical approach. Considering the level of drought severity as the zero-reverting Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process, optimality of rainfed agriculture is investigated in the context of stochastic control theory. Occurrence of drought terminating growth of crops is modelled with the concept of first exit time. A stochastic control problem allowing for virtual cost of irrigation, water stress to crops, and benefits of farming is formulated with irrigation effort as the control variable. The Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation governing the optimal control is studied to identify the set of cost functions optimizing rainfed agriculture in an inverse problem approach. Data and information were collected in the coastal savanna agro-ecological zone of Ghana, to identify model parameters, formulate the stochastic control problem, solve the inverse problem, and then verify optimality of rainfed agriculture. The results indicated that rainfed agriculture is not optimal when the crop is more tolerant to water stress.  相似文献   

Seismic behavior of steel buildings with out‐of‐plumb          下载免费PDF全文

Ali A. Rad  Gregory A. MacRae  Trevor Z. Yeow  Desmond K. Bull 《地震工程与结构动力学》2015,44(14):2575-2588

A structure that has a permanent offset from a true vertical line is commonly referred to as being ‘out‐of‐plumb’. Out‐of‐plumb may result from construction tolerances or post‐earthquake permanent deformations in steel buildings. This paper quantifies the displacements of buildings with out‐of‐plumb in subsequent seismic events by means of inelastic dynamic time history analysis. Structures considered have different structural heights, force design reduction factors (R), and target inter‐story drifts. It is shown that buildings with greater out of plumb and force design reduction factor have larger normalized peak inter‐story drift ratio and ratio of residual‐to‐peak drift. Also, the ratio of residual‐to‐peak drift was not strongly dependent on structural height or design drift. A design procedure and example provided, based on the results obtained, show how peak and residual inter‐story drift ratio can be estimated. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献