U.S.-Based Student Support to Attend ACM SIGSPATIAL 2014

University Of North Texas, Denton TX

Investigators

Abstract

This grant supports travel awards for 25-30 U.S.-based graduate and undergraduate students to participate in the 22th ACM SIGSPATIAL 2014 Conference, held in Dallas, Texas, USA, November 4-7, 2014 (http://sigspatial2014.sigspatial.org). The ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS conference was originated in 1993 and has established itself as the world's premier conference to foster research in the areas of Spatial Data and Analysis and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The conference provides a forum for original research contributions covering all aspects of GIS. The participation of US graduate and undergraduate students fosters intellectual stimulation of young minds to pursue advanced research and development activities in an area with significant technical and societal impact. Specific student activities include spatial data competition "2014 ACM SIGSPATAL Cup", presentation and discussion of students' work and mentoring. In addition, the students greatly benefit from attending conference sessions featuring current state-of-the-art results in the area of geospatial systems and applications, and potentially making connections for research collaborations and research mentoring. The total number of ACM SIGSPATIAL participants in the past has been in excess of 300 participants, with a majority of the participants from the U.S., followed by Europe and Asia. A strong representation of U.S.-based students at ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS is useful in maintaining U.S. competitiveness in the important research areas crucial for U.S. infrastructures and applications that critically depend on geo-referenced information. Applications of spatial and geographical information contribute to a wide-array of societal contexts: improving the lives of ordinary citizens through advanced transportation applications, increasing the security of the nation through better intelligence gathering using geospatial knowledge, and developing applications that will have a positive impact on the global environment. Educating and training the next generation of scientists, engineers, and practitioners in the area of spatial and geographical information systems will have a significant impact and will enhance the continuation of the competitive edge of the United States in this important area. ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS 2014 Conference brings together researchers, students, and professionals interested in research, development, and deployment of solutions to spatial information handling and spatial knowledge extraction problems, including conceptual, design, and implementation issues ranging from applications, user interfaces, and visualization to storage management and indexing issues. Spatial data and applications pose novel research challenges in a wide variety of sub-areas, which include (but are not limited to), spatial information acquisition, modeling, data structures and algorithms, analysis, querying and integration, human-computer interaction and visualization, and systems and architectures. From these sub-areas deep research questions emerge that are motivated by a broad range of applications (e.g., emergency and crisis management, environmental monitoring, global positioning and location detection, geosciences, location-based and mobile services, navigation and route planning). The meeting is fostering interdisciplinary discussions and research in all aspects of GIS. The conference seeks to continuously advance the state of-the-art in spatial data management and spatial data analysis and broaden its impact.