2006 August 24

This issue sponsored by

ESRI
ESRI ArcGIS Server

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Editor's Introduction

This week, I report on MetaCarta's plan to integrate its GeoTagger software with ESRI's ArcWeb Services; on the use of GIS for a sophisticated public health study; and on a master's program in GIS. Plus, my usual news items from press releases.

Please send me your comments and story ideas!

— Matteo

Professional Surveyor Magazine Readership Survey 2006

MetaCarta Deal with ESRI

At the recent ESRI user conference, MetaCarta, Inc. announced that it had signed an agreement to provide its GeoTagger software as a component of ESRI's ArcWeb Services, which allows users to access GIS content and capabilities over the Web, on-demand. Data storage, maintenance, and updates are handled by ESRI, eliminating the overhead of purchasing and maintaining large data sets. The addition of GeoTagger will enable users to geo-reference data found in unstructured documents—such as articles, field service documents, internal reports, and Web pages—and view the results in custom mapping applications.

The MetaCarta GeoTagger ArcWeb Services solution will be available through ESRI's developer and reseller channel in Q4 2006. It will include features that MetaCarta added earlier this year to its other products—such as search notification, which alerts users of new search results returned since the last time they logged in, document density, which displays the number of search results by geographic area, and region searching.

Read more …

GIS for Public Health

Analysis of the geographical relationship between environments and diseases has long been a cornerstone of public health. The classic, textbook example is John Snow's study of cholera transmission in London, which has recently been the subject of scholarly re-evaluation. Public health is now a rapidly expanding field for GIS. It is the focus of the ESRI Health GIS Conference, which will take place October 23-26, in Denver, Colorado, and it was the subject of about 40 technical workshops at the recent ESRI user conference.

At one of the workshops, Megan Blewett, a brilliant high school student who spent much of the summer doing research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, gave a flawless presentation of a study she had recently completed. Her paper (this link is to a draft) examined whether Multiple Sclerosis (MS)—the most common primary neurological disorder of young adults—belongs in the same category as Lyme Disease, West Nile Virus, and other zoonotic diseases, which are caused by infectious agents that can be transmitted between animals and humans.

Megan Blewett
Megan Blewett working in her lab

Read more …

Master's of GIS Program

As the start of the academic year approaches, it is a good time to spotlight university courses in geographic information systems and sciences. Dr. Chris Lukinbeal, an assistant professor in the School of Geographical Sciences at Arizona State University, sent me this description of a degree program for which he serves as associate director and Dr. Robert Balling serves as director.

The School of Geographical Sciences at Arizona State University is in the third year of offering a Master's of Advanced Study in Geographic Information Systems (MAS-GIS) degree program. MAS-GIS is a compact, one-year, non-thesis degree program fostering advanced study in management and the use of GIS technology in public and corporate environments. The degree meets important educational needs of working professionals and recent college graduates seeking to improve their career standing.

Read more …

News Briefs

Please note: I have culled the following news items from press releases and have not independently verified them.

  1. CONTRACTS & COLLABORATIONS

    1. Google and Autodesk, Inc. have made available to government customers a software bundle combining GIS technology and Google Earth Pro. Read more …

    2. Laclede Gas, a retail gas distribution company servicing the City of St. Louis and eight surrounding counties, has selected Swova to provide onsite ArcSDE services. Read more …

    3. Intermap Federal Services, Inc., a subsidiary of Intermap Technologies Corp., has received a US$3.9M contract to provide digital elevation data and orthorectified radar imagery for an international project. Read more …

    4. El Paso Electric has gone into production with Telvent Miner & Miner's ArcFM Solution—including ArcFM, Network Adapter, Conduit Manager, and Designer products. Read more …

    5. In response to the technical requirements of European Union Directive 2002/49/EC, relating to the assessment and management of environmental noise, the Centre Scientifique et Technique du Batiment (CSTB) and the Institut Geographique National (IGN), both in France, have jointly developed a new noise analysis mapping application. Read more …

    6. MWH Global has subcontracted to ESRI to support the creation of an enterprise GIS (EGIS) for Pasadena Water and Power in Pasadena, California. Read more …

    7. Snowflake Software has joined the ESRI Developer Network to ensure even greater compatibility between the two companies' product lines. Read more …

    8. ESRI is developing a new ArcGIS extension to support local governments participating in the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) program for the 2010 Census. Read more …

  2. PRODUCTS

    1. ESRI has announced that the upcoming release of ArcGIS Business Analyst desktop software will include its 2006/2011 segmentation, demographic, business, and shopping center data. Read more …

    2. DeLorme has released Street Atlas USA 2007, which includes 3.5 million new or updated U.S. roads, as well as routable local roads and places of interest for Canada. Read more …

  3. EDUCATION & TRAINING

    1. What's New in ArcGIS Desktop at 9.2, an upcoming live training seminar on the Web, will showcase the new and improved tools and capabilities of this ESRI release—such as zooming, managing data, and creating graphs. Read more …

    2. Registrations for URISA's 44th Annual Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia continue to arrive at a brisk pace, mirroring URISA's most well-attended conferences in recent years (Orlando in 2000 and Chicago in 1999). Read more …

    3. Tomorrow, August 25, is the deadline for taking advantage of early registration discounts for the 15th Annual GIS for Oil & Gas Conference of the Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA), which will take place September 18-20 in Houston, Texas. Read more …

    4. The third Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) conference focusing on the effective application of GIS and other information technologies in the Caribbean will take place from October 30 to November 2 at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. Read more …

  4. OTHER

    1. The GOES-N satellite, in orbit 22,300 miles above the equator and carrying primary payload instruments produced by ITT Corporation's Space Systems Division, has transmitted its first visible and infrared (IR) images of Earth. Read more …

    2. The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) is now accepting responses to an online survey for the 2006-2007 edition of the URISA Salary Survey, which is used extensively by agencies to evaluate their GIS and IT staff resources and to determine future budgetary needs. Read more …

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Matteo Luccio, Editor
GIS Monitor

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