Workshop and special issue on ‘Progress in Movement Analysis – Experiences with Real Data’

Organisers and Guest Editors of ‘Computers, Environment and Urban Systems’ (CEUS) Special Issue: Maike Buchin, Patrick Laube, Ross Purves and Bettina Speckmann

Background

Recent years have seen a rapid increase in both the volume of papers addressing some aspect of movement, and the collection of data recording movement in a wide variety of domains. Thus, for example, individuals leave diverse traces of their spatial-temporal behaviour through use of mobile devices, social media, CCTV and even use of loyalty cards. Parcels are tracked 24/7 on their journeys across the world both individually and as objects contained within a complex transportation network. Natural phenomena such as hurricanes are named, delineated and tracked through space and time, whilst diseases and pollutants are typically observed through the study of some proxy or vector. In behavioural ecology the ability to track animals of all sizes, and more recently interactions between individuals, has led to new, previously unheard of possibilities for analysis. Despite this wide range of potential application domains, many papers rooted in the algorithm and GIScience literature deal with either small or simulated datasets, and there is a lack of discussion and evaluation of the consequences and challenges of implementing algorithms to answer questions posed by domain specialists on real datasets.

Aims and scope

The workshop and special issue in Computers, Environment and Urban Systems have the central aim of addressing the problem set out above. Our key aim is thus to bring together a set of researchers, and generate a set of publications, which demonstrate movement analysis methods grounded in real problems, which are demonstrably anchored in the literature, and which are implemented, evaluated and discussed with respect to real world, large datasets. The workshop and special issue are primarily focussed on physical movement of one or more identifiable objects within geographic space.All approaches to movement analysis, that is to including areas such as visual analytics, through data mining, querying massive datasets in moving object databases to GIScience and algorithmic contributions, are of interest. Other approaches to the analysis of movement data not listed here are also welcome. However, workshop attendees and paper submissions which describe only a methodological contribution, with no grounded discussion of importance of the question posed and the significance of the results within a domain are explicitly discouraged. Thus we encourage multidisciplinary teams of authors to submit papers with, for example, both ecological and algorithmic expertise.

Workshop and special issue format

The workshop is embedded within the European COST-Action MOVE, but open to all interested researchers. It will serve as a forum for the submission of short (1500 words) discussion papers and an intensive interaction and exchange of views between specialists from a variety of domains. It may also serve as an opportunity to specialists from different domains to come together to prepare papers for the special issue. Submissions to the special issue may be made by either workshop attendees or others interested in the theme. Participation in the workshop does not guarantee acceptance in the special issue, and authors of papers submitted to the special issue should be aware of the following:

• 1. Papers must be original, never published in similar or abridged form in English, or any other language (this includes proceedings).
• 2. All papers will be reviewed by 3 reviewers covering a range of domains, selected by the guest editor, with the approval of the Editor-in-Chief.
• 3. The journal’s Editor-in-Chief will retain the final decision to accept or reject manuscripts.
• 4. There is no guarantee a submitted manuscript will be accepted for publication.
• 5. The special issue will include 5-7 papers.
• 6. Contributions should be no more than 8000 words long.
• 7. Papers will only undergo a maximum of two rounds of reviewing – papers still requiring major revisions after a second round of reviews will not be accepted in the special issue.

Important dates

• Deadline for workshop submissions: 08.09.2012
• Decisions to authors: 30.09.2012
• Workshop: 15-16.11.2012
• Full paper submission for special issue: 31.01.2013 Initial decision on full papers: 30.03.2013
• Final papers due for special issue: 31.05.2013
• Final decisions on full papers: 15.06.2013

Please look at the workshop website or contact rosspurvesgeouzhch with any questions.