Enter RStudio, a powerful, free and open source integrated development environment (IDE) built for R, which I came to know about last month (thank you Twitter). This neat application comes with server version that enables accessing the IDE through a web browser. I have an old Dell Optiplex that our IT department was throwing away (P4, 150GB-HDD, 512MB-RAM, WINXP), which I modified by upgrading its RAM to 2GB, formatting and loading it with Ubuntu server. The purpose of salvaging that old PC was to test out Geoserver and load the maps created from our projects for online viewing. Anyway, the installation of RStudio could not possibly be any simpler. The path to the application from the web browser is http://server.ip.address:8787. RStudio gives you a login screen through which the IDE will authenticate the user by checking the server’s username and password database. I logged in by entering my server credentials. So far so good. The IDE runs quite well and seamlessly without hiccups, and, since it is a web-based application, depends on how fast your internet connection is and the resources available on your server.

It is thrilling to be able to work on R (or any other software package for that matter) from any platform with an internet connection. Not only is this convenient from an organizational perspective, but it could be a great advantage for people teaching R.

At the seminar, I gave a brief overview of my experience at Columbia then delved into the crux of the talk, which was centered on international graduate research in geography. Here, I’ve summarized key points of the talk in the form of FAQs.

Q1: How do I become involved in international scientific research?

International exposure cannot be over-emphasized in research because it sets the stage for collaborations, stimulates sharing of knowledge and advances science. An idea, concept, or procedure that has the potential to advance a topic can only do so the more people know about it. Below are six points that can aide you become more involved in international research:

• Internationalize
• Publish (in English) research findings, short communications, and article/book reviews.
• Publish in respectable open-access journals. MDPI publishes many high-quality open-access journals.
• Go to international conferences, workshops and events.
• Besides the content, conferences offer great networking opportunities.
• Network with academics and professionals whose work interests you.
• This means proactively contacting them via email and with a purpose.
• Stay abreast of what is happening in your field by reading the latest research articles.
• Acquire a “favorite” scientific journal(s) that has an international scope. A favorite journal is one which you regularly read to keep up with what is happening in your niche of the scientific community.
• Participate in academic exchanges and short-term research abroad.
• These assignments not only expand your professional network, but they also strengthen collaborative bonds between institutions, it is a veritable win-win.
• Become a member of international research organizations.
• Some organizations have discounted memberships for students and researchers from developing countries.

There are several international organizations that have a geographic focus. Note that despite the fact that some organizations have “American” or “European” in their titles, they do have an international scope.

• American Geophysical Union
• European Geophysical Union
• American Association of Geographers
• European Associate of Geographers
• International Geographical Union
• American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
• International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
• ESRI International User Conference
• Ecological Society of America
• Society for Conservation Biology
• Society for Conservation GIS

And many more, just remember… Google is your friend.

Q2: How do I contact researchers whose work interests me for collaborations or studentships?

When contacting a researcher for collaborations and/or studentships, there are three crucial points to consider:

• Relevance
• Mutual Benefit
• Cultural Differences

Relevance: The email you send must have a strong relevance to whatever subject you intend to contact the recipient about. This means that the email should be focused, to the point, and should be pertinent to the recipient’s capabilities and/or interests.

Mutual Benefit: If the email is geared towards the solicitation of a studentship, then it should highlight what you are willing to offer in tandem with what you expect to gain from working with him/her.

Cultural Differences: There are subtle cultural norms that drive communication in different parts of the world. What is acceptable practice in one place may seem off-putting in another. Make sure your email does not contain any demands (e.g. “First, I want…”), expectations (e.g. “I hope you can help me”), general salutations (e.g. “Dear Sir/Madam”), or spelling errors.

Q3: How do I get exposure for my work apart from publishing in respected international academic journals?

Most universities provide web spaces for faculty, staff, and graduate students (e.g. www.university.edu/department/last.name/). Ask your university IT administrator on how to get a web space. If your university does not offer one, then there are other ways to acquire one. For example, there are numerous blogging websites that offer free accounts e.g. WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, and others. This website was created using WordPress. Use the web space to highlight the general scope of your work, the projects you are currently working on, your CV and contact information. If you are adventurous, you can also add a blog where you regularly write about topics that are related to your profession.

- Abdulhakim Abdi

This was convenient, psychologically and practically, through the eras of colonial domination when most of the world powers were European. It suited them to maintain an image of the world with Europe at the center and looking much larger than it really was. Was this conscious or deliberate? Probably not, as most map users probably never realized the Eurocentric bias inherent in their world view. When there are so many other projections to chose from, why is it that today the Mercator projection is still such a widely recognized image used to represent the globe? The answer may be simply convention or habit. The inertia of habit is a powerful force

FYI: The “North” is 18.9 million square miles & the “South” is 38.6 million square miles.

On the other hand, the proliferation of affordable handheld global navigation units (both standalone and embedded in smartphones) has enabled the widespread use of this location technology amongst consumers. At the same time, there is a burgeoning population of amateur ornithologists and birdwatchers in Europe and elsewhere. For example, there are about one and a half million birdwatchers in the UK and about 50-70 million in the US. However, bird records rarely include the geodetic coordinates where a bird species was sighted; instead, the general locale of the sighting usually suffices; e.g. Central Park, with one set of coordinates denoting all sightings of birds in Central Park, whether a Canada Goose or an Ovenbird. In this regard, there is a practical opportunity in taking advantage of the present affordability and proliferation of global navigation units to attach precise geodetic coordinates to bird records.

Hence, there needs to be an unambiguous reporting protocol that specifies the inclusion of geodetic coordinates of each reported bird sighting to high quality online portals such as eBird. This will facilitate the availability of open-access, fine-scale, geolocated data on species occurrences to the research community and allowing for cost-effective and timely analysis and modeling of species distributions.

This was submitted as a poster abstract to the 32nd International Geographical Congress taking place in Cologne, Germany from the 26th to the 30th of August 2012.

Abdulhakim Abdi

Among the cancelled talks, there were four that I was really looking forward to attending and networking with the authors. The speakers of those talks were from Malaysia, Iran, Turkey, and China, so I am not sure whether they had experienced visa issues (as often is the case) or there was some mishap in the scheduling. One cancellation that was particularly disappointing was Day 4‘s  supposed Meeting of IGU Commission No.3: Biogeography and Biodiversity. Upon speaking to one of the organizers I was told that the local organizing committee simply provides the space for these meetings (without confirming with the chairman whether they are taking place) and that it is up to the individual commissions to utilize it. So, I am baffled that commission meetings are included in the official program even though they have not been confirmed. I think the organizers could have done a better job in minimizing cancellations. Only confirmed lectures and meetings should be included in the official program.

Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge the generous support of the American Association of Geographers and the National Science Foundation for providing the travel grant that enabled my participation at UGI2011. Thank you very much.

Abdulhakim Abdi

The remainder of the day was less frustrating; Dr. Christian Kull of Monash University in Australia presented a though-provoking talk on “Politics and Scale in Biodiversity: Alpine Pastures Versus Tropical Rainforests” where he discussed the juxtaposition of two seemingly different case studies.  He sets the scene by stating that in the Swiss Alps, forest clearance for village establishment 600 years ago is celebrated, and biodiversity on anthropogenic pastures and meadows is prized. However, in Madagascar, stopping rain forest clearance by village farmers is seen as the top conservation priority, and anthropogenic vegetation formations are seen as indicators of degradation.  Dr. Kull acknowledged some fundamental differences between the cases, but argued that the juxtaposition shows that when scientists, policymakers, and the public state that a particular place or ecosystem is high in biodiversity and worthy of protection, they are making strategic decisions about scale and inclusion. He concluded the talk by stating that these decisions, in the end, are political, reflecting the outcomes of discursive and material strategies of different interest groups in different cultural, political, and economic contexts.

Equally interesting was a talk by Dr. Manuel Cabalar Fuentes of the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain entitled “Policies for the Protection of Biodiversity in Spain and its Effects at a Regional Scale: The Case of Galicia“. The talk centered on the verification of the effects of official biodiversity protection policies in Spain at the regional level, citing the case of Galicia. Specifically, Dr. Fuentes reviewed the historical development of nature protection policies in Spain, the knowledge of environmental legislation in Spain and the steps proposed in the protection of biodiversity, and finally critical analysis of the results of the aforementioned protective policies, with special attention to Galicia.

Abdulhakim Abdi

The first talk I attended today was entitled “Andean Lapwing and Landscape Transformation” by Dr. Fausto Sarmiento of the University of Georgia about how the presence of the Andean lapwing (Vanellus resplendens) demonstrates the intricate linkages between culture and nature in the Andean region. He highlighted a paradox of conservation, using the Andean lapwing as the avian indicator of global environmental change and as an example of the contest between landscape change, biodiversity, and ethnoecological insights.

The second talk on my agenda was “Vegetation Indices for Reducing Soil Reflectance in Southern Zagros Forests using ASTER” by Mozhgan Abbasi of Shahrekord University in Iran was a no-show, so I used the free time to attend ”The Relationship Between Deforestation and Climate Warming” by Dr. Jay Gao of the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Dr. Gao’s study represented an effort to assess the relationship between forest cover, deforestation and climate warming at the local scale and attempted to quantify the relationship between deforestation and climate warming in subarctic China, a region that is sensitive to climate change.

“A New Set of Remote Sensing Indices for Identification of Land Degradation in Arid and Semiarid Regions” by Gregory Okin of the University of California-Los Angeles  where a novel remote sensing method that quantifies changes in both green and nonphotosynthetic vegetation is introduced to identify the response of vegetation to drought, fire, and grazing in arid and semiarid environments. The technique employs a spectral mixture approach to analyze changing vegetation cover in MODIS data. By using a spectrum of green vegetation as well as a spectrum of nonphotosynthetic vegetation, the technique can separate the different responses of these types of vegetation in remote sensing images to climatic fluctuations. Towards to the end of the talk, Dr. Okin provided a URL (http://www.geog.ucla.edu/faculty/okin/Gregory_S_Okin/Software.html) where attendees could download and use his proposed technique.

Abdulhakim Abdi

I use Google Earth on a regular basis for  a variety of tasks including verification and visualization of geographic data. So I’ve put on my calendar a talk by Dr. Peng Gong of the Center for Earth System Science at Tsinghua University in Beijing entitled ”Beyond Google Earth: Mapping With Global Mapper And Global Analyst“, where he introduced an integrated software platform for remote sensing and geographic information system based on Google Earth: Global Mapper (GMap) and Global Analyst (GA). What I found particularly fascinating about this new web-based platform was that the functions of image processing, information extraction and basic editing, processing, analysis and map display functions are all integrated with Google Earth. Hence, Google Earth has been extended by Dr. Gong and his colleagues to handle geo- and image-processing operations. A demo of the platform can be tested here: http://www.globalanalyst.cn/ga2/index.html.

Next, I attended a series of talks from the IGU Commission on Political Geography, begining with ”The Future Borders Between Israel And Palestine” by Dr. Shlomo Hasson of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The lecture examined a series of scenarios of future border patterns between Palestine and Israel and the types of cross-border relationships that may develop as a result. At the Q/A session I asked Dr. Hasson what his thoughts are about the status of Jerusalem as part of any two-state solution? He responded by advocating an EU-style open-border policy in Jerusalem because of its importance to all three Abrahamic faiths.

Dr. Hasson’s talk was followed by Juliana Silva of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile who spoke of the ”Humanitarian Fence: Keeping Refugees Under Care And Control At A Distance“. A self-proclaimed non-geographer, she stressed the centrality of refugees within the fields of International Relations and Human Geography. She used Michel Foucault’s methodology of interpretive analytics –  where knowledge, power, and self are axes of experience, is presented as a comprehensive model of the critical task of the History of Thought – to identify and comprehend the modes of operation of strategies, technologies and techniques that articulate the humanitarian space and construct the refugees as objects of action of humanitarian agencies.

The last talk of the session was Dr. Johannes Tsheola of the University of Limpopo in South Africa, who spoke of ”Transformation Of Africa’s Colonial Borders And Trade Regionalism Of The New Partnership For Africa’s Development“. I must admit that Dr. Tsheola’s slides were a little too heavy on text which rendered following the talk and reading the slides a little difficult. Dr. Tsheola argued that the African Union’s economic model, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), has in practice undermined the consolidation of horizontal trade relations among Africa’s regional economic communities (RECs), whilst simultaneously exploiting the paradoxes embedded with the colonial boundaries to perpetuate the prevailing vertical trade relations of individual states and engendering new ones at the continental scale.

Abdulhakim Abdi

One of the people I was looking forward meeting was Dr. Michael Gould, Global Education Manager for Esri and one of the coordinators of my alma mater, the International MSc in Geospatial Technologies, I last saw Michael at the AGILE 2009 conference in Hannover, Germany. He gave a talk today about Esri’s capabilities in helping communities use geographic information in a more efficient and practical manner, and how the company is ‘ahead of the curve’ in new technologies. A visit to the Esri booth during the lunch recess was worthwhile; I was gobsmacked, to use the British slang term, seeing the fantastic drag-and-drop, dashboard, and presentation features of ArcGIS Explorer Online. I think I’ll be keeping this new online tool firmly in mind when I need to rapid visualize geographic data. I was also told by one of the representatives at the Esri booth that very near future updates to ArcGIS Explorer Online will include many of the tools in the Analysis Toolbox, enabling users to perform simple geoprocessing operations online!

Abdulhakim Abdi