Luo Wei, Yin Peifeng, Di Qian, Hardisty Frank, MacEachren Alan M
GeoVISTA Center, Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
PDA Group, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2014 Feb 18;9(2):e88666. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0088666. eCollection 2014.
The world has become a complex set of geo-social systems interconnected by networks, including transportation networks, telecommunications, and the internet. Understanding the interactions between spatial and social relationships within such geo-social systems is a challenge. This research aims to address this challenge through the framework of geovisual analytics. We present the GeoSocialApp which implements traditional network analysis methods in the context of explicitly spatial and social representations. We then apply it to an exploration of international trade networks in terms of the complex interactions between spatial and social relationships. This exploration using the GeoSocialApp helps us develop a two-part hypothesis: international trade network clusters with structural equivalence are strongly 'balkanized' (fragmented) according to the geography of trading partners, and the geographical distance weighted by population within each network cluster has a positive relationship with the development level of countries. In addition to demonstrating the potential of visual analytics to provide insight concerning complex geo-social relationships at a global scale, the research also addresses the challenge of validating insights derived through interactive geovisual analytics. We develop two indicators to quantify the observed patterns, and then use a Monte-Carlo approach to support the hypothesis developed above.
世界已成为一个由网络相互连接的复杂地理社会系统集合，这些网络包括交通网络、电信网络和互联网。理解此类地理社会系统中空间与社会关系之间的相互作用是一项挑战。本研究旨在通过地理可视化分析框架应对这一挑战。我们展示了GeoSocialApp，它在明确的空间和社会表示的背景下实现传统网络分析方法。然后我们将其应用于从空间与社会关系的复杂相互作用角度对国际贸易网络的探索。使用GeoSocialApp进行的这一探索帮助我们提出了一个分为两部分的假设：具有结构等效性的国际贸易网络集群根据贸易伙伴的地理位置被强烈“巴尔干化”（碎片化），并且每个网络集群内按人口加权的地理距离与国家发展水平呈正相关。除了展示可视化分析在全球范围内洞察复杂地理社会关系的潜力外，该研究还应对了验证通过交互式地理可视化分析得出的见解这一挑战。我们开发了两个指标来量化观察到的模式，然后使用蒙特卡洛方法来支持上述提出的假设。
