According to their recent press release, a delegation of Geotrans researchers from the UCSB Department of Geography, led by Professor Kostas Goulias, has just completed a tour in Greece which included participating in the EUROGEO Conference in Athens, participation in the Transportation Workshop on Advances in Activity-based Modeling workshop for the students and the faculty of the University of the Aegean in Chios, a meeting with the U.S. consul Katherine Brandeis, and a two and a half day intensive seminar on Geostatistics at the Department of Geography of the University of the Aegean in Mytilene with Professor Phaedon Kyriakidis. The EUROGEO Annual Meeting, 2-5 June, 2011, Athens, Greece, was organized by the European Association of Geographers (EUROGEO) in collaboration with the Laboratory of Geography of the National Technical University of Athens, Greece (NTUA) and was titled “Geography: Your world – A European Perspective.” The six UCSB presentations given were:
- P. Dalal, Y. Chen, S. Ravulaparthy, K. Goulias, “Dynamic Opportunity-Based Multipurpose Accessibility Indicators in California”
- P. Dalal, N. Royal, K. Goulias, “The Evolution of Travel in the Urban Landscape: Extrapolating Spatio-Temporal Behavioral Trends with Longitudinal Data”
- K. Deutsch, G. McKenzie, D. Stevenson, D. Dara-Abrams, K. Goulias, “Integrating GPS and Smart Phone Technology for Behavioral Data Collection”
- S. Yoon, K. Deutsch, Y. Chen, K. Goulias, “Using Time-Space Prism To Build Choice Sets For Destination Choice Models In The Context Of Dynamic Urban Environment”
- S.K. Ravulaparthy, N. Isbell. K. Goulias, “Hedonic Price Model: Neighborhood Spatio-Temporal Effects on Home Prices”
- K. Goulias, Y. Chen, S. Y. Yoon, S. Ravulaparthy, K. Deutsch, P. Dalal, N. Isbell, “Geography Aspects of a Simulator of Activities, Greenhouse Emissions, Networks, and Travel (Simagent) In Southern California”
On the island of Chios, the Geotrans delegation participated in a workshop hosted by Professor Amalia Polydoropoulou of the Department of Shipping, Trade, and Transport, University of the Aegean, June 8, 2011. The “Transportation Workshop on Advances in Activity-based Modeling” was part of an ongoing collaboration between the University of the Aegean and the University of California fostering joint research and education activities, including exchange of faculty and students between the European Union and the United States. It was also the second visit to Chios by students and researchers from the GeoTrans laboratory at UCSB to exchange ideas with students from the Chios campus of the University of the Aegean. The aim in this workshop was to discuss advanced current and next generation activity-based travel demand forecasting techniques and their application in sustainable and green transport policies, including aviation.
All of the Geotrans presenters have extensive experience in spatio-temporal data analysis and develop new models in Geographic Information Science and Transportation Modeling and Simulation. Geotrans presentations in the Chios workshop included “Activity-based Travel Demand Model SimAGENT and Next Generation Agent-based Modeling” (Presenter: Konstadinos G. Goulias, Professor of Transportation, UCSB); “Dynamic Opportunity-based Accessibility and Spatial Clustering” (Presenter: Pamela Dalal, Post-graduate Researcher and Ph.D. candidate, UCSB); “Integrated Land Use and Travel Demand Forecasting Models” (Presenter: Srinath Ravulaparthy, Post-graduate Researcher and Ph.D. student, UCSB); “The Impact of Time-space Prism Accessibility on Time Use Behavior and its Propagation through Intra-household Interaction” (Presenter: Dr. Seo Youn Yoon, Post-doctoral Research Associate, UCSB); “The Evolution of Travel in the Urban Landscape: Extrapolating Spatio‐Temporal Behavioral Trends with Longitudinal Data” (Presenter: Nathaniel Royal, Post-graduate Researcher and Ph.D. candidate, UCSB); “Data Collection Using GPS and Using Sense of Place in Destination Choice” (Presenter: Kate Deutsch, Post-graduate Researcher and Ph.D. candidate, UCSB); and “A Method for Computing Flight Emissions and Identifying Potential Point-to-Point Aviation Markets” (Presenter: Nathanael A. Isbell, Post-graduate Researcher and Ph.D. student, UCSB).
Mytilene is a town and a former municipality on the island of Lesbos, North Aegean, Greece. Her most famous citizens were the poets Sappho and Alcaeus and the statesman Pittacus (one of the Seven Sages of ancient Greece). Mytilene is the home base for the University of the Aegean, a state, multi-campus university, which is currently one of the largest in size of the 24 state supervised and funded universities in Greece. While at the Department of Geography on the Mytilene campus, the Geotrans delegation met up with UCSB Geography Professor Phaedon Kyriakidis and had a two and a half day intensive seminar on Geostatistics, reviewing a variety of geospatial problems using spatial clustering techniques, spatial allocation in multiscale problems, and spatial econometrics.
To sum up their Homeric adventure, Kostas commented: “With 13 formal research presentations, 2 and ½ days of training, and many formal and informal research meetings with university researchers and high school teachers of geography as well as students from European universities, this was a very productive field trip! We even found time to meet the U.S. Consul Katherine Brandeis for some fun conversation and a group photo!”
