Perspective matters : individual and species movement in spatial context

AbstractMost cities in the United States rely on zoning to address important planning-related issues within their jurisdictions. Planners often use GIS tools to analyze these issues in a spatial context. ESRI’s ArcGIS Urban software seeks to provide the planning profession with a GIS-based solution for various challenges, including zoning’s impacts on the built environment and housing capacity.This research explores the use of ArcGIS Urban for assessing the existing zoning and comprehensive plans in meeting the projected residential growth in the near future using the City of Arlington, Texas as a case study. The exploration provides examples and lessons for how ArcGIS Urban might be used by planners to accomplish their tasks and highlights the capabilities and limitations of ArcGIS Urban in its current stand. The paper is concluded with some suggestions for future studies.

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Measuring spatial allocative efficiency in basketball

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports ◽

10.1515/jqas-2019-0126 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 16 (4) ◽

pp. 271-289

Author(s):

Nathan Sandholtz ◽

Jacob Mortensen ◽

Luke Bornn

Keyword(s):

Spatial Distribution ◽

Hierarchical Model ◽

Opportunity Cost ◽

Allocative Efficiency ◽

Bayesian Hierarchical Model ◽

National Basketball Association ◽

Spatial Context ◽

Bayesian Hierarchical ◽

The Impact

AbstractEvery shot in basketball has an opportunity cost; one player’s shot eliminates all potential opportunities from their teammates for that play. For this reason, player-shot efficiency should ultimately be considered relative to the lineup. This aspect of efficiency—the optimal way to allocate shots within a lineup—is the focus of our paper. Allocative efficiency should be considered in a spatial context since the distribution of shot attempts within a lineup is highly dependent on court location. We propose a new metric for spatial allocative efficiency by comparing a player’s field goal percentage (FG%) to their field goal attempt (FGA) rate in context of both their four teammates on the court and the spatial distribution of their shots. Leveraging publicly available data provided by the National Basketball Association (NBA), we estimate player FG% at every location in the offensive half court using a Bayesian hierarchical model. Then, by ordering a lineup’s estimated FG%s and pairing these rankings with the lineup’s empirical FGA rate rankings, we detect areas where the lineup exhibits inefficient shot allocation. Lastly, we analyze the impact that sub-optimal shot allocation has on a team’s overall offensive potential, demonstrating that inefficient shot allocation correlates with reduced scoring.

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Negotiating Ethics-in-Action in a Long-term Research Relationship with a Young Child

Human Arenas ◽

10.1007/s42087-021-00216-z ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Niina Rutanen ◽

Raija Raittila ◽

Kaisa Harju ◽

Yaiza Lucas Revilla ◽

Maritta Hännikäinen

Keyword(s):

Early Childhood ◽

Young Child ◽

Data Collection ◽

Critical Incidents ◽

Relational Ethics ◽

Spatial Context ◽

Childhood Education ◽

Research Relationship ◽

Education And Care

AbstractThis article continues the discussions of relational ethics put forward in Human Arenas in “Arena of Ethics” (Hilppö et al., 2019). Our aim in this article is to explore and discuss relational ethics, as ethics-in-action, in a long-term research relationship with a child. Our question is: How is ethics-in-action negotiated during critical incidents in the construction of a research space that involves a long-term research relationship with a young child? This article is based on a research project that focused on children’s transitions in early childhood education and care (ECEC). These transitions include the transition from home care to ECEC as well as transitions from child groups or settings to other ECEC groups or settings, and the transition to pre-primary education. We apply a particular lens to the corpus of data, analyzing and reflecting critical incidents vis-à-vis a negotiation of ethics-in-action during the construction of our research space, which involved a long-term research relationship with a child. Our results show that critical incidents in our study’s negotiation of ethics-in-action included (a) the focus child’s spontaneous contributions to the study’s interviews, (b) interdependencies between the child and diverse researchers, and (c) the child’s evolving expertise in data collection, which restructured our study’s research space. We conclude that ethical questions cannot be separated from the mutually constituted relationships or socio-spatial context in where they emerge; thus, they are relationally and spatially embedded.

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The signing body: extensive sign language practice shapes the size of hands and face

Experimental Brain Research ◽

10.1007/s00221-021-06121-9 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Laura Mora ◽

Anna Sedda ◽

Teresa Esteban ◽

Gianna Cocchini

Keyword(s):

Sign Language ◽

Body Part ◽

Spatial Context ◽

Dependent Manner ◽

Body Parts ◽

Baseball Players ◽

Space Condition ◽

Hand Size ◽

Stable Representation ◽

The Face

AbstractThe representation of the metrics of the hands is distorted, but is susceptible to malleability due to expert dexterity (magicians) and long-term tool use (baseball players). However, it remains unclear whether modulation leads to a stable representation of the hand that is adopted in every circumstance, or whether the modulation is closely linked to the spatial context where the expertise occurs. To this aim, a group of 10 experienced Sign Language (SL) interpreters were recruited to study the selective influence of expertise and space localisation in the metric representation of hands. Experiment 1 explored differences in hands’ size representation between the SL interpreters and 10 age-matched controls in near-reaching (Condition 1) and far-reaching space (Condition 2), using the localisation task. SL interpreters presented reduced hand size in near-reaching condition, with characteristic underestimation of finger lengths, and reduced overestimation of hands and wrists widths in comparison with controls. This difference was lost in far-reaching space, confirming the effect of expertise on hand representations is closely linked to the spatial context where an action is performed. As SL interpreters are also experts in the use of their face with communication purposes, the effects of expertise in the metrics of the face were also studied (Experiment 2). SL interpreters were more accurate than controls, with overall reduction of width overestimation. Overall, expertise modifies the representation of relevant body parts in a specific and context-dependent manner. Hence, different representations of the same body part can coexist simultaneously.

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