Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Area Informatics
- Concept and Status -
Shoichiro Hara
Center for Integrated Area Studies, Kyoto University
46 Shimoadachi-cho Yoshida, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501 Japan
shara@cias.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Abstract.
Area studies are interdisciplinary science of humanities, natural and
technological researches. Area informatics is a new information paradigm in
area studies to integrate and analyze data from variety disciplines quantitatively
and objectively. Spatiotemporal data gives a few quantitative attributes that are
relatively easy to be derived from area studies' data. The Humanities GIS
research group (H-GIS) is a leading joint research group in Japan to apply
spatiotemporal informatics to area studies. This paper sums up current
situations on area informatics and introduces the H-GIS outcomes about
applying spatiotemporal informatics to area studies.
Keywords:
area informatics, area studies, spatiotemporal tools, digital
gazetteers, HuMap, HuTime, H-GIS.
1 Introduction
Area studies are interdisciplinary science to investigate and understand particular
areas comprehensively. Natural and technological sciences such as meteorology,
biology, ecology, forestry, hydrology, pedology, medicine, and disaster prevention are
the major disciplines of area studies, and furthermore, humanities such as
anthropology, ethnology, folklore, history, politics, linguistics, and sociology also
play essential rolls in area studies. Unfortunately, the concept of comprehensive
investigation and understanding of area studies is hardly realized.
Humanities generally use qualitative data and process them interpretively and
subjectively, but on the other hand, natural and technological studies commonly use
quantitative data and process them numerically and objectively. However, a paucity
of appropriate frameworks to use and process qualitative data together with
quantitative data makes it difficult to organize a huge volume of humanities'
resources into databases and to utilize them for visualizing, comparing, calculating,
and analyzing objectively and logically. This is a reason of area studies failing in
constructing comprehensive images of particular areas.
Informatics is science to analyze and understand everything quantitatively and
objectively by introducing distinctive norms and methods, which develops many
algorithms and means to quantify and classify qualitative data. Area informatics is a
new information paradigm in area studies to make a breakthrough in constructing
