bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Mapping Mashups
Authors: Zook Matthew , Breen Jessica
Published: March 2017

The map mashup is an online cartographic representation created by combining two or more pre‐existing data sources gleaned from the Internet, via either data scraping or querying an application programming interface (API), with a web map. The rising popularity of locationally aware social media and their associated APIs has resulted in an abundance of mappable data and a steady increase in the popularity of map mashups. These novel maps provide the opportunity to identify new patterns in the data that might not have otherwise been legible, but not without raising a number of legal and ethical debates including issues around data ownership, representation, and privacy. This entry provides a brief history, highlights the key issues and arguments surrounding map mashups, and provides a number of key historical and current examples of the genre.
Mass Movement Processes and Landforms
Authors: Dramis Francesco
Published: March 2017

Mass movements may be defined as “downslope movements of rock, earth, or soil masses occurring when their resisting forces cannot resist gravitational stress.” The displacing mechanisms include: detachment by newly generated fractures or shear surfaces; fall in free air; sliding over newly generated shear surfaces whose shape is controlled by the mass structure; spreading over a softer subhorizontal material; flow over the slope surface or in a pre‐existing slope incision; and creep, an extremely slow gravity‐driven deformation of slope materials. Mass movements include: generalized near‐surface slope wasting; landslides, a large variety of movements involving masses of extremely various dimensions; deep‐seated gravitational deformations, large‐scale phenomena including sackungs, rock spreads, and deep‐seated block slides; and subsidence, ground lowering, or failure because of removal of underlying support. Mass movements may heavily interact with human settlements and activities, being responsible for loss of human lives and damage to built‐up structures and properties.
Fiat and De Facto Objects
Authors: Bittner Thomas
Published: March 2017

Fiat boundaries play a fundamental role in geography. Unlike bona fide boundaries which correspond to mind‐independent discontinuities in the material reality and are therefore directly accessible to the senses, fiat boundaries are immaterial and not directly accessible to the senses. Fiat boundaries are brought into existence by the acts of cognitive agents. Since they are immaterial and not directly accessible to the senses, fiat boundaries are often considered as less “real” than their bona fide counterparts. This entry discusses the distinction between bona fide and fiat boundaries and then focuses on important properties of fiat boundaries. The aim is to show that fiat boundaries are as “real” as their physical counterparts but have rather different properties. Such properties are the result of complex interrelations between cognitive agents and their environments.
Habitat Destruction and Fragmentation
Authors: Sun Jing
Published: March 2017

Land‐use and land‐cover changes and the consequent fragmentation are becoming central themes in understanding environmental and socioeconomic changes at scales from local to global. The process of deforestation is an excellent example to illustrate these changes. Spatial pattern is an important property in the understanding of deforestation dynamics and their influences.
Desakota
Authors: McGee T.G.
Published: March 2017

Desakota is a term used to describe the growth and features of areas of mixed urban and agricultural activities that characterize the previously rural hinterlands of many of the rapidly expanding urban centers of the developing world in a new era of “planetary urbanization.”
Qualitative Spatial and Temporal Representation and Reasoning
Authors: Klippel Alexander , Wallgrün Jan Oliver
Published: March 2017

The representation of and reasoning with spatial and temporal information are central to spatial sciences. Formalizations of both allow the design of efficient computer programs that enable artificial intelligence (AI). The area of knowledge representation, as a subfield of AI but with contributions from the spatial sciences, is playing a leading role in these developments, and a strong subfield exists that is dedicated to qualitative spatial and temporal representation and reasoning (QSTR). The focus on qualitative approaches to reasoning is inspired by an interest in understanding how humans represent, think, and reason with spatial and temporal information from a commonsense, that is, intuitive, perspective. This entry provides an overview on the motivation behind QSTR, with explanations of central concepts such as qualitative calculi and conceptual neighborhood, as well as on cognitive evaluations of proposed approaches and current trends in this area of research.
Economic Development Zones
Authors: Hsu Jinn‐Yuh , Chu Ling‐I
Published: March 2017

Economic development zone (EDZ) is a spatial policy and experimental strategy for stimulating economic growth. Even though its roots are ancient, it is only in recent decades that EDZ has emerged as a powerful global form. Zoning technologies, as a compromise between liberal and protective regimes, can be seen as the state's intention to cope with the emerging opportunities and pressures of internationalization by redefining its territory, border, and sovereignty. However, the restructuring process incurs social and spatial tensions, since that zoning policy also implies differentiating the treatment of land and people. Situated in changing political‐economic climates, EDZs, on the one hand, extend to cover as far as possible, through networking, the subcontracted fragments of the national territory, and, on the other hand, become part of the assemblage of a globalizing world.
Rural Policy and Politics
Authors: Potter Clive
Published: March 2017

The governance of rural space is a complex policy project involving conflicting public and private interests. Rural geographers have explored why state intervention has traditionally been so pronounced in relation to agriculture and forestry and have been interested in the consequences for land use and rural economies of often very extensive (and still largely intact) systems of state support. But they have also probed the often vexed question of how best to protect rural environments from modern agriculture and its practices, and have been at the forefront of debates about the governance arrangements needed to secure the value of nature in a postproductivist countryside.
Cultures of Work
Authors: Barnes Trevor J.
Published: March 2017

While work is an economic act – work has a price, the wage rate – it is also a cultural act. Culture goes all the way down. It seeps into every aspect of the work process, shaping its meaning, norms, values, institutional settings, hierarchies of control, artifacts, and embodied practices. As an idea, the culture of labor was first developed within political economy, and linked in one way or another to issues of social class and transformation. Since the 1970s, however, as a result of profound shifts in the Global North toward a service‐based, postindustrial economy, the political‐economic interpretation has increasingly fallen out of favor. Instead, the culture of work is more and more understood through the lens of cultural and social theory and drawn frequently from feminism and poststructuralism. Illustrative examples are provided from economic geography, the discipline within human geography most concerned with labor and the culture of work.
Resources and Development
Authors: Hayter Roger , Patchell Jerry
Published: March 2017

The relationships between natural resources and development are profoundly important, but contingent and contradictory. This entry's objectives are to summarize the problematical implications of resource exploitation for economic diversification, and to discuss the implications of resource conflicts for development, particularly with respect to resource peripheries. The dilemmas of resource‐based development are first contextualized from the perspective of resource governance, multifunctionality, and cycles. The factors encouraging and inhibiting the industrial diversification of export‐based resource peripheries are then outlined. Finally, the transformation of resource–development relationships is revealed by reference to resource conflicts and the growing importance of environment and cultural factors. Geography has an important role to play in understanding resource conflicts and their resolution.
Patch Metrics
Authors: Wang Le , Yin Dameng
Published: March 2017

Human–nature interaction has greatly changed the world at various spatial and temporal scales. Given the fact that ecological processes are closely underpinned by landscape patterns and their changes, patch metrics are set forth to quantitatively document such patterns with the aim to better understand and conserve the environment and ecosystem. As of today, a large number of metrics have been developed, representing both the composition and the spatial configuration of patch types in the landscape. They have been widely applied to the study of biodiversity, land‐use change, and landscape regulation. However, the scale, correlation among different metrics, and temporal dynamics are three unresolved issues in the application of patch metrics.
Validity and Verification
Authors: Shortridge Ashton M.
Published: March 2017

Validity and verification (V&V) are important concerns in the practice of science: they encompass approaches to determine the fidelity of data and models. This entry provides an overview of their use, with illustrative approaches, metrics, and examples, for both spatial data and spatial computational modeling. In both cases validation generally considers the degree to which data or model outputs reflect reality, while verification concerns the degree to which the data or computational model match the underlying conceptual model. Classic, relatively aspatial approaches to V&V are contrasted with newer methods that explicitly account for spatial position, scale, and dependence.
Critical
GIScience
Authors: Schuurman Nadine
Published: March 2017

Critical GIScience encompasses a range of geographic information systems (GIS) research that focuses not so much on algorithmic or computational advances, but rather on the social implications of and social biases inherent in the science, technology, and their deployments. First posited as a separate strand of research in 1999, it slowly evolved into a recognized component of GIScience with its own themes, researchers, and advocates. Theoretically, critical GIScience should be integrated into mainstream implementation; in practice, it exists as a separate stream of investigation – owing to historical precedents as well as the difficulty of integrating social theoretical insights into technological practice. As Web 2.0 and big data evolve and affect the discipline of Geography, a
new critical GIScience
is morphing into an umbrella term that encompasses many aspects of change to GIS and mapping, including location‐based services, volunteered geographic information, big data, and potential loss of privacy.
Environmental Regulation
Authors: Perkins Richard
Published: March 2017

Environmental regulation can be defined as actions and approaches used to influence and control actors' environmentally significant behavior. One way in which environmental regulation has been characterized is according to the actors who perform regulatory roles, with a distinction often drawn between government (state), civil, and market actors. Another way in which it has been categorized is according to the instruments through which regulatory influence is achieved. Although a number of instrument typologies exist, it is possible to differentiate between directive‐based standards (or “command and control”), market‐based instruments, voluntary approaches, and information‐based approaches. Environmental regulation is changing, characterized by three ongoing dynamics: (i) the reform of public environmental regulation away from a predominant reliance on directive‐based standards towards the growing use of new environmental policy instruments, so‐called smart regulation; (ii) an increased role for market and civil actors; and (iii) the rescaling of environmental regulation.
Corporations and Global Trade
Authors: Burger Martijn J.
Published: March 2017

Global trade has increased tremendously over the past decades, but is in the hands of only a few large corporations. Accordingly, the contemporary international trade literature emphasizes firm heterogeneity. The current discussions in the literature focus on such issues as which firms engage in trade activities and the geographical scope of trading firms.
Soils in Geomorphic Research
Authors: Wysocki Douglas A. , Schoeneberger Philip J.
Published: March 2017

Soils form at the interface between the atmosphere and Earth's surface through a complex combination of processes that vary in both time and space. Thus, soils also vary in space, and change with time. This time–space relationship allows us a valuable conceptual tool for deciphering and quantifying landscape evolution and the soil‐geomorphic history. Soils, surficial deposits, and landforms comprise three‐dimensional systems that coevolve. Accordingly, soils are geomorphic entities that vary with landform, substrate, hydrology, and slope position. In a geomorphic sense, we strive to understand the origin, distribution, and evolution of soils, landscapes, and surficial deposits, and the processes that create and alter them. Geologic/geomorphic processes substantially, but not solely, determine the materials from which soils form, insomuch as they determine the nature and distribution of sediments. This entry summarizes most of the major geomorphic principles and concepts used to understand the relationships among soils, landscapes, and surficial sediments, and pays special attention to hydrology as a driving factor in the soil‐landscape system.
Bodies and Embodiment
Authors: Silvey Rachel
Published: March 2017

The body is now a keyword in human geography. There are numerous approaches to “the body” that human geography counts as central. Feminist, critical race, and queer theoretical contributions to thinking about bodies, plural, and the differences between diverse bodies have been especially important. Poststructural approaches to the body and biopolitics have also had crucial influences on the discipline. Some of the earliest treatments of bodies and space were phenomenological approaches revolving around the sensing body, while later Marxist analyses tracked the laboring body. Most recently, geography has engaged with renewed humanist and new materialist dialogues about embodiment. The discipline draws on all of these traditions, often in combination. Each of these lineages of thought offers distinct conceptual tools for thinking through, with, and about bodies and embodiment.
Avalanche Meteorology
Authors: Hendrikx Jordy
Published: March 2017

Snow avalanches are a significant natural hazard in the mountainous regions of the world, destroying property, disrupting transportation networks, and causing physical hazard. To mitigate avalanche hazard, daily avalanche forecasts are produced for many mountainous areas around the world. Avalanche forecasting is a probabilistic enterprise, with a number of factors which need to be considered, all with varying weights that change over time and space. As the spatial area of the avalanche forecast increases, the overall accuracy and resolution generally decreases. When avalanche forecasting for larger spatial extents there is increased reliance on meteorological data to forecast mountain weather and its role in producing avalanches. This is where the intersection of avalanche and weather forecasting occurs, and has been termed avalanche meteorology.
Institutions and Development
Authors: Bebbington Anthony
Published: March 2017

The importance of institutions in determining patterns of economic and political development has become a recurring theme in development studies since the early 1990s. The concept of institution refers, in a general sense, to the rules of the game that govern human action and interaction, and lead to a degree of stability and predictability in society. These rules exist across space and scales but are often unevenly distributed. The quality of institutions is deemed to be important in determining patterns of economic growth, the possibilities for local and community‐led development, the provision of financial and microfinancial services, and the nature of political participation, to name but a few. The origins of institutions have much to do with the structure of political and economic power. Efforts to foster institutional change must therefore attend to this structure of power and possibly intervene in power relations as part of a strategy pursuing institutional redesign.
Rivers and Streams
Authors: Latrubesse Edgardo M. , Park Edward
Published: March 2017

Streams are water bodies that flow downslope due to gravity through a natural open channel. The channel may contain water for at least part of the year. Streams with a substantial volume of water are considered rivers and typically reach the ocean, while others end in interior basins. River action is a dominant force responsible for shaping the Earth's surface and for transporting sediments from land to ocean. Rivers contain a remarkable biodiversity and provide fundamental services to humanity. However, because of dams, pollution, and other human interventions, the rivers of our planet are in a state of critical environmental degradation.
Archival and Document Research
Authors: Grim Ronald E.
Published: March 2017

A fundamental characteristic of geographic studies emphasizing historical perspectives is archival and document research. Historical geographers conduct most of their primary research in archival and manuscript repositories, and bibliographies, footnotes, and historical documents are their most widely used research tools. The basis of their research has been the critical analysis and mapping of data discovered in sources contemporary to the period being studied. Although many types of primary sources are potentially useful, historical geographers have used a variety of documents, both textual and graphic, more successfully than others. Some of these include travel and exploration accounts, population counts, land survey records, business records, and historic maps.
F
ordism/Post‐
F
ordism
Authors: Lan Tu
Published: March 2017

Fordism was a model of economic development characterized by mass production and mass consumption in the United States and Western Europe between the 1930s and 1970s. The term was first used by Antonio Gramsci to describe Henry Ford's automobile industry, and later developed into a theoretical framework to study capitalism by French regulation school. Fordism consisted of a labor process of Taylorism, a regime of accumulation, a mode of regulation, and a pattern of social organization. In response to the crisis of Fordism in the 1970s, post‐Fordism includes a number of alternative development models, of which flexible specialization has been the most influential in geography. Both Fordism and Post‐Fordism have been widely used by geographers, particularly of the Marxist tradition, to study changing labor relations and associated social formations in major capitalist economies.
Oral History and Narrative
Authors: Stratford Elaine
Published: March 2017

Across peoples and cultures, diverse capacities to remember, reflect, and communicate, and the compulsion to understand the world in which we live, gather as a combined force in storytelling and the use of narrative to hear and be heard. Oral history is a powerful qualitative research method to directly engage with and preserve the memories, stories, and knowledge of those still living. Using such field methods, practitioners are motivated to understand participants' direct experiences of the lifeworld, of place, and of space and spatiality. Furthermore they are concerned with the ways in which those experiences illuminate other important issues and events which, in the past, have appeared unremarkable. Oral history's capacity to uncover the extraordinary within the everyday empowers participants and audiences, and enables practitioners – geographers not least among them – to validate and value knowledge hitherto consigned to historical obscurity.
Geographies of Exclusion
Authors: Tchoukaleyska Roza
Published: March 2017

Originating in the work of David Sibley in 1995, the term “geographies of exclusion” refers to the ways through which some social groups are signaled as being unwelcome in urban and rural spaces. Exclusion is structural in nature and is seen as the product of nuanced forms of social pressure and negative interpersonal interaction. It suggests that some forms of visible difference from mainstream society, such as differences associated with race, class, ethnicity, gender, ableism, or age, lead to experiences of not belonging in public and semipublic spaces.
Environmental Issues and Public Understanding
Authors: Eden Sally , Geoghegan Hilary
Published: March 2017

Public understanding of environmental issues is complex and may develop in situ through embodied, sensory practices of walking through local environments, through tourist encounters with unfamiliar environments, or ex situ through formal education or entertainment, such as movies or Internet videos. Science, the media, and environmental pressure groups also influence how people think about environmental issues. Research into public understanding of environmental issues has drawn on work on the public understanding of science more generally, using concepts of the deficit model, lay knowledge and the lay/expert divide, indigenous knowledge, and citizen science as well as considering how trust and belief in environmental issues develop among the public. Geographical research has specifically considered the role of scale in shaping public understanding of environmental issues, especially in relation to local and global environmental issues.
Antiracist Geography
Authors: Mollett Sharlene
Published: March 2017

Antiracism is a political discourse and intellectual commitment to the challenge of racism, essential for a cogent movement that seeks equality as a principle component of any society. Antiracism is informed by anti‐essentialist understandings of race, which unsettle constructions of race as a naturalized social hierarchy of biologically separate human populations. Antiracist geography is shaped by these principles and the debates and internal tensions these principles invoke.
Scale and Anti‐Scale
Authors: Jones John Paul
Published: March 2017

Scale is an important and contested concept in geography. In both its historical and contemporary use, it defines a system of measurement for the purposes of mapping. In recent decades, scale has also played a role in the social theorization of the discipline. Proponents maintain that social processes produce different spatial scales (e.g., locality, region, nation, and globe), and that these spatial configurations rebound on how economic, political, and cultural processes operate. Another group of theorists are “anti‐scale.” They acknowledge that scale is a powerful way of thinking spatially and they recognize that scalar discourses have political implications. But they view the concept as ontologically hierarchical and structuralist, and as detached from the practices and material workings of bodies and objects. Though diverse in orientation, they collectively endorse a “flat” ontology derived from the works of Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour, and others.
Violence
Authors: J. Watts Michael
Published: March 2017

Given the close relations between violent conflict and modernity, it is no surprise that the complex forms, dynamics, and trajectories of violence have come to be seen as central to the understanding of modern life as much as it is an object of much social science theorizing, including geographical theory. It is now commonplace to acknowledge that the great arc of modernization – or for that matter the Enlightenment – bears all the marks of coercion, social conflict, and struggle; that organic nationalism gave birth to genocidal forms of nationalism and ethnic cleansing; and that state violence and terror figure centrally in what might be called modern mass or totalitarian violence, whether perpetrated in the name of fascism, communism, or state building. The term “violence” itself is capacious. It can refer to specific sorts of events (e.g., interstate, civil, ethnic, religious, electoral, political, communist, revolutionary, guerilla, insurgent, imperialist, terroristic), as well as to a variety of forms and analytical categories (e.g., racial, queer, psychological, structural, silent, symbolic, repressive, normalized). The term is customarily distinguished from “conflict.” All of this makes any entry purporting to capture geographical and social scientific scholarship on the subject fraught and exceedingly difficult.
Sustainable Transport
Authors: Lane Bradley W. , Beeler Joseph
Published: March 2017

This entry introduces the concept of sustainability in transport by focusing on the elements that make transport unsustainable, including air pollution, land consumption, and energy usage. A focus on alternative fuels in motor vehicles highlights the interconnected nature of sustainability concerns.
Urban Transit
Authors: Lane Bradley W. , Beeler Joseph
Published: March 2017

This entry reviews urban transit across the world. It discusses the history of urban public transportation, and how technology and the spatial layout of cities have influenced it over time. It reviews the different modes of transit in use around the world, and categorizes urban areas by location to discuss regional differences. The entry concludes with a discussion of the future outlook of urban transit and transport technologies.
Zoogeomorphology
Authors: Butler David R.
Published: March 2017

Zoogeomorphology is the study of the effects of animals as geomorphic agents. Animals erode the landscape, transport sediment, and produce landforms through a variety of processes including burrowing, digging for food, mounding of sediments, trampling and chiseling the landscape, and by construction (in the case of beavers) of dams that impound water, create ponds, and sequester sediments. Although a fairly recent subdiscipline, a rich variety of studies typify modern zoogeomorphology. Zoogeomorphic impacts in the future are being affected by climate change and human alterations of the landscape.
Earth's Energy Balance
Authors: L'Ecuyer Tristan S.
Published: March 2017

The Earth's weather and climate are driven by exchanges of energy between the sun, the atmosphere, and the surface. Globally, the Earth receives 123.5 PW (1 PW = 1 petaWatt = 10
15
Watts) of radiation from the sun. Of this, 29.4% is reflected back to space while the remainder is absorbed, heating the planet. The warm Earth, in turn, emits thermal radiation to space, ultimately reaching equilibrium at an effective blackbody temperature of −18°C. Energy surpluses at lower latitudes and deficits at higher latitudes are balanced by large circulations in the atmosphere and oceans that transport an enormous 350 exaJoules (10
18
J) of energy daily from the equator to the poles. These circulations drive global weather patterns, moderate regional climates, and make the Earth habitable. Current observations suggest that the Earth currently receives 0.3 PW more energy than it emits, owing primarily to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases and associated climate feedbacks. The oceans absorb most of this excess energy while the remainder heats the atmosphere and melts the ice sheets.
Regional Planning: The Resilience of an Imperative
Authors: Nunes Richard J.
Published: March 2017

This entry offers a historical perspective and is therefore principally rooted in a Western geopolitical context. It probes into what it means to practice regional planning, before proceeding with a reflection on its evolution as a form of planning practice. It points to key texts that have charted this transition, beginning with early writings by authors who helped initiate the process of internationalizing regional planning. It stresses, above all, theresilienceof this “regional imperative” against paradigmatic shifts in regional planning doctrine – from its early advancement, through to its subsequent fall and rise and recent calls for its reconfiguration or transformation.
Cross‐Cultural Research
Authors: Skelton Tracey
Published: March 2017

Cross‐cultural research is politically and conceptually complex. The very concept of “culture” has been questioned and debated by cultural geographers to the point that some argue there are no cultures to cross. For others the significance of cultural identities for colonized, marginalized, and persecuted groups is important to recognize. Cross‐cultural researchers, particularly those working with indigenous people, have developed political, theoretical, conceptual, and methodological alternatives to positivist, normative, and colonial research practices. They have worked against misunderstanding, mistranslating, and misrepresenting the communities with which they work. Additionally, approaches such as decolonizing research, identifying participants as co‐researchers, and producing “boundary objects” that produce meaningful knowledge that is understandable by all stakeholders are designed to create equitable, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial cross‐cultural research principles and practices.
Global Navigation Satellite Systems
Authors: Liu Zhizhao , Chen Biyan , Zhang Bao
Published: March 2017

Global navigation satellite systems are satellite systems with global coverage that can be used to pinpoint the position of a receiver by processing signals transmitted from satellites in known orbits. Currently there are four main global navigation satellite systems in operation or in development: the US global positioning system (GPS), the Russian global orbiting navigation satellite system (GLONASS), the European Union's Galileo, and the Chinese BeiDou. Over the past decades, due to high accuracy, universal availability, and low cost, the number of applications that utilize global navigation satellite systems has increased dramatically, which has exceeded the initial ideas of the system designers. Global navigation satellite systems have become a well‐known technology and their applications can be found in daily life, commerce, education, industry, and research.
Public‐Participation
GIS
Authors: Ghose Rina
Published: March 2017

Public participation GIS (PPGIS) is a global research agenda and practice that aims to broaden the access of GIS technologies to socially marginalized groups in order to facilitate informed participation in decision‐making. It prioritizes indigenous or experiential knowledge and advocates its integration with public datasets to contest or reshape policies. PPGIS projects range from rural land use, to conservation and natural resource management, to urban planning, to social and environmental activism, to advocacy. PPGIS work has been shaped by an integrated theoretical framework derived from social and political theory, science and technology studies, human computer interaction, organizational theory, and feminist theory. Participation and spatial knowledge production from PPGIS is situated, highly contingent, and shaped by contextual factors.
Geostatistics
Authors: Kyriakidis Phaedon
Published: March 2017

Geostatistics is a subfield of spatial statistics offering a comprehensive statistical framework for analyzing and interpreting patterns in spatial data, for integrating measurements from different sources and resolutions with the objective of spatial interpolation (prediction) and spatial uncertainty assessment. Geostatistical applications appear across numerous and diverse scientific disciplines related to geography, ranging from physical geography and Earth sciences, to environmental and atmospheric sciences, to socioeconomic studies. This entry provides an overview of the three main thematic areas of geostatistics – spatial association quantification, spatial interpolation, and spatial uncertainty assessment – and discusses current trends and future directions.
Spatiality
Authors: Kobayashi Audrey
Published: March 2017

The conceptual transit from space to spatiality is one of the most significant developments in recent geographical thought. Both space and spatiality are historical concepts that refer to the relationship between people and things, including other people, on the Earth's surface. Geographical thinking is homologous with philosophical debates about the ontological status of space. From the 1950s to the 1980s, there were debates over the existence of spatial laws, and over the differences between concepts of space and place. Poststructuralist thinking, however, transformed the concept of space into a relational capacity of interactions and assemblages. Nonetheless, the nominal concept of space has continued to intrude on geographical understanding. More recently, the concept of space has been relinquished by many geographers who understand spatiality dialectically as the form of human relationship.
Strategic Essentialism
Authors: Pande Raksha
Published: March 2017

“Strategic essentialism” is a term first coined by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, a postcolonial feminist philosopher and literary theorist. She employs the term in her deconstructive reading of the work of the Subaltern Studies Group. Strategic essentialism advocates provisionally accepting essentialist foundations for identity categories as a strategy for collective representation in order to pursue chosen political ends. The genesis of the term follows her central academic pursuit of exploring the role of representation in subject constitution. Within human geography, strategic essentialism has been relevant for debates in feminist geographies, for development and economic geographies, and among geographers studying “race” and representation.
Glacial depositional processes and landforms
Authors: Goff Paepin
Published: March 2017

Glacial landforms are primarily the result of erosion during glacial advances and deposition during glacial retreat. Both mountain and continental glaciers contribute to depositional landforms. During periods of glacial retreat, snow loss outpaces snow accumulation, leaving behind debris. The resulting features include terminal moraines, lateral moraines, medial moraines, recessional moraines, ground moraines, drumlins, kettles, kames, eskers, tunnel valleys, and moulins. The study of depositional landforms allows scientists to reconstruct glacial histories, model current glacial behaviors, and make predictions about future glacial activity.
Volcanic Processes and Landforms
Authors: Gharehchahi Saeideh
Published: March 2017

Volcanic processes are related to the eruption of molten rocks, known as magma, through central vents or fissures onto the surface. They include all the processes that result from intrusion into bedrock and extrusion onto the Earth's surface. These processes have contributed to the construction of landforms and features of the Earth's surface over millions of years. These processes are important to geomorphologists because they change the surface of the Earth by creation of volcanic landforms and intrusion of new magma into the Earth's crust.
Corporations and Multilateral Organizations
Authors: Ahmed Waquar , Underwood Robert
Published: March 2017

This entry examines the relationship between corporations and multilateral organizations. It examines corporations as an organizational form, focusing on the legal and historical aspects; analyzes contemporary corporations that have become large in terms of size and extremely powerful; and examines the history and function of multilateral organizations. It also focuses on the relationship and mutual codependence between corporations and multilateral organizations in furthering the interest of capital. Mapping the flow of power between the United States as the global hegemon, corporations, multilateral organizations, and other nation‐states, it argues that the United States–corporation–multilateral organization nexus is exploitative, whereby the flow of power relations ensures the geographical expansion of capital.
Redox Sensitive Hyaluronic Acid‐Decorated Graphene Oxide for Photothermally Controlled Tumor‐Cytoplasm‐Selective Rapid Drug Delivery
Authors: Yin Tingjie , Liu Jiyong , Zhao Zekai , Zhao Yuanyuan , Dong Lihui , Yang Meng , Zhou Jianping , Huo Meirong
Published: March 2017

Nanocarriers capable of circumventing various biological barriers between the site of administration and the therapeutic target hold great potential for cancer treatment. Herein, a redox‐sensitive, hyaluronic acid‐decorated graphene oxide nanosheet (HSG) is developed for tumor cytoplasm‐specific rapid delivery using near‐infrared (NIR) irradiation controlled endo/lysosome disruption and redox‐triggered cytoplasmic drug release. Hyaluronic acid (HA) modification through redox‐sensitive linkages permits HSG a range of advantages over the standard graphene oxide, including high biological stability, enhanced drug‐loading capacity for aromatic molecules, HA receptor‐mediated active tumor targeting, greater NIR absorption and thermal energy translation, and a sharp redox‐dependent response for accelerated cargo release. Results of in vivo and in vitro testing indicate a high loading of doxorubicin (DOX) onto HSG. Selective delivery to HA‐receptor overexpressing tumors is achieved through passive and active targeting with minimized unfavorable interactions with blood components. Cytoplasm‐specific DOX delivery is then achieved through NIR controlled endo/lysosome disruption along with redox‐triggered release of DOX in glutathione rich areas. HSG's specificity is resulted in enhanced cytotoxicity of chemotherapeutics with minimal collateral damage to healthy tissues in a xenograft animal tumor model. HSG is validated the programmed delivery of therapeutic agents in a spatiotemporally controlled manner to overcome multiple biological barriers results in specific and enhanced cancer treatment.
3D Tunable, Multiscale, and Multistable Vibrational Micro‐Platforms Assembled by Compressive Buckling
Authors: Ning Xin , Wang Heling , Yu Xinge , Soares Julio A. N. T. , Yan Zheng , Nan Kewang , Velarde Gabriel , Xue Yeguang , Sun Rujie , Dong Qiyi , Luan Haiwen , Lee Chan Mi , Chempakasseril Aditya , Han Mengdi , Wang Yiqi , Li Luming , Huang Yonggang , Zhang Yihui , Rogers John A.
Published: March 2017

Microelectromechanical systems remain an area of significant interest in fundamental and applied research due to their wide ranging applications. Most device designs, however, are largely 2D and constrained to only a few simple geometries. Achieving tunable resonant frequencies or broad operational bandwidths requires complex components and/or fabrication processes. The work presented here reports unusual classes of 3D micromechanical systems in the form of vibratory platforms assembled by controlled compressive buckling. Such 3D structures can be fabricated across a broad range of length scales and from various materials, including soft polymers, monocrystalline silicon, and their composites, resulting in a wide scope of achievable resonant frequencies and mechanical behaviors. Platforms designed with multistable mechanical responses and vibrationally decoupled constituent elements offer improved bandwidth and frequency tunability. Furthermore, the resonant frequencies can be controlled through deformations of an underlying elastomeric substrate. Systematic experimental and computational studies include structures with diverse geometries, ranging from tables, cages, rings, ring‐crosses, ring‐disks, two‐floor ribbons, flowers, umbrellas, triple‐cantilever platforms, and asymmetric circular helices, to multilayer constructions. These ideas form the foundations for engineering designs that complement those supported by conventional, micro‐electromechanical systems, with capabilities that could be useful in systems for biosensing, energy harvesting, and others.
M2+ Doping Induced Simultaneous Phase/Size Control and Remarkable Enhanced Upconversion Luminescence of NaLnF4 Probes for Optical‐Guided Tiny Tumor Diagnosis
Authors: Li Youbin , Li Xiaolong , Xue Zhenluan , Jiang Mingyang , Zeng Songjun , Hao Jianhua
Published: March 2017

Doping has played a vital role in constructing desirable hybrid materials with tunable functions and properties via incorporating atoms into host matrix. Herein, a simple strategy for simultaneously modifying the phase, size, and upconversion luminescence (UCL) properties of the NaLnF4 (Ln = Y, Yb) nanocrystals by high‐temperature coprecipitation through nonequivalent M2+ doping (M = Mg2+, Co2+) has been demonstrated. The phase transformation from cubic to hexagonal is readily achieved by doping M2+. Compared with Mg‐free sample, a remarkable enhancement of overall UCL (≈27.5 times) is obtained by doping Mg2+. Interestingly, owing to the efficient UCL, red UCL‐guided tiny tumor (down to 3 mm) diagnosis is demonstrated for the first time. The results open up a new way of designing high efficient UCL probe with combination of hexagonal phase and small size for tiny tumor detection.
A Heterostructure Coupling of Exfoliated Ni–Fe Hydroxide Nanosheet and Defective Graphene as a Bifunctional Electrocatalyst for Overall Water Splitting
Authors: Jia Yi , Zhang Longzhou , Gao Guoping , Chen Hua , Wang Bei , Zhou Jizhi , Soo Mun Teng , Hong Min , Yan Xuecheng , Qian Guangren , Zou Jin , Du Aijun , Yao Xiangdong
Published: March 2017

Herein, the authors demonstrate a heterostructured NiFe LDH‐NS@DG10 hybrid catalyst by coupling of exfoliated Ni–Fe layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanosheet (NS) and defective graphene (DG). The catalyst has exhibited extremely high electrocatalytic activity for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in an alkaline solution with an overpotential of 0.21 V at a current density of 10 mA cm−2, which is comparable to the current record (≈0.20 V in Fe–Co–Ni metal‐oxide‐film system) and superior to all other non‐noble metal catalysts. Also, it possesses outstanding kinetics (Tafel slope of 52 mV dec−1) for the reaction. Interestingly, the NiFe LDH‐NS@DG10 hybrid has also exhibited the high hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance in an alkaline solution (with an overpotential of 115 mV by 2 mg cm−2 loading at a current density of 20 mA cm−2) in contrast to barely HER activity for NiFe LDH‐NS itself. As a result, the bifunctional catalyst the authors developed can achieve a current density of 20 mA cm−2 by a voltage of only 1.5 V, which is also a record for the overall water splitting. Density functional theory calculation reveals that the synergetic effects of highly exposed 3d transition metal atoms and carbon defects are essential for the bifunctional activity for OER and HER.
Low‐Cost, Organic Light‐Emitting Electrochemical Cells with Mass‐Producible Nanoimprinted Substrates Made Using Roll‐to‐Roll Methods
Authors: Sato Kan , Uchida Soichi , Toriyama Shigetaka , Nishimura Suzushi , Oyaizu Kenichi , Nishide Hiroyuki , Nishikitani Yoshinori
Published: March 2017

Next‐generation, power‐efficient organic lighting systems, which ideally would be low‐cost and mass‐producible, are urgently needed because more than 20% of total electricity use goes to lighting. This study presents polymer light‐emitting electrochemical cells (PLECs) made using mass‐producible nanoimprinted corrugated substrates, which effectively improve light extraction efficiency. The corrugated substrates are fabricated using roll‐to‐roll methods, using self‐assembled block copolymers on glass and film substrates (glass: 0.45 m × 0.55 m, film: 0.6 m wide). Using the glass‐type corrugated substrates, two PLECs based on (poly[2‐methoxy‐5‐(2‐ethylhexyloxy)‐1,4‐phenylene vinylene]) and (“super‐yellow” poly(p‐phenylene vinylene)) (SY‐PPV) are fabricated by solution‐based spin‐coating methods, which can in practice be replaced by roll‐to‐roll methods. The corrugated PLECs with SY‐PPV show high brightness of 1740 cd cm−2 and 2.1 times greater efficiency without changing the original spectrum or angular dependence. This successful combination of corrugated substrates and PLECs is one of the best examples of a promising cost‐effective, high‐performance lighting technology.
Organic Gelators as Growth Control Agents for Stable and Reproducible Hybrid Perovskite‐Based Solar Cells
Authors: Masi Sofia , Rizzo Aurora , Munir Rahim , Listorti Andrea , Giuri Antonella , Esposito Corcione Carola , Treat Neil D. , Gigli Giuseppe , Amassian Aram , Stingelin Natalie , Colella Silvia
Published: March 2017

Low‐molecular‐weight organic gelators are widely used to influence the solidification of polymers, with applications ranging from packaging items, food containers to organic electronic devices, including organic photovoltaics. Here, this concept is extended to hybrid halide perovskite‐based materials. In situ time‐resolved grazing incidence wide‐angle X‐ray scattering measurements performed during spin coating reveal that organic gelators beneficially influence the nucleation and growth of the perovskite precursor phase. This can be exploited for the fabrication of planar n‐i‐p heterojunction devices with MAPbI3 (MA = CH3NH3+) that display a performance that not only is enhanced by ≈25% compared to solar cells where the active layer is produced without the use of a gelator but that also features a higher stability to moisture and a reduced hysteresis. Most importantly, the presented approach is straightforward and simple, and it provides a general method to render the film formation of hybrid perovskites more reliable and robust, analogous to the control that is afforded by these additives in the processing of commodity “plastics.”
Direct Evidence of Ion Diffusion for the Silver‐Electrode‐Induced Thermal Degradation of Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells
Authors: Li Jiangwei , Dong Qingshun , Li Nan , Wang Liduo
Published: March 2017

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have recently demonstrated high efficiencies of over 22%, but the thermal stability is still a major challenge for commercialization. In this work, the thermal degradation process of the inverted structured PSCs induced by the silver electrode is thoroughly investigated. Elemental depth profiles indicate that iodide and methylammonium ions diffuse through the electron‐trasnporting layer and accumulate at the Ag inner surface. The driving force of forming AgI then facilitates the ions extraction. Variations on the morphology and current mapping of the MAPbI3 thin films upon thermal treatment reveal that the loss of ions occurs at the grain boundaries and leads to the reconstruction of grain domains. Consequently, the deteriorated MAPbI3 thin film, the poor electron extraction, and the generation of AgI barrier result in the degradation of efficiencies. These direct evidences provide in‐depth understanding of the effect of thermal stress on the devices, offering both experimental support and theoretical guidance for the improvement on the thermal stability of the inverted PSCs.