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June 2008
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SP
PAN’s mis
ssion is to
o achieve excellenc
e
e in the ap
pplication
n of innova
ative spatiial analysiis
in sup
pport of research, ed
ducation and
a comm
munity outtreach
Manage
er’s Messa
age
CONTENTS
Man
nager’s Messsage
1
Projects
2
Equipment
2
Projects
3
Projects
4
Data
a
4
SPAN is a researcch support
w
the Centre for
unit within
Rese
earch and Gra
aduate
Train
ning at Charle
es Sturt
Unive
ersity. It has offices at
Wagga Wagga an
nd
uses to
Thurrgoona campu
proviide postgradu
uate and
staff research sup
pport in
e main areas: remote
three
senssing, Geograp
phic
Information Syste
ems (GIS)
s
statisttics.
and spatial
Welcom
me to SPAN
N’s June ne
ewsletter. As
always, SPAN is having
h
a ve
ery busy ye
ear
archers on their projeccts.
working with resea
p
are many and varied,
v
ranging
These projects
from mo
odelling wire
eless LAN co
overage are
eas
and ligh
ht pollution zones to travel routtes
taken by
b insect prredators of crops. Brrief
descriptions of som
me of these
e projects and
a
the worrk that SPA
AN is doing to assist are
a
included
d in the follow
wing pages..
t
issue arre updates on
o some of the
t
Also in this
data and
d equipmen
nt SPAN has
s available for
research
h use. Note
e that there
e is usually no
charge for researchers to utilise the
ese
es or to obta
ain SPAN’s assistance.
a
resource
Recent enquiries have
h
indicatted that the
ere
ome new staff members and
a
are so
postgrad
duate stude
ents who arre unaware of
the servvices, resou
urces and fa
acilities SPA
AN
offers. I would be delighted
d
to come along to
school, faculty
f
or re
esearch grou
up meetingss to
give a presentatio
on highligh
hting what is
e and to speak with
h researche
ers
available
about th
heir projectss and how SPAN
S
may be
able to help.
Simply call or email me
m
he right of th
his
(contactt details are listed on th
page) to
o arrange a suitable
s
time
e.
Con
ntacting SPAN
S
Wag
gga Wagga Campus
C
Gaill Fuller
Man
nager, SPAN
Phone: 02 6933 2004
ail: gfuller@c
csu.edu.au
Ema
Gary
y McKenzie
Research Suppo
ort Programm
mer
Phone: 02 6933 2165
ail: [email protected]
Ema
Craiig Poynter
Spatial Analysis Officer
Phone: 02 6933 2165
ail: cpoynter@
@csu.edu.au
u
Ema
mpus
Thurgoona Cam
Simon McDona
ald
Spatial Analysis Officer
Phone: 02 6051 9922
ail: [email protected]
Ema
Dea
anna Duffy
Spatial Analysis Officer
Phone: 02 6051 9922
ail: dduffy@c
csu.edu.au
Ema
Gail Fulleer
Ca
an SPAN help
h
you?
SP
PAN might be
b able to assist your research
r
in ways you do
d not anticipate. From
m simple datta retrieval and
ma
ap making to complex spatial and
d statistical data analys
sis, SPAN is available to enhance
e the qualitty of
you
ur research. If you are a research
her, academ
mic or postg
graduate stu
udent at Ch
harles Sturt University and
believe that so
ome aspectt of your ressearch migh
ht be assistted by using
g our skills, do not hesitate to con
ntact
the
e Manager, Gail Fuller, on 32004 or
o [email protected] to discuss your
y
projectt requireme
ents.
W
Want
to
o know
w more?
? Visit www.c
csu.edu.au/re
esearch/span
n/
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Proje
ects
E
Equip
pmen
nt
SPA
AN has been assisting David Pero
ovic’s PhD research by
y investigatiing
how well cost-d
distance mea
asures fit his arthropod
d collection data and also
c
or fragmenttation in Australian cottton
with modelling landscape connectivity
nalysis so fa
ar has inclu
uded thousands of calcu
ulations of the
t
landscapes. An
en various maps
m
of ‘cost’. Resultss of this ana
alysis sugge
est
bestt ‘route’ give
that the landsca
ape structure for a disstance of up
p to 3 km from the crrop
ngly affects both pests and beneficcial insects in cotton. The presen
nce
stron
of na
ative vegeta
ation is also very
v
importa
ant in suppo
orting benefic
cial insects.
Co
otton crops can be affected by pests
Example off cost surface model
showing lea
ast cost route
Wire
eless Local Area
A
Netwo
orks (WLANss) are becoming increa
asingly popu
ular
for personal
p
and business use. Desp
pite the ben
nefits that WLANs
W
offerr in
sharred environm
ments, there
e is an incrrease in security risks if a WLAN is
implemented ass part of a network in
nfrastructure
e. This increased risk is
n
and easy
e
accesssibility of the WLAN, with
w
caussed by the broadcast nature
userrs able to acccess the WLAN
W
from anywhere
a
in
n the coverage area. This
open
ns up the way
w for hackkers to comp
promise nettwork integriity while beiing
locatted safely outside the organisation’s perimeterss.
To better
b
protecct valuable resources
r
o a networkk, this projec
on
ct investigattes
locattion based resource access contrrol in additio
on to the encryption
e
a
and
auth
hentication mechanisms
m
commonly used in WLA
ANs. Such a system may
m
provvide a simple yet powe
erful meanss of geograp
phical access control, by
auth
horising userrs based on their physiccal location.
SPA
AN is assistin
ng A/Prof Jo
ohn Louis an
nd Tanja Lan
ng’s project by developiing
a 3D
D model of the
t sample building, Acccess Point (AP) and Pe
ersonal Digital
Assistant (PDA)) locations, AP-PDA
A
nettworks, and statistical an
nalysis.
SP
PAN’s UN
NIX comp
puter,
‘Ne
ewton’, which has se
erved
faitthfully for th
he last five years
y
is soon to be replaced with
w a
new
w machine. This macchine,
to be known as
a ‘Tesla’, will
w be
run
nning a Red
R
Hat Linux
operating
sysstem.
Sp
pecifications
s
for
this
ma
achine incllude two quad
corre 3GHz prrocessors, 32Gb
3
RA
AM and 8 x 1Tb hard
d disc
drives.
Up
pgrades to the
RA
AID storag
ge array will
inccrease its
s capacityy to
approximately
y 16Tb.
Re
emember that SPAN has
tecchnical equipment available
forr researche
ers to bo
orrow,
succh as:
• GPS units
s;
• Nomad rugged PDAss with
inbuilt GPS;
p digital
• Ricoh 8Mp
cameras with
w inbuilt GPS;
G
ok field porta
able
• Toughboo
laptop;
• Spectroradiometers –
400-1100N
Nm and
300-2500N
Nm units;
ultispectral
• MADIS mu
airborne digital
d
imaging
system;
Prrinting:
SP
PAN also prints photo
p
quality conferrence poste
ers up
to 1m wide an
nd many metres
m
lon
ng. High quality full colour
c
A4
4 printing is
s also available,
suitable for thesis prin
nting.
All SPAN’s prrinting is do
one at
verry reasona
able ratess for
CS
SU staff an
nd studentss and
can be charg
ged by intternal
fun
nds transferr.
SPAN
N Newsletter, June 2008
Page 2
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P ects
Proje
Another interessting projecct brought to SPAN by
b Professo
or Dirk Spe
ennemann and Dr Ro
osemary Bllack
invo
Artificial skkyglow is growing
olves light pollution.
p
g
mo
ore intense
e and reacching out fu
urther into the
coun
ntryside due
e to the ove
eruse of ligh
hting and no
on efficient lighting dessigns, particcularly outdo
oor uplift lights.
Onlyy a small pe
ercentage of
o stars are now
n
visible in the more
e populated
d areas of A
Australia, witth astronom
mers
as fa
ar away as Coonabara
abran, NSW
W, affected by
b Sydney’s
s skyglow.
Dirk and Rosem
mary’s proje
ect aims to assess ligh
ht pollution in national parks along
g the eastern seaboard
d of
Austtralia and to
o eventuallyy have thosse with the least light pollution dessignated as the best sttargazing siites.
In ad
ddition, the intention iss to calculate travel times to reach these darkk sky sites frrom urban areas.
a
To accomplish
a
this, SPAN acquired th
he highest resolution
r
im
mage of NA
ASA’s Earth’s City Lightts:
Thiss image wa
as combine
ed with the most
A
rece
ent nationa
al parks lo
ocation data.
popu
ulation denssity datasett was then created
using Census 2006
2
data, since lightts alone
do not
n equate
e to popula
ation levelss. This
imag
ge was the
en reclassified using ArcGIS’s
A
Spatial Analysst to create
e a map of light
pollu
uted areas.
The next step will be to find
f
out how large
the buffer
b
aroun
nd the brigh
ht areas sho
ould be.
To each
e
grid ce
ell we will apply
a
Walke
ers Law,
a forrmula for esstimating skkyglow leve
els. The
final task will be
b to determ
mine driving times
to th
he best sitess.
SPAN Newsletter, Jun
ne 2008
Page 3
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Proje
ects
Data
a
SPA
AN has been assistin
ng Janine Friedrich, a master’s student at
a
Oran
nge, with her
h culturall research project. Janine
J
is applying
a
the
e
conccepts of so
ocial catchm
ments for community
c
participation
n in natura
al
reso
ource management (NR
RM) to identify communities in rurral areas.
Janine gathere
ed data from
m participa
ants attending a series
s of forumss
aime
ed at enga
aging local communitie
es in NRM. After co
onsidering a
num
mber of options it was decided th
hat spider diagrams
d
would be the
e
bestt method to
o visualize the survey data, displaying both the originss
and destination
ns for socia
al and com
mmercial activities, as well as the
e
loca
ation of NR
RM meetings. After many
m
trials and tribula
ations using
g
ArcG
GIS tools and ArcSccripts to lo
ocate the correct too
ol, Hawth’ss
Analysis Toolss for ArcGIS were se
elected. Spider
S
diag
grams were
e
crea
ated for each forum location, em
mploying th
he Animal Movementss
“Con
nvert Locatiions to Path
hs (points to
o lines)” too
ol.
Com
mparisons were
w
then made of Janine’s fiindings aga
ainst socia
al
catcchment area
as previoussly formulate
ed by Peter Smailes. The spider
diag
grams were
e also overllayed with Landcare, Eco-civic regions
r
and
d
catcchment ma
anagement area shap
pefiles. This
T
helped
d to locate
e
overrlaps and discrepanccies in soccial catchm
ment areas
s of where
e
participants atte
ended mee
etings and where
w
they would be prepared to
o
trave
el to for a similar meeting.
Example of one of Janin
ne’s social ca
atchment ma
aps showing travel
t
nd commercial activities and NRM meetings.
destinationss for social an
WEA
ATHER DA
ATA
SPA
AN has just rece
eived
upda
ates to th
he Bureau
u of
Mete
eorology weather data
sets to June 2008. Th
hese
data
asets inco
orporate data
from
m all BoM weather
w
stattions
acro
oss all of Au
ustralia from
m the
date
e of firs
st recordings.
Inclu
uded in thes
se datasetss are
reco
ords for:
• D
Daily minim
mum and
m
maximum te
emperatures;
• D
Daily rainfalll;
• D
Daily evapo
oration;
• H
Hourly temp
perature,
p
pressure an
nd humidity;;
• D
Daily and ho
ourly wind.
CEN
NSUS DATA
A
Altho
ough
mu
uch
of
the
Bureau
Austtralian
of
Statistics’ data is now frreely
available on line, it can
n be
quite
time
e
tedious
s
and
conssuming to download
d
la
arge
volumes or da
ata for mulltiple
sitess. To ass
sist, SPAN has
the
purcchased
2
2006
data
apacks an
nd will also
subsscribe to Table Builder
when this beco
omes availa
able.
Currrent datapac
cks include:
• B
Basic comm
munity profile;
• Indigenous profile;
Time series
s profile;
• T
• P
Place of enu
umeration
p
profile;
• E
Expanded community
c
p
profile;
• W
Working population pro
ofile;
• E
Estimated resident
p
population profile.
p
Plea
ase contactt SPAN for all
yourr data requirements.
SPAN Newsletter, Jun
ne 2008
P
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4