The theory of affordances

Introduction - after the science question in feminism. Part 1 Science: feminism confronts the sciences how the women's movement benefits science - two views why \"physics\" is a bad model for physics. Part 2 Epistemology: what is feminist epistemology \"strong objectivity\" and socially situated knowledge feminist epistemology in and after the enlightenment. Part 3 \"Others\": \"...and race?\" - the science question in global feminism common histories, common destinies - science in the first and third worlds \"real science\" thinking from the perspective of lesbian lives reinventing ourselves as other Conclusion - what is a feminist science.

Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women's Lives

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

In this provocative book, Barwise and Perry tackle the slippery subject of \"meaning, \" a subject that has long vexed linguists, language philosophers, and logicians.

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Situations and Attitudes.

The article reviews the book "Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other," by Sherry Turkle.

Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other.

GIS eased into geography without much discord until the 1990s, when a flurry of commentaries about the relative merits of GIS made their way into a number of geographic journals. The ensuing decade was marked by varying degrees of friction between GIS practi- tioners and their critics in human geography. Despite the methodological chasm between the two groups, little discussion of the implications of these differences has ensued. This article fills that gap with a historiographic examination of critiques of GIS. Critiques of GIS are organized into three waves or periods, each characterized by distinct arguments. The first wave, from 1990 to 1994, was marked by the intensity of debate as well as an emphasis on positivism. By 1995, the conversation waned as the number of critics grew, while GIS practitioners increasingly declined comment. This second wave marked the initiation of a greater degree of co-operation between GIS scholars and their critics, however. With the inception of the National Center for Geographic Information Analysis (NCGIA) Initiative 19, intended to study the social effects of GIS, many critics began to work closely with their peers in GIS. In the third wave, critiques of GIS expressed a greater commitment to the technology. Throughout the decade, debates about the technology shifted from simple attacks on positivism to incorporating more subtle analyses of the effects of the technology. These critiques have had considerable effect on the academic GIS community but are presently constrained by limited communication with GIS practitioners because of the absence of a common vocabulary. I argue that, if critiques of GIS are to be effective, they must find a way to address GIS researchers, using the language and conceptual framework of the discipline.

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Trouble in the heartland: GIS and its critics in the 1990s

Background
There is increasing interest in examining the influence of the built environment on physical activity. High-resolution data in a geographic information system is increasingly being used to measure salient aspects of the built environment and studies often use circular or road network buffers to measure land use around an individual's home address. However, little research has examined the extent to which the selection of circular or road network buffers influences the results of analysis.

The objective of this study is to examine the influence of land use type (residential, commercial, recreational and park land and institutional land) on 'walking for leisure' and 'walking for errands' using 1 km circular and line-based road network buffers. Data on individual walking patterns is obtained from a survey of 1311 respondents in greater Vancouver and respondent's postal code centroids were used to construct the individual buffers. Logistic regression was used for statistical analysis.

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Comparing circular and network buffers to examine the influence of land use on walking for leisure and errands

Area-based deprivation indices (ABDIs) have become a common tool with which to investigate the patterns and magnitude of socioeconomic inequalities in health. ABDIs are also used as a proxy for individual socioeconomic status. Despite their widespread use, comparably less attention has been focused on their geographic variability and practical concerns surrounding the Modifiable Area Unit Problem (MAUP) than on the individual attributes that make up the indices. Although scale is increasingly recognized as an important factor in interpreting mapped results among population health researchers, less attention has been paid specifically to ABDI and scale. In this paper, we highlight the effect of scale on indices by mapping ABDIs at multiple census scales in an urban area. In addition, we compare self-rated health data from the Canadian Community Health Survey with ABDIs at two census scales. The results of our analysis confirm the influence of spatial extent and scale on mapping population health—with potential implications for health policy implementation and resource distribution.

Deprivation Indices, Population Health and Geography: An Evaluation of the Spatial Effectiveness of Indices at Multiple Scales

Cost containment typically involves rationalizing healthcare service delivery through centralization of services to achieve economies of scale. Hospitals are frequently the chosen site of cost containment and rationalization especially in rural areas. Socio-demographic and geographic characteristics make hospital service allocation more difficult in rural and remote regions. This research presents a methodology to model rational catchments or service areas around rural hospitals – based on travel time. This research employs a vector-based GIS network analysis to model catchments that better represent access to hospital-based healthcare services in British Columbia's rural and remote areas. The tool permits modelling of alternate scenarios in which access to different baskets of services (e.g. rural maternity care or ICU) are assessed. In addition, estimates of the percentage of population that is served – or not served -within specified travel times are calculated. The modelling tool described is useful for defining true geographical catchments around rural hospitals as well as modelling the percentage of the population served within certain time guidelines (e.g. one hour) for specific health services. It is potentially valuable to policy makers and health services allocation specialists.

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Defining rational hospital catchments for non-urban areas based on travel-time

Ensuring equity of access to primary health care (PHC) across Canada is a continuing challenge, especially in rural and remote regions. Despite considerable attention recently by the World Health Organization, Health Canada and other health policy bodies, there has been no nation-wide study of potential (versus realized) spatial access to PHC. This knowledge gap is partly attributable to the difficulty of conducting the analysis required to accurately measure and represent spatial access to PHC. The traditional epidemiological method uses a simple ratio of PHC physicians to the denominator population to measure geographical access. We argue, however, that this measure fails to capture relative access. For instance, a person who lives 90 minutes from the nearest PHC physician is unlikely to be as well cared for as the individual who lives more proximate and potentially has a range of choice with respect to PHC providers. In this article, we discuss spatial analytical techniques to measure potential spatial access. We consider the relative merits of kernel density estimation and a gravity model. Ultimately, a modified version of the gravity model is developed for this article and used to calculate potential spatial access to PHC physicians in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. This model incorporates a distance decay function that better represents relative spatial access to PHC. The results of the modified gravity model demonstrate greater nuance with respect to potential access scores. While variability in access to PHC physicians across the test province of Nova Scotia is evident, the gravity model better accounts for real access by assuming that people can travel across artificial census boundaries. We argue that this is an important innovation in measuring potential spatial access to PHC physicians in Canada. It contributes more broadly to assessing the success of policy mandates to enhance the equitability of PHC provisioning in Canadian provinces.

Nadine Schuurman

Papers

Trouble in the heartland: GIS and its critics in the 1990s

Comparing circular and network buffers to examine the influence of land use on walking for leisure and errands

Deprivation Indices, Population Health and Geography: An Evaluation of the Spatial Effectiveness of Indices at Multiple Scales

Defining rational hospital catchments for non-urban areas based on travel-time

Measuring potential spatial access to primary health care physicians using a modified gravity model