Mark Altaweel

Mark Altaweel is a Reader in Near Eastern Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, having held previous appointments and joint appointments at the University of Chicago, University of Alaska, and Argonne National Laboratory. Mark has an undergraduate degree in Anthropology and Masters and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.
Local spatial autocorrelation for percent Republican, presidential election 1976. Map of the Cincinnati metropolitan area from Kinsella et al., 2015.

GIS, Elections, and Politics

Mark Altaweel

Political geography focuses on past election cycles in order to look at how voting patterns develop and why. Mark Altaweel discusses how GIS can be used to study those patterns.

QR code corresponding to the pane of a geosite. Source: Martínez-Grata, Goy, & Chimaera, 2013.

GIS and Quick Response Codes

Mark Altaweel

As smart phones and Quick Response Codes (QR codes) have become ubiquitous, it perhaps should not be surprising we are beginning to see applications integrating QR code data with GIS.

Geographic pattern of illegal border crossings. Source: Rossmo, et al., 2008).

Using GIS to Map Drug Trafficking

Mark Altaweel

GIS has significantly aided police in crime prevention, notably in fighting drug trafficking.

GIS and Small Business Planning

Mark Altaweel

Small businesses increasingly use GIS for spatial analyses like kernel density estimation or Monte Carlo simulation to boost their success.

A thematic map of an underground mine and ZigBee node positions in ArcGIS. Source: Moridi et al, 2015.

GIS and Underground Mining

Mark Altaweel

GIS has been utilized to monitor tunnels and areas explored, as it provides both 3D visualization and abilities to integrate various sets of data for visual and quantitative analysis.