A number of friends and associates, for whom we have the greatest respect, say this is one of the best, most enriching conferences in the U.S.  It is not cheap, but there are vacation condos to be found in the area that would help to make this affordable.

We are back with our 4th UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference on Human Complex Systems.
from Wednesday April 25, 2007 through Sunday April 29, 2007.

We look forward to
another cross-disciplinary gathering of social scientists who employ
cutting-edge agent-based computational modeling and related
computational ideas and methods in their research and teaching. As in
past years, dozens of presenters from numerous disciplines are
presenting. We are also hosting evening panels, a live simulation, and
opportunities for networking and relaxation amid gorgeous surroundings.

Advancing Agent Modeling in the Social Sciences


The conference is a forum for sharing the most recent advances — in
theory, methodology and application – in the area of agent modeling
throughout the social sciences (e.g., Anthropology, Communication
Studies, Economics, Geography, History, Political Science, Sociology,
Urban Planning). We also welcome social scientists in professional
schools (e.g., Business, Education, International Relations, Public
Health, Public Policy, Social Welfare) and in the public and private
sectors. Researchers and theorists in Psychology, Media Studies and
social aspects of Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics
and related disciplines also welcome!

For a paper presentation, authors present for 20 minutes and receive an
additional 10 minutes for Q&A. We also welcome 90-120 minute
symposium proposals consisting of 3-4 individual papers on a related
topic of inquiry. Finally, we are open to someone wishing to organize
an evening panel discussion on a �hot topic� in agent modeling.

We're not wild about using “image” as a verb, but the conference looks promising and certainly appropriate for those journalists who understand that we have to learn to tell stories with more than just words and pictures.  Yup, “HCI” is where it's at, or where it's going to be at.

Imaging the City:

Recent
technological developments mark the city as a central and perhaps
special space for human-computer interaction research and practice.
Visions of ubiquitous computing, the resonance of the ‘urban probe’,
and the proliferation of interactive mapping services speak to the
significance of the urban landscape to studies of Human-Computer
Interaction. But such visions and technologies require, produce and
reproduce images of urban space that influence what these systems, and
our interactions with them, are and might be. Developing and employing
technologies for the urban environment requires visualization
techniques that both reflect and challenge how we image, and
consequently imagine, the city.

• How do we represent the city in HCI, and how do these representations inform HCI research and practice?
• What
  kinds of technological devices, services, and platforms support imaging
  the city now and might be created in the near future?
• How are and might these new representations of the city and urban imaging technologies be used for social and political ends?
• What new methods are required for developing technologies that image the city in new ways?
• What can we learn from the urban experience to design stronger representations and interfaces within HCI research and practice?

A few days back we reported on a verbal dust-up betweeen ASU (and IAJ's) Prof. Steve Doig and the PIO for the Maricopa County's district attorney's office.  Seems the spokesman didn't think much of mere “student journalists” wanting to attend the DA's press conferences.  (Of course, journalists are little more than just citizens doing a special task, but that's a sub-set discussion for another day.)  In the end, changes have been made; the DA's public non-information officer has been redeployed.

Spokesman is reassigned after dispute with ASU prof

The Rrove blog — no, no, not THAT Rove (different spelling) — delivers a round-up review of nine sites related to community mapping tools.  See http://www.rrove.com/blog/2006/12/04/9-awesome-community-mapping-websites/

Disclosure: Rrove.com
plays in the community mapping space. This post aims to highlight the
innovations and the usefulness that others have made in this game. We
haven’t added ourselves to this list – if you want to know more about
Rrove, click here.

A
community mapping website, in our definition, is a service that gets
its members to map and define places. Through crowd-sourcing, these
sites are building a database/directory of local and nearby locations
that their users can discover and visit. Why is this important? We all
know that search advertising is the fastest growing industry in the
Internet. Within that market, local search is the up-and-comer. In the
next few years, it will be the largest segment within search!

It’s
refreshing to see how others have approached community mapping. Some
have focused on map creation while others do it through mobile apps.
More than that, some players have mapped the community of users to map
the physical community (i.e. neighborhoods). Here’s how nine websites
(all free) are doing it, what makes them awesome and how you can use
their services in your Internet life.

It was the second year of the national crime mapping conference when we realized that, hey, there's a lot of not-just-good-but-great analytic work going in the then-young profession of crime analysis.  Seven years later, it's just getting more impressive. 

If you can only get to one national conference a year (we assume you're already going to the NICAR meetings), do this one every other year and the Special Libraries Association convention on the off year.  NOTE: NO NO NO registration fee!

Registration for the Ninth Crime Mapping Research Conference has opened.  This year, there will be no conference
registration fees but registration is still required.  Preliminary conference details available on the
MAPS website: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/maps/pittsburgh2007/index.html

The
Ninth Crime Mapping Research Conference will take place March 28-31, 2007 at the
Omni William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Agenda:

The conference will include a full
compliment of workshops, panels and plenary sessions. The main plenary session is entitled GPS in a Crime Analysis Context-
Practitioner Consideration, Research Needs.” Panel
session topics will include uses of spatial data analysis and GIS in
corrections, parole, and probation, geography and crime, geographic profiling,
offender travel behavior, NIBRS/incident-based data and mapping, international
programs, impact of Hurricane Katrina on crime, crime analysis, spatial data
analysis, policing issues, managing sex offenders, travel demand modeling, and
more.  The conference also includes a map competition, and provides an
excellent opportunity for researches and practitioners to network with each
other.

Sigh.  Another skirmish in the on-going battle to convince public officials that they work for the people, in the broadest of terms.

County attorney official to get counseling for language

For more see http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1201dispute1201.html