Abstract:
Things surrounding us are unevenly distributed, implying that instead of more or less similar things, there are far more small things than large ones, e.g., far more small cities than large ones (Zipf 1949, Jiang and Jia 2011, Jiang, Yin and Liu 2013). This phenomenon is often referred to as fractals or scaling in the literature (Mandelbrot 1982, Bonner 2006). To better visualize the fractal or scaling structure, we have developed a new classification scheme, namely head/tail breaks (Jiang 2013), which divides things into a few large in the head and many small in the tail, and then recursively continues the dividing process for the head, leading to different classes or hierarchical levels. More importantly, head/tail breaks offers a simple yet relaxed definition of fractals. A set or pattern is fractal if the pattern of far more small things than large ones recurs multiple times within it (Jiang and Yin 2014). This talk offers an overview on the development of head/tail breaks, and illustrates its effectiveness for revealing the underlying fractal or scaling patterns, and discusses some implications on fractal geometry, aesthetics, and computational social science.
Biosketch on the speaker:
Dr. Bin Jiang is Professor in GeoInformatics and Computational Geography at University of Gävle, Sweden. He is also affiliated to Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) at Stockholm via KTH Research School. He worked in the past with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the University College London’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. He is the founder and chair of the International Cartographic Association Commission on Geospatial Analysis and Modeling. He has been coordinating the NordForsk-funded Nordic Network in Geographic Information Science. His research interest is geospatial analysis and modeling, in particular topological analysis of urban street networks in the context of geographic information systems. He is Associate Editor of international journal Computer, Environment and Urban Systems, and Academic Editor of the open access journal PLOS ONE.