Surveying, Mapping and GIS

From my colleagues at the Penn State Department of Geography:

Please share with colleagues or students who might be interested. Note that the conference is open to undergraduate as well as graduate students, and Sunday's session (sponsored by our SWIG -- Supporting Women in Geography--chapter) will focus on professional development/networking; former AAG President Jan Monk will be the keynote speaker.

The CFP is available as a PDF document at http://www.geog.psu.edu/noboundaries/noBoundaries2009_CFP_Poster_final.pdf

Additional information, including updates as available, can be found at http://www.geog.psu.edu/noboundaries

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The graduate students of the Penn State DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY invite graduate & undergraduate students to present their research at our annual interdisciplinary conference, which takes place on Penn State's University Park campus Saturday, February 28-Sunday, March 1, 2009.

We welcome submissions on subjects including:

Politics, economics, and international development; Ecology and environmental sciences; History, culture, and society; Gender, race, class, and sexuality; Urban & rural policy and planning; Hazards, vulnerability, and global change; GIS, spatial analysis, and geovisualization.

What unites us (and hopefully you) is an attention to space and place, scale, and connections between the human and physical realms. If your research intersects with any of the above, please join us! (more

information: www.geog.psu.edu/noboundaries)

PAPER SESSIONS

Paper sessions will be organized along common themes with 20 minute timeslots (15 minute presentations followed by a 5 minutes of Q and A).

If you would like to present your research, send a title and abstract (250 words or less) to noboundaries@psu.edu.

POSTER SESSIONS

Graduate and undergraduate students are invited to present posters. Send a title and abstract (250 words or less) to noboundaries@psu.edu.

SPECIAL SESSION: BALANCING ON THE ACADEMIC LADDER—SUPPORTING WOMEN IN

GEOGRAPHY AND BEYOND

Creating supportive spaces for a diversity of women within academia is an ongoing process that involves personal and political action at a variety of scales. This year’s special session of the no)BOUNDARIES conference looks to acknowledge the successes as well as the challenges faced by those striving to create a more supportive academic environment for all women.

We are soliciting papers for panel sessions on the themes of:

- Life in the Department: Departmental Climate; Mentoring; Access to Information; Student Organizations (e.g. Supporting Women in Geography)

- Life Beyond the Department: Publishing; Work/Life Balance; Career Track; Outreach; Networking

These are merely suggested topics; we welcome any and all contributions.

Balancing on the Academic Ladder will consist of workshops as well as panel sessions to encourage the generation and exchange of creative ideas and strategies. Send paper abstracts to noboundaries@psu.edu.

Submission deadline for abstracts is February 1, 2009

Finally back home, after spending a week on the road for a few meetings around the country, including the NCEES Uniform Procedures and Legislative Guidelines committee meeting, to which I was recently appointed, to discuss the 5-year review of the NCEES Model Law and Rules and other associated charges, and a couple of days at the Pennsylvania Surveyors Conference.

Amazingly, during the course of one week, US Airways managed to lose one of my bags not once, but twice, on my way down to Florida and then on the way back. The bag did finally show up, but not after it took me a few trips to the store to restock on a few sundries, and not without finally arriving with a trashed wheel.


At any rate, it was a great trip, but I am happy to be home again.


The PSLS Conference was particularly enjoyable, I got to see a lot of old friends and colleagues from around the state, with a great turnout from our PSLS Pocono Chapter, as well as a few friends from the RPLS.COM message board, a few folks from PAMAGIC, and there were a bunch of great sessions to attend...

The sessions I attended:

• Introduction to FEMA National Flood Insurance, presented by Wendy Lathrop PLS, CFM - this was a great session, giving an overview of the DFIRM flood maps and data, versus Q3, discussion of the zones and base flood elevations and processes for submitting map amendments, for working with instances of fill and development within a flood zone, and other associated issues - will post more on FEMA, "Map Modernization" and the DFIRM process in the very near future, as it raises a huge, longstanding concern of mine regarding DFIRM data. Umm, on second thought, NO, I won't post more on my issues and concerns on DFIRMs and MapMod - at least until AFTER the upcoming RFP response...
  
  

  Surveyors use floodplain maps to identify flood-prone areas of sites and to determine the extent of those hazards. We will look at how first Housing and
  Urban Development (HUD) and later the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) began mapping flood hazard areas, how the process has changed over the years, and the surveyor’s role in updating and correcting those maps. Regulations and use of the appropriate forms provide practical background when serving our clients and protecting ourselves from liability

• Records Research, presented by Lionel "Buck" Alexander PLS & Charles Colony PE PLS - this was a great session on cadastral research and locating legal records from a variety of sources, not just deed books, but registers of wills, orphans' court, road dockets, and many other sources.
  
  

  This workshop will cover how a deed research is started and completed. It will look at indexing systems, reading and interpreting deeds for chain of title, and the use of plats and plans in deed research, wills, estates, and tax sales as related to deed research will be discussed.

• Survey Measurement Analysis, presented by Chuck Ghilani, Ph.D. - this one featured analysis and propagation of error, and adjustment of error via least squares.
  
  

  This workshop will present and demonstrate the basic statistical analysis necessary to perform least squares adjustments. It will describe methods for
  analyzing and adjusting measurements to account for their errors. This workshop seeks to furnish theoretical understanding and demonstrate computer-aided application to common survey types including level networks, horizontal survey measurement networks, and GPS baseline networks.

• Easements and Rights of Way, presented by Gary Kent - this session gave a great overview of some of the legal aspects of easements and rights-of-way, in how easements and rights-of-way can be formed either through written or unwritten means (such as by necessity), along with case law and other great info.
  
  

  This workshop has the overall objective of helping surveyors more fully understand the types, elements and nature of easements, both written and
  unwritten. Specific performance objectives include improving participants'
  knowledge base such that after attending this workshop, they are able to: define what is an easement, outline the various types of easements, explain the difference between appurtenant easements and easements in gross, explain the difference between an easement and a license, identify the ways in which easements can be created and terminated, identify the types of unwritten easements and explain the nature of each type of unwritten easement.

• Dendrology & Forest Ecology, presented by Tim Pierson Ph.D. & Ken Comstock PLS
  This session provided a great overview of forestry - types of trees, mensuration and valuation of trees, forest growth and sustainability and history of Pennsylvania's forests and forest stewardship.
  
  

  Tree identification and understanding of the uses and values of our timber heritage. Also, the study of forest growth and the relationship of trees to our environment, and to our work as surveyors.

I had a most enjoyable evening last night - several of us met up at TGI Fridays last night, Walter Robillard, Chuck Ghilani and his wife, several folks from PSLS Pocono Chapter - Harry and Bill Schoenagel and Steve Lesher.

After some great conversation over dinner, we went down to Penn State Wilkes-Barre and Mr. Robillard gave a spirited presentation covering quite a few interesting cases, involving evidence, case law, PLSS versus metes-and-bounds, and touched on many issues that drive the need for surveyors, attorneys and other professionals dealing with boundaries need to be aware of and deal with. It really drove home the message of doing due dilligence and for forging partnerships with our fellow professionals in the legal profession. With a good 30 to 40 people in attendance, including the Penn State student surveying constituent, it was a great turnout.

• Clark on Surveying and Boundaries
• Evidence and Procedures for Boundary Location
• Brown's Boundary Control and Legal Principles