Assignment 5: Tornado warning: Where are you on the map?

1. What are the approximate distances (provide a table) of all the research participant’s points to the
MU campus? What analysis technique(s) did you use to answer this question? (Provide a screen
image: Project > Import/Export > Export map to image)

 I used “Multi-ring buffer” tool in order to set the several distance ranges from the Mizzou
campus: The input layer was ‘MU campusprj’ with the projection shape file of ‘ESRI:102009 –
North_America_Lambert_Conformal_Conic’, and the distance between rings was 3km, making
up to 15 rings total. Then, by clicking the ‘join attribute by location’ tab, I integrated the
attributes of the multi-ring buffer layer and research participants attributes. Final attribute table is
as follows:
2. What are the more exact distances (provide a table) between the research participant’s points and
campus? What analysis technique(s) did you use to answer this question? (Provide a screen
image: Project > Import/Export > Export map to image)

 In order to get the more exact distances between research participant’s points and MU campus, I
used the tool function of ‘Distance to nearest hub (points)’ where it creates the line between
source points layer (MUcampus) and Destination hubs layer (research participant points).
Similarly, I recreated the shapefile of MU campus and changed the Assigned Coordinate
Reference System (CRS) into the ‘ESRI:102009 – North_America_Lambert_Conformal_Conic’
so that I can set the distance unit as kilometers. Then, I checked the attribute table and here is the
result:
3. Do you think measuring distances would be useful for your capstone, thesis, or dissertation
research? If so, what methods interest you so far?

 I personally think that measuring the distances would be very useful for my future dissertation
research because it enables me to analyze the data in terms of the spatial information. Especially,
I might utilize the multi-ring buffer function to subdivide the participants into the groups of
different distance scales from the central destination. For example, if I get to conduct a study
whether the visit occurrence and the level of satisfaction towards the Airbnb suits depend on the
distance from the subway stations and how much impact does the distance between subway
stations and Airbnb have on the visit occurrence and customer satisfaction. That way, I can
differentiate all the Airbnb suits in the destination by categorizing them into different distance
segments. I assume that the result would clearly show the different results based on different
distance segments.