A Case Study of the 2013 Boston Marathon by Devlin Quinla
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Assessing the Value of Crowdsourced Data in Aiding First Responders: A Case Study of the 2013 Boston Marathon by Devlin Quinlan Howieson A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the USC Graduate School University of Southern California In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science (Geographic Information Science and Technology) August 2018 i Copyright © 2018 by Devlin Howieson ii To my children: Donovan, Fiona, and Malcolm iii Table of Contents List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... viii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ ix List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................... x Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... xi Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Definitions...........................................................................................................................1 1.2. Motivation ...........................................................................................................................3 1.3. Objectives ...........................................................................................................................4 1.4. Boston Marathon and Bombing Events ..............................................................................4 1.5. Study Area ..........................................................................................................................6 1.6. Thesis Outline .....................................................................................................................7 Related Work.................................................................................................................. 9 2.1. Crowdsourced Data .............................................................................................................9 2.1.1. OpenStreetMap ........................................................................................................10 2.1.2. Twitter ......................................................................................................................10 2.2. Event Detection .................................................................................................................11 2.3. Terrorism...........................................................................................................................19 2.4. Data Quality ......................................................................................................................20 2.5. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................21 iv Methodology ................................................................................................................ 22 3.1. Twitter Data Analysis .......................................................................................................22 3.1.1. Obtaining IRB Approval and Requesting Twitter Data ...........................................23 3.1.2. Twitter Data Receipt, Conversion, and Filtering .....................................................23 3.2. Keyword Development .....................................................................................................26 3.2.1. Text Analysis ...........................................................................................................26 3.2.2. Interviews .................................................................................................................26 3.2.3. Finalize Keywords and Search Tweets ....................................................................29 3.3. Spatial and Temporal Analysis .........................................................................................29 3.3.1 Kernel Density .......................................................................................................29 3.3.2 Spatio-Temporal Analysis .....................................................................................30 Results .......................................................................................................................... 31 4.1. Establishing Keywords .....................................................................................................31 4.1.1. Text Analysis ...........................................................................................................31 4.1.2. Interview Responses ................................................................................................40 4.1.3. Keywords for Searches ............................................................................................41 4.2. Spatial Analysis ................................................................................................................44 4.2.1. Daily Results ............................................................................................................44 4.2.2. Spatial Analysis Takeaways ....................................................................................54 4.3. Spatio-Temporal Analysis ................................................................................................54 4.3.1. Analysis of Monday’s Tweets .................................................................................54 4.3.2. Spatio-Temporal Analysis Takeaways ....................................................................61 v Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 64 5.1. Findings.............................................................................................................................64 5.2. Study Limitations ..............................................................................................................66 5.2.1. Data Limitations.......................................................................................................67 5.2.2. Method Limitations ..................................................................................................68 5.3. Moving Forward ...............................................................................................................69 References ..................................................................................................................................... 71 Appendix A: Interview Protocol ................................................................................................... 74 vi List of Figures Figure 1 Events Surrounding the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing .............................................. 6 Figure 2 Twenty-Five Mile Radius Around Boston Marathon Finish Line ................................... 7 Figure 3 Tweets in JSON Format ................................................................................................. 24 Figure 4 Geotagged Tweets Monday 15 April- Friday 19 April 2013 ......................................... 25 Figure 5 Density of Tweets on Monday 15 April 2013 ................................................................ 45 Figure 6 Density of Tweets on Tuesday 16 April 2013 ................................................................ 47 Figure 7 Density of Tweets on Wednesday 17 April 2013 ........................................................... 49 Figure 8 Density of Tweets on Thursday 18 April 2013 .............................................................. 51 Figure 9 Density of Tweets on Friday 19 April 2013 ................................................................... 53 Figure 10 First Tweets Mentioning Events, 15 April 2013 .......................................................... 55 Figure 11 Monday Tweets From First 15 Minutes After Bombing .............................................. 56 Figure 12 Monday Tweets Between 16 Minutes and 1 Hour After Bombing .............................. 58 Figure 13 Monday Tweets Over an Hour After Bombing ............................................................ 60 Figure 14 Tweets Within First Hour Containing Fuck ................................................................. 62 vii List of Tables Table 1 Tweets by Day Following Boston Marathon Bombing 2013 .......................................... 24 Table 2 First Responder Interviewees........................................................................................... 27 Table 3 Monday’s Ten Most Frequent and Words of Interest ...................................................... 32 Table 4 Tuesday’s Ten Most Frequent and Words of Interest ...................................................... 33 Table 5 Wednesday’s Ten Most Frequent and Words of Interest ................................................ 35 Table 6 Thursday’s Ten Most Frequent and Words of Interest .................................................... 36 Table 7 Friday’s Ten Most Frequent and Words of Interest ......................................................... 37 Table 8 Combined Days Ten Most Frequent and Words