Month: December 2012

2013 Geodesign International Conference to be Held 28-29 October 2013 in Beijing, China

/ Matt Artz

posterThe 2013 Geodesign International Conference will be held in October 28-29, 2013 in Beijing, China. This conference will be the joint effort of Peking University and Esri, building upon recent advances in the US and elsewhere.

Many internationally renowned researchers, such as Carl Steinitz, Stephen Ervin, Bill Miller, Mike Goodchild, Ian Bishop, Christophe Girot, Henk Scholten, Doug Olson, as well as many other geodesign-related professionals will be involved in the conference as keynote speakers or participants.

For more information, visit the 2013 Geodesign International Conference web site.

Spatial Management of Marine Resources can Enhance the Recovery of Predators and Avoid Local Depletion of Forage Fish

/ Matt Artz

Conservation LettersConservation Letters, Volume 5, Issue 6, pages 486–492, December 2012

Margit Eero, Morten Vinther, Holger Haslob, Bastian Huwer, Michele Casini, Marie Storr-Paulsen, and Friedrich W. Köster

“The eastern Baltic cod stock has recently started to recover, after two decades of severe depletion, however with unexpected side effects. The stock has not re-occupied its former wide distribution range, but remains concentrated in a limited area in the southern Baltic Sea. The biomass of forage fish, i.e., sprat and herring, is historic low in this area, which in combination with increasing cod stock results in locally high predation mortality of forage fish and cannibalism of cod. In line with low prey availability, body weight and nutritional condition of cod drastically declined. In the southern Baltic Sea, cod competes with pelagic fisheries for the limited resources of sprat and herring, while the largest biomass of these species is currently found outside the distribution range of cod. Accounting for spatial overlap between species is crucial in developing ecosystem based fisheries management to enhance the recovery of predator stocks.”

Risk Map and Spatial Determinants of Pancreas Disease in the Marine Phase of Norwegian Atlantic Salmon Farming Sites

/ Matt Artz

bmclogoBMC Veterinary Research 2012, 8:172

Saraya Tavornpanich, Mathilde Paul, Hildegunn Viljugrein, David Abrial, Daniel Jimenez, and Edgar Brun

“Background: Outbreaks of pancreas disease (PD) greatly contribute to economic losses due to high mortality, control measures, interrupted production cycles, reduced feed conversion and flesh quality in the aquaculture industries in European salmon-producing countries. The overall objective of this study was to evaluate an effect of potential factors contributing to PD occurrence accounting for spatial congruity of neighboring infected sites, and then create quantitative risk maps for predicting PD occurrence. The study population included active Atlantic salmon farming sites located in the coastal area of 6 southern counties of Norway (where most of PD outbreaks have been reported so far) from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2010.

An interpolated map presenting PD predicted probability based on the final model of the present study.

An interpolated map presenting PD predicted probability based on the final model of the present study.

“Results: Using a Bayesian modeling approach, with and without spatial component, the final model included site latitude, site density, PD history, and local biomass density. Clearly, the PD infected sites were spatially clustered; however, the cluster was well explained by the covariates of the final model. Based on the final model, we produced a map presenting the predicted probability of the PD occurrence in the southern part of Norway. Subsequently, the predictive capacity of the final model was validated by comparing the predicted probabilities with the observed PD outbreaks in 2011.

“Conclusions: The framework of the study could be applied for spatial studies of other infectious aquatic animal diseases.”

Abstracts Sought for 2013 URISA GIS in Public Health Conference

/ Matt Artz

URISAAbstract submissions for URISA’s GIS in Public Health Conference will be accepted until January 31, 2013. The conference will take place in Miami, Florida, June 17-20, 2013 and is chaired by long-time committee member, Jason K. Blackburn, PhD, Emerging Pathogens Institute & Department of Geography at the University of Florida. This biennial conference has been previously presented in New Orleans (2007), Providence (2009) and Atlanta (2011) and was established to provide an open and participatory forum for advancing the effective use of spatial information and geographic information system technologies across the domains of public health, healthcare and community health preparedness.

The educational program is developed through a peer review of submissions received through the Call for Presentations. The broad conference theme for the 2013 event is: Geospatial tools for understanding health issues related to the environment, human population, and animal populations and the intersections of the three.

Individuals are asked to categorize their abstract submissions according to the thematic areas noted below:

Disease Ecology & Environment

  • Disease Ecology – such topics as vector ecology, parasitic diseases, pathogen reservoirs and pathogen persistence
  • One Health – Human Health topics (chronic diseases like cancer, obesity & diabetes and HIV), other communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases and public health applications; Built Environment & Neighborhood Effects (including food environment); Animal Health (livestock and wildlife diseases) and Zoonoses (human/livestock/wildlife interface).
  • Environmental monitoring including water quality, pollution, waste management, and air quality

Geospatial/GIS Applications & Techniques

  • Spatio-temporal modeling – topics such as prospective surveillance (syndromic surveillance) and retrospective analysis
  • Data mining
  • Predictive modeling – spatial regression; ecological niche & species distribution modeling; and other modeling techniques/methods
  • Web-based applications – participatory; Mobile GIS; spatial decision support systems

Health Care Services, Delivery & Access

  • Health services – health care delivery; health care access; health care disparities; program monitoring and evaluation; community epidemiology and public health preparedness

The committee encourages the submission of individual papers, sessions, and posters until January 31, 2013. The link to the Call for Presentations is: http://www.urisa.org/2013health_call

[Source: URISA press release]

Comparison of Geostatistical Interpolation and Remote Sensing Techniques for Estimating Long-Term Exposure to Ambient PM2.5 Concentrations across the Continental United States

/ Matt Artz

Environmental Health PerspectivesEnvironmental Health Perspectives, 120:1727–1732 (2012)

Seung-Jae Lee, Marc L. Serre, Aaron van Donkelaar, Randall V. Martin, Richard T. Burnett, and Michael Jerrett

“Background: A better understanding of the adverse health effects of chronic exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) requires accurate estimates of PM2.5 variation at fine spatial scales. Remote sensing has emerged as an important means of estimating PM2.5 exposures, but relatively few studies have compared remote-sensing estimates to those derived from monitor-based data.

“Objective: We evaluated and compared the predictive capabilities of remote sensing and geostatistical interpolation.

Map of the United States indicating the month of the year when the monthly average PM2.5 concentration was highest; circles indicate individual monitoring sites.

Map of the United States indicating the month of the year when the monthly average PM2.5 concentration was highest; circles indicate individual monitoring sites.

“Methods: We developed a space–time geostatistical kriging model to predict PM2.5 over the continental United States and compared resulting predictions to estimates derived from satellite retrievals.

“Results: The kriging estimate was more accurate for locations that were about 100 km from a monitoring station, whereas the remote sensing estimate was more accurate for locations that were > 100 km from a monitoring station. Based on this finding, we developed a hybrid map that combines the kriging and satellite-based PM2.5 estimates.

“Conclusions: We found that for most of the populated areas of the continental United States, geostatistical interpolation produced more accurate estimates than remote sensing. The differences between the estimates resulting from the two methods, however, were relatively small. In areas with extensive monitoring networks, the interpolation may provide more accurate estimates, but in the many areas of the world without such monitoring, remote sensing can provide useful exposure estimates that perform nearly as well.”

Spatial Analysis of the Crime Distribution: A Case Study in João Pessoa-PB-Brazil

/ Matt Artz

8th FIG Regional Conference 2012: Surveying towards Sustainable Development, Montevideo, Uruguay, 26 – 29 November 2012

Anderson Marcolino de SANTANA and Lucilene Antunes Correia Marques de SÁ

“Technological advancement the information has spread with great speed. This fact has contributed to the violence news become more frequent in the media. An important characteristic for the analysis location crime is understood that the event occurs at locations not accidental or unexpected. It’s this feature that makes maximum Cartography is a powerful tool for research, it involves location. Thus, the article aims at reporting the experience of understanding aimed at mapping the spatial distribution of the occurrences crimes of violence against property in João Pessoa – Paraíba – Brazil, in the month of May 2012, presenting the phenomenon in thematic maps, which show the points where there are crimes with firearms and knives, as well as the map of high-density areas of crime. Specifically with the conclusion of this article can be identified as the cartography is useful for spatial analysis and may subsidize actions of municipal, state and federal, and local civil society, aimed at combating violence and crime in the city.

Map Kernel: Violent Crime sheets in the city of João Pessoa.

Map Kernel: Violent Crime sheets in the city of João Pessoa.

“The results shows that the mapping crime or any other phenomenon is important because it allows to know how it is distributed through space, and thus able to monitor mitigation policies. Therefore, the Cartography occupies an important place among the sciences to help fight crime, since based on a map with the spatial distribution of crimes in an area can provide efficient operational safety features. By analyzing the maps it is clear that the amount of crimes using firearms was very big, so it would be interesting to disarmament campaigns in neighborhoods, followed by installation of core security on site, minimizing the increase in cases of crimes violence against property. Cartography and crime mapping analysis can assist in planning, and implementation of action plans to minimize the cost of operations and more effectively, since the study area is already known and the whole strategy can be applied.”