Creating story maps for learning purposes: The Black Death Atlas

In the current technological context new forms of mapmaking emerge. An increasingly common one produces story maps, maps that are shown with synchronized explanatory text, to visualize events in a spatial context. Story maps could be defined as the explicit display of such spatial and temporal landmarks on the grounds that a story is constructed. In this paper we present a story map oriented to pedagogical purposes. We have compiled an atlas displaying the expansion of the Black Death in Europe between 1346 and 1347, when the largest epidemic outbreak in the History of Europe ravaged the continent. To depict this event, we have used CartoDB, Odyssey and some other Web interactive tools to create eight interactive story maps gathered in an online atlas. The work was made in the frame of an end-of-degree Project (Geomatics Engineering, in Universidad Politécnica de Madrid). By now, it can be found in: http://clarar92.wix.com/atlasdelapestenegr

A Novel Sequence-Based Antigenic Distance Measure for H1N1, with Application to Vaccine Effectiveness and the Selection of Vaccine Strains

H1N1 influenza causes substantial seasonal illness and was the subtype of the 2009 influenza pandemic. Precise measures of antigenic distance between the vaccine and circulating virus strains help researchers design influenza vaccines with high vaccine effectiveness. We here introduce a sequence-based method to predict vaccine effectiveness in humans. Historical epidemiological data show that this sequence-based method is as predictive of vaccine effectiveness as hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay data from ferret animal model studies. Interestingly, the expected vaccine effectiveness is greater against H1N1 than H3N2, suggesting a stronger immune response against H1N1 than H3N2. The evolution rate of hemagglutinin in H1N1 is also shown to be greater than that in H3N2, presumably due to greater immune selection pressure.Comment: 26 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, supplemen

Cartografías de la COVID-19 y divisiones funcionales del territorio: un análisis de la evolución de la pandemia basada en las Zonas Básicas de Salud (ZBS) en Castilla y León (España)

In the face of the confusion and uncertainty that COVID-19 has caused over the last year, Geography has proven to be a useful aid in the interpretation of the spatial dynamics that explain the transmission of the virus. Applied cartography and GIS analysis of epidemiological data have been consolidated as essential tools for interpreting the health crisis. This paper explores the usefulness of maps for the study of the evolution of the pandemic in Castile and Leon, one of the Spanish regions with the highest levels of infection and mortality. Based on the statistical variables of sick and dead people at the scale of the Basic Health Area (BHA), a first analytical approach is carried out by means of a sequence of dynamic maps during the first wave. Afterwards, a systematic study is carried out using thematic mapping for the period of the three waves, a period between March 2020 and March 2021. The analysis unravels the differential impact of the disease between rural and urban areas and reveals the problems of the mismatch between the functional divisions of the territory (BHA, as units of health analysis) and the scale of administrative management (municipalities, as the effective scale of action).Ante el desconcierto y el desconocimiento generado en el último año por la COVID-19, la Geografía ha demostrado su utilidad para la interpretación de las dinámicas espaciales que explican la transmisión del virus. La cartografía aplicada y el análisis de datos epidemiológicos mediante SIG se han consolidado como herramientas esenciales para interpretar la crisis sanitaria. Este trabajo explora la utilidad de los mapas para el estudio de la evolución de la pandemia en Castilla y León, una de las regiones españolas con mayores niveles de contagio y mortalidad. A partir de las variables estadísticas de enfermos y fallecidos en la escala de la Zona Básica de Salud (ZBS), se efectúa una primera aproximación analítica mediante una secuencia de mapas dinámicos durante la primera ola. Posteriormente, se realiza un estudio sistemático mediante cartografía temática para las tres olas, entre marzo de 2020 y marzo de 2021. El análisis muestra el impacto diferencial de la enfermedad entre espacios rurales y núcleos urbanos y revela los problemas del desajuste entre las divisiones funcionales del territorio (ZBS, como unidades de análisis sanitario) y la escala de la gestión administrativa (municipios, como escala efectiva de actuación)

Survey on geographic visual display techniques in epidemiology: Taxonomy and characterization

Many works have been done on the topic of Geographic Visual Display with different objectives and approaches. There are studies to compare the traditional cartography techniques (the traditional term of Geographic Visual Display (GVD) without Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)) to Modern GIS which are also known as Geo-visualization, some literature differentiates and highlight the commonalities of features and architectures of different Geographic Visual Display tools (from layers and clusters to dot and color and more). Furthermore, with the existence of more advanced tools which support data exploration, few tasks are done to evaluate how those tools are used to handle complex and multivariate spatial-temporal data. Several test on usability and interactivity of tools toward user's needs or preferences, some even develop frameworks that address user's concern in a wide array of tasks, and others prove how these tools are able to stimulate the visual thought process and help in decision making or event prediction amongst decision-makers. This paper surveyed and categorized these research articles into 2 categories: Traditional Cartography (TC) and Geo-visualization (G). This paper will classify each category by their techniques and tasks that contribute to the significance of data representation in Geographic Visual Display and develop perspectives of each area and evaluating trends of Geographic Visual Display Techniques. Suggestions and ideas on what mechanisms can be used to improve and diversify Geographic Visual Display Techniques are provided at the end of this survey

Bridging research and dissemination in the CoViD-19 era: a WebGIS dashboard for the Autonomous Province of Trento (Italy)

The paper presents an ongoing project devoted to the study, the analysis and the representation of epidemiological data related to CoViD-19 spread in the territory of the Province of Trento (Italy), both for scientific and communication purposes. In this broader context, the construction of a digital cartography tool as a WebGIS to allow local communities understanding of epidemiological spread is presented. Data have been supplied by the local Provincial Health Authority; statistic have been processed in order to develop municipality scale vector polygonal coropleth and point maps in order to show affected, health and death rate distribution. A timeline allows the representation of changes and dynamics from Spring 2020 to the current date. The database provides “on-the-fly” data to the production scripts of maps and time charts. These scripts querying the database produce a geographic file in the geojson standard interchange format. This file is read by the javascript scripts based on the leaflet libraries for the production of the final maps. In a similar process, scripts based on the chart.js library produce the graph of the data temporal variation, automatically reading dates and interval time of analysis. A custom procedure was developed to allow the periodic update of the dataset. New information is added to the database by uploading an external spreadsheet. The study presents the methodology to develop and assess the WebGIS for managing, visualize and analyse Coronavirus diffusion. Future implementation of the WebGIS will expand the used data and allow the comparison with social and environmental factors

Dashboard COMPRIME_COMPRI_MOv: Multiscalar Spatio-Temporal Monitoring of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Portugal

Due to its novelty, the recent pandemic of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which is associated with the spread of the new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), triggered the public’s interest in accessing information, demonstrating the importance of obtaining and analyzing credible and updated information from an epidemiological surveillance context. For this purpose, health authorities, international organizations, and university institutions have published online various graphic and cartographic representations of the evolution of the pandemic with daily updates that allow the almost real-time monitoring of the evolutionary behavior of the spread, lethality, and territorial distribution of the disease. The purpose of this article is to describe the technical solution and the main results associated with the publication of the COMPRIME_COMPRI_MOv dashboard for the dissemination of information and multi-scale knowledge of COVID-19. Under two rapidly implementing research projects for innovative solutions to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, promoted in Portugal by the FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology), a website was created. That website brings together a diverse set of variables and indicators in a dynamic and interactive way that reflects the evolutionary behavior of the pandemic from a multi-scale perspective, in Portugal, constituting itself as a system for monitoring the evolution of the pandemic. In the current situation, this type of exploratory solutions proves to be crucial to guarantee everyone’s access to information while simultaneously emerging as an epidemiological surveillance tool that is capable of assisting decision-making by public authorities with competence in defining control policies and fight the spread of the new coronavirusinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Cartography, Discourse, and Disease: How Maps Shape Scientific Thought about Disease

This research examines public health mapping over two time periods, 1944-1954 and 2000-2004 and explores how mapping disease shaped scientific knowledge about disease. During World War II, the Atlas of Diseases was produced by cartographers and geographers well versed in the subjectivity of maps. Today professionals in a variety of disciplines use digital mapping software to produce maps of disease. This research takes a look at how public health maps and mapping of disease have changed over time and discusses the political implications of public health mapping as an aspect of geographic governance