Design and Development a Novel Web-based GIS for Surveillance and Monitoring of Diarrhea by Using of Free Open Source Software

The prevalence of diarrhea is viewed as a serious problem greatly affecting the society. The plan to prevent and control the spread of diarrhea requires large amounts of data for data processing. Disease prevalence situation is still represented in elusive form. Therefore; to create people understands of diarrhea conditions; a Web-based GIS was developed for surveillance and monitoring of diarrhea in Mahasarakham Province. The main gold of this study was to represent statistical data on diarrhea collected during 2008-2011 by applying Free Open Source Software GIS technology for surveillance and monitoring of diarrhea in Mahasarakham Province. Besides; it aimed to represent novel spatial data and attribute data on diarrhea via internet network; facilitating data view in map form as well as planning surveillance and monitoring of diarrhea with GIS technology. Results found that a novel Web-based GIS user-friendly system for surveillance and monitoring of diarrhea is efficient and practical. People can access data at anytime from anywhere with an internet connection. Keywords: Web-based GIS; Surveillance and monitoring; Diarrhea; Free Open Source Softwar

Modeling of the resort and recreational system of towns and district centres with the use of GIS databases

Information models based on spatial data are widely used for management in different branches of economy and regional social and economic systems in general. For example, the functional tools of the models allow us to apply them for the diagnostics of regional resort and recreational systems to determine the trends of their development. In its turn, the fact is connected with the quality increase of information and analytical processes, data availability for service market subjects, authorities, relevant ministries and departments. The study hypothesis is the assumption that the adaptation of the existing models and approaches of GIS to the solution of spatial development of territories will significantly increase the management quality of resort and recreational systems of towns and district centres. The purpose of the study is to develop theoretical and methodical foundations for an information model of the resort and recreational system of towns and district centres with the application of geo-information data bases that are integrated into the indices of social and economic development of a territory. The approach introduction should increase the efficiency of management decision making in the field of development of towns and district centres and should optimize the location of infrastructure facilities and resorts and spa centres. That will increase their profit and quality of the offered health products and services in future and, as a result, it will improve the quality of life of the population in the region. The study is methodologically based on universal scientific methods, systems and situations approaches, social and economic process modelling. The scientific novelty of the research is to develop an information model of the resort and recreational system of towns and district centres using GIS data bases that includes the indices of the assessment of the model efficiency that will allow to adapt it to the demands of consumers and enterprises functioning in the tourism industry and a resort and recreational complex. Studying modern trends of GIS development we have come to the conclusion about their advantages for application. GIS focus on the solution of the applied tasks of a regional planning of the resort and recreational industry development, increase the quality of management decisions in this sector, allow us to consider and to control the territory’s resource potential more precisely. The application of GIS for towns and district centres with the existing and potential resort and recreational specialization has been characterised. The trends for the analysis of the resort and recreational systems of towns and district centres have been determined. The analysis of the structure, database composition including geo-information basis and social and economic indices has been revealed. The model of the resort and recreational system of towns and district centres with GIS data bases, we have suggested, allows us to manage the territory development efficiently, to reveal an optimal arrangement of an infrastructure, to develop a master-plan and to implement infrastructural projects in the frameworks of the state and regional programs with commercial and social results substantiation. Further studies will be devoted to the upgrade of the existing GIS in accordance with the information needs of the participants of resort and recreational systems and relevant ministries and departments

Evaluation of SOVAT: An OLAP-GIS decision support system for community health assessment data analysis

Background. Data analysis in community health assessment (CHA) involves the collection, integration, and analysis of large numerical and spatial data sets in order to identify health priorities. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) enable for management and analysis using spatial data, but have limitations in performing analysis of numerical data because of its traditional database architecture. On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) is a multidimensional datawarehouse designed to facilitate querying of large numerical data. Coupling the spatial capabilities of GIS with the numerical analysis of OLAP, might enhance CHA data analysis. OLAP-GIS systems have been developed by university researchers and corporations, yet their potential for CHA data analysis is not well understood. To evaluate the potential of an OLAP-GIS decision support system for CHA problem solving, we compared OLAP-GIS to the standard information technology (IT) currently used by many public health professionals. Methods. SOVAT, an OLAP-GIS decision support system developed at the University of Pittsburgh, was compared against current IT for data analysis for CHA. For this study, current IT was considered the combined use of SPSS and GIS ("SPSS-GIS"). Graduate students, researchers, and faculty in the health sciences at the University of Pittsburgh were recruited. Each round consisted of: an instructional video of the system being evaluated, two practice tasks, five assessment tasks, and one post-study questionnaire. Objective and subjective measurement included: task completion time, success in answering the tasks, and system satisfaction. Results. Thirteen individuals participated. Inferential statistics were analyzed using linear mixed model analysis. SOVAT was statistically significant (α = .01) from SPSS-GIS for satisfaction and time (p < .002). Descriptive results indicated that participants had greater success in answering the tasks when using SOVAT as compared to SPSS-GIS. Conclusion. Using SOVAT, tasks were completed more efficiently, with a higher rate of success, and with greater satisfaction, than the combined use of SPSS and GIS. The results from this study indicate a potential for OLAP-GIS decision support systems as a valuable tool for CHA data analysis. © 2008 Scotch et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

The Integrated System for Public Health Monitoring of West Nile Virus (ISPHM-WNV): a real-time GIS for surveillance and decision-making

BACKGROUND: After its first detection in North America in New York in 1999, West Nile virus was detected for the first time in 2002 in the province of Quebec, Canada. This situation forced the Government of Quebec to adopt a public health protection plan against the virus. The plan comprises several fields of intervention including the monitoring of human cases, Corvidae and mosquitoes in order to ensure the early detection of the presence of the virus in a particular area. To help support the monitoring activities, the Integrated System for Public Health Monitoring of West Nile Virus (ISPHM-WNV) has been developed. RESULTS: The ISPHM-WNV is a real-time geographic information system for public health surveillance of West Nile virus and includes information on Corvidae, mosquitoes, humans, horses, climate, and preventive larvicide interventions. It has been in operation in the province of Quebec, Canada, since May 2003. The ISPHM-WNV facilitates the collection, localization, management and analysis of monitoring data; it also allows for the display of the results of analyses on maps, tables and statistical diagrams. CONCLUSION: The system is very helpful for field workers in all regions of the province, as well as for central authorities. It represents the common authoritative source of data for analysis, exchange and decision-making

Multidimensional modeling and analysis of large and complex watercourse data: an OLAP-based solution

International audienceThis paper presents the application of Data Warehouse (DW) and On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) technologies to the field of water quality assessment. The European Water Framework Directive (DCE, 2000) underlined the necessity of having operational tools to help in the interpretation of the complex and abundant information regarding running waters and their functioning. Several studies have exemplified the interest in DWs for integrating large volumes of data and in OLAP tools for data exploration and analysis. Based on free software tools, we propose an extensible relational OLAP system for the analysis of physicochemical and hydrobiological watercourse data. This system includes: (i) two data cubes; (ii) an Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) tool for data integration; and (iii) tools for OLAP exploration. Many examples of OLAP analysis (thematic, temporal, spatiotemporal, and multiscale) are provided. We have extended an existing framework with complex aggregate functions that are used to define complex analysis indicators. Additional analysis dimensions are also introduced to allow their calculation and also for purposes of rendering information. Finally, we propose two strategies to address the problem of summarizing heterogeneous measurement units by: (i) transforming source data at the ETL tier, and (ii) introducing an additional analysis dimension at the OLAP server tier

Os SIG como ferramenta de suporte nos cuidados de saúde primários: caso de estudo na distribuição de enfermeiros de família por área geográfica

Com este trabalho procuramos mostrar o valor acrescentado dos Sistemas de Informação Geográfica (SIG) quando arquitetados e construídos de raiz numa perspetiva sistémica para um fim específico. Neste caso em concreto utilizamos a nossa questão de partida - definição de áreas geográficas homogéneas para a distribuição de enfermeiros de família para a Unidade de Saúde Familiar (USF) da Nova Via pertencente ao Agrupamento de Centros de Saúde de Espinho/Gaia na Área Metropolitana do Porto- para construir um suporte de gestão adaptado à realidade vivida numa Unidade de Saúde Familiar.With this paper we aim to demonstrate the increased value of Geographic Information System (GIS) when architected and built from scratch with a systemic view for a specific goal. In this specific matter we use our starting question - definition of homogenous geographic areas for the family nurses distribution in the family health unity of Nova Via appurtenant to the health centers grouping of Espinho/Gaia at the Porto metropolitan region to build a management support adapted to the living reality at a family health unity

Spatial Data Warehouse Modelling

is concerned with multidimensional data models for spatial data warehouses. It first draws a picture of the research area, and then introduces a novel spatial multidimensional data model for spatial objects with geometry: the Multigranular Spatial Data warehouse (MuSD). The main novelty of the model is the representation of spatial measures at multiple levels of geometric granularit

Integrating Geographical Information Systems and Artificial Neural Networks to improve spatial decision making

GIS has been used in Veterinary Science for a couple of year and the application thereof has been growing rapidly. A number of GIS models have been developed to predict the occurrences of certain types of insect species including the Culicoides species (spp), the insect vectors responsible for the transmission of the African horse sickness (AHS) virus. AHS is endemic to sub-Saharan Africa and is carried by two midges called Culicoides Imicola and Culicoides Bolitinos. The disease causes severe illness in horses and has significant economic impact if not dealt with timeously. Although these models had some success in the prediction of possible abundance of the Culicoides spp. the complicated nature and high number of variables influencing the abundance of Culicoides spp. posed some challenges to these GIS models. This informs the need for models that can accurately predict potential abundance of Culicoides spp to prevent unnecessary horse deaths. This lead the study to the use of a combination of a GIS and an artificial neural networks (ANN) to develop a model that can predict the abundance of C. Imicola and C. Bolitinos. ANNs are models designed to imitate the human brain and have the ability to learn through examples. ANNs can therefore model extremely complex features. In addition, using GIS maps to visualise the predictions will make the models more accessible to a wider range of practitioners.Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2010.Geography, Geoinformatics and MeteorologyMScUnrestricte

Spatial and Multidimensional Visualization of Jeddah Health Resources: A Community Health Assessment of Jeddah City

Jeddah public health resources are struggling to meet the demand of the large populations. The city is suffering from insufficient public health resources along with other health problem, like high rates of some disease, which resulted in an amount of dissatisfaction among some of the health facilities visitors. The absence of a comprehensive Community Health Assessment study of Jeddah public health resources and the fact that health resources are not meeting the needs of the large population created the need to conduct this study. This is an exploratory study that will use the guidance of two frameworks, Mandala of Health and “Access as fit” theories, and take into account all public hospitals and primary clinics provided by the ministry of health (MOH). Availability and accessibility of MOH resources will be assessed according to the Saudi planning standards for the years 2006 – 2010. Furthermore, health professionals’ numbers will be assessed against the demand of some prominent disease cases in each census tract for the years 2006 – 2010. A multidimensional exploration of the data is needed to answer the queries of this study. Thus, Spatial OLAP Visualization and Analysis Tool (SOVAT) is utilized. This tool has the capability of integrating multidimensional databases to maps. It also answers complex queries easily and rapidly and gives results in maps, spreadsheets, and graphs. The exploration resulted in determining that primary clinics are allocated in accordance with populations’ densities with few exceptions. In addition, parts of the city were found to be lacking some facilities or health professionals while few parts were found to be over-served with resources. Finally, it has been found that there is a need to increase the number of hospitals. Additional patterns of the resources have been uncovered due to the multidimensional capability of SOVAT. The tool proved to be efficient and established a much better comprehensive understanding of the health resources. Additionally, it helped interpreting the interaction between the dimensions of the “Access as fit” framework. Nevertheless, some technical skills were needed for a successful data preparation and integration. It could be implemented by MOH as few requirements must be met

Representing spatial and domain knowledge within a spatial decision support framework.

Experts are looking for ways to improve the monitoring of unstable slopes. A spatial decision support system (SDSS) is a software tool that can be used to support an expert in making complex decisions when solving problems. Many SDSSs use a geographic information system (GIS) to help analyze and manage spatial data. However, many GISs do not take advantage of expert knowledge. An expert system (ES) is a program that can be used to represent and reason with different kinds of knowledge when solving unstructured problems. The ability to find solutions to these problems can be enhanced by integrating a CIS and an ES. This research presents a candidate framework that represents basic spatial and domain knowledge through ontologies and integrates the knowledge within an ES-GIS environment. C Language Integrated Production System and ArcCIS provide the ES-GIS framework that is used to demonstrate this candidate framework through two small monitoring examples.Dept. of Earth Sciences. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2006 .R698. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-01, page: 0470. Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2006