Cases of Lyme Disease Appear to Follow Periodic Cycles Linked to Geography

We are studying the spread of Lyme disease through Wisconsin. It is important because the number of people diagnosed with Lyme Disease in the US is around 300,000, annually (CDC 2017). The CDC has collected data of reported Lyme Disease cases since 2001. When looking at the data we noticed that the trends of cases of Lyme disease followed a cyclical pattern. The cycles varied widely. We hypothesized that environmental and geographical factors could affect the main vector of Lyme Disease, Ixodes scapularis (the black-legged tick). After analyzing Lyme Disease data from the CDC and using a map making software (Paint Maps 2018), we found that geographical distribution had a marked effect on the rate at which counties cycled between up and down trends in infection rates. These findings are important because they give us more insight into possible control methods to keep the black-legged tick, and therefore Lyme Disease, at a manageable level

CAN WE LEARN FROM HACKERS TO PROTECT VICTIMS?

This project examines the protection methods suggested by hackers to guard against online victimization through the lens of Situation Crime Prevention. Data were collected from 85 webpages representing three categories of electronic communications: forums, blogs, and fan pages. The goal of this project was to identify which of the 25 opportunity reduction techniques the hacking community recommend most often, as well as, what level of expertise was associated with the suggested security measures. Results indicate that the technique most recommended by the hacking community was to remove targets with 27% of the total codings. From the results three themes were found: (1) most recommendations are such that implementing the strategies would serve to protect against opportunistic, low-skilled attacks; (2) most recommendations could be considered routine precautions, that when bundled, would secure most people against cyber-theft; and finally, (3) the Situational Crime Prevention framework was not fully realized because much of cyber-theft does not involve direct victim-perpetrator interactions. From these three themes policy recommendation and limitations are presented as well as avenues for future research

Intuitive representation of photopolarimetric data using the polarization ellipse

Photopolarimetry is the spatial characterization of light polarization. Unlike intensity or wavelength, we are largely insensitive to polarization and therefore find it hard to explore the multidimensional data that photopolarimetry produces (two spatial dimensions plus four polarization dimensions). Many different ways for presenting and exploring this modality of light have been suggested. Most of these ignore circular polarization, include multiple image panes that make correlating structure with polarization difficult, and obscure the main trends with overly detailed information and often misleading colour maps. Here, we suggest a novel way for presenting the main results from photopolarimetric analyses. By superimposing a grid of polarization ellipses onto the RGB image, the full polarization state of each cell is intuitively conveyed to the reader. This method presents linear and circular polarization as well as ellipticity in a graphical manner, does not require multiple panes, facilitates the correlation between structure and polarization, and requires the addition of only three novel colours. We demonstrate its usefulness in a biological context where we believe it would be most relevant