DRN upcoming presentations as follows:
Demonstrate to DRN group ("internal presentation"): Thurs., 2/5 @ 4:30PM ET
Demonstrate to large group ("external presentation"): Thurs., 2/19 @ 2:30PM ET
WebEx Demo
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Content for a Health Channel
Hello all;
This morning, the concept of the Health Channel was mentioned and I recalled an article from Dr. Linda Pickle (National Cancer Institute) regarding the notion of creating weather maps of disease.
The article is here: http://www.ij-healthgeographics.com/content/5/1/49
Abstract
Background
To communicate population-based cancer statistics, cancer researchers have a long tradition of presenting data in a spatial representation, or map. Historically, health data were presented in printed atlases in which the map producer selected the content and format. The availability of geographic information systems (GIS) with comprehensive mapping and spatial analysis capability for desktop and Internet mapping has greatly expanded the number of producers and consumers of health maps, including policymakers and the public.
Because health maps, particularly ones that show elevated cancer rates, historically have raised public concerns, it is essential that these maps be designed to be accurate, clear, and interpretable for the broad range of users who may view them. This article focuses on designing maps to communicate effectively. It is based on years of research into the use of health maps for communicating among public health researchers.
Results
The basics for designing maps that communicate effectively are similar to the basics for any mode of communication. Tasks include deciding on the purpose, knowing the audience and its characteristics, choosing a media suitable for both the purpose and the audience, and finally testing the map design to ensure that it suits the purpose with the intended audience, and communicates accurately and effectively. Special considerations for health maps include ensuring confidentiality and reflecting the uncertainty of small area statistics. Statistical maps need to be based on sound practices and principles developed by the statistical and cartographic communities.
Conclusion
The biggest challenge is to ensure that maps of health statistics inform without misinforming. Advances in the sciences of cartography, statistics, and visualization of spatial data are constantly expanding the toolkit available to mapmakers to meet this challenge. Asking potential users to answer questions or to talk about what they see is still the best way to evaluate the effectiveness of a specific map design.
This morning, the concept of the Health Channel was mentioned and I recalled an article from Dr. Linda Pickle (National Cancer Institute) regarding the notion of creating weather maps of disease.
The article is here: http://www.ij-healthgeographics.com/content/5/1/49
Abstract
Background
To communicate population-based cancer statistics, cancer researchers have a long tradition of presenting data in a spatial representation, or map. Historically, health data were presented in printed atlases in which the map producer selected the content and format. The availability of geographic information systems (GIS) with comprehensive mapping and spatial analysis capability for desktop and Internet mapping has greatly expanded the number of producers and consumers of health maps, including policymakers and the public.
Because health maps, particularly ones that show elevated cancer rates, historically have raised public concerns, it is essential that these maps be designed to be accurate, clear, and interpretable for the broad range of users who may view them. This article focuses on designing maps to communicate effectively. It is based on years of research into the use of health maps for communicating among public health researchers.
Results
The basics for designing maps that communicate effectively are similar to the basics for any mode of communication. Tasks include deciding on the purpose, knowing the audience and its characteristics, choosing a media suitable for both the purpose and the audience, and finally testing the map design to ensure that it suits the purpose with the intended audience, and communicates accurately and effectively. Special considerations for health maps include ensuring confidentiality and reflecting the uncertainty of small area statistics. Statistical maps need to be based on sound practices and principles developed by the statistical and cartographic communities.
Conclusion
The biggest challenge is to ensure that maps of health statistics inform without misinforming. Advances in the sciences of cartography, statistics, and visualization of spatial data are constantly expanding the toolkit available to mapmakers to meet this challenge. Asking potential users to answer questions or to talk about what they see is still the best way to evaluate the effectiveness of a specific map design.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Dimdim - the leading provider of open source web meeting software
Dec 3, 2008 - Dimdim, the easy-to-use web conferencing tool that delivers live presentations, whiteboards, voice and video, has just exited their beta period today. With the exit, the service has also added features like co-browsing and their new SynchroLive Communication Platform which automatically scales performance. The feature which you might be the most excited about, though, is Dimdim's decision to release their source code.
Thought you all might find this interesting.
Thought you all might find this interesting.
Monday, January 26, 2009
PoiConDai II, revenge of PoiConDai
So, Poicondai II (Which I think is going to be called "PoiCenDai" because they are just called poison centers not poison _control_ centers anymore) is in the works.
The new service that will be feeding PoiCenDai is going to be giving back a lot more complex information, namely count aggregations based on region and time. Dr. Jeremy Espino has recommended Apache CXF as the service handler (which is basically the next generation of Apache AXIS, which will allow for this new PoiCenDai to work with globus that much more seamlessly should we need to distribute its operations on the grid) and using JAXB as the object marshaller (At least I am anticipating this because the last poison center webservice returned the data as an XML "any" stream with a "schema" stream)
Thus, the PoiCenDai service is going to need to take a command, determine the output type, marshal it all out, and then take the results and filter them into the appropriate regional polygons which were also drummed up with the help of the Gmap Polygon libraries.
Thus it's becoming one of those little moments where it's awkward figuring out where to start, whether I delve in with the new technologies for objectifying the PoiCen data, or start planning ways to keep methods for stuffing PoiCenDai data into polygons simple and relatively agnostic to JSPs.
I think I am going to focus on making the stubs for PoiCenDai closer to the JSP side for a couple of reasons... First off, I have just been dealing with the JSP end of things so it will be an easy bridge, second is that I am not sure of the service endpoints and will need to fiddle with JAXB and CXF and it would be good to know where the resulting objects are going to go.
Of course this is all liable to change as assumptions will probably be made and then be proven wrong or not feasible. Another wacky day in coding big enterprise type things.
The new service that will be feeding PoiCenDai is going to be giving back a lot more complex information, namely count aggregations based on region and time. Dr. Jeremy Espino has recommended Apache CXF as the service handler (which is basically the next generation of Apache AXIS, which will allow for this new PoiCenDai to work with globus that much more seamlessly should we need to distribute its operations on the grid) and using JAXB as the object marshaller (At least I am anticipating this because the last poison center webservice returned the data as an XML "any" stream with a "schema" stream)
Thus, the PoiCenDai service is going to need to take a command, determine the output type, marshal it all out, and then take the results and filter them into the appropriate regional polygons which were also drummed up with the help of the Gmap Polygon libraries.
Thus it's becoming one of those little moments where it's awkward figuring out where to start, whether I delve in with the new technologies for objectifying the PoiCen data, or start planning ways to keep methods for stuffing PoiCenDai data into polygons simple and relatively agnostic to JSPs.
I think I am going to focus on making the stubs for PoiCenDai closer to the JSP side for a couple of reasons... First off, I have just been dealing with the JSP end of things so it will be an easy bridge, second is that I am not sure of the service endpoints and will need to fiddle with JAXB and CXF and it would be good to know where the resulting objects are going to go.
Of course this is all liable to change as assumptions will probably be made and then be proven wrong or not feasible. Another wacky day in coding big enterprise type things.
Friday, January 23, 2009
New Grid Node
I worked with Joe Terdiman on getting his DRN grid node installed. Globus has been installed and configured to the point where the container comes up with no errors. Monday at 12EST we will install and test the SST service.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Gmap-Polygon now demonstrable
Greetings, if you check out the new service registry entry you will find a description of the gmap-polygon project I have been working on and a link to a demo.
Now, I will work on taking the revamped NPDS service and getting it to populate the polygons so that little line graphs and colorations occur instead of just "0 cases" showing up all the time.
The other idea is that anyone can use this project if they need a google maps polygon mapper, especially if you need it to work in a secure environment and don't think you would be able to publicly expose a KML file.
Either way, I am happy with the results, I think it is nifty, and the more you poke things the more they cache and the faster they should (hopefully) load.
Cheers!
Now, I will work on taking the revamped NPDS service and getting it to populate the polygons so that little line graphs and colorations occur instead of just "0 cases" showing up all the time.
The other idea is that anyone can use this project if they need a google maps polygon mapper, especially if you need it to work in a secure environment and don't think you would be able to publicly expose a KML file.
Either way, I am happy with the results, I think it is nifty, and the more you poke things the more they cache and the faster they should (hopefully) load.
Cheers!
AMDS draft structure changing
Recently, Dr. Savel presented some ideas on AMDS to the CDC HIEs on a call set to facilitate collaboration between the PHGrid team's aggregate data efforts and the emerging HIE group's data aggregation efforts.
The powerpoint is available on the HIE/AMDS wiki and outlines the new data structure for AMDS. It's a simplification/consolidation of what Felicia is currently working on in that there is a single operation that allows a query by syndrome by group of zip codes. It also expands the specification by including specific fields for cell suppression rules.
So this means that we're closer to a working draft, but all the example services we have up on sourceforge and in the service registry need updating.
The powerpoint is available on the HIE/AMDS wiki and outlines the new data structure for AMDS. It's a simplification/consolidation of what Felicia is currently working on in that there is a single operation that allows a query by syndrome by group of zip codes. It also expands the specification by including specific fields for cell suppression rules.
So this means that we're closer to a working draft, but all the example services we have up on sourceforge and in the service registry need updating.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Centroids.
I have the centroids loaded, I have the map moving and drawing and zooming based on what regions were picked or changed, and I am planning to move the examples of Gmap-Polygon over to the staging node tomorrow afternoon.
This also means I will be ramping up on the NPDS changes, and will be focusing on getting time series populated into the gmap Polygon, and then we will have NPDS II (Or Poicondai II if you will).
Cheers!
This also means I will be ramping up on the NPDS changes, and will be focusing on getting time series populated into the gmap Polygon, and then we will have NPDS II (Or Poicondai II if you will).
Cheers!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Polygon Centroid Updates.
So, I have gotten the table and the logic set up for centroids so that the map will automagically zoom in on selected states and zip3s, but I need to tweak a few things and ran out of time today. I am hoping to get things set tomorrow morning, move some of the java-in-jsp code I have made into the actual helper java bean, and then plan out a migration of the sample to the staging node for a Thursday demo (so other people can tinker with the gmap polygon drawer).
After that, it is time to sit down with all the NPDS sample services and see if I can't get the NPDS-service that Dr. Jeremy Espino put together (who has already suggested a bevy of new technologies to look at) working with some of the new constructs and creating new time-series to put into the polygons.
Then it is a hop-skip and debug session from the new NPDS demo, which will be the marriage of the gmap-polygon tech with the new NPDS service.
I'm hoping it shall be sufficiently nifty.
After that, it is time to sit down with all the NPDS sample services and see if I can't get the NPDS-service that Dr. Jeremy Espino put together (who has already suggested a bevy of new technologies to look at) working with some of the new constructs and creating new time-series to put into the polygons.
Then it is a hop-skip and debug session from the new NPDS demo, which will be the marriage of the gmap-polygon tech with the new NPDS service.
I'm hoping it shall be sufficiently nifty.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
