Virtual Australia and New Zealand and other International GIS News

Australia and New Zealand

VANZI, the Virtual Australia & New Zealand Initiative, has been summoned into existence by the Co-Operative Research Centre for Spatial Information, the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing, the Australian Logistics Council, the Municipal Association of Victoria and National ICT Australia (NICTA).

Quote of the Week - 1/10/12

“Thanks for pointing it out, I will let the team know so they can be aware of the issues, and I’ve flagged it to be corrected.”

That's the response of a Google Australia spokesman quoted in the Armidale Express, when asked about the error indicating closure of Pacific Highway which some say has been online for three months. I'm heartened to learn some folks are skeptical and called the local transit authority to confirm it was an error.

Attitudes Toward Vaccination Measured by Twitter and other Health GIS News

A Penn State professor turned to Twitter to gather information about attitudes toward vaccinations to compare them to actual local rates.

A unique and innovative analysis of how social media can affect the spread of a disease has been designed and implemented by a scientist at Penn State studying attitudes toward the H1N1 vaccine. Marcel Salathe, an assistant professor of biology, studied how users of Twitter -- a popular microblogging and social-networking service -- expressed their sentiments about a new vaccine. He then tracked how the users' attitudes correlated with vaccination rates and how microbloggers with the same negative or positive feelings seemed to influence others in their social circles. The research is considered the first case study in how social media sites affect and reflect disease networks, and the method is expected to be repeated in the study of other diseases. The results will be published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology.

- Penn State Live

The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health reveals some interesting patterns:

-  rural women had more problems accessing medical services and seeing specialists or a dentist.
- rural  more likely to use alternative medicines and be satisfied with their lives compared to those in urban areas.

- Nine News

In research published today in the journal Open Biology, scientists at the Wellcome Trust Major Overseas Programme in Vietnam and the Oxford University Clinical Research Units in Kathmandu, Nepal, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, have found a way to accurately map typhoid outbreaks in the city. Their research combines DNA sequencing technology and GPS signalling, and maps the data onto Google Earth.

The study involves blood tests and GPS devices (suprisingly similar to maralia work I saw in South Africa in 1995!). The results?

The researchers found extensive clustering of typhoid infections in particular locations. Yet, perhaps counter-intuitively for a disease that spreads amongst humans, this clustering was unrelated to the density of the local population. In fact, the study showed that people living near to water spouts, for whom these provide their main source of water, and people living at a lower elevation are at substantially greatest risk of contracting the disease.

Typhoid incidence is likely to be associated with faecal contamination of ground water during the monsoon. As S. paratyphi A (a strain of S. paratyphi found in Nepal) appeared to spread downstream from the main focal point, this would put people living in areas with low elevation at higher risk. These two variables, elevation and water spout proximity, are likely to be interconnected, as the water spouts are more common in low lying areas.

Just like John Snow!

- press release

Mapping Resistance to Flu Drugs and other Health GIS News

Longini is among a team of researchers who have published this month in the Royal Society journal Interface and explain how seasonal H1N1 influenza became resistant to oseltamivir, otherwise known as Tamiflu, the most widely used antiviral agent for treating and preventing flu. The scientists say that a combination of genetic mutations and human migration through air travel can lead to the rapid global spread of drug-resistant strains.

- University of Florida News

Fire ants can cause death in humans in cases of allergic reactions and due harm to pets and wildlife. That's why Queensland is using remote sensing to pinpoint hills and then obliterate them. The new program is set to begin in October.

Minister for Agriculture, Food and Regional Economies Tim Mulherin said Biosecurity Queensland has spent $1.2 million importing highly-sophisticated aerial camera technology from the USA and combining it with cutting-edge programming developed in Australia.

"This is one of the most innovative and exciting milestones in our 10-year campaign against fire ants in Australia, and brings us that much closer to eradication in Queensland," Mr Mulherin said.

"The cameras use a combination of thermal, near-infrared, and high definition imaging, and are so sensitive they will detect fire ant mounds from 500 feet in the air.

"The cameras will combine a range of readings to scan the ground and identify the exact location of fire ant nests.

"Their nests are significantly hotter than the surrounding area so they can be seen quite clearly with this new thermal technology.

- My Sunshine Coast

Scientists at la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M - Carlos III University in Madrid) who participate in the LOBIN consortium have developed an “intelligent” t- shirt that monitors the human body (temperature, heart rate, etc.) and locates patients within the hospital, as if it were a GPS system that works in closed spaces; it can even determine if the subject is seated, lying down, walking or running.

- press release

Anzac Recalled in School GIS Project and other Education GIS News

Using state-of-the-art Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, the Year 10 Society and Environment students [at John Calvin School] have combined a map of Albany’s [Western Austalia] “Avenue of Honour” with images and stories of the 178 soldiers it commemorates.

The project will be enterred in the national 2011 Spatial Technology in Schools (STiS) competition, coordinated by the Western Australian Land Information System,

That's great. I wonder what sentences like this do for the general public's understanding of GIS. I am concerned about the term "sophisticated":

John Calvin School is partnered with Esri Australia, an organisation that specialises in GIS - a sophisticated spatial technology that visually represents information on maps.

- Albany Weekender

GIS technologies allow students to tackle real-world issues while developing critical thinking skills. And, as the work of the students and teachers in Virginia who participate in James Madison University's Geospatial Semester program seems to indicate, it might just revolutionize project-based learning in K-12 schools.

- THE Journal

Edge Hill University in St Helens received a grant from the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation – a charity that supports closer links between Britain and Japan - to help forge new links with the country and improve GIS learning.