Plant disease outbreaks are increasing and threaten food security for the vulnerable in many areas of the world. Now a global human pandemic is threatening the health of millions on our planet. A ...stable, nutritious food supply will be needed to lift people out of poverty and improve health outcomes. Plant diseases, both endemic and recently emerging, are spreading and exacerbated by climate change, transmission with global food trade networks, pathogen spillover, and evolution of new pathogen lineages. In order to tackle these grand challenges, a new set of tools that include disease surveillance and improved detection technologies including pathogen sensors and predictive modeling and data analytics are needed to prevent future outbreaks. Herein, we describe an integrated research agenda that could help mitigate future plant disease pandemics.
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•Short text topic modeling identifies Twitter opinions related to urban parks.•Urban parks continue to be valued for physical activity during the pandemic.•A decrease in conversations about general ...activities in urban parks during the pandemic.•Concerns about social distancing in urban parks have been a trending topic on Twitter.•The potential for monitoring attitudes and values about parks through Twitter data.
Since school and business closures due to the evolving COVID-19 outbreak, urban parks have been a popular destination, offering spaces for daily fitness activities and an escape from the home environment. There is a need for evidence for parks and recreation departments and agencies to base decisions when adapting policies in response to the rapid change in demand and preferences during the pandemic. The application of social media data analytic techniques permits a qualitative and quantitative big-data approach to gain unobtrusive and prompt insights on how parks are valued. This study investigates how public values associated with NYC parks has shifted between pre- COVID (i.e., from March 2019 to February 2020) and post- COVID (i.e., from March 2020 to February 2021) through a social media microblogging platform –Twitter. A topic modeling technique for short text identified common traits of the changes in Twitter topics regarding impressions and values associated with the parks over two years. While the NYC lockdown resulted in much fewer social activities in parks, some parks continued to be valued for physical activity and nature contact during the pandemic. Concerns about people not keeping physical distance arose in parks where frequent human interactions and crowding seemed to cause a higher probability of the coronavirus transmission. This study demonstrates social media data could be used to capture park values and be specific per park. Results could inform park management during disruptions when use is altered and the needs of the public may be changing.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
In 1843, a hitherto unknown plant pathogen entered the US and spread to potato fields in the northeast. By 1845, the pathogen had reached Ireland leading to devastating famine. Questions arose ...immediately about the source of the outbreaks and how the disease should be managed. The pathogen, now known as Phytophthora infestans, still continues to threaten food security globally. A wealth of untapped knowledge exists in both archival and modern documents, but is not readily available because the details are hidden in descriptive text. In this work, we (1) used text analytics of unstructured historical reports (1843-1845) to map US late blight outbreaks; (2) characterized theories on the source of the pathogen and remedies for control; and (3) created modern late blight intensity maps using Twitter feeds. The disease spread from 5 to 17 states and provinces in the US and Canada between 1843 and 1845. Crop losses, Andean sources of the pathogen, possible causes and potential treatments were discussed. Modern disease discussion on Twitter included near-global coverage and local disease observations. Topic modeling revealed general disease information, published research, and outbreak locations. The tools described will help researchers explore and map unstructured text to track and visualize pandemics.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Increased availability of QL1/QL2 Lidar terrain data has resulted in large datasets, often including large quantities of redundant points. Because of these large memory requirements, practitioners ...often use decimation to reduce the number of points used to create models. This paper introduces a novel approach to improve decimation, thereby reducing the total count of ground points in a Lidar dataset while retaining more accuracy than Random Decimation. This reduction improves efficiency of downstream processes while maintaining output quality nearer to the undecimated dataset. Points are selected for retention based on their discrete curvature values computed from the mesh geometry of the TIN model of the points. Points with higher curvature values are preferred for retention in the resulting point cloud. We call this technique Curvature Weighted Decimation (CWD). We implement CWD in a new free, open-source software tool, CogoDN, which is also introduced in this paper. We evaluate the effectiveness of CWD against Random Decimation by comparing the resulting introduced error values for the two kinds of decimation over multiple decimation percentages, multiple statistical types, and multiple terrain types. The results show that CWD reduces introduced error values over Random Decimation when 15 to 50% of the points are retained.
Non‐native plant pests and pathogens threaten biodiversity, ecosystem function, food security, and economic livelihoods. As new invasive populations establish, often as an unintended consequence of ...international trade, they can become additional sources of introductions, accelerating global spread through bridgehead effects. While the study of non‐native pest spread has used computational models to provide insights into drivers and dynamics of biological invasions and inform management, efforts have focused on local or regional scales and are challenged by complex transmission networks arising from bridgehead population establishment. This paper presents a flexible spatiotemporal stochastic network model called PoPS (Pest or Pathogen Spread) Global that couples international trade networks with core drivers of biological invasions—climate suitability, host availability, and propagule pressure—quantified through open, globally available databases to forecast the spread of non‐native plant pests. The modular design of the framework makes it adaptable for various pests capable of dispersing via human‐mediated pathways, supports proactive responses to emerging pests when limited data are available, and enables forecasts at different spatial and temporal resolutions. We demonstrate the framework using a case study of the invasive planthopper spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula). The model was calibrated with historical, known spotted lanternfly introductions to identify potential bridgehead populations that may contribute to global spread. This global view of phytosanitary pandemics provides crucial information for anticipating biological invasions, quantifying transport pathways risk levels, and allocating resources to safeguard plant health, agriculture, and natural resources.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Creating data visualizations that are functional and aesthetically pleasing is important yet difficult. Here we ask whether creating visualizations using the painterly techniques of impressionist-era ...artists may help. In two experiments we rendered weather data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change into a common visualization style, glyph, and impressionism-inspired painting styles, sculptural, containment, and impasto. Experiment 1 tested participants' recognition memory for these visualizations and found that impasto, a style resembling paintings like Starry Night (1889) by Vincent van Gogh, was comparable with glyphs and superior to the other impressionist styles. Experiment 2 tested participants' ability to report the prevalence of the color blue (representative of a single weather condition) within each visualization, and here impasto was superior to glyphs and the other impressionist styles. Questionnaires administered at study completion revealed that styles participants liked had higher task performance relative to less liked styles. Incidental eye tracking in both studies also found impressionist visualizations elicited greater visual exploration than glyphs. These results offer a proof-of-concept that the painterly techniques of impressionism, and particularly those of the impasto style, can create visualizations that are functional, liked, and encourage visual exploration.
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ, UPUK
7.
TanGeoMS: Tangible Geospatial Modeling System Tateosian, L; Mitasova, H; Harmon, B ...
IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics,
11/2010, Volume:
16, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
We present TanGeoMS, a tangible geospatial modeling visualization system that couples a laser scanner, projector, and a flexible physical three-dimensional model with a standard geospatial ...information system (GIS) to create a tangible user interface for terrain data. TanGeoMS projects an image of real-world data onto a physical terrain model. Users can alter the topography of the model by modifying the clay surface or placing additional objects on the surface. The modified model is captured by an overhead laser scanner then imported into a GIS for analysis and simulation of real-world processes. The results are projected back onto the surface of the model providing feedback on the impact of the modifications on terrain parameters and simulated processes. Interaction with a physical model is highly intuitive, allowing users to base initial design decisions on geospatial data, test the impact of these decisions in GIS simulations, and use the feedback to improve their design. We demonstrate the system on three applications: investigating runoff management within a watershed, assessing the impact of storm surge on barrier islands, and exploring landscape rehabilitation in military training areas.
•Pest-related Tweets and news can augment official records with valuable spatial data.•The major and important pest-related topics appeared in both Twitter and news sources.•GDELT, Google News, ...Brandwatch prove viable for accessing historical news about pests.•We detail the pros, cons, and data acquisition process for each source.
Invasion by exotic pests into new geographic areas can cause major disturbances in forest and agricultural systems. Early response can greatly improve containment efforts, underscoring the importance of collecting up-to-date information about the locations where pest species are being observed. However, existing invasive species databases have limitations in both extent and rapidity. The spatial extent is limited by costs and there are delays between species establishment, official recording, and consolidation. Local online news outlets have the potential to provide supplemental spatial coverage worldwide and social media has the potential to provide direct observations and denser historical data for modeling. Gathering data from these online sources presents its own challenges and their potential contribution to historical tracking of pest invasions has not previously been tested. To this end, we examine the practical considerations for using three online aggregators, the Global Database of Events, Language and Tone (GDELT), Google News, and a commercial media listening platform, Brandwatch, to support pest biosurveillance. Using these tools, we investigate the presence and nature of cogent mentions of invasive species in these sources by conducting case studies of online news and Twitter excerpts regarding two invasive plant pests, Spotted Lanternfly and Tuta absoluta. Our results using past data demonstrate that online news and social media may provide valuable data streams to supplement official sources describing pest invasions.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Biodiversity loss driven by anthropogenic pressures highlights the importance of conservation efforts in protected areas globally. Protected areas are also locations providing myriad ecosystem ...services, including recreation and tourism. Advancements in mobile and web technologies have expanded the capabilities and accessibility of crowdsourced spatial content increasingly leveraged for research. This study explores the use of crowdsourced geographic information to model, at varying temporal scales, spatial patterns of visitor use and identify factors contributing to distribution patterns in a dynamic landscape, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (Hawaii, USA). Specifically, this study integrated geotagged photo metadata publicly shared on Flickr with raster data about infrastructure and natural environmental using MaxEnt modelling. Infrastructure designated for visitor use (i.e., roads, trails) contributed most to models of visitor distribution for all years and seasons. During the spring months, elevation was also a top contributing variable to the model. Crowdsourced data provided empirical assessments of covariates associated with visitor distributions, highlighting how changes in infrastructure and environmental factors may influence visitor use, and therefore resource pressures, to help researchers, managers, and planners with efforts to mitigate negative impacts.
•Crowdsourced geographic data modeled visitor distributions in a protected area.•Visitor distributions were most associated with infrastructure (e.g., trails).•Elevation was a top environmental factor during spring months.•Results highlight how changes may influence use and resource pressures.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Narratives enable readers to assimilate disparate facts. Accompanying maps can make the narratives even more accessible. As work in computer science has begun to generate stories from low-level ...event/activity data, there is a need for systems that complement these tools to generate maps illustrating spatial components of these stories. While traditional maps display static spatial relationships, story maps need to not only dynamically display relationships based on the flow of the story but also display character perceptions and intentions. In this work, we study cartographic illustrations of historical battles to design a map generation system for reports produced from a multiplayer battle game log. We then create a story and ask viewers to describe mapped events and rate their own descriptions relative to intended interpretations. Some viewers received training prior to seeing the story, which was shown to be effective, though training may have been unnecessary for certain map types. Self-rating correlated highly with expert ratings, revealing an efficient proxy for expert analysis of map interpretability, a shortcut for determining if training is needed for story-telling maps or other novel visualisation techniques. The study's semantic questions and feedback solicitation demonstrate a process for identifying user-centric improvements to story-telling map design.
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