Space-time visualization and analysis in the Cancer Atlas Viewer

This article describes the Cancer Atlas Viewer: free, downloadable software for the exploration of United States cancer mortality data. We demonstrate the software by exploring spatio-temporal patterns in colon cancer mortality rates for African-American and white females and males in the southeastern United States over the period 1970–1995. We compare the results of two cluster statistics: the local Moran and the local G*, through time. Overall, the two statistics reach similar conclusions for most locations. Where they disagree reveals functional differences in the kinds of local spatial variation to which the statistics are sensitive and identifies some interesting patterns in the data. There are only two persistent clusters of colon cancer mortality through time, and these are clusters of low values.This project was funded by grant CA92669 from the National Cancer Institute to BioMedware, Inc. The perspectives stated in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Cancer Institute. Constructive criticism from Heidi Durbeck of BioMedware, Peter Rogerson of SUNY-Buffalo, and three anonymous reviewers helped us improve the interpretation and presentation of these results.     

A model, study on seasonal spatial-temporal variability of the Lagrangian Residual Circulations in the Bohai Sea

1 IntroductionThe BohaiSea is a sem i-closed shallow sea w ith a m ean depth ofaround 20 m ,com posed oftheLiaodong Bay,the BohaiBay,the Laizhou Bay and the BohaiBasin,and connected to the N orthY ellow Sea through a latitudinal strait. The tidal dynam ic…     

The equatorial undercurrent, meridional overturning circulation, and their roles in mass and heat exchanges during El Niño events in the tropical Pacific ocean

The equatorial undercurrent (EUC), the shallow meridional overturning cells feeding it, and their role in El Niño and decadal variability in the equatorial Pacific are studied using both in situ data and an ocean general circulation model. Using temperature and current data from the TAO/TRITON moorings at the equator, their data gaps are filled and it was shown that continuous time series of mass transport, temperature, depth, and kinetic energy of the EUC could be constructed for the period 1980–2002 with an excellent accuracy. This dataset was analysed and used to validate the output from an oceanic general circulation model (OGCM). The OGCM was then used to find that variations in the strength of the EUC, shallow meridional overturning (pycnocline convergence and surface divergence), and equatorial upwelling had the same variations in mass transport on interannual and longer time scales within the period 1951–1999. These variations are all caused by variations of the zonal wind stress zonally integrated, in agreement with simple linear and steady dynamics theories. Impact of these mass transport variations and of temperature variations on heat budgets in the entire equatorial band of the Pacific and in its eastern part are quantified.     

Statistical performances of various deterministic and stochastic models for rainfall series disaggregation

This paper compares the performance of seven disaggregation models, based on various approaches and/or concepts, for the generation of 10-min time step rainfall series from hourly rainfall series. The so-called constant disaggregation model and a linear model based on the external temporal pattern of rainfall are first considered. The other models are stochastic: the first ones are based on a given probability density function applying for the 10-min rainfall amounts of the hour to disaggregate. This probability density function is either uniform or derived from the external temporal pattern of rainfall. The other stochastic models are scaling models using canonical or microcanonical multiplicative random cascades. The comparison of the models is based on their ability to reproduce some important statistical characteristics of the observed time series: variance, skewness coefficient, wet/dry properties of 10-min rainfall amounts; rainfall amounts quantiles for different return periods; autocorrelation of 10-min rainfall amounts. A continuous hydrological simulation is next applied to produce for each generated rainfall series a continuous discharge series used afterwards for a retention design. The ability of the different disaggregation models to produce rainfall time series resulting in the same retention design than the one obtained with the observed rainfall series is finally analysed. Deterministic models as well as simpler stochastic models have rather bad performances when compared to the others. Because it is non-conservative, the model based on a microcanonical random cascade performs also very poorly. It significantly overestimates all studied statistics. Models based on microcanonical random cascades achieve the best performance. They perform reasonably well for the reproduction of rainfall statistics and almost perfectly for the reproduction of runoff and storage design variables. Results finally highlight the interest of including in the disaggregation scheme information related to the external temporal pattern of rainfall.     

Secular variation study from non-welded pyroclastic deposits from Montagne Pelée volcano, Martinique (West Indies)

We present palaeomagnetic data obtained from large clasts collected in non-welded pyroclastic deposits from Montagne Pelée volcano (Martinique Island, West Indies). These deposits, dated by the ¹⁴C method from 5000 yr BP to the present, comprise block- and ash-flows, ash- and pumice-flows and pumice fallouts. Alternating fields treatment was as a routine chosen to demagnetise large samples for which the magnetisation was measured with a specially designed inductometer. The mean directions obtained from block- and ash-flow deposits of the 1902 and 1929 eruptions are in good agreement with the expected geomagnetic directions at these times in Martinique. The so-called P1 eruption (∼1345 AD), which is characterised by a rarely observed transition from a Peléean to a Plinian eruptive style, allows a direct comparison of the palaeomagnetic directions obtained from the three types of pyroclastic deposits. All deposits provide identical mean directions, which further demonstrates the suitability of the non-welded pyroclastic deposits for geomagnetic secular variation study with a very good accuracy and precision. The possibility of using pyroclastic deposits is promising for obtaining a wider distribution of sampling sites, which may better allow us to constrain our knowledge on the geomagnetic secular variation. We find that large geomagnetic changes occurred in Martinique during the last millennium, while the variations appear more limited prior to this period.     

Impact of spatial variations of land surface parameters on regional evaporation: a case study with remote sensing data

Most precipitation in watersheds is consumed by evaporation, thus techniques to appraise regional evaporation are important to assess the availability of water resources. Many algorithms to estimate evaporation from remotely sensed spectral data have been developed in the recent past. In addition to differences in the physical parameterization of surface fluxes, these algorithms have different solutions for describing spatial variations of the parameters in the soil–vegetation–atmosphere–transfer (SVAT) continuum. In this study, the necessity to spatially distinguish SVAT parameters for computing surface heat fluxes is analysed for the Naivasha watershed in the Kenyan Rift Valley. Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) spectral data have been used to first delineate the watershed into 15 hydrological units using surface temperature, normalized difference vegetation index and surface albedo as attributes. Thereafter, semi‐empirical relationships between these TM‐based parameters and other SVAT parameters have been applied to compute the spatial variation of SVAT parameters and the associated evaporation from the different hydrological units. The impact of using watershed‐constant or watershed‐distributed SVAT parameters on the fluxes is analysed. The determination of watershed averaged evaporation with area‐aggregated SVAT parameters is feasible without significant loss of accuracy. Distributed evaporation in heterogeneous watersheds, however, can be investigated only with remote sensing flux algorithms that can account for spatially variable air temperature, surface roughness, surface albedo and the stability correction of the temperature profile due to buoyancy. Erroneous results can be expected if area‐aggregated SVAT parameters are used to calculate local evaporation. As most of the recently developed remote sensing flux algorithms are based on areal constant SVAT parameters, direct applications in watersheds are still limited. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.