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SUMMARY:GIS\, Cartograms and Cellular Automata Modelling of Animal Disease
  - Colin Birch\, Veterinary Laboratories Agency
DTSTART:20081023T153000Z
DTEND:20081023T163000Z
UID:TALK14819@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Olivier Restif
DESCRIPTION:GIS provides the opportunity to visualize and analyse the actu
 al geographic distribution and properties of spatial data. Cellular automa
 ta provide the opportunity to examine the general behaviour and emergent p
 roperties of dynamic spatial processes. Combining the two allows us to com
 pare actual geography with abstract theory. If we can transform between ob
 served spatial distributions and cellular automata\, the simplicity and fl
 exibility of the cellular automata allow exploration of alternative scenar
 ios that are almost impossible to conceive based directly on observed spat
 ial data. ‘Cartogram’ or ‘density-equalizing’ transformations are 
 well established methods that provide the necessary bridge between actual 
 space and cellular automata space.\n	We applied the script CartogramCreato
 r in ArcGISTM to map the actual distribution of sheep farms in Great Brita
 in to a cellular automata. Observations on the birth to death movements of
  sheep that died in the field were used to construct a simple model of the
  movement of scrapie infected sheep between farms. This formed the basis o
 f a scrapie outbreak model\, which generated 1000 simulations of the spati
 al distribution of scrapie cases. The simulated spatial distributions were
  compared with the distribution of scrapie cases reported in 2000\, which 
 was the last year before the Foot and Mouth outbreak and recent control me
 asures against scrapie affected the distribution and reporting of scrapie.
  Comparison by spatial analysis suggested that the reported distribution o
 f scrapie could be consistent with a long-lived outbreak\, but might also 
 be consistent with an endemic disease. If it is an outbreak\, elimination 
 of scrapie in Great Britain is more likely.\n
LOCATION:Meeting room 15\, Centre for Mathematical Sciences
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