A Space-Time Information System for the NCI Cancer Atlas

可视化是一种广泛使用的有效手段，可以交流有关变量之间的复杂关系、它们的地理分布以及这些分布如何随时间变化的信息。交互的(例如，向用户提供对观看视角、显示特征和对相关统计信息的访问的控制)和动画的可视化(例如，能够将随时间的变化显示为无缝序列)包括用于询问数据库、提取知识以及用于公式化解释性和其他假设的直观环境。大多数网络地理信息系统采用集中式架构，通过万维网发送图形和查询。由于通信协议较慢，该体系结构固有地不能支持用户、可视化引擎和地理参考数据库之间的实时交互。该项目采用了两项新技术，即时空信息系统(STIS)和WebBots，为OMICRON开发了一个开源系统，用于交互可视化癌症死亡率模式的时空变化以及与这些死亡率相关的不确定性；OMICRON探索癌症死亡率作为空间尺度函数的多变量关系。这个开源系统将在万维网上传播，并最终有望增加我们对不同癌症死亡率如何相互影响、跨越空间和跨越时间的理解。

Visualization is a widely used and effective means of communicating information about complex relationships among variables, their geographic distributions, and of how those distributions change through time. Visualizations that are interactive (e.g. giving the user control over viewing perspective, display characteristics, and access to related statistical information) and animated (e.g. able to display change through time as a seamless sequence) comprise an intuitive environment for interrogating databases, extracting knowledge, and for formulating explanatory and other hypotheses. Most web- GIS employ a centralized architecture that sends graphics and queries over the www. Because of slow communication protocols this architecture is inherently incapable of supporting real-time interaction between the user, the visualization engine, and the georeferenced database. This project employs two new technologies, Space-Time Information Systems (STIS) and WebBots to develop an open-source system for Omicron Interactive visualization of space-time change in cancer mortality patterns, and the uncertainties associated with those mortalities; Omicron Exploring multivariate relationships in cancer mortality as a function of spatial scale. This open-source system will be disseminated over the www, and is ultimately expected to increase our understanding of how mortality from different cancers covary, with one another, through space, and through time.