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，可以传达有关变量之间复杂关系、地理分布以及这些分布如何随时间变化的信息。 交互式（例如，给予用户对观看视角、显示特性和对相关统计信息的访问的控制）和动画（例如，能够将随时间的变化显示为无缝序列）的可视化包括用于询问数据库、提取知识以及用于制定解释性假设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www发送图形和查询. 由于缓慢的通信协议，这种体系结构本质上是无法支持用户，可视化引擎和地理参考数据库之间的实时交互。 该项目采用两种新技术，时空信息系统（STIS）和WebBots开发一个开放源代码系统，用于Omicron交互式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探索癌症死亡率的多变量关系作为空间尺度的函数。这个开源系统将在www上传播，最终有望增加我们对不同癌症的死亡率如何在空间和时间上相互变化的理解。

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.