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Apr 07
Love0

R Consortium Member Esri Empowers Informed Decision-Making Around COVID-19

By Blog

Esri, international supplier of geographic information system software, web GIS and geodatabase management applications, is providing a comprehensive set of resources for researchers and others mapping the spread of the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Esri COVID-19 Overview

From Esri: “As the situation surrounding coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to evolve, Esri is supporting our users and the community at large with location intelligence, geographic information system (GIS) and mapping software, services, and materials that people are using to help monitor, manage, and communicate the impact of the outbreak. Use and share these resources to help your community or organization respond effectively.”

The site provides 

  • GIS Help
  • Access GIS Resources: COVID-19 GIS Hub
  • View global maps and dashboards
  • Get insights – View reliable, up-to-date content related to COVID-19 from trusted sources.

From Esri: As global communities and businesses seek to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, you can take these five proactive steps to create an instant picture of your organization’s risk areas and response capacity.

Step 1

Map the cases

Map confirmed and active cases, fatalities, and recoveries cases to identify where COVID-19 infections exist and have occurred.

Step 2

Map the spread

Time-enabled maps can reveal how infections spread over time and where you may want to target interventions.

Step 3

Map vulnerable populations

COVID-19 disproportionally impacts certain demographics such as the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. Mapping social vulnerability, age, and other factors helps you monitor the most at-risk groups and regions.

Step 4

Map your capacity

Map facilities, employees or citizens, medical resources, equipment, goods, and services to understand and respond to current and potential impacts of COVID-19.

Step 5

Communicate with maps

Use interactive web maps, dashboard apps, and story maps to help rapidly communicate your situation.

Esri COVID-19 Overview

Mar 11
Love0

March 2020 ISC call for proposals – Now Open!

By Announcement, Blog

The March 2020 ISC Call for Proposals is now open. Once again, we are looking for ambitious projects that will contribute to the infrastructure of the R ecosystem and benefit large sections of the R community.  Our goal is to stimulate creativity and help you turn good ideas into tangible benefits. 

It is very likely that everyone who reads this post will be reorganizing aspects of their everyday lives to cope with the challenge of the Covid-19 virus. Accordingly, we are suggesting a theme for this call for proposals: What can we do to improve the R infrastructure for locating, accessing, cleaning and reporting on data related to the epidemic that will be useful now and in the future?

In the recently published post COVID-19 epidemiology with R, researcher Tim Churches highlights some of the challenges presented in acquiring accurate “real time” data. These include locating sources, writing code to scrape Wikipedia, a site whose structure may change every time it is updated, digging out data embedded in multiple different languages etc and providing mechanisms for researchers to store data, share code and exchange ideas. 

But don’t be constrained by the theme. There is other work that needs to be done and we want to hear about ideas that we may be able to facilitate.

As always, “Think Big” but structure your proposal with intermediate milestones. The ISC is not likely to fund proposals that ask for large initial cash grants. We tend to be conservative with initial grants, preferring projects structured in such a way that significant initial milestones can be achieved with modest amounts of cash.

As with any proposed project, the more detailed and credible the project plan, and the better the track record of the project team, the higher the likelihood of receiving funding. Please be sure that your proposal includes measurable objectives, intermediate milestones, a list of all team members who will be contributing work and a detailed accounting of how the grant money will be spent.

To submit a proposal for ISC funding, read the Call for Proposals page and submit a self-contained pdf using the online form. You should receive confirmation within 24 hours.

The deadline for submitting a proposal is midnight, April 2, 2020.

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