COURSES
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Course fees
GIS, Bayesian Disease Mapping, Spatial Epidemiology, Extending Quantum GIS with GRASS :
Full: $600
Student: $400
Fee includes morning/afternoon tea and lunches (Mon/Tues)
Course Registrations Closed - An introduction to GIS using Quantum GIS
29th & 30th November 2010
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have become an essential tool in the understanding and management of disease. Up until recently, the full power of GIS was only available through a small number of very expensive commercial software packages. However, recently, open source (free) GIS software has matured to the point where it is able to rival the functionality of the commercial packages, and provides more than enough power to address the common tasks required for animal health.
Quantum GIS is easy to use (with a similar user interface to ArcView), can be extended with numerous powerful third-party add-ins, and overcomes many of the constraints of previous training as it can be distributed freely and installed on a wide variety of operating systems (including Windows, Mac and Linux).
The course is aimed at an introduction to GIS for disease management.
To register your interest in this course please send an email to Ben Madden:
More details can be found in the attached file (pdf)
Application of Molecular Tools to Spatial Epidemiology
29th & 30th November 2010
The availability of modern typing tools has greatly advanced our understanding of several infectious diseases. Molecular measures can provide insight that is not available with traditional culture methods or species-level identification. However, despite their increasing availability, molecular methods are often not completely understood, and in consequence inefficiently applied.
Studies that combine population genetic data with spatial analysis present new opportunities for the development of surveillance tools and for improving our understanding of the epidemiology and control of infectious disease. With concepts borrowed from ecology, statistics, geography, genetics and veterinary medicine, the combined application of molecular and spatial analysis has important implications for the prevention and control of animal and human diseases.
This workshop will provide participants with an introduction to the field of molecular epidemiology and its application to spatial studies of diseases. Different case-studies will be presented and discussed, including the formulation and application of spatial models for nucleotide variation of foot-and-mouth disease virus, evolution of vesicular stomatitis virus, genetic diversity of bovine tuberculosis, and studies of the spatial epidemiology of campylobacteriosis.
For more information please refer to the attached flyer (pdf)
The course is presented by:
- Dr Andres Perez, Center for Animal Disease Modeling and Surveillance, UC Davis,USA
- Dr Petra Müllner, Epi-interactive / EpiCentre, Massey University, New Zealand
- Fernando Mardonnes, Center for Animal Disease Modeling and Surveillance, UC Davis, USA
- Prof Nigel French, mEpiLab, Massey University, New Zealand
For further information please contact:
Dr Andres Perez -
Dr Petra Müllner -
Introductory Bayesian Disease Mapping
4th & 5th December 2010
This course is designed to provide an introduction to the area of Bayesian disease mapping in applications to veterinary Public Health and Epidemiology.
The two-day course will cover basic concepts of Bayesian methods and disease mapping, risk estimation and cluster detection, ecological analysis, cluster models and space-time analysis, and infectious disease models and veterinary data.
The course is presented by Professor Andrew B. Lawson.
Professor Lawson (Division of Biostatistics & Epidemiology, College of Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina) is a World Health Organization (WHO) advisor on Disease Mapping and organized with the WHO an International workshop on this topic which has led to an edited volume “Disease Mapping and Risk Assessment for Public Health”. He has published a number of books focused on disease mapping and spatial epidemiology. In particular, a new volume entitled Bayesian Disease Mapping will be a course text for this course.
A copy of the book is included in the course fee.
To register your interest in this course please send an email to Andrew Lawson:
More information is included in the attached document (pdf)
Course Registrations Closed - Extending Quantum GIS with GRASS
4th & 5th December 2010
Although many users of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are happy to be able to just make a nice map, this is seriously under-utilising their ability. Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS), one of the original GIS is currently used around the world in academic, government and commercial organisations. GRASS has an enormous range of uses with hundreds of extension programs available through a common interface. Although GRASS can render GIS images, it's real strength is in its ability to carry out a wide range of vector and raster operations on data from a range of sources. Of particular interest for easy operations (not necessarily learning) is the ability to use the command line and create scripts to repeat and automate analyses.
Historically, one of the limitations of GRASS has been it's steep learning curve. It is now possible to link Quantum GIS to GRASS, which provides ease of use for beginners and has created a powerful system available through a user-friendly interface.
This course will provide an introduction to what GRASS offers, the GRASS data model and how it manages data, and how to undertake an analysis, create scripts and repeat the analysis. It assumes previous experience with GIS systems (ideally Quantum GIS, but other commercial packages should be suitable).
The course will be presented by
- Mark Stevenson, EpiCentre, Massey University, New Zealand
- Ben Madin, AusVet Animal Health Services
Further information
For more information please download flyer (pdf)
or contact
Mark Stevenson,
Ben Madin,