{"id":1744,"date":"2016-11-07T13:45:30","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T21:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/?p=1744"},"modified":"2016-11-07T13:49:29","modified_gmt":"2016-11-07T21:49:29","slug":"week-6-blog-exploring-the-cholera-and-the-caribbean-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/2016\/11\/07\/week-6-blog-exploring-the-cholera-and-the-caribbean-map\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 6 Blog: Exploring the “Cholera and the Caribbean” Map"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, I examined the 19th Century Caribbean Cholera Timemap<\/a>\u00a0 created by\u00a0Duke University Haiti Laboratory.\u00a0The interactive program\u00a0offers\u00a0both a\u00a0timeline and a map, while locating all documented cases of Cholera outbreak, hurricanes, tropical storms, and news\u00a0coverage in the Caribbean.\u00a0<\/span>As demonstrated by the timeline, the Timemap features 3 major periods of cholera outbreaks (1833-1834, 1850-1856, 1865-1872). It\u00a0includes the\u00a0location relative to other outbreaks and the corresponding primary media\u00a0sources. Clicking on each event\u00a0will make the map display a short description of the outbreak, storm, or news article.<\/span><\/p>\n

I believe that this map reflects a scholarly (statistician or epidemiologist) , point of view of cholera outbreaks. As the news articles reported by mainstream media\u00a0at the time, the map only illustrates the mathematical \u00a0data of people affected by cholera, instead\u00a0of mentioning the life and\u00a0suffering of the individuals. Such a\u00a0focus distinguishes the map\u00a0from\u00a0a\u00a0traditional research in the humanities:\u00a0it\u00a0excels at\u00a0factual representation of deaths resulted from the Cholera\u00a0outbreaks and the climate conditions; however, it fails to measure the data in a historical and humanities context.<\/span><\/p>\n

The creators of this map\u00a0assume that all Cholera outbreaks are recorded and mostly published. Yet, lack of documentation\u00a0does not equal to nonexistence. For casual viewers,\u00a0this map seemed to be a complete collection of every\u00a0hurricane, outbreak, and storm that took place. However, the chronological and geographical attribute of this map make obtaining and maintaining a comprehensive\u00a0record nearly impossible. The display of the map also\u00a0hides valuable\u00a0details about the Cholera outbreaks, such as\u00a0their\u00a0cause, carrier, and severity. Furthermore, t<\/span>he\u00a0mapping team attempts to\u00a0relate Cholera\u00a0outbreaks across the Caribbean to a single variable: climate. By labeling the amount of outbreaks and stormy weathers as the only pair of value, a correlation in between becomes obvious.\u00a0But in this way, potential correlations between Cholera and other variables are easily overseen.<\/p>\n

To make an alternate map, I would first narrow down the scale of the map to focus on the Caribbean region, since the original design of a global map was a waste of resources and functionality.\u00a0Instead, I would leave more space to show the details of each location and outbreak. Secondly, the model of display can be improved by designing independent icons to represent each of the\u00a04 data types, so that events such as storms and Cholera outbreaks can be distinguished from each other. Also, offering an option to display a heat map can lead to a better visualization than the original scatter plot. Moreover, if records like\u00a0immigration patterns or economical status across the region are available, I would introduce them into the map as well to show other potential\u00a0factors of Cholera outbreaks. \u00a0Last but not least, \u00a0there seems to be a minor bug where viewers can\u00a0select timelines even prior to year\u00a01833,\u00a0although there is no information available back then.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, I examined the 19th Century Caribbean Cholera Timemap\u00a0 created by\u00a0Duke University Haiti Laboratory.\u00a0The interactive program\u00a0offers\u00a0both a\u00a0timeline and a map, while locating all documented cases of Cholera outbreak, hurricanes, … Continue reading “Week 6 Blog: Exploring the “Cholera and the Caribbean” Map”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}