BioMedware is delighted to announce the release of Vesta 2.0, a state-of-the-art geospatial analysis software funded with grants from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. Vesta is an acronym for “Visualization and exploratory space-time analysis software”. Version 2.0 is a significant advance in BioMedware’s core mission of accelerating research in geohealth and in the health-environment realm in particular.
Vesta is designed to be used by experts and non-experts alike. Vesta is easy to use, with an intuitive, user-friendly interface that will have you up and running analyses quickly and easily. Users can easily learn through extensive documentation, but the BioMedware team is always ready and available to provide support and guidance.
Vesta In Action
Vesta answers a wide-ranging variety of geospatial analysis questions. For example, in disease surveillance, we often need to know whether a time series of disease rates has significant changes in slope. A change in slope (e.g. the rate increasing or decreasing dramatically) might be in response to an outbreak or to a decrease in the spread of disease. For chronic diseases, such as cancers, a decrease in cancer rates is expected when cancer control efforts, such as breast cancer screening facilities, are effective.
Consider breast cancer late-stage diagnosis in Michigan, shown in the Figure above. This screenshot from Vesta shows the time plot of the late-stage breast cancer diagnosis rates (LSDR) in the upper left-hand corner. Clear joinpoints are seen, where the LSDR changes dramatically. The maps of the first joinpoint and the second joinpoint are shown in the lower left and lower right maps, respectively. The first joinpoint is where the LSDR increases, an undesirable outcome since late-stage breast cancer diagnosis rates are increasing. The second joinpoint shows where LSDR are decreasing, a desirable outcome indicating increased access to breast cancer screening is working.
The Future Of Geospatial Analysis Software
Vesta offers advanced visualization techniques, including cartographic and statistical brushing for rapid pattern identification and hypothesis generation. These are bolstered by advanced geospatial analysis techniques for change of support, joinpoint regression, multidimensional scaling, kriging, and co-kriging for hypothesis testing and modeling. BioMedware strives to bring cutting-edge advances in geospatial analysis to its community of Vesta users. Current research is developing new techniques for indicator kriging that will soon be available in Vesta. But we need your help! Email jacquez@biomedware.com with your challenges – we are here to help you surmount them.
Go to our product page for more details on Vesta.