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What is HEED

What is HEED

HEED is a system (methodology or process) designed to obtain, organize, and distribute data from a variety of sources while encouraging standards (semantic and methodological) for describing morbidity, mortality and disease occurrences.

The result of this effort was the production of several compiled databases, a GIS system, a JAVA GIS web Applet, and a web server running services designed to facilitate information exchange and research. The HEED report in PDF form presents a summary of the information types managed within the primary HEED databases (86 page report) and is available in HTML format.



The HEED website also contains other miscellaneous reports archived along with other relevant information totaling more than 800 megabytes, of which most of the information is web-based and the remaining data are maintained in raw forms including various spreadsheets and downloaded value-added data maintained / backed up and if not immediately available on the website, available on tape - including climate data originating from NOAA NODC and IRI. Uncalculated number of yet to be processed Emails containing ProMed Digest reports and over 18000 newspaper articles in raw text format are yet to be entered into a database format or made available on the website.

Two documents follow:

The first is the original Functional Specifications of the HEED system with sufficient detail to highlight how the system was designed to work, though these lofty goals were not attained. These specifications are requested by the HEED user community (over 250 researchers and partners). A limited set of user scenarios were defined for the user community. The second document is the requirements document related to the HEED portal and reporting system (also containing many unachieved goals) but in sharing this draft document, we have a road map forward for building a rapid data collection, archiving and reporting system.

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Caption -- The Original Project was designed simply to gather information, compile the metadata associated with peer review citations into an event database. Using place and time (required for all event occurrences) data were matched to the appropriately scaled physical/chemical/economic data (provided that data also represented anomalies). A combination of all of the anomaly data - irrespective of type created place specific disturbance regime time series upon which enumeration of cost from financially valued impacts could be determined.

The Core HEED data are stored in Microsoft Access version 1997 (importantly: data entry forms are written in Visual Basic -Access version).

Cold Fusion 4.51 is the middle-ware application that allows ODBC queries of Access.

ESRI.Shp and .Dbf or .TXT format files representing exports from ArcView point data are presently represented within the HEED GIS environment.

 Data entry into MS Access is accomplished through the web using Active Server Pages connected to Microsoft Internet Information Server 5.0. This model excludes non Microsoft browsers which cannot see these class=SpellE>databound ASP pages.

Cold Fusion is the transitional product that resolves the deficiencies of the ASP platform, and this required installation of SQL Server 2000 and an upgrade to MS Access 2000. However Cold Fusion was chosen because it also runs in a UNIX environment allowing eventual migration away from Windows 2000 technology. Microsoft Access XP will be capable of exporting the database in XML format compatible with most computer systems.

The most valued HEED products

Bibliographic Citations for MMED events style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  (from where the information was taken). Important for validation and confidence in the integrity of HEED.

1) style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>      HEED Contacts Database (people who reviewed/contributed to the database)

2) style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>      Occurrences of MMEDs in place & time (query on date, select on place, type in keyword to get event list). These 3 parameters capture

These queries are the functional minimum necessary to successfully use the HEED system. The user groups in the Gulf of Mexico require these functions immediately. The user groups in the Baltic require a working prototype ASAP.

The databases are:

1) HEED Form (an mdb with link to HEED Data mdb file)

2) HEED Data (the core mdb file)

3) HEED Datasets -Linked Databases (in one mdb file):

Important content includes:

Citations 2153 records

Contacts 170 records

Occurrences 3178 records

Place lookup 5127 records

Keyword related tables estimated: 3000 records

Species Related tables estimated: 3000 records

4) (See Database Definition Document for Details and additional tables)

5) Additional Access File Data includes:

a. Alabama Marine-Related Human Health , 888 records

b. CDC Foodborne Illness Data 414 records

c. Main PSP Toxicity 2637 records

d. Florida Foodbourne Illness 246 records

e. Massachusetts PSP Toxicity 1823 records

f. Marine Mammal Mortality SE and Gulf of Mexico 9473 records

g. National Shellfish Register 4000 shellfish-growing areas 1995

h. Fisheries Economic Database Estimated: 34000+ records

i. Population and development data 35 coastal states (undigested)

j. Video multimedia tours 17 Marine Sanctuaries, Population development nationally and in 6 estuaries (undigested).

6) Eutrophication /Nutrient Data from USGS STORET 33 estuaries estimated: 2600 records (separate at the moment)

7) IOC Harmful Algae Blooms HAEDAT: 84000+ records (separate mdb file)

Many spreadsheets with macros and pieces of data relevant to migration tasks remain un -cataloged including Sea Level Pressure, Sea Surface Temperature, Fisheries Variability Indices and other important Time-Series data linked to the database