Category: Announcement

Funded Research Exchanges

Posted on by Leah Johnson

We are pleased to announce funding for research exchanges for those working on behavioral and ecological aspects of vector borne diseases. The aim of these awards is to allow VectorBiTE network members the opportunity to spend time working intensively away from their home institutions, within a group with complementary expertise, to pursue VBiTE related research. 

In the spirit of the RCN, example exchanges could include learning about a different vector system, exchange between a theoretically and empirically based group, or a gathering of researchers to identify data standards or consolidate data for use. Exchanges must be completed before December 15, 2022. 

To apply please send your CV, Letter of support from host, a <2000 word description of the research, requirement for exchange (why can’t you do this virtually?), timeline and specific activities associated with the exchange, and a budget. 

The total budget should be no more than $5,000 USD and can cover economy travel, lodging, and subsistence. Due to the nature of the funding we can only support travel for US-based persons (of any nationality), usually to travel within the United States, although in some cases we may be able to fund limited international travel. 

Please send application materials to vectorbitercn@gmail.com. Applications for funding are rolling and will be reviewed as they come in. The last review will take place in November 2022, if funds are still available. Note that the total number of awards will be based on funding availability and demand, so we recommend applying early.

Board Meeting and Updated Operating Principles and Procedures

Posted on by Leah Johnson

The VectorBiTE Network Steering Committee and Advisory Board had it’s first meeting from 3-4 August 2022. During the meeting we began formulating long term plans for the Network and updated our OPP document. We are posting the OPP and soliciting feedback before the next meeting of the Steering Committee, scheduled for mid-September. If you have comments or feedback on the OPP document, please submit those through the VectorBiTE gmail account OR e-mail one of the steering committee members (see below).

Operating-Principles-And-Procedures-for-the-VectorBiTE-Network

Current Steering Committee

  • Leah Johnson (Chair)
  • Lauren Cator (Chair Elect)
  • Nicole Gottdenker
  • Peter Hudson
  • Cynthia Lord
  • Samraat Pawar
  • Catherine Lippi (trainee representative)

Current Advisory Board

  • Mike Boots
  • Shannon LaDeau
  • Sunny Power
  • Sadie Ryan
  • Sam Rund
  • Matt Thomas

New VectorBiTE Operating Principals and Procedures

Posted on by Zach Gajewski

The current VBiTE board and steering committee have developed and adopted new operating principles and procedures (OPP) for the network. This document will be used to guide the transition of the RCN into the future VBiTE network. Please take a moment and read the OPP document, attached below. Once you read over the document and still want to receive email updates from VBiTE and participate in the community please fill out the following survey. Please note that only those that fill out the survey and agree to adhere to the OPP will continue to get emails from VBiTE.

Operating-Principles-And-Procedures-for-the-VectorBiTE-Research-Coordination-Network

VectorBiTE 2021

Posted on by Miles Nesbit

Hello VectorBiTE members,

We are planning to hold virtual events this summer. These will include a symposium focusing on VectorBiTE related research topics and a training workshop. We are holding the symposium on July 8-9th and training on July 28-30th. Please apply on google forms for the symposium and for the training.

Similar to previous years we will be providing training in:

  1. Introduction VectorByte databases
  2. Data Wrangling
  3. Model Fitting Introduction
  4. Time Series
  5. Likelihoods
  6. Bayesian on Traits 
  7. Bayesian on Time Series

We hope you are all well and we look forward to seeing you again!

Best,

VectorBiTE Team

VBiTE 2020 Update

Posted on by Zach Gajewski

Due to the current circumstances of COVID-19, we will not be meeting before this year’s Ecological Society of America meeting. We will postpone an in-person meet up until spring 2021. We will provide more details when we have them. In the meantime, we are looking into providing some small virtual meetings. We will be sending out an email soon about what these meetings will entail.

VectorBiTE 2019 Survey

Posted on by Zach Gajewski

Please remember to take the VectorBiTE 2019 Survey. This survey is for all VectorBiTE members, whether you participated in the last meeting or not. We are looking for feedback from members about how VectorBiTE should move forward. The survey should only take 5-10 minutes to fill out and would help us figure out the future of VectorBiTE.

The survey can be found here.

Eco-informatics Working Group Meeting – VecDyn

Posted on by Matthew Watts

Post by Matt Watts

Dear All

As you know, I’ve been developing the VecDyn database & and accompanying WebApp. The database will cover vector population and presence/absence data. As part of our Eco-informatics working group meeting this year, we’ll work on finalizing the database. If any of you outside the working group is interested in this, please take a look at the ‘VecDyn Meeting Notes’ below. If you would like to provide any feedback, please do so using our GitHub issue tracker   https://github.com/vectorbite/VectorBiteDataPlatform/issues

VecDyn Meeting Notes

Here are some points that I’d like to cover during the meeting, please read through them carefully.

  1. Validate the final VecDyn data collection templates / backend.

You can access the information here on the GitHub development pages here https://github.com/vectorbite/VectorBiteDataPlatform/blob/master/static/Documentation/VecDyn/VecDynDocs.md

Go to the section ‘Data Collection Specifications’. This is based on the work we did last year, but with a few minor changes and additions.

  • Does this cover all possible scenarios i. e. specific types of study types and studies conducted at varying geographic levels?
  • Note that, we’ll standardise taxonomic and geographical information using the Catalogue of Life taxonomic database and the Global Administrative Unit Layers (GAUL) database (FAO, UN). So, we only require taxon name and a location description in the template.
  • Do you think we should standardise Environmental Descriptions too? See http://environmentontology.org/Browse-EnvO. Note that by standardising something in a database, it means that one can query a specific entity and all related entities

E.g. Terrestrial environment > forest > Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests.

This could be useful for many reasons e.g. tracking environmental changes coupled with population dynamics over time, however, most datasets supplied by governmental authorities do not supply this type of data, so it would probably be limited to academic studies.

  1. We would also like you to test and evaluate the web app and accompanying documentation. Special emphasis should be placed on the procedures and usability.
  • Try to download data, go to the website http://www.vectorbyte.org and try to download a data set, are you able to easily download data etc and are the instructions clear?
  • Look at the data submission instructions under the GitHub development pages under ‘Submitting data’. Are these easy to follow?
  • You can also test the data upload facility. This part of the site will only be accessible by curators, but it would be useful if you could check it.

In this next step we will use a test site, therefore go to

https://vectorbiteonlineplatform.pythonanywhere.com/VecDynTest/default/index

log on with:

Username: test@test.com

Password: test

Go to ‘Adding data to the database’ under the GitHub pages and follow the instructions.

Is this process easy to follow, any bugs?

  1. The next steps regarding VecDyn V1s development will be to improve the front end using the D3.js JavaScript data visualisation library, we will implement features to help users to evaluate and access data visually i.e. plots and maps. Are there any features you would like to see implemented?
  2. Any other comments?