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The Dorling map, a special type of thematic map, is a widely employed tool for visualizing geospatial statistical data. It transforms regions into circles with areas proportionate to statistical values while endeavoring to maintain regional spatial relationships. Notably, two types of Dorling maps emerge, distinguished by their consideration of regional continuity: continuous and discontinuous Dorling maps. However, as of yet, the discrepancies between these two types remain inconclusive. In this paper, we employ an eye‐tracking method to investigate the efficacy of Dorling maps in two common application scenarios, namely unpurposed browsing tasks and purposeful reading tasks. To this end, we administer tasks involving region search, attribute comparison/recognition/memory, conditional selection, relationship judgment, summary, and subjective evaluation. Subsequently, we perform a statistical analysis of the eye movement data of participants when they complete the above tasks in the continuous and discontinuous Dorling maps. The results indicate that the discontinuous Dorling maps are significantly better than the continuous ones in interpretation time for forward and reverse region search, selecting conditions, and judging adjacent relationships. Continuous Dorling maps significantly outperform discontinuous maps in terms of search efficiency during attribute comparison. Moreover, continuous maps significantly outperformed discontinuous maps in terms of cognitive supplementation or reprocessing of previous regions during conditional selection. This study can help users choose the right form of Dorling map visualization according to their needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The judiciary plays a pivotal role in maintaining the rule of law and protecting the fundamental rights of citizens, pledging the efficient enforcement of rules and regulations and upholding civil and criminal justice in principles. The judicial system in an emerging economy like India must ensure timely and equitable justice for all citizens. For more than the last thirty years, the Indian judiciary has been facing colossal pendency levels and long case processing times. Against this backdrop, this paper visualises the spatial variations in the number of unresolved court cases in different districts of India in 2023. The spatial visualisation using a cartogram map elucidates some specific districts in certain Indian states, based on their population, that are now awaiting huge court proceedings. The spatial variations in pending cases across different regions emphasise the need for deliberate initiatives to promote regional justice by maximising the number of pending cases to be disposed of as soon as possible. The visualisation analysis validates that for the smooth functioning of overburdened pending court proceedings and to maximise the number of cases disposed, the judicial system needs substantial reforms, upgradation of massive court infrastructure, required reallocation and recruitment of judges and court staff, especially in high-density populated areas like New Delhi and Mumbai metropolitan cities in India. Therefore, this finding suggests that a massive backlog of pending court and overburdened cases knowledge is critical for state governments seeking to increase judicial efficiency by focusing on districts with a high volume of pending cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The judiciary plays a pivotal role in maintaining the rule of law and protecting the fundamental rights of citizens, pledging the efficient enforcement of rules and regulations and upholding civil and criminal justice in principles. The judicial system in an emerging economy like India must ensure timely and equitable justice for all citizens. For more than the last thirty years, the Indian judiciary has been facing colossal pendency levels and long case processing times. Against this backdrop, this paper visualises the spatial variations in the number of unresolved court cases in different districts of India in 2023. The spatial visualisation using a cartogram map elucidates some specific districts in certain Indian states, based on their population, that are now awaiting huge court proceedings. The spatial variations in pending cases across different regions emphasise the need for deliberate initiatives to promote regional justice by maximising the number of pending cases to be disposed of as soon as possible. The visualisation analysis validates that for the smooth functioning of overburdened pending court proceedings and to maximise the number of cases disposed, the judicial system needs substantial reforms, upgradation of massive court infrastructure, required reallocation and recruitment of judges and court staff, especially in high-density populated areas like New Delhi and Mumbai metropolitan cities in India. Therefore, this finding suggests that a massive backlog of pending court and overburdened cases knowledge is critical for state governments seeking to increase judicial efficiency by focusing on districts with a high volume of pending cases.

Cartograms serve as representations of geographical and abstract data, employing a value-by-area mapping technique. As a variant of the Dorling cartogram, the Demers cartogram utilizes squares instead of circles to represent regions. This alternative approach allows for a more intuitive comparison of regions, utilizing screen space more efficiently. However, a drawback of the Dorling cartogram and its variants lies in the potential displacement of regions from their original positions, ultimately compromising legibility, readability, and accuracy. To tackle this limitation, we propose a novel hybrid cartogram layout algorithm that incorporates topological elements, such as rivers, into Demers cartograms. The presence of rivers significantly impacts both the layout and visual appearance of the cartograms. Through a user study conducted on an Electronic Health Records (EHR) dataset, we evaluate the efficacy of the proposed hybrid layout algorithm. The obtained results illustrate that this approach successfully retains key aspects of the original cartogram while enhancing legibility, readability, and overall accuracy.

Map of the earth masses shows the essence of the vertical planning project by visualizing the anticipated displacement of the land masses within the boundaries of the property. It is the official document through which the designer can determine the amount of land masses for the purpose of their valuation [5]. The article examines the role of the cartogram and modern practices regarding its creation and use in the investment process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACTChina's population and development land have changed dramatically over the last decade. Yet, our understanding of the spatial distribution patterns of the population and built-up areas remains limited. To fill this gap, we employ China's Population Census and GlobeLand30 remote sensing data from 2010 to 2020 at the county level to geovisualize the evolution of the population and built-up area. We find an increasing correlation between built-up areas and population as a result of the urbanization of rural areas, but the rapid expansion of built-up areas has not fundamentally changed concentration of China's population over the period 2010–20.

Dot maps are a type of representation of absolute and aggregated population quantities presented in a disaggregated form, with a planimetric/geometric and graphic point layout. While several such maps are developed, the proposed Dot Cartogram (also known as le cartogramme par points in french) is a new map belonging to the graphic cartograms and resulting from the articulation between three Dot Map: the Proportional Dot Map, the Dot Density Map (Montizon, 1830) and the Dorling’ circular cartogram of population (Dorling, 1996). The Dot Cartogram renews the cartographic image of the Dotmap in two directions: firstly, in terms of the perceived patterns, which is likely to vary according to several parameters; secondly, the steps to which it is subject. Our introduction of the Dot Cartogram is carried out on different static or interactive, executable and reproducible media. Its definition is complete by an application achieved on two data sets examined in parallel: population data and the gross domestic product of the countries of the world, both observed from 1950 to 2018.

The Gender Equality Index allows analyzing and measuring the progress of gender equality in the EU and, therefore, the relation between men and women in different domains, such as Health, Work or Money. Even though the European Institute for Gender Equality has created some visualizations that are useful to look at the data, this website does not manage to make graphs that allow for observing the spatiotemporal variable. This article enhances the understanding of the index with spatiotemporal visualizations, such as cartograms, heatmaps and choropleth maps, and some strategies focusing on analyzing the evolution of the countries over the years in an open-access environment. The results show how the application created may be used as an addition to the EIGE website. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A generic rectangulation is a partition of a rectangle into finitely many interior-disjoint rectangles, such that no four rectangles meet in a point. In this work we present a versatile algorithmic framework for exhaustively generating a large variety of different classes of generic rectangulations. Our algorithms work under very mild assumptions, and apply to a large number of rectangulation classes known from the literature, such as generic rectangulations, diagonal rectangulations, 1-sided/area-universal, block-aligned rectangulations, and their guillotine variants, including aspect-ratio-universal rectangulations. They also apply to classes of rectangulations that are characterized by avoiding certain patterns, and in this work we initiate a systematic investigation of pattern avoidance in rectangulations. Our generation algorithms are efficient, in some cases even loopless or constant amortized time, i.e., each new rectangulation is generated in constant time in the worst case or on average, respectively. Moreover, the Gray codes we obtain are cyclic, and sometimes provably optimal, in the sense that they correspond to a Hamilton cycle on the skeleton of an underlying polytope. These results are obtained by encoding rectangulations as permutations, and by applying our recently developed permutation language framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The circular cartogram, also known as the Dorling map, is a widely used tool for visualizing statistical data. It represents regions as circles with their areas in proportion to the statistical values and requires circle displacement to avoid overlap and maintain spatial relationships. In this paper, we propose a new approach for circular cartogram production that utilizes the elastic beam displacement algorithm in cartographic generalization. First, the initial circles are generated with their areas in proportion to the statistical values. Second, an elastic beam structure is built as a proximity graph based on the spatial relations between the circles. Third, the circles violating the quality requirements are considered to have a force on the nodes of a beam. Fourth, the elastic beam algorithm is applied to assign forces for each node to determine the new positions of the circles. Steps two through four are repeated until a circular cartogram that meets the defined quality requirements is obtained. The experiments indicate that the proposed approach can successfully generate circular cartograms without overlaps while maintaining topology and relative relationships with higher quality than existing approaches. Project website: [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Map reading is a challenging task for computer programs. This article explores how artificial intelligence and machine learning methods can be used to understand maps, an area we broadly refer to as computational cartographic recognition. Specifically, we use machine learning methods to (1) identify whether an image is a map, (2) recognize the geographic region on the map, and (3) recognize the projection used on the map. Four machine learning models—support vector machine, multilayer perceptrons, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) developed from scratch using our own architecture (CNNS), and pretrained CNN models through transfer learning (CNNT)—are applied in these tasks. We use 2,200 online map images, 500 nonmap images, and 1,050 synthetic map images to train and evaluate the models. Results show that the CNNT models achieve the highest performance among all models, with an accuracy rate above 90 percent for the tasks. The CNNS models come in second. We also conduct a round of stress tests using 3,600 additional synthetic maps where the shape and layout are systematically distorted and test if the models can still identify the maps and recognize the region and projection on the maps. The results of the stress tests show that the models can reliably recognize some of the modified maps even when exhibiting performance inferior to even random models for other maps. This unpredictable nature of the methods when applied to maps that are not represented in the training data suggests both promises and limitations of the current machine learning approaches to cartographic recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s population and development land have changed dramatically over the last decade. Yet, our understanding of the spatial distribution patterns of the population and built-up areas remains limited. To fill this gap, we employ China’s Population Census and GlobeLand30 remote sensing data from 2010 to 2020 at the county level to geovisualize the evolution of the population and built-up area. We find an increasing correlation between built-up areas and population as a result of the urbanization of rural areas, but the rapid expansion of built-up areas has not fundamentally changed concentration of China’s population over the period 2010–20. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. The relevance of the study of steppe phytocenoses is caused by the unsatisfactory state of natural grass stands, namely a low level of biodiversity and a high degree of degradation. The aim of the work is to determine the features of the connection of the Earth remote sensing data with the state and degree of degradation of natural grass stands in unstable moistening zone and arid zone of the Stavropol Territory. The Earth remote sensing data with certain temporal and spatial resolutions make it possible to carry out almost continuous monitoring of the state of natural grass stands. Materials and Methods. The study of steppe phytocenoses was carried out in 2016–2020 on the ground at discount areas (100 m2) according to the requirements of methods generally accepted in phytocenology. Vegetation condition was assessed using the Earth remote sensing data based on the values of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. According to the satellite data, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index cartograms were constructed for each point of the study. Results. The proportion of polygons with a high degree of degradation is 18.8% of research objects located in the zone of unstable moistening and the proportion of polygons with an average degree of degradation is 37.5%, while in the arid zone 70.6 and 23.5%, respectively. In the zone of unstable moistening, the highest coefficients of rank correlation between the degradation degree and the area occupied by herbaceous vegetation with a certain value of the vegetation index are observed in the case if Normalized Difference Vegetation Index is in the range of 0.0–0.4, and in the arid zone 0.0–0.3 (at 0.01 significance level). Discussion and Conclusion. When using the Earth remote sensing data to assess the degree of degradation of steppe ecosystems of the Stavropol Territory, it is necessary to use regression models specific to various soil and climatic conditions.

The spatial variability of the content of granulometric fraction d > 0.25 mm in the arable layer of soddy–podzolic cultivated soil on an area of 18 hectares was studied. The soil formed on the loesslike loam, underlain by moraine deposits. Samples were taken from the upper (0–10 cm) and lower parts of the arable layer (10–20 cm) following a random-stratified sampling scheme. The total number of samples was 350 cores. The average fraction content was about 22%, the coefficient of variation was 39–41%, and the distributions were approximated by a logarithmically normal distribution. The Spearman correlation coefficient between values at different depths was 0.87. Cartograms of spatial distribution were constructed by the ordinary kriging method using a spherical variogram model. It is shown that preliminary censoring of high sample values (quantile 0.95) yields better results when constructing a cartogram than removing a linear spatial trend and logarithm of the original data. Spatial structures with reduced and increased values were found on the site, the average linear sizes of which was about 100 m. Presumably, they were associated with the heterogeneity of soil-forming material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through globalization, countries around the world have been integrated into an interconnected economic system underpinned by international trade. Against this backdrop, this paper visualizes the evolving patterns of world trade geographies from 2000 to 2019. The maps show that the global trade centres have transformed from the two traditional major trading circles of North America and the European Union to the present three major trading circles of North America, the European Union and the Asia-Pacific region, along with the rapid rise of East Asian economies centred on China, Japan and South Korea. At the same time, some emerging economies have significantly increased their status in the world trade system.

This paper visualizes variations in the recovery patterns of intercity mobility during the Covid-19 outbreak in China using cartogram mapping. We found large regional disparities in intercity mobility recovery, with lower recovery ratios and speeds primarily concentrated in megacities and provincial capitals. Conversely, the recovery of intercity mobility was relatively high in other cities, especially in some labour-exporting cities of central and south-western China. In addition, cities in southern China showed a relatively higher recovery ratio and speed in intercity mobility than those in northern China.

In this paper, we are concerned with the problem of creating flattening maps of simply connected open surfaces in ℝ3Using a natural principle of density diffusion in physics, we propose an effective algorithm for computing density-equalizing maps with any prescribed density distribution. By varying the initial density distribution, a large variety of flattening maps with different properties can be achieved. For instance, area-preserving parameterizations of simply connected open surfaces can be easily computed. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method. Applications to data visualization and surface remeshing are explored.

The high prevalence of tuberculosis, complex treatment (requires a lot of time and persistence) with a concomitant integrated approach, which is due to the social dependence of the disease, other aspects make the fight against tuberculosis ineffective, and in some countries – with little prospect. The disease is often accompanied by disability and even death. Therefore, the high prevalence of infectious diseases, including due to airborne transmission, significant time and money associated with treatment, insufficient response to treatment due to the phenomenon of drug resistance, the need to improve treatment taking into account modern advances in medicine in different countries. The aim of the study – to use the capabilities of VOSviewer software in the analysis of publications in the field of pulmonary tuberculosis in the Scopus web database. Materials and Methods. The material for this study was bibliometric data on scientific publications from the Scopus web database, obtained on request for the keyword "pulmonary tuberculosis" for the period 1862–2021. Information processing was performed in the program VOSviewer v.1.6.16. In the course of work the program analysis of 92,263 articles was carried out. Results. The main functions of the VOSviewer software for research of scientific publications are considered in the article. The evaluation of publications on pulmonary tuberculosis in the period 1862–2021 is made, the data of the obtained cartograms with clusters are interpreted. A total of 5 clusters were obtained, which are devoted to the following aspects: complications and diagnosis, socially dependent disease factors, vaccination and genetic-immunological factors, pharmacological aspect and new approaches. Conclusions. Visualization showed that, in general, the authors most actively cover issues of complications and diagnosis, as well as socially dependent factors of the disease, and write less about vaccination or pharmacological aspects

Our regional graphic maps deprivation for small neighbourhoods in England in a way that enables the extent, distribution and spatial structure of deprivation to be perceived at multiple levels of geography. All 32,844 neighbourhoods are depicted using rectangles of constant size and with an approximate geographical arrangement. This approach overcomes familiar cartographic challenges when representing demographic data, exposing local pockets of deprivation that would otherwise be obscured in a conventional map. Neighbourhoods are nested hierarchically, and this hierarchy is emphasized in our design, allowing analysis within and between regions. The graphic reveals important spatial processes – rich patterns of continuity and discontinuity at multiple spatial scales – that may not be as effectively represented using non-visual means.

During the twentieth century, Erwin Raisz researched and worked on diverse cartographic areas: he developed the physiographic method for the representation of landforms, cartograms for data representation, a new map projection, etc. The cartographic community does not usually relate his name to school cartography, however, he made numerous works that were used in schools because of its high intrinsic educational value. The current paper gives a general and brief background on those works developed by Raisz and used by the teachers not only in schools of the United States, but of other countries too. His innumerable maps were and are examples of how cartography can be the main source of didactic tools in schools and how these tools can stimulate the pupils' interest towards maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our regional graphic maps deprivation for small neighbourhoods in England in a way that enables the extent, distribution and spatial structure of deprivation to be perceived at multiple levels of geography. All 32,844 neighbourhoods are depicted using rectangles of constant size and with an approximate geographical arrangement. This approach overcomes familiar cartographic challenges when representing demographic data, exposing local pockets of deprivation that would otherwise be obscured in a conventional map. Neighbourhoods are nested hierarchically, and this hierarchy is emphasized in our design, allowing analysis within and between regions. The graphic reveals important spatial processes - rich patterns of continuity and discontinuity at multiple spatial scales - that may not be as effectively represented using non-visual means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a collection of daily Search Index data of symptom-, prevention- and recovery-related terms in Baidu, this study visualizes the spatial patterns of public responses towards the COVID-19 outbreak during the response and coexisting response and recovery phases. We find that provincial capitals and cities in China’s Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta regions show a relatively high level of public responses in both phases. Furthermore, cities with similar past experiences show a high level of public responses in the response phase, suggesting that enhancing urban resilience is associated with the learning-by-doing process.

With an estimated annual worldwide death toll of between 290 000 and 650 000, seasonal influenza remains one of the deadliest respiratory diseases. Influenza vaccines provide moderate to high protection and have been on the World Health Organization's Model List of Essential Medicines since 1979. Approximately 490 million doses of influenza vaccine are produced per year, but an investigation of geographic allocation reveals enormous disparities. Here, we present two maps that visualise the inequality of the distribution across 195 countries: a conventional choropleth map and a cartogram. In combination, these two maps highlight the widespread lack of coverage in Africa and many parts of Asia. As COVID-19 vaccines are now being distributed in developed countries, data for seasonal influenza vaccine distribution emphasises the need for policymakers to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development zone (DZ) is a typical representative of China's regional economic development model. By comparing the development pattern of DZs in China from 2005 to 2017, we find that there was strong imbalance in 2005, but this trend decreased in 2017, mainly due to the rapid increase in the number of DZs in the central and western regions. Moreover, there is a significant correlation between the spatial pattern of the DZs and economic development. But compared with the spatial pattern of economic development, DZs have dispersed more strongly from 2005 to 2017. Indeed, the rapid dispersion of DZs has not fundamentally changed the imbalanced pattern of China's economic development from 2005 to 2017.

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Copyright of Journal of Al-Frahids Arts is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Cartograms are map-based data visualizations in which the area of each map region is proportional to an associated numeric data value (e.g., population or gross domestic product). A cartogram is called contiguous if it conforms to this area principle while also keeping neighboring regions connected. Because of their distorted appearance, contiguous cartograms have been criticized as difficult to read. Some authors have suggested that cartograms may be more legible if they are accompanied by interactive features (e.g., animations, linked brushing, or infotips). We conducted an experiment to evaluate this claim. Participants had to perform visual analysis tasks with interactive and noninteractive contiguous cartograms. The task types covered various aspects of cartogram readability, ranging from elementary lookup tasks to synoptic tasks (i.e., tasks in which participants had to summarize high-level differences between two cartograms). Elementary tasks were carried out equally well with and without interactivity. Synoptic tasks, by contrast, were more difficult without interactive features. With access to interactivity, however, most participants answered even synoptic questions correctly. In a subsequent survey, participants rated the interactive features as “easy to use” and “helpful.” Our study suggests that interactivity has the potential to make contiguous cartograms accessible even for those readers who are unfamiliar with interactive computer graphics or do not have a prior affinity to working with maps. Among the interactive features, animations had the strongest positive effect, so we recommend them as a minimum of interactivity when contiguous cartograms are displayed on a computer screen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of COVID-19 exposed the shortage of medical resources and the imbalance between cities in China. To better reveal this inequality, this study uses cartograms and half-violin plots to visualize the hospital beds per 10,000 people, medical personnel per 10,000 people and number of 3A hospitals in China. We find that China has made remarkable progress in the primary healthcare system; however, there is still a significant imbalance in the distribution of medical resources, especially the high-quality part. There is a two- to three-fold gap in primary medical care resources between diverse cities, and high-quality medical resources are highly concentrated in cities with high administrative rank and influence.

Cartogram drawing is a technique for showing geography-related statistical information, such as demographic and epidemiological data. The idea is to distort a map by resizing its regions according to a statistical parameter by keeping the map recognizable. This article describes an R package implementing an algorithm called RecMap which approximates every map region by a rectangle where the area corresponds to the given statistical value (maintain zero cartographic error). The package implements the computationally intensive tasks in C++. This paper's contribution is that it demonstrates on real and synthetic maps how package recmap can be used, how it is implemented and how it is used with other statistical packages.

Research objective. To estimate a geographical variation of the indicator of the incidence of atopic dermatitis among the child population of the Grodno region. Material and methods. The data of the official statistical reports of the Grodno Regional Department of Statistics, the annual report forms «Form 1 – children» of the medical statistics office of the Regional Children’s Clinical Hospital for the period of 1999-2016 years were analyzed. Territorial differentiation of the indicator of disease incidence was carried out by the method of cluster analysis (k-means clustering). Results. The geographical characteristic of the indicator of the incidence of atopic dermatitis among the child population of the Grodno region aged 0–14 years during 1999-2016 years has been given. Low, below the average, above the average, average and high values of the indicator of atopic dermatitis incidence have been established. The cartogram of territorial distribution of the indicator of atopic dermatitis incidence among the child population has been made. Conclusion. The established features, various intensity of the degree of a geographical variation of the indicator of atopic dermatitis incidence reflect the influence of a set of various factors determining an indicator of diseases incidence in various territories of the region and confirm the need to analyze the cause-and-effect relationships in the system «medium-indicator of atopic dermatitis incidence among the child population».

The development zone (DZ) is a typical representative of China's regional economic development model. By comparing the development pattern of DZs in China from 2005 to 2017, we find that there was strong imbalance in 2005, but this trend decreased in 2017, mainly due to the rapid increase in the number of DZs in the central and western regions. Moreover, there is a significant correlation between the spatial pattern of the DZs and economic development. But compared with the spatial pattern of economic development, DZs have dispersed more strongly from 2005 to 2017. Indeed, the rapid dispersion of DZs has not fundamentally changed the imbalanced pattern of China's economic development from 2005 to 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An evaluation of the rural labour market development in terms of districts of Volyn region of Ukraine was conducted, identified and characterized trends in the rural population employment through the State Employment Service of Ukraine, the rural population unemployment scale in the study region of Ukraine and identify key areas for optimizing the labour market. forces taking into account the revealed tendencies. In order to highlight the local rural labour markets features and further development of individualized recommendations, the detailed assessment of them in terms of districts of Volyn region of Ukraine, in particular, based on the results of the registered rural labour market study developed a map to visualize the relevant regional groups. It is established that family-labour farms, functioning in the form of peasant farms, in the current economic situation provide the necessary conditions for the institutional foundation's formation for private management in rural areas of Ukraine. The necessity of forming preconditions for strengthening the effectiveness of employment policy in rural areas of Ukraine is substantiated. The article outlines proposals for improving and optimizing the functioning of the rural labour market. Based on the results of research and trends in the work, the need to develop measures to intensify the activities of advisory services and specialized staffing agencies to take into account the specifics of the rural labour market rationalization and the peculiarities of rural employment in the economic realities of Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The highway network is considered to be an effective solution for reducing regional differences and promoting high-quality economic development. This study mapped Sichuan's highway network on an equal per capita GDP cartogram and on an equal highway freight volumes cartogram, which can provide a unique perspective to recognize the rationality of highway layouts and its coordination relationship with the population and economic development. The research result indicates that highway layouts are seriously affected by the topographical and geologic conditions, and the population and level of economic development are key influencing factors. It also shows that the density of the highway network is still seriously inadequate in the vast mountain and plateau area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ljungan virus (LV), which belongs to the Parechovirus genus in the Picornaviridae family, was first isolated from bank voles (Myodes glareolus) in Sweden in 1998 and proposed as a zoonotic agent. To improve knowledge of the host association and geographical distribution of LV, tissues from 1685 animals belonging to multiple rodent and insectivore species from 12 European countries were screened for LV-RNA using reverse transcriptase (RT)-PCR. In addition, we investigated how the prevalence of LV-RNA in bank voles is associated with various intrinsic and extrinsic factors. We show that LV is widespread geographically, having been detected in at least one host species in nine European countries. Twelve out of 21 species screened were LV-RNA PCR positive, including, for the first time, the red vole (Myodes rutilus) and the root or tundra vole (Alexandromys formerly Microtus oeconomus), as well as in insectivores, including the bicolored white-toothed shrew (Crocidura leucodon) and the Valais shrew (Sorex antinorii). Results indicated that bank voles are the main rodent host for this virus (overall RT-PCR prevalence: 15.2%). Linear modeling of intrinsic and extrinsic factors that could impact LV prevalence showed a concave-down relationship between body mass and LV occurrence, so that subadults had the highest LV positivity, but LV in older animals was less prevalent. Also, LV prevalence was higher in autumn and lower in spring, and the amount of precipitation recorded during the 6 months preceding the trapping date was negatively correlated with the presence of the virus. Phylogenetic analysis on the 185 base pair species-specific sequence of the 5′ untranslated region identified high genetic diversity (46.5%) between 80 haplotypes, although no geographical or host-specific patterns of diversity were detected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing number of foreign applications for patents in China, the spatial distribution of countries that have applied for patents in China, as well as its evolution, has yet to be investigated. By using cartograms, this paper aims to show the evolving distribution of countries that have applied for patents in China from 1987 to 2017. First, we find that the number of patents applied for in China has been far from evenly distributed across countries. Rather, it has been mainly concentrated in several countries such as Japan, the USA, and Germany. Second, the distribution pattern changed a lot during the first decade of the study period and has remained relatively stable over the last two decades. Third, recent years have also seen an increasing number of patent applications in China by some offshore financial markets like the Cayman Islands, where many high-tech companies are registered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper substantiates that because the soils ploughing level in Ukraine has not changed for a long time, soil depletion is growing every year. As a result of the formed culture tendencies which grow on such lands, every year will lose productivity, and consequently, the efficiency of managing the agricultural enterprises systematically decreases. Cartogram of Ukrainian regions grouping by the average annual rent for the agricultural land use is given. It was found that that in the current business environment in Ukraine, the amount of rent does not depend on the soil fertility level, because in most western, southern and south--eastern regions of Ukraine, where the most fertile soils are concentrated, the level of rent is relatively low. In addition, it should be noted that the agricultural land of public and private ownership renting cost differs significantly from each other, which we found by comparing the data of the relevant cartograms of Ukraine. We systematized the results of the impact factors assessing on the sale of gross output of agricultural enterprises of Ukraine in 2014 - 2018 by analysing the dynamics of the return rate on their fixed assets and the factors that influenced its formation. The results of the factor analysis will make it possible to identify the quantitative impact of factors on the efficiency of non-current assets of agricultural producers, the significant share of which is directly occupied by land resources. The work is systematized the results of assessing the impact of factors on the return on assets of agricultural producers of Ukraine for 2014 - 2018 by identifying the factors that influenced its formation by determining their quantitative impact through factor analysis methods, including the method of elimination. It is substantiated that having significant and quite high--quality reserves of fertile lands, Ukraine is 2-3 times less productive than developed countries, which is evidence of inefficient use of agricultural land by agricultural enterprises of Ukraine. In our opinion, the main task of the state to rationalize and establish the efficient use of land resources in the agricultural sector is to introduce a number of measures to ensure efficient land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the world's largest carbon emitter, China is under great pressure to cut down carbon emissions. Understanding the evolution of carbon emissions across Chinese cities is important for policymakers when allocating carbon emission quota among these cities. This paper draws upon the Open-source Data Inventory for Anthropogenic CO2 to calculate city-level per capita carbon emissions in China from 2001 to 2016. Overall, we find that per capita carbon emissions of Chinese cities have been generally on the rise during the 2001–2016 period. However, there has been on average a modest decline in per capita carbon emissions of cities in China's Yangtze River Delta region and Pearl River Delta region from 2011 to 2016, after a remarkable increase during the 2001–2011 period. Besides, the average north-south gap has been enlarged, with northern cities having a relatively higher level of per capita carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as a growing focus of global attention and a critical factor in public-health decision making. Towards fighting the COVID-19 outbreak, countries worldwide and international organisations have taken various actions, including promoting the transparency of and public access to disease data. In such public communications, maps have played an important role in that a map is worth a thousand words. Most of these have taken the form of a choropleth map. Here, we propose employing cartograms to visualise both the expansion and spread of COVID-19. We designed a combination of six circular cartograms containing the data of confirmed cases every 48 hours from 24 January to 3 February 2020. Such a design conveys both spatial and temporal information more intuitively and efficiently, so it can be expected to facilitate better public participation in the fight against COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1972 Lou Skoda and J.C. Robertson published an isodemographic map (a cartogram) of Canada that represented a population-oriented rendering of the 1966 Canadian census divisions. The map was developed with a physical analog model that kept all of Canada together in a contiguous mass while preserving recognizable divisions and province outlines.