Visual Semiotics & Uncertainty Visualization: An Empirical Study.

This paper presents two linked empirical studies focused on uncertainty visualization. The experiments are framed from two conceptual perspectives. First, a typology of uncertainty is used to delineate kinds of uncertainty matched with space, time, and attribute components of data. Second, concepts from visual semiotics are applied to characterize the kind of visual signification that is appropriate for representing those different categories of uncertainty. This framework guided the two experiments reported here. The first addresses representation intuitiveness, considering both visual variables and iconicity of representation. The second addresses relative performance of the most intuitive abstract and iconic representations of uncertainty on a map reading task. Combined results suggest initial guidelines for representing uncertainty and discussion focuses on practical applicability of results.

Consumption of different alcoholic beverages as predictors of local rates of night-time assault and acute alcohol-related morbidity.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether population levels of consumption of some alcoholic beverages are more closely associated with levels of harm than others, particularly if consumption of cask wine is more strongly related to rates of acute alcohol problems than consumption of bottled wine as a consequence of the extremely low rates of federal tax levied on the former. METHOD: A database of alcohol consumption and related problems was established for 130 areas of Western Australia. Demographic and economic data for these areas were included from the 1991 census. Empirically derived assumptions regarding the mean wholesale price of cask and bottled wine were utilised. Regression analyses examined the extent to which the consumption of different alcoholic beverages predicted levels of major varieties of harm. RESULTS: Only cask wine and high-strength beer consumption were significantly associated with rates of night-time assault; consumption of all beverage varieties except bottled wine was significantly associated with rates of acute alcohol-related morbidity. Further analyses, which included controls for an effect of total alcohol consumption, confirmed the pronounced contributions of cask wine and high-strength beer to rates of night assaults and acute alcohol-related morbidity. The proportion of all alcohol consumed as low-alcohol beer was significantly negatively associated with these harms. CONCLUSIONS: The beverages most associated with rates of night-time assaults and acute alcohol-related morbidity are those with the lowest federal taxation per standard drink, i.e. cask not bottled wine and regular-strength not low-alcohol beer.

Alcohol consumption and injury in Western Australia: a spatial correlation analysis using geographic information systems.

Geographic information systems technology was used to describe, in geographical terms, the nature and strength of the relationship in Western Australia between alcohol consumption and the rates of related injury: night-time assaults (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.); minor night-time road crashes (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.), weighted by traffic density; and hospital E-code (external-cause) morbidity, weighted by alcohol aetiologic fractions. The data were aggregated by five conventional state regions: northern, central, western, southern and Perth metropolitan. There was a general association, of equal significance for males and females, between estimated per capita alcohol consumption and the selected rates of injury in the five regions. However, the nature and strength of association between alcohol consumption and individual injury measures varied. Night-time assaults and hospital E-code morbidity were strongly, associated with consumption. Minor night-time crashes had only a weak association. The variation in the relationship between alcohol consumption and injury suggests that prevention strategies need to take into account the particular drinking patterns and associated harm that occur in different regions of the state, and to develop a range of targeted responses. High rates of consumption and injury in most country areas support the need for greater regional prevention efforts.