While we are still under construction (as everything on Internet) it is a
pleasure to announce a new ftp site devoted to information about ticks.
Please do not look for nicely fashioned WWW pages, but only information about
the distribution of ticks in Spain (species, hosts, coordinates, season of the
year) as well as a bibliography on ticks and tick-borne diseases compiled from
1986 to current (more than 6400 records, with abstract). Both distribution and
bibliography files are under plain ASCII and FileMakes Pro formats, and are
updated every a few days.
The server also includes the results of a fuzzy logic model that displays the
risk of some tick species for Europe and Spain (I. ricinus is included, of
course). The model is updated yearly, so that the expected risk for the incoming
year can be adequately managed for human and/or animal populations. The model is
not enough fine to predict the monthly risk, because some constraints in the
rules of the expert system. That model is primarily intended for human health
management. The model for Spain has a bit more resolution than that of Europe.
Both models are distributed as a set of PICT images displaying risk (see the
readme file in the adequate directory for more info). The model for Europe
displays only the expected (or predicted risk). I plan to include a folder with
these same data in HDF format, to be read by one of the many packages available.
The address is ftp://155.210.174.59/
Please send your comments and suggestions to my e-mail address.
Have nice login
Agustin Estrada-Pena
Unidad de Parasitologia
Facultad de veterinaria
C/ Miguel Servet, 177
50013-Zaragoza (Spain)
fax: +34-76-761612
voice: +34-76-761558
E-mail: estrada at mvet.unizar.es
