Prediction of Cattle Fever Tick Outbreaks in United States Quarantine Zone

[NOTE - 11/24/2021: this dataset supersedes an earlier version https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/1518654 ]
Data sources. Time series data on cattle fever tick incidence, 1959-2020, and climate variables January 1950 through December 2020, form the core information in this analysis. All variables are monthly averages or sums over the fiscal year, October 01 (of the prior calendar year, y-1) through September 30 of the current calendar year (y). Annual records on monthly new detections of Rhipicephalus microplus and R. annulatus (cattle fever tick, CFT) on premises within the Permanent Quarantine Zone (PQZ) were obtained from the Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Program (CFTEP) maintained jointly by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Animal Plant Health Inspection Service and the USDA Animal Research Service in Laredo, Texas. Details of tick survey procedures, CFTEP program goals and history, and the geographic extent of the PQZ are in the main text, and in the Supporting Information (SI) of the associated paper. Data sources on oceanic indicators, on local meteorology, and their pretreatment are detailed in SI.
Data pretreatment. To address the low signal-to-noise ratio and non-independence of observations common in time series, we transformed all explanatory and response variables by using a series of six consecutive steps: (i) First differences (year y minus year y-1) were calculated, (ii) these were then converted to z scores (z = (x- μ) / σ, where x is the raw value, μ is the population mean, σ is the standard deviation of the population), (iii) linear regression was applied to remove any directional trends, (iv) moving averages (typically 11-year point-centered moving averages) were calculated for each variable, (v) a lag was applied if/when deemed necessary, and (vi) statistics calculated (r, n, df, P

【注 - 2021年11月24日：本数据集取代了早期版本 https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/1518654】
数据来源。本分析的核心信息包括关于牛蜱热发病率的时间序列数据（1959-2020年）以及气候变量（1950年1月至2020年12月）。所有变量均为年度月平均值或财政年度总和，时间范围为上一年度（y-1年）10月1日至当年（y年）9月30日。关于永久隔离区（PQZ）内每月新检测到的双角血蜱（Rhipicephalus microplus）和环形血蜱（R. annulatus）（牛蜱热，CFT）的年度记录，均来自由美国农业部（USDA）、动植物卫生检查局和德克萨斯州拉雷多市美国农业部动物研究服务局共同维护的牛蜱热根除计划（CFTEP）。关于蜱虫调查程序、CFTEP计划的目标和历史以及PQZ的地理范围，详见正文及关联论文的补充信息（SI）。关于海洋指标、当地气象数据及其预处理的数据来源在补充信息（SI）中详细说明。
数据预处理。为解决时间序列数据中常见的低信噪比和观测值非独立性问题，我们对所有解释变量和响应变量进行了以下六个连续步骤的转换：(i) 计算一阶差分（年份y减去年份y-1），(ii) 将其转换为Z分数（Z = (x-μ) / σ，其中x为原始值，μ为总体均值，σ为总体标准差），(iii) 应用线性回归以消除任何方向趋势，(iv) 对每个变量计算移动平均（通常为11年的点中心移动平均），(v) 在必要时应用滞后，(vi) 计算统计量（r，n，df，P）