Semantically-Enabled Sensor Plug & Play for the Sensor Web

Environmental sensors have continuously improved by becoming smaller, cheaper, and more intelligent over the past years. As consequence of these technological advancements, sensors are increasingly deployed to monitor our environment. The large variety of available sensor types with often incompatible protocols complicates the integration of sensors into observing systems. The standardized Web service interfaces and data encodings defined within OGC’s Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) framework make sensors available over the Web and hide the heterogeneous sensor protocols from applications. So far, the SWE framework does not describe how to integrate sensors on-the-fly with minimal human intervention. The driver software which enables access to sensors has to be implemented and the measured sensor data has to be manually mapped to the SWE models. In this article we introduce a Sensor Plug & Play infrastructure for the Sensor Web by combining (1) semantic matchmaking functionality, (2) a publish/subscribe mechanism underlying the SensorWeb, as well as (3) a model for the declarative description of sensor interfaces which serves as a generic driver mechanism. We implement and evaluate our approach by applying it to an oil spill scenario. The matchmaking is realized using existing ontologies and reasoning engines and provides a strong case for the semantic integration capabilities provided by Semantic Web research

When Antibiotics Fail: The Expert Panel on the Potential Socio-Economic Impacts of Antimicrobial Resistance in Canada

Antimicrobials are life savers in Canada, enabling modern healthcare and playing a central role in agriculture. They have reduced the economic, medical, and social burden of infectious diseases and are part of many routine medical interventions, such as caesarean sections, joint replacements, and tonsillectomies. As use of antimicrobials has increased, bacteria evolved to become resistant, resulting in drugs that are no longer effective at treating infections. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is increasing worldwide, and with widespread trade and travel, resistance can spread quickly, posing a serious threat to all countries. For Canada, the implications of AMR are stark. When Antibiotics Fail examines the current impacts of AMR on our healthcare system, projects the future impact on Canada’s GDP, and looks at how widespread resistance will influence the day-to-day lives of Canadians. The report examines these issues through a One Health lens, recognizing the interconnected nature of AMR, from healthcare settings to the environment to the agriculture sector. It is the most comprehensive report to date on the economic impact of AMR in Canada

On the use of surrogate-based modeling for the numerical analysis of Low Impact Development techniques

Mechanistic models have proven to be accurate tools for the numerical analysis of the hydraulic behavior of Low Impact Development (LIDs) techniques. However, their widespread adoption has been limited by their computational cost. In this view, surrogate modeling is focused on developing and using a computationally inexpensive surrogate of the original model. While having been previously applied to various water-related and environmental modeling problems, no studies have used surrogate models for the analysis of LIDs. The aim of this research thus was to investigate the benefit of surrogate-based modeling in the numerical analysis of LIDs. The kriging technique was used to approximate the deterministic response of the widely used mechanistic model HYDRUS-2D, which was employed to simulate the variably-saturated hydraulic behavior of a contained stormwater filter. The Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) index was used to compare the simulated and measured outflows and as the variable of interest for the construction of the response surface. The validated kriging model was first used to carry out a Global Sensitivity Analysis of the unknown soil hydraulic parameters of the filter layer, revealing that only the shape parameter α and the saturated hydraulic conductivity Ks significantly affected the model response. Next, the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm was used to estimate their values. The NSE value of 0.85 indicated a good accuracy of estimated parameters. Finally, the calibrated model was validated against an independent set of measured outflows with a NSE value of 0.8, which again corroborated the reliability of the surrogate-based optimized parameters

Intolerance in Western Europe: analysis of trends and associated factors

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Antimicrobial stewardship: the effectiveness of educational interventions to change risk-related behaviours in the general population: a systematic review

RAND Europe undertook a systematic review of the evidence of effectiveness and cost effectiveness on changing the public's risk related behaviour pertaining to antimicrobial use to inform the development of a NICE public health guideline aimed at delaying antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The review considered educational interventions targeting individuals, communities or the general public delivered via any mode. Specifically, it aimed to address: 1. Which educational interventions are effective and cost-effective in changing the public's behaviour to ensure they only ask for antimicrobials when appropriate and use them correctly? 2. Which educational interventions are effective and cost-effective in changing the public's behaviour to prevent infection and reduce the spread of antimicrobial resistance? Overall, 60 studies met the inclusion criteria; 29 related to research question 1, and 36 related to research question 2 (five studies were applicable to both). The key findings are summarised in “Evidence Statements” in accordance with NICE guidelines. Evidence Statements provide a high level overview of the key features of the evidence including: the number of studies, the quality of evidence, and the direction of the estimated effect followed by a brief summary of each of the supporting studies. Studies are grouped into Evidence Statements by setting and intervention

Estimating the economic costs of antimicrobial resistance : model and results

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has increasingly been recognised as a growing global health threat (WHO, 2012), and the urgency of the AMR situation is now well accepted by many policy-makers, scientists, as well as by civil society organisations, including patients’ advocacy groups. Despite growing awareness and concern, inertia appears to persist in improving stewardship of existing antimicrobials to prevent a future with more resistant bacteria (Dowling et al., 2013). For instance, in comparison with climate change, while there appears to be increasing scientific consensus about the urgency of countering the impact of global warming, this is perhaps less clear (or at least the emerging consensus is less coherent) for antimicrobial resistance

Considering heroin-assisted treatment and supervised drug consumption sites in the United States.

Current levels of opioid-related morbidity and mortality in the United States are staggering. Data for 2017 indicate that there were more than 47,000 opioid-involved overdose deaths, and one in eight adults now reports having had a family member or close friend die from opioids. Increasing the availability and reducing the costs of approved medications for those with an opioid use disorder (OUD) is imperative; however, jurisdictions addressing OUDs and overdose may wish to consider additional interventions. Two interventions that are implemented in some other countries but not in the United States are heroin-assisted treatment (HAT; sometimes referred to as supervised injectable heroin treatment) and supervised consumption sites (SCSs; sometimes referred to as overdose prevention sites). Given the severity of the opioid crisis, there is urgency to evaluate tools that might reduce its impact and save lives. In this mixed-methods report, the authors assess evidence on and arguments made about HAT and SCSs and examine some of the issues associated with implementing them in the United States