Emergency Siren Sound Propagation and Coverage Optimization Analysis

Emergency warning sirens are a mass notification method that is used worldwide to quickly notify the public of a variety of dangers including flooding and acts of war. Siren network planners are faced with the question of where to locate new sirens to effectively reach citizens in a time of crises. This process answers a request from a GIS Analyst at the Bahrain Ministry of the Interior to create an ArcGIS Desktop Tool that predicts how far a siren’s sound will reach while considering siren properties and environmental variables, and then recommending siren locations that will completely cover a study area. This was accomplished by implementing a sound propagation engineering model and optimization analysis into two Python script tools that accept user input for any study area and output recommended siren points and their associated coverage area polygons. The sound propagation engineering model used was the ISO-9613-2 model with alterations recommended in the Joule Report

Core journals: fact or fiction?

pp. 15-2

Scholarly communication in the marine and aquatic sciences

pp. 151-16

One document at a time: small scale digitization projects

pp. 21-3

Community health workers and stand-alone or integrated case management of malaria: a systematic literature review.

A systematic literature review was conducted to assess the effectiveness of strategies to improve community case management (CCM) of malaria. Forty-three studies were included; most (38) reported indicators of community health worker (CHW) performance, 14 reported on malaria CCM integrated with other child health interventions, 16 reported on health system capacity, and 13 reported on referral. The CHWs are able to provide good quality malaria care, including performing procedures such as rapid diagnostic tests. Appropriate training, clear guidelines, and regular supportive supervision are important facilitating factors. Crucial to sustainable success of CHW programs is strengthening health system capacity to support commodity supply, supervision, and appropriate treatment of referred cases. The little evidence available on referral from community to health facility level suggests that this is an area that needs priority attention. The studies of integrated CCM suggest that additional tasks do not reduce the quality of malaria CCM provided sufficient training and supervision is maintained

Housing Voices: Using theatre and film to engage people in later life housing and health conversations

Purpose: Quality, accessible and appropriate housing is key to older people’s ability to live independently. The purpose of this paper is to understand older people’s housing aspirations and whether these are currently being met. Evidence suggests one in five households occupied by older people in England does not meet the standard of a decent home. The Building Research Establishment has calculated that poor housing costs the English National Health Service £1,4bn annually (Roys et al., 2016). Design/methodology/approach: This paper reports on the findings of a participatory theatre approach to engaging with those not often heard from – notably, those ageing without children and older people with primary responsibility for ageing relatives – about planning for housing decisions in later life. The project was led by an older people’s forum, Elders Council, with Skimstone Arts organisation and Northumbria University, in the north east of England. Findings: Findings suggest there is an urgent need to listen to and engage with people about their later life housing aspirations. There is also a need to use this evidence to inform housing, health and social care policy makers, practitioners, service commissioners and providers and product and service designers, to encourage older people to become informed and plan ahead. Research limitations/implications: Use of a participatory theatre approach facilitated people to explore their own decision making and identify the types of information and support they need to make critical decisions about their housing in later life. Such insights can generate evidence for future housing, social care and health needs. Findings endorse the recent Communities and Local Government (2018) Select Committee Inquiry and report on Housing for Older People and the need for a national strategy for older people’s housing. Originality/value: Although this call is evidenced through an English national case study, from within the context of global population ageing, it has international relevance

The Mathematics of Fluids and Solids

Fluid-structure interaction is a rich and active field of mathematics that studies the interaction between fluids and solid objects. In this short article, we give a glimpse into this exciting field, as well as a sample of the most significant questions that mathematicians try to answer

Core Journals: Fact or Fiction

As editors of the Marine Science and Technology section for the last three editions of Magazines for Libraries (MFL), we developed lists of journals and annotations to help guide marine sciences acquisitions for all types of libraries. We recommended essential titles at the same time we needed to cancel some of those titles from our own collections. We believe the idea of a “core” collection, particularly for marine science, is no longer a valid concept. Collection development decisions must be made in collaboration with partner libraries and take into consideration the costs and benefits of access versus ownership, use, open-access policies and journal impact

Show Us The Databases: Rethinking access to marine science information

As IAMSLIC members will recall, in 1990 Stephanie Haas questioned ASFA’s supremacy in marine science libraries and found “potential pitfalls” if relying on a single database to adequately discover the relevant literature (Haas 1990). We still question the best way to access the literature in our multidisciplinary field. Patrons and librarians want tools that are efficient, current and easy to use. We know libraries can no longer afford to purchase core journal collections (Webster and Butler, 2011) and now we ask if we can still afford the best access tools. We used a modified version of the Hass research methodology to compare the timeliness and completeness with which Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA), Fish, Fisheries & Aquatic Biodiversity Worldwide (FFABW), Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science (WOS) tracked the literature. We developed a list of journal titles for the disciplines of fisheries, marine biology and oceanography from our earlier work (Webster and Butler, 2011a) and the Marine Science and Technology section of Magazines for Libraries (Webster and Butler, 2011b). We report our findings on the currency of each tool as well as other issues that arose in navigating the current marine science information landscape.This paper will also be available in the IAMSLIC proceedings archive at the Woods Hole Oceanography Institute. https://darchive.mblwhoilibrary.org/handle/1912/164Keywords: Access to information, Marine science librarianship, Database