Outlier detection of vital sign trajectories from COVID-19 patients.

In this work, we present a novel trajectory comparison algorithm to identify abnormal vital sign trends, with the aim of improving recognition of deteriorating health.There is growing interest in continuous wearable vital sign sensors for monitoring patients remotely at home. These monitors are usually coupled to an alerting system, which is triggered when vital sign measurements fall outside a predefined normal range. Trends in vital signs, such as increasing heart rate, are often indicative of deteriorating health, but are rarely incorporated into alerting systems.We introduce a dynamic time warp distance-based measure to compare time series trajectories. We split each multi-variable sign time series into 180 minute, non-overlapping epochs. We then calculate the distance between all pairs of epochs. Each epoch is characterized by its mean pairwise distance (average link distance) to all other epochs, with clusters forming with nearby epochs.We demonstrate in synthetically generated data that this method can identify abnormal epochs and cluster epochs with similar trajectories. We then apply this method to a real-world data set of vital signs from 8 patients who had recently been discharged from hospital after contracting COVID-19. We show how outlier epochs correspond well with the abnormal vital signs and identify patients who were subsequently readmitted to hospital.

Interacting with Members of the Public to Discuss the Impact of Food Choices on Climate Change-Experiences from Two UK Public Engagement Events.

Food systems contribute to up to 37% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and emissions are increasing. Since the emissions vary greatly between different foods, citizens' choices can make a big difference to climate change. Public engagement events are opportunities to communicate these complex issues: to raise awareness about the impact of citizens' own food choices on climate change and to generate support for changes in all food system activities, the food environment and food policy. This article summarises findings from our 'Take a Bite Out of Climate Change' stand at two UK outreach activities during July 2019. We collected engagement information in three main ways: (1) individuals were invited to complete a qualitative evaluation questionnaire comprising of four questions that gauged the person's interests, perceptions of food choices and attitudes towards climate change; (2) an online multiple-choice questionnaire asking about eating habits and awareness/concerns; and (3) a token drop voting activity where visitors answered the question: 'Do you consider greenhouse gases when choosing food?' Our results indicate whether or not people learnt about the environmental impacts of food (effectiveness), how likely they are to move towards a more climate-friendly diet (behavioural change), and how to gather information more effectively at this type of event.