Bridging the Gap between Field Experiments and Machine Learning: The EC H2020 B-GOOD Project as a Case Study towards Automated Predictive Health Monitoring of Honey Bee Colonies.

Honey bee colonies have great societal and economic importance. The main challenge that beekeepers face is keeping bee colonies healthy under ever-changing environmental conditions. In the past two decades, beekeepers that manage colonies of Western honey bees (Apis mellifera) have become increasingly concerned by the presence of parasites and pathogens affecting the bees, the reduction in pollen and nectar availability, and the colonies' exposure to pesticides, among others. Hence, beekeepers need to know the health condition of their colonies and how to keep them alive and thriving, which creates a need for a new holistic data collection method to harmonize the flow of information from various sources that can be linked at the colony level for different health determinants, such as bee colony, environmental, socioeconomic, and genetic statuses. For this purpose, we have developed and implemented the B-GOOD (Giving Beekeeping Guidance by computational-assisted Decision Making) project as a case study to categorize the colony's health condition and find a Health Status Index (HSI). Using a 3-tier setup guided by work plans and standardized protocols, we have collected data from inside the colonies (amount of brood, disease load, honey harvest, etc.) and from their environment (floral resource availability). Most of the project's data was automatically collected by the BEEP Base Sensor System. This continuous stream of data served as the basis to determine and validate an algorithm to calculate the HSI using machine learning. In this article, we share our insights on this holistic methodology and also highlight the importance of using a standardized data language to increase the compatibility between different current and future studies. We argue that the combined management of big data will be an essential building block in the development of targeted guidance for beekeepers and for the future of sustainable beekeeping.

Perspectives and Experiences with Engaging Youth and Families in Research.

Engaging youth with disabilities and families in research is critical in facilitating knowledge utilization to impact processes and outcomes of services and interventions. Organizations such as INVOLVE in the United Kingdom, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute in the United States advocate for engaging stakeholders in all aspects of the research process. Despite these efforts, there is a need for research to identify best practices and approaches for stakeholder engagement in research as current descriptions around processes are lacking. In this perspective paper, we share our insights and experiences with engaging youth with disabilities and families as members of the research team. We offer considerations and strategies for stakeholder engagement, as well as identify relevant frameworks to facilitate stakeholder engagement in research. We encourage researchers to share and document their experiences with stakeholder engagement in research to provide guidance for others with shared interests. We hope this paper will initiate conversations among researchers about best practices to maximize the full potential of stakeholders' time and input.