Background The B-MaP-C study aimed to determine alterations to breast cancer (BC) management during the peak transmission period of the UK COVID-19 pandemic and the potential impact of these treatment decisions. Methods This was a national cohort study of patients with early BC undergoing multidisciplinary team (MDT)-guided treatment recommendations during the pandemic, designated ‘standard’ or ‘COVID-altered’, in the preoperative, operative and post-operative setting. Findings Of 3776 patients (from 64 UK units) in the study, 2246 (59%) had ‘COVID-altered’ management. ‘Bridging’ endocrine therapy was used (n = 951) where theatre capacity was reduced. There was increasing access to COVID-19 low-risk theatres during the study period (59%). In line with national guidance, immediate breast reconstruction was avoided (n = 299). Where adjuvant chemotherapy was omitted (n = 81), the median benefit was only 3% (IQR 2–9%) using ‘NHS Predict’. There was the rapid adoption of new evidence-based hypofractionated radiotherapy (n = 781, from 46 units). Only 14 patients (1%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during their treatment journey. Conclusions The majority of ‘COVID-altered’ management decisions were largely in line with pre-COVID evidence-based guidelines, implying that breast cancer survival outcomes are unlikely to be negatively impacted by the pandemic. However, in this study, the potential impact of delays to BC presentation or diagnosis remains unknown.

Movement of an entity is greatly affected by its internal and external contexts. Such consequential influence has created new paradigms for context-aware movement data mining and analysis. The significance of incorporating contextual information and movement data is becoming quite evident because of the growing interest in context-aware movement analysis. Despite such importance, there is limited consensus among researchers on the definition of context and context-aware system design in movement studies. Therefore, this paper comprehensively reviews current concepts of context and provides a definition and a taxonomy for context in movement analysis. The paper proceeds by providing a definition of context-aware systems in the movement area after a complete review and comparison of the present definitions present in the literature. Inspired by related works, the paper further suggests a holistic three-layer design framework tailored to context-aware systems in movement studies to examine in greater depth the techniques applied during the design stages. The paper outlines the challenges and emergent issues in future research directions in context-aware movement analysis. The present study is an attempt to bridge the gap between solely using context and developing context-aware systems, thus paving the way for further research in movement applications. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. How to cite this article:WIREs Data Mining Knowl Discov 2018Discov , 8:e1233. doi: 10.1002Discov /widm.1233 INTRODUCTIONM ovement is intrinsically a continuous phenomenon and is normally recorded as discrete snapshots at different temporal resolutions. The three fundamental sets pertinent to movement are space S (i.e., set of locations/places), time T (i.e., set of instants/intervals), and object O (i.e., set of entities). 1 In this paper, by movement we mean the change in the spatial location of one or more entities (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) over time, not a change in entities' geometries (e.g., an individual's body parts). Such changes can be represented as a function μ: T ! S, which maps any time to a location in space. The purpose of analyzing movement data in the majority of research fields (e.g., geography, ecology, sociology, and transportation) has focused on the development of insights into the behavior of moving entities. However, the movement behavior of entities is generally associated with their internal states and external factors. 2 In other words, understanding entities' movement greatly depends on recognizing the characteristics attributed to the entity itself (e.g., the entities' purposes and intentions for movement, the entities' perceptions of space) as well as the discovery of geographical circumstances during the movement (e.g., weather conditions and traffic). We, respectively, term these influential variables internal and external contexts in this paper. of 19Because of the progress in sensing, imaging, tracking, and navigation technologies and infrastructures in recent years, unprecedented amount...

For maritime safety and security, vessels should be able to predict the trajectories of nearby vessels to avoid collision. This research proposes three novel models based on similarity search of trajectories that predict vessels' trajectories in the short and long term. The first and second prediction models are, respectively, point-based and trajectory-based models that consider constant distances between target and sample trajectories. The third prediction model is a trajectory-based model that exploits a long short-term memory approach to measure the dynamic distance between target and sample trajectories. To evaluate the performance of the proposed models, they are applied to a real automatic identification system (AIS) vessel dataset in the Strait of Georgia, USA. The models' accuracies in terms of Haversine distance between the predicted and actual positions show relative prediction error reductions of 40·85% for the second model compared with the first model and 23% for the third model compared with the second model.

Recent human effort has been directed at expanding pervasive smart environments. For this, ubiquitous computing technology is introduced to provide all users with any service, anytime, anywhere, with any device, and under any network. However, high cost, long time consumption, extensive effort, and in some cases irrevocability are the main challenges and difficulties for developing ubiquitous systems. Therefore, one solution is to initially simulate, analyze, and validate practices prior to deploying sensing and computational devices in the real world. Simulation, as a performance evaluation technique, has attracted attentions due to its speed, cost-effectiveness, repeatability, scalability, flexibility, and ease of implementation. Moreover, emulation, as a hybrid method, not only offers most simulation advantages but also benefits from tight control of implementation, as well as a certain degree of realistic results. Both simulators and emulators are significant tools for enhancing the understanding of ubiquitous sensor networks (USNs) through testing and analyzing several scenarios prior to actual sensor placements. In this regard, this paper surveys 130 simulation and emulation environments and frameworks, which were originally designed and adapted for USN. Of these 130, the 22 that have been widely used, regularly updated, and well supported by their developers are compared based on multifarious criteria. Finally, several studies that had favorably compared the performance of simulators and/or emulators are examined. We believe the present research findings will be helpful for students and researchers to pick an appropriate simulator/emulator, and for software developers and those who are keen on producing their own environment.

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Statistically clustering air pollution can provide evidence of underlying spatial processes responsible for intensifying the concentration of contaminants. It may also lead to the identification of hotspots. The patterns can then be targeted to manage the concentration level of pollutants. In this regard, employing spatial autocorrelation indices as important tools is inevitable. In this study, general and local indices of Moran's I and Getis-Ord statistics were assessed in their representation of the structural characteristics of carbon monoxide (CO) and fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) polluted areas in Tehran, Iran, which is one of the most polluted cities in the world. For this purpose, a grid (200 m × 200 m) was applied across the city, and the inverse distance weighted (IDW) interpolation method was used to allocate a value to each pixel. To compare the methods of detecting clusters meaningfully and quantitatively, the pollution cleanliness index (PCI) was established. The results ascertained a high clustering level of the pollutants in the study area (with 99% confidence level). PM 2.5 clusters separated the city into northern and southern parts, as most of the cold spots were situated in the north half and the hotspots were in the south. However, the CO hotspots also covered an area from the northeast to southwest of the city and the cold spots were spread over the rest of the city. The Getis-Ord's PCI suggested a more polluted air quality than the Moran's I PCI. The study provides a feasible methodology for urban planners and decision makers to effectively investigate and govern contaminated sites with the aim of reducing the harmful effects of air pollution on public health and the environment.

Abstract:Characterizing the spatial variation of traffic-related air pollution has been and is a long-standing challenge in quantitative environmental health impact assessment of urban transportation planning. Advanced approaches are required for modeling complex relationships among traffic, air pollution, and adverse health outcomes by considering uncertainties in the available data. A new hybrid fuzzy model is developed and implemented through hierarchical fuzzy inference system (HFIS). This model is integrated with a dispersion model in order to model the effect of transportation system on the PM 2.5 concentration. An improved health metric is developed as well based on a HFIS to model the impact of traffic-related PM 2.5 on health. Two solutions are applied to improve the performance of both the models: the topologies of HFISs are selected according to the problem and used variables, membership functions, and rule set are determined through learning in a simultaneous manner. The capabilities of this proposed approach is examined by assessing the impacts of three traffic scenarios involved in air pollution in the city of Isfahan, Iran, and the model accuracy compared to the results of available models from literature. The advantages here are modeling the spatial variation of PM 2.5 with high resolution, appropriate processing requirements, and considering the interaction between emissions and meteorological processes. These models are capable of using the available qualitative and uncertain data. These models are of appropriate accuracy, and can provide better understanding of the phenomena in addition to assess the impact of each parameter for the planners.

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