A Study into Detection of Bio-Events in Multiple Streams of Surveillance Data

Abstract. This paper reviews the results of a study into combining evidence from multiple streams of surveillance data in order to improve timeliness and specificity of detection of bio-events. In the experiments we used three streams of real food- and agriculture-safety related data that is being routinely collected at slaughter houses across the nation, and which carry mutually complementary information about potential outbreaks of bio-events. The results indicate that: (1) Non-specific aggregation of p-values produced by event detectors set on individual streams of data can lead to superior detection power over that of the individual detectors, and (2) Design of multi-stream detectors tailored to the particular characteristics of the events of interest can further improve timeliness and specificity of detection. In a practical setup, we recommend combining a set of specific multi-stream detectors focused on individual types of predictable and definable scenarios of interest, wi...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: BIOSURVEILLANCE
• Authors: Josep Roure, Artur Dubrawski, Jeff Schneider
• Keywords: BIOSURVEILLANCE 2007, Multi-stream Detectors, Non-specific Multi-stream Detectors, Security Privacy, Specific Multi-stream Detectors