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"Harrison, Colin"
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Integrating Wireless Remote Sensing and Sensors for Monitoring Pesticide Pollution in Surface and Groundwater
Water constitutes an indispensable resource crucial for the sustenance of humanity, as it plays an integral role in various sectors such as agriculture, industrial processes, and domestic consumption. Even though water covers 71% of the global land surface, governments have been grappling with the challenge of ensuring the provision of safe water for domestic use. A contributing factor to this situation is the persistent contamination of available water sources rendering them unfit for human consumption. A common contaminant, pesticides are not frequently tested for despite their serious effects on biodiversity. Pesticide determination in water quality assessment is a challenging task because the procedures involved in the extraction and detection are complex. This reduces their popularity in many monitoring campaigns despite their harmful effects. If the existing methods of pesticide analysis are adapted by leveraging new technologies, then information concerning their presence in water ecosystems can be exposed. Furthermore, beyond the advantages conferred by the integration of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), the Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning (ML), and big data analytics, a notable outcome is the attainment of a heightened degree of granularity in the information of water ecosystems. This paper discusses methods of pesticide detection in water, emphasizing the possible use of electrochemical sensors, biosensors, and paper-based sensors in wireless sensing. It also explores the application of WSNs in water, the IoT, computing models, ML, and big data analytics, and their potential for integration as technologies useful for pesticide monitoring in water.
Journal Article
A Wireless Network for Monitoring Pesticides in Groundwater: An Inclusive Approach for a Vulnerable Kenyan Population
Safe drinking water is essential to a healthy lifestyle and has been recognised as a human right by numerous countries. However, the realisation of this right remains largely aspirational, particularly in impoverished nations that lack adequate resources for water quality testing. Kenya, a Sub-Saharan country, bears the brunt of this challenge. Pesticide imports in Kenya increased by 144% from 2015 to 2018, with sales data indicating that 76% of these pesticides are classified as highly hazardous. This trend continues to rise. Over 70% of Kenya’s population resides in rural areas, with 75% of the rural population engaged in agriculture and using pesticides. Agriculture is the country’s main economic activity, contributing over 30% of its gross domestic product (GDP). The situation is further exacerbated by the lack of monitoring for pesticide residues in surface water and groundwater, coupled with the absence of piped water infrastructure in rural areas. Consequently, contamination levels are high, as agricultural runoff is a major contaminant of surface water and groundwater. The increased use of pesticides to enhance agricultural productivity exacerbates environmental degradation and harms water ecosystems, adversely affecting public health. This study proposes the development of a wireless sensor system that utilizes radio-frequency identification (RFID), Long-range (LoRa) protocol and a global system for mobile communications (GSM) for monitoring pesticide prevalence in groundwater sources. From the system design, individuals with limited literacy skills, advanced age, or non-expert users can utilize it with ease. The reliability of the LoRa protocol in transmitting data packets is thoroughly investigated to ensure effective communication. The system features a user-friendly interface for straightforward data input and facilitates broader access to information by employing various remote wireless sensing methods.
Journal Article
Deploying a Wireless Sensor Network to Track Pesticide Pollution in Kiu Wetland Wells: A Field Study
Water pollution from pesticides is a major concern for regulatory agencies worldwide due to expensive detecting mechanisms, delays in the processing of results, and the complexity of the chemical analysis. However, the deployment of monitoring systems utilising the internet of things (IoT) and machine-to-machine communication technologies (M2M) holds promise in overcoming this major global challenge. In this current research, an IoT-based wireless sensor network (WSN) is successfully deployed in rural Kenya at the Kiu watershed, providing in situ pesticide detections and a real-time data visualisation of shallow wells. Kiu is an off-grid community located in an area of intensive agriculture, where residents face a high exposure to pesticides due to farming activities and a reliance on shallow wells for domestic water. The evaluation of path loss models utilising channel characteristics obtained from this study indicate a marked departure from the continuous signal decay with distance. Transmitted packets from deployed sensor nodes indicate minimal mutations of payloads, underscoring systems reliability and data transmission integrity. Additionally, the proposed design significantly reduces the time taken to deliver pesticide measurement results to relevant stakeholders. For the entire monitoring period, pesticide residues were not detected in the selected wells, an outcome validated with lab procedures. These results are attributed to prevailing dry weather conditions which limited the leaching of pesticides to lower layers reaching the water table.
Journal Article
Importance and Applications of Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) in Railway Maintenance Sector: A Review
Maintenance, which is critical for safe, reliable, quality, and cost-effective service, plays a dominant role in the railway industry. Therefore, this paper examines the importance and applications of Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) in railway maintenance. More than 70 research publications, which are either in practice or under investigation describing RAS developments in the railway maintenance, are analysed. It has been found that the majority of RAS developed are for rolling-stock maintenance, followed by railway track maintenance. Further, it has been found that there is growing interest and demand for robotics and autonomous systems in the railway maintenance sector, which is largely due to the increased competition, rapid expansion and ever-increasing expenses.
Journal Article
A review of automation in manufacturing illustrated by a case study on mixed-mode hot forging
This paper describes a review of automation techniques as currently practiced in the forging and forming industry. That industry has been relatively resistant to handling automation because of the severe challenges that are faced by having typically small batch sizes, extremely challenging operating conditions in terms of temperatures and pressures and lighting conditions. The paper discusses how aspects of these difficulties can be overcome and it is hoped that the specific solutions and methodology presented will find general applications in other aspects of manufacturing industry. The concept of the “Automated Forging of the Future” is introduced in which advanced handling, rapid tooling-change and flexibility, smart metrology, advanced sensing and intelligent gripping techniques are presented. The paper represents the distillation of work on automated forging based on the authors’ implementation of a key theme in forging automation in Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC), The University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK.
Journal Article
American Culture in the 1990s
American Culture in the 1990sfocuses on the dramatic cultural transformations of the last decade of the millennium. Lodged between the fall of Communism and the outbreak of the War on Terror, the 1990s was witness to America's expanding influence across the world but also a period of anxiety and social conflict. National traumas such as the Los Angeles riots, the Oklahoma City bombing and the impeachment of President Clinton lend an apocalyptic air to the decade, but the book looks beyond this to a wider context to identify new voices emerging in the nation. This is one of the first attempts to bring together developments taking place across a range of different fields: from Microsoft to the Internet, from blank fiction to gangsta rap, from abject art to new independent cinema, and from postfeminism to posthumanism. Students of American culture and general readers will find this a lively and illuminating introduction to a complex and immensely varied decade.
Key Features
3 case studies per chapter featuring key texts, genres, writers and artistsChronology of 1990s American CultureBibliographies for each chapter10 black and white illustrations
eBook
The role of learning technology In planning change In curriculum delivery and design
This paper is a discussion of some aspects of the application of learning technology to the design and delivery of flexible learning packages, which can help make the most effective use of the most valuable resource in a university - its staff. Principles of good course design, preparation and use are exemplified in the approach taken towards flexible learning packages at Anglia Polytechnic University.DOI:10.1080/0968776940020104
Journal Article
