Expense and the logistical difficulties with deploying scientific monitoring equipment are the biggest limitations to undertaking large scale monitoring of aquatic environments. The Smart ...Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Technologies (SEMAT) project is aimed at addressing this problem by creating an open standard for low-cost, near real-time, remote aquatic environmental monitoring systems. This paper presents the latest refinement of the SEMAT system in-line with the evolution of existing technologies, inexpensive sensors and environmental monitoring expectations. We provide a systems analysis and design of the SEMAT remote monitoring units and the back-end data management system. The system's value is augmented through a unique e-waste recycling and repurposing model which engages/educates the community in the production of the SEMAT units using social enterprise. SEMAT serves as an open standard for the community to innovate around to further the state of play with low-cost environmental monitoring. The latest SEMAT units have been trialled in a peri-urban lake setting and the results demonstrate the system's capabilities to provide ongoing data in near real-time to validate an environmental model of the study site.
Turbidity is a key environmental parameter that is used in the determination of water quality. The turbidity of a water body gives an indication of how much suspended sediment is present, which ...directly impacts the clarity of the water (i.e., whether it is cloudy or clear). Various commercial nephelometric and optical approaches and products exist for electronically measuring turbidity. However, most of these approaches are unsuitable or not viable for collecting data remotely. This paper investigates ways for incorporating a turbidity sensor into an existing remote aquatic environmental monitoring platform that delivers data in near real-time (i.e., 15-min intervals). First, we examine whether an off-the-shelf turbidity sensor can be modified to provide remote and accurate turbidity measurements. Next, we present an inexpensive design for a practical light attenuation turbidity sensor. We outline the sensor's design rationale and how various technical and physical constraints were overcome. The turbidity sensor is calibrated against a commercial turbidimeter using a Formazin standard. Results indicate that the sensor readings are indicative of actual changes in turbidity, and a calibration curve for the sensor could be attained. The turbidity sensor was trialled in different types of water bodies over nine months to determine the system's robustness and responsiveness to the environment.
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This paper details the physical and hardware design of a flexible open-source IoT (Internet of Things) platform for environmental sensing. The application is a remote water quality ...monitoring buoy that can be deployed in calm, shallow near-shore aquatic environments with fresh or brackish water. The system’s development has been informed by experience through conducting multiple actual water quality studies over a prolonged period. The system runs an Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller using off-the-shelf Adafruit lux and temperature sensors. A light attenuation turbidity sensor is adapted and integrated into the design. A TinySine 3G GSM module transmits data to a server that is displayed via a ThingsBoard IoT dashboard. The system is stable over time, provides reliable remote sensor readings, has low energy consumption, and is powered by renewable energy (up-cycled batteries). The hardware aspires to be general-purpose so that future environmental monitoring applications can repurpose the electronics by adding new compatible sensors and modifying the physical design to match the requirements.
There is an increasing need for environmental measurement systems to further science and thereby lead to improved policies for sustainable management. Marine environments are particularly hostile and ...extremely difficult for deploying sensitive measurement systems. As a consequence the need for data is greatest in marine environments, particularly in the developing economies/regions. Expense is typically the most significant limiting factor in the number of measurement systems that can be deployed, although technical complexity and the consequent high level of technical skill required for deployment and servicing runs a close second. This paper describes the Smart Environmental Monitoring and Analysis Technologies (SEMAT) project and the present development of the SEMAT technology. SEMAT is a "smart" wireless sensor network that uses a commodity-based approach for selecting technologies most appropriate to the scientifically driven marine research and monitoring domain/field. This approach allows for significantly cheaper environmental observation systems that cover a larger geographical area and can therefore collect more representative data. We describe SEMAT's goals, which include: (1) The ability to adapt and evolve; (2) Underwater wireless communications; (3) Short-range wireless power transmission; (4) Plug and play components; (5) Minimal deployment expertise; (6) Near real-time analysis tools; and (7) Intelligent sensors. This paper illustrates how the capacity of the system has been improved over three iterations towards realising these goals. The result is an inexpensive and flexible system that is ideal for short-term deployments in shallow coastal and other aquatic environments.
•This is the first paper to examine the scenario of multiple colluding sellers engaging in shill bidding.•We outline the optimal strategy to engage in to mask shill bidding behaviour.•We propose the ...first algorithm to provide evidence of whether groups of sellers are colluding.•Performance is demonstrated using simulated and commercial auction data.
Shill bidding occurs when fake bids are introduced into an auction on the seller’s behalf in to artificially inflate the final price. The seller either has associates bid in the seller’s auctions, or the seller controls multiple fake bidder accounts that are used for shill bidding. We proposed a reputation system referred to as the Shill Score that indicates how likely a bidder is to be engaging in price inflating behaviour in a specific seller’s auctions. A potential bidder can observe the other bidders’ Shill Scores, and if they are high, the bidder can elect not to participate as there is some evidence that shill bidding occurs in the seller’s auctions. However, if a seller is in collusion with other sellers, or controls multiple seller accounts, the seller can spread the risk between the various sellers and can reduce suspicion on the shill bidder. Collusive seller behaviour impacts one of the characteristics of shill bidding the Shill Score examines; consequently, collusive behaviour can reduce a bidder’s Shill Score. This paper extends the Shill Score to detect shill bidding where multiple sellers are working in collusion with each other. We propose the first algorithm to provide evidence of whether groups of sellers are colluding. Based on how tight the association is between the sellers and the level of apparent shill bidding that is occurring in the auctions, a suspect bidder’s Shill Score is adjusted appropriately to remove any advantage from seller collusion. Performance is demonstrated using simulated and commercial auction data and extensive experimental results are presented.
Process-oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) is a technique used to teach in large lectures and tutorials. It invokes interaction, team-building, learning and interest through highly structured ...group work. Currently, POGIL has only been implemented in traditional classroom settings where all participants are physically present. However, advances in online learning technologies have prompted increases in the popularity of flexible delivery and distance education courses. Therefore, teaching and learning theories need to reflect the changing student demographic. This paper describes a preliminary approach for adapting POGIL techniques for use in tertiary courses delivered online. The authors discuss the current technologies that can be used online and contrast their suitability for POGIL. A framework is presented for using Web 2.0 technologies (blogs, wikis, social networking) as a starting point for POGIL. The authors describe how these technologies were applied in an online third-year information technology subject. Author abstract
This paper presents an extension to an IoT platform for remote near real-time aquatic environmental monitoring that incorporates electrical conductivity (i.e., salinity), dissolved oxygen and ...potential of hydrogen (pH) sensors. The predecessor to this system could be remotely deployed for extended periods of time, but was limited to measuring temperature, lux (light) and turbidity only. This paper outlines how the platform was expanded upon to include the additional environmental parameters (i.e., salinity, dissolved oxygen and pH) by selecting the appropriate compatible sensor technologies, redesigning the electronic componentry/physical buoy, and undertaking thorough system integration testing. We present the hardware and software challenges faced to adapt the platform to the new sensor parameters, illustrate the latest buoy design, describe the calibration process and demonstrate in-house and commercial field-testing. The system can be deployed for 12 months between maintenance cycles and has been used in environmental research and commercial prawn farm water quality monitoring.
Environmental monitoring systems have been evolving dynamically to embrace modern Internet of Things (IoT) technology in the last decade. Despite this progress there are, however, continuing ...limitations and issues with some IoT designs. Thus, past research has identified areas of concern in areas such as communications, interoperability, reliability, and scalability. As enabling technologies evolve in an accelerated manner, there will no doubt be a plethora of environmental monitoring solutions under development. Such solutions need to be well evaluated so that potential users are knowledgeable in relation to the best solution for their specific applications. Along these lines, this paper puts forward a framework to evaluate proposed IT designs relevant to smart environmental monitoring systems. This framework is based on model standardized software engineering requirements found in ISO 25010, which it uses as an aid to develop business-driven ‘smart’ environmental monitoring systems.
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have been used in numerous applications to remotely gather real-time data on important environmental parameters. There are several projects where WSNs are deployed in ...different locations and operate independently. Each deployment has its own models, encodings, and services for sensor data, and are integrated with different types of visualization/analysis tools based on individual project requirements. Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) provides a set of standards (web service interfaces and data encoding/model specifications) to make sensor data publicly available on the Web. This paper describes how the SWE framework can be extended to integrate disparate WSN systems and to support standardized access to sensor data. The proposed system also introduces a web-based data visualization and statistical analysis service for data stored in the Sensor Observation Service (SOS) by integrating open source technologies. A performance analysis is presented to show that the additional features have minimal impact on the system. Also some lessons learned through implementing SWE are discussed.
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