YHIOT Journal - Issue 1 

 

Objective: The purpose of this research was to analyse the needs of sustainability in the current climate and world within the sustainability industry. This includes the history of sustainability and discussing the differences in prices of practices such as solar panels and their effect on electrical bills. The objectives of this research were to research into sustainable practices and improvements in these practices for the future through alternatives and bettering current practices. 

 

Approach: The approach to this research was to communicate with Askham Bryan Wildlife and Conservation Park and discuss their present sustainability and recommend future sustainability practices, with data and previous research. A reoccurring trend in this research was the implications of minor sustainable practices in business that could be used wider. 

 

Results: The result of this research is that Askham Bryan Wildlife and Conservation Park had multiple sustainable practices in place and plans for future of their sustainability. Also, multiple sustainable practices that were not in place were suggested and analysed for the park and the future of implementing them. Implications of this research could include increased sustainability practices in industries such as Askham Bryan Wildlife and Conservation Park, but also increased practice in the public such as increased use of rainwater collections and solar panels. The longer implications could also include decrease in electrical bills and decrease in fossil fuel usage. 

 

Conclusions: To conclude, sustainability has been increased in recent years but there can be improvements everywhere. There may be a need for additional research into how to provide sustainable practices more widely and economical. 

Irrigation is used widely by British potato growers, applying water during dry weather conditions is said to improve the yield and quality of the potato crops (AHDB, 2020). Water is becoming an increasingly expensive resource for British farmers therefore it is important we understand to make the best use of what is available (Bambridge, 2018). In order to achieve improved yield and quality, it is essential that specific variety requirements are understood and irrigation scheduling is accurate and effective. 

 

The project took place in Field 11 at Pasture Farm, Goole, part of Elveden Farms. A total area of 10.1 hectare was planted in early April with Maris Piper potatoes, seed size 45/55. The potatoes were irrigated using an overhead rain gun method, 7.9 hectare were irrigated and 2.2 were unirrigated. The potatoes were harvested in the field and samples consisting of 30 tubers were taken from each trailer before they were graded. The aim of the project is to assess and evaluate how irrigation affects the yield and quality of Maris Piper potatoes. In order to achieve this aim, data was gathered throughout harvesting of the potatoes by taking samples, sending the samples off for assessment and analysing the results using SPSS. One objective of the project was to assess whether irrigation significantly improves the yield of Maris Piper potatoes, however there was no statistical significance found on the dry matter (P=0.353) or total weight (P=0.053) of the potatoes. Also, the effect of irrigation on the number of defects, including irregular size and damage (common scab, greening, slug holes, bruising) was assessed and there was a statistically significant difference (P=0.002) in total defects dependent on the irrigation method, whereby more defects were found in the non-irrigated potatoes. 

Objectives: The player experience in first-person shooter games is affected by the skill and predictability of the computer-controlled enemies (agents). The performance of the agents is based on the algorithms controlling decision making and the data which is used to make decisions. 

 

Approach: This study examined the effects of degrading the quality of data through delay and noise to mimic perception flaws in the agents. A simulation was created in which two agents compete in an arena based first person shooter game. An agent with perfect information was used as a baseline to evaluate the effects of a) delayed data, and b) data distorted through the introduction of noise. 

 

Results: The study used Spearman’s rho test to find a high negative correlation (-0,709 for overall agent accuracy and -0,539 for agent precise headshots) between agent performance and the amount of noise distortion of data. Little to no correlation (-0,83 for overall agent accuracy and -0,68 for agent precise headshots) was found when using delayed information. 

 

Conclusions: We conclude that introducing a scalable level of noise to the data used by agents to make decisions provides a simple method of scaling the performance of agents and thus a simple method to scale the difficulty of first-person shooter games. 

Road work planning, vehicle accident hotspot, and congestion observation are several developments achieved from traffic monitoring results. The constant increase in traffic and population raises the reliance on surveillance systems to provide accurate results, which would lead to road safety improvements. Compared to standard surveillance cameras, our implementation of a 360 camera captures the maximum field of view, essentially increasing efficiency by reducing the number of required cameras. This study proposes two solutions for detection, analysis, and data visualisation of traffic. The initial method identifies contours and verifies them by grading their size and location, whereas the second method utilises deep learning algorithms, detecting and calculating the probability of each object in the video stream. The project is constrained due to the following factors, as shown in this video: The project was not tested on the street due to ethical concerns; thus, the image processing model could not be deployed.