UTF Questions: The Practice Test
BIOSENSORS GROUP:
Scientific questions:
How long does it really take to make an accurate baseline study?
What is a trend? How much data do you need to see trends? What type of time scale will your sensor network have to be active for to draw any scientific conclusions? E.g. a decade is considered a short time span for determining a global warming trend.
1 & 2.
It takes several years to make a usable baseline study, as we need to determine what the abnormalities and fluctuations in the data trend are. A possible timeline for a baseline is three years minimum, however, preferably five years. We can also implement the data from previous years to validate the changes over a shorter period of time.
Why are monitoring things like salinity important inland? What does this data tell you about the state of the ecosystem and why should people spend money to keep track of it?
Depending on geography, climate, and ecosystem, the nodes will be specified for their environments. They all will have a set combination of sensors in the beginning; however, only certain sensors will be activated. Later on, depending on need, sensors will be upgraded to perform additional tasks or perform the original tasks with more sensitivity.
What kinds of trends are you looking for in the data? What kinds of things are you looking to understand from it (the collected data)?
Our system is an early detection system. We look at deviations from the normal abiotic sensor trends in order to monitor the health of the overall environments. Depending on the intensity, duration, and type of deviations, we will use algorithms to determine what the possible causes are and what to monitor afterwards.
What is "soil/air/water quality"? How will you measure this? What are you going to measure and why?
What specifically will you measure? E.g. "soil quality' = ???
5 & 6.
Soil:
pH, NO3-N, CaCo3, CO2, NO3-N, Electrical Conductivity, Soil Moisture, Clay content, Soil Organic Matter, and micronutrients: Copper, Zinc, Iron, Manganese, Boron, Chloride, Molybdenum and Nickel .
Air:
Ozone, CO, SO2, NOx, Pb, and Particulate Matter (see site for definition). This list will be expanded depending on the manufacturing that occurs on the Galapagos, which will determine which emissions we need to regulate.
Water:
pH, Bacteria, Oxygen, Radon, Calcium, Sodium, Bicarbonate, and Chloride; plant nutrients such as Nitrogen and Phosphorus; and trace elements such as Selenium, Chromium, and Arsenic.
(see site for explanations)
How will your data be helpful for minimizing impact? I.e. will it inform the village design? help regulate fishing? otherwise impact anything at all other than scientific research?
For village: The soil measurements will determine farm ability for agricultural regions of the islands. The air and water measurements will determine quality for activities for humans.
For environment: All measurements will determine the overall health of the bio zones through the early detection system. Once the “normal” levels and standard deviations of different qualities have been determined by the early detection network, other sensors and programs can be put into effect to minimize impact and correct problems. In effect, the network serves to only fix what is broken, and make any further steps more efficient—caught early and quickly taken care of.
Fishing: Regulating fishing and fisherman will be by human counting and overseeing or by satellite monitoring of fish populations and of boats, possibly with “bar-coded” trackers on the vessels, to regulate licensed and illegal fishing.
Choice of species:
What it is you want to study,and how you want to study it, and most importantly, WHY?
What species will you study? why? why is that important? How will you do it? will this be disturbing to them? Will it be accurate? How accurate? What is a keystone species? Why is it a keystone species?
Why are “key-stone” species important to monitor? It seems that you are taking the easy way out on the topic with this explanation.
They said that they are going to monitor endangered species – how are they going to deal with them? As in, do they have any methods of controlled breeding to help increase their population?
Placement of sensors:
Why choose 5km distance for sensor placement? Why not bigger/smaller? Such specificity requires justification.
The five-kilometer distance is the maximum distance for sensor placement. The nodes will be closer for areas that require more attention, due to their specialized geography or problems due to invasive species and/or poor health.
What research did you use to decide the placement of your sensors (esp. the ones in the ocean)? Without explanation it looks as if you just placed them proportionately across the island- what kinds of places. Are you looking to put the sensors in (for both land and sea)?
From what I remember, your land sensors are all deep in-land… are there any specific species or reproductive cycles that may be important to monitor on the beaches?
Why are there only sensors on the surface of the ocean? And why are they only close to the islands? How far offshore does there need to be monitoring-are you not concerned with species that don’t spend al their time close to the shores of the Galapagos but still play important roles in the ecosystem?
NEAR SHORE and SHALLOW WATER:
The buoy sensor nodes are only used for measuring concentrations in the water and directly above it. They are close to the islands as the ocean floor slope is very steep, and they are tethered to the ocean floor.
OR, preferably,
The satellite platform nodes are also used to measure concentrations in the water and directly above it. They do not need to be as close to islands as the buoy sensor nodes because they will not be tethered to the ocean floor. In order to combat the strong currents, prevent crashing into the ships, and avoid human sabotage, the platform has both a motion sensor, and motor with a rudder that will move out of the way of any possible collisions with objects.
OFF SHORE and DEEP OCEAN
For monitoring areas beyond scuba-diving reach, we have possibly a three-sensor network system. One type of sensor is anchored to the bottom of the ocean to monitor the ocean floor, including tectonic plates and seismic activity. The second type of sensor can vary its depth for ocean surveillance. The third type involves sensors on autonomous vehicles for shallower monitoring.
Do
you have any plans for monitoring particularly sensitive
habitats?
E.g. reefs, rivers, coastline, etc. If not, why not?
2, 3 & 5.
For the placement of the nodes, a grid system is used in a non-linear arrangement so that if one node fails, the other nodes won’t be dependent on it to relay information back to the station. All environments will have sensors, as the islands are small; therefore, all bio zones greatly affect each other. The difference is, for each environment/problem, different combination of sensors will be activated for transmitting data.
Will you try to monitor the entire biopreserve, i.e. out to the marine preserve limits?
The deep water sensor system allows us to extend our monitoring to the entire biopreserve. The deepest water is about 5,000m deep off the west coast of Isabela. The sensors are able to handle up to 10,000m.
Installation of Sensors:
Aren't helicopters and their landing destructive to fragile terrain?
Wouldn’t the detrimental effects of noise pollution, gas usage, etc. be more detrimental on the islands than sending small man groups on foot to install/maintain sensors?
1 & 2.
ON LAND:
EARLY DETECTION SYSTEM:
Humans, hand-controled robots, manned vehicles, and other machines will be used, depending on the type of terrain situated with.
OR,
For extremely fragile terrain, where installation techniques, or even, the presence of the sensor will cataclysmically disrupt the environment, we will put the nodes for the early detection system nearby the area, instead of in it, as we have the 5km range.
LATER, MORE SPECIFIC SENSORS:
After detecting a problem by the before-mentioned system, "toy" airplanes, which use batteries and radio communication, will be used to sample/test aerial data. "Toy" cars and/or small robots will be used for ground work. In emergencies, plant problems can be determined through a multi-functional sensor that lasts between 4hrs and 24hrs, and can be installed by the above methods.
IN THE OCEAN:
The second sensor mentioned for deep-ocean monitoring can be used for aquatic regions as the depth can be controlled, which allows it to monitor fragile environments such as the coral reef systems if necessary and if humans cannot scuba dive to those sites. In emergencies, perhaps underwater robots may be borrowed for inaccessible regions.
Do you have a 1 year plan, 5 year plan, etc. of how you will install the sensors? You will probably have to start with the easier to place sensors and work outwards. Have you taken money constraints and ease of placement into consideration regarding when you will implement which part of the sensor network?
Maintenance of Sensors:
What precautions are you taking in regards to natural destruction of sensors? Assuming that nothing will damage them is not an answer. Investors will want to see that your strategy has precautions to prevent waste of their money.
How big are their nodes going to be? Will they disturb/affect the environment they are in? Can animals or the environment damage them? What happens if the nodes do get damaged by animals, storms, etc? Do you keep replacing them every time this happens?
I’m assuming you will use either batteries or solar power to power your sensor network. If you use solar cells, how will make sure you don’t get bird feces or plant growth covering your cells? have animals eating some part of the electronics? . Or, if there are problems such as these that require regular maintenance, who will do the maintenance and how will they get there? Will a scientist be in charge or will you have to train locals to work with your technology?
Will you have a weather shelter for your nodes or leave them exposed to the elements?
Technology:
Who will install your sensor network? Locals or foreign scientists? All of this instrumentation is highly technical. How will you make sure you have enough trained personnel for maintenance and data collection?
How accurately can you really distinguish different species with the technology of spectroscopy?
What prior tests/studies prove that spectroscopy is a comprehensive and accurate way of monitoring animals AND plants, and specific enough to distinguish between similar species?
Your description of how you will use satellite technology to distinguish between individual species of trees or plants was fuzzy at best. How will you use this technology to monitor the growth of invasive species? This requires that the technology from space is species specific. Is the technology really that good? Can you provide a clear description of how the technology works?
How will you power everything you want to put on the ocean buoy? Will the buoy have enough space for your instrumentation? How will you make sure it doesn’t get destroyed by wave action and salt? How will you maintain your buoy network?
Data:
Who is going to look at all of the data you collect? What are you going to do with it? Who owns the data? Who can publish results/analyses?
Who is processing the data?
Once your sensor network is online and running, you will have a ton of data arriving as often as every few minutes. How will you process this data in a timely fashion?
Who will have access to this data? Will the government of Ecuador have proprietary access? Will the data be open to everyone? Will you have agreements between all of the international scientists helping you set up this network as to who has the right to publish which set of data?
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