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Selecting the most preferred software for teaching power systems engineering at the undergraduate level is a complex problem in developing countries, and it requires making an informed decision by compromising on various criteria. This study proposes a multi-criteria framework to determine the most preferred software solution for instructing undergraduate power system modules using the Fuzzy-ARAS (additive ratio assessment) method and expert opinions. Twelve evaluation criteria were used to evaluate eight widely used software packages. A questionnaire was designed to capture views from professionals in academia and industry on the criteria weights and ranking of software options. Linguistic terms were used to represent the experts' judgment, and weights were assigned to each criterion. The Fuzzy-ARAS multi-criteria decision approach was applied to obtain ratings for each software alternative. Based on the result, MATLAB emerged as the most preferred software for instructing power systems analysis, whereas MATPOWER (V 8.0) was rated as the least preferred choice. In addition, the Fuzzy-TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) approach was used, producing a separate ranking; the most preferred software was MATPOWER, while the least preferred software was NEPLAN (V 360 10.5.1). A new coefficient that combines the findings of the two approaches was suggested to reconcile the ranks. The combined ranking aligns with the result of the Fuzzy-TOPSIS method by returning MATLAB as the most preferred, while the least preferred software was NEPLAN. This study significantly contributes to the choice of software for undergraduate power systems analysis instruction by providing direction to educators and institutions looking for software solutions to improve undergraduate power systems analysis education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The numerous consequences of climate change worldwide have precipitated research efforts to realise sustainable development goal 13 (SDG 13). SDG 13 has recommended mitigation and adaptation strategies to combat climate change, and many of these can be achieved using emerging technologies. Research has shown the efficacies of information communication technologies (ICTs) in mitigating and adapting to climate change. However, the selection and ranking of ICT tools for mitigating and adapting to climate change is a multicriteria problem. This paper presents a multicriteria framework that identifies and ranks the various ICT tools that can ensure climate change mitigation and adaptation. A fuzzy-technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution method is used as the basis of this model and tested using information obtained from an expert. The results show that the most ideal ICT alternative is social media with a closeness coefficient of 0.62, while the least preferred alternative is the intelligent system with a closeness coefficient of 0.17. The proposed model can be used in the planning of climate change adaptation strategies in developing countries where finances are usually a major constraint in implementing climate change action.

One of the most important sectors of the world economy is the mining and metals sector. Although, many operational and commercial procedures continue to be ineffective and out-of-date, which results in crucial data omissions, security flaws, and sometimes corruption. Given that the mining industry wants to increase the emphasis on ethical and open mining practices, the industry has been looking for ways to incorporate these practices. It is envisioned that such practices will contribute to the modernisation of supply chains in addition to helping to reduce risks related to sustainability and reputation. The application of blockchain technology in the minerals industry capable of tracking natural resources has been discussed in this study, giving a much-needed layer of transparency of this technology. However, there are a lot of difficulties and problems that come up when thinking about blockchain technology; if it is to advance as an industry standard, stakeholders will need to evaluate the usefulness and scalability of the technology. While blockchain technology can be applied to a wide range of areas in the minerals industry, this study shines more light on the application of this technology to conflict minerals tracking, mineral resources reporting cheating scandals, rock mechanics designs and monitoring strategy, blasting designs and operation, mine ventilation designs and applications, mining machinery maintenance and management, and mining surveying. The study reveals that blockchain technology is starting to be seriously evaluated and used by a variety of stakeholders, even though broad acceptance has not yet been attained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, every aspect of human existence has been affected by modern technologies, including agriculture. The broad range of crops has witnessed setbacks in different capacities due to climate change, leading to diseases and infections and negatively impacting nutrition. Plant diseases significantly threaten agricultural productivity, leading to substantial economic losses and food insecurity. Traditional methods of disease identification, such as visual inspection and laboratory testing, are time-consuming and require expert knowledge. This study aims to address this problem by leveraging Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and FPGA technology for real-time potato disease identification. Five CNN models were trained and evaluated on the Plant Village dataset, achieving accuracies above 90%. ShuffleNet was identified as the most suitable for FPGA deployment, combining high accuracy with low inference time due to its efficient architecture. The selected CNN was implemented on the Xilinx UltraScale+MPSoC ZCU104 board, demonstrating significant power efficiency with a total consumption of 3.333 W, of which 79% was dynamic power. The design met all timing constraints, ensuring reliable operation at a 100 MHz clock frequency, and exhibited low resource utilization with only 0.20% of LUTs, 0.07% of LUTRAMs, 0.13% of flip-flops, and 0.18% of BUFGs used. These results highlight the FPGA's potential as a power-efficient and high-performance alternative to CPU and GPU implementations for real-time CNN inference. Future work includes developing a test bench for detailed performance measurement, optimizing dynamic power usage, and conducting comparative analyses with other platforms. Additionally, expanding the dataset to include more variability and validating the system in real-world applications will further enhance its effectiveness. This research contributes to the goals of Agriculture 4.0 by providing a viable solution for real-time plant disease identification, ultimately aiming at improving agricultural productivity and food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates and ranks wireless communication technologies for agricultural irrigation systems using the CRITIC-CODAS multi-criteria decisionmaking method. WSN, LPWAN, LoRa, 5G, IoT, and NB-IoT are compared based on range, power consumption, data rate, coverage, latency, battery life, and device density. The CRITIC method objectively determines criteria weights, with data rate, latency, and battery life emerging as the most critical factors. 5G ranks highest with its superior data rate and device density, but its high-power needs may limit suitability for remote agriculture. IoT offers a balanced option across multiple criteria, while WSN excels in power efficiency and battery life. Despite lower data rates, LPWAN, LoRa, and NB-IoT provide excellent range and battery life for wide-area, low-power applications. The analysis offers a framework for stakeholders to select appropriate technologies based on specific agricultural requirements. Matching wireless technologies to irrigation needs can enhance agricultural sustainability and productivity. Further research could explore technology combinations, cost factors, and real-world testing. This systematic evaluation approach can be extended to other intelligent agriculture applications to optimize technology adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change, soil erosion, and degradation among others affect the growth and production of crops. Soil is suffering from intensive farming and unsustainable soil disturbance, leading to severe soil degradation. The Internet of Things (IoT) allows the monitoring of crucial environmental parameters such as soil nutrients, moisture, humidity, and temperature. A pre-understanding of these parameters allows agriculturists to use the optimum quantity of water and fertilizer for different types of soil. Soil fertility can be detected by using NPK sensors. The Internet of Things (IoT) brought a new face to the crop farming approach where conventional methods are automated and/or remotely controlled to improve crop farming. In this paper, a survey on IoT technologies for crop farming including sensors, communication, and network protocols in crop farming activities is considered. Additionally, applications of IoT technologies in soil management and monitoring, growth and yield estimation, and quality control mechanisms are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shift to renewable energy sources is essential for mitigating climate change, but it poses fresh challenges for environmentally responsible waste management. This article reviews and investigates the complex problems associated with the disposal of renewable energy components from an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) perspective. The article further highlights the need for thorough oversight and careful management of various components due to the environmental concerns associated with their disposal as they frequently contain hazardous elements. The social effects on communities impacted by disposal procedures are also explored, and the importance of fair distribution of benefits is emphasized. Transparency, accountability, and stakeholder involvement are bolstered by effective governance, which is a central theme of this discussion that draws on ESG concepts. Successful ESG-integrated disposal plans are demonstrated by industry case studies. Possible hindrances in sustainable disposal are also highlighted with firm suggestions on way-forward, which include technical innovation and global collaboration. The study underlines the irreplaceable role played by ESG in guiding responsible waste management toward a sustainable, green energy future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water desalination plants powered by solar energy represent a viable solution for addressing a part of the water needs in areas without reliable water supply. In this case extending the electric grid and water delivery to remote communities remain challenging for some countries. Using Namibia as a case study, this work carried out a feasibility study on the extent of which, solar energy could be used to power the entire desalination process thereby aiding groundwater usable for human consumption. This process includes but not limited to desalination of underground wells and boreholes as solution to the water shortage problem in remote areas. In this study, a solar-powered desalination technique that could enhance the process of clean water provision to villagers is proposed with the aim of implementation. It further compares and analyzed various desalination technologies to determine the best fit based on the dryness of areas. Ohawuwanga Village in Namibia was used for evaluation purpose with a sampling instrument-questionnaire which determine the village's daily water consumption and corresponding power required. Modelling, simulation, and analysis of the system was carried out using MATLAB Simulink in terms of energy consumption. Other parameters considered in this research are cost, water recovery ratio, salt removal factor, durability, and market analysis. The research revealed that electrodialysis is the best technology for desalination in terms of efficient power consumption amidst other factors compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of restaurants, canteens, other forms of eatery and food service outlets are becoming very big part of most economies at different levels. However improvement in customer experience while making orders plays a very critical role in having a smooth and efficient menu ordering process. This article presents a novel hybrid approach that tackles the challenges associated with menu ordering especially in the post-covid era; both from software and hardware perspectives. First, a web-application - powered by ReactJS and GraphQL, which enables order request anywhere at any time was developed. In addition, is the implementation of hardware with mobility feature on trips to the restaurant using two Arduino microcontrollers (transmitter and receiver). The result allows the user to browse through a catalogue, check-in and out on a Thin-Film-Transistor (TFT) liquid-crystal display (LCD) and deliver a seamless experience to the customer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing food production and consumption rate, especially from consumer's point of view, cannot be measured as viable due to varieties of social economic factors involved in the food supply chain. Combating food waste contributes extensively to food security measures and easing conservational burden thus improving justifiable consumption of food. Food waste emanating from consumers especially individual households is huge. A systematic approach to mitigate this is creatively enlightening consumers through alertness and campaigns. However, literature reveals that complimentary initiatives are required to confront the problem of consumer waste. Emerging technologies and their uniqueness are comparatively gaining attention to lead consumers carefully using improved technical platforms and solutions in the right direction towards reducing food waste. This study tackles this research gap by conducting comprehensive reviews of articles pointing to food wastage prevention, weaknesses, and potential usage of ICT tools to positively impact consumers and reduce food wastage. The study focuses on the use of ICT tools and techniques as a means to reduce food wastage. The reviews covered existing food wastage-saving measures and applications (e.g., smart kitchen appliances, smart packaging and mobile applications). It further proposed a broad ICT driven food wastage avoidance framework that deals with the problem holistically. The framework shows how various levels of the food supply chain can be integrated to tackle wastages from top to bottom in avoiding consumer wastage. However, future research is required to validate and build on this framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To securely address energy shortage and various environmental issues attributed to fossil fuel, the adoption of renewable energy is growing across the globe. However, wind and solar which form the bulk of the emerging renewable energy for micro-grid applications are intermittent and need energy storage device for backup. Due to its environmentally friendly nature, the use of hydrogen as storage mechanism is now being explored for micro-grid applications. However, due to the various technical criteria attributed to various fuel cell (FC) technologies used for hydrogen production, selecting the most suitable alternative remains a challenge. This study uses evaluation based on distance from average solution, a multicriteria decision making tool to rank FC technologies that can be used to produce of hydrogen energy storage in micro-grid applications. The analysis was based on 4 FC technologies and 6 technical criteria. The results of the study show that the most preferred FC technology for micro-grid application is the polymeric electrolyte membrane while the least preferred is molten carbonate FC. It is expected that future analysis would explore the inclusion of socio-economic criteria in the evaluation of the most preferred FC technology for micro-grid application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an environment with unstable power supply, incessant load shedding and inconsistent energy availability remains a major challenge. Hence, there is a need for an urgent alternative source of energy to mitigate this challenge. Over the years, fossil fuel-based energy sources have been considered as an effective solution, however the greenhouse gases emissions from these sources contribute largely to the rise in the depletion of the ozone layer which eventually leads to pollution and global warming. This work contributes to efforts in curbing this menace by reducing the use of diesel generators and focus more on a hybrid renewable energy system. This study, used selected residential buildings as a case study. A photovoltaic system and a diesel generator were incorporated as hybrid energy system, and the data gathered was processed using the HOMER software. The output of the simulation provided two optimal systems (PVDiesel Generator, Battery coupled with the complete Hybrid system) and (PV-Diesel generator). The optimal and costeffective system from the analysis is the PV-diesel hybrid system. This consists of a 10kW solar PV, 45kW Diesel generator, a 10kW converter and six 6FM200D batteries. This study provides a synergy of individual subsystems as analyzed in the result to enhanced the reliability of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a bid to reduce the negative effect of atmospheric and environmental pollution and its consequent negative effect, a mix of renewable energy generation options is being considered across the globe. Hence, the technical comparison of an ecofriendly, cost-effective, and near zero carbon footprint for sustainable power solutions is still of core interest in the research space. Solar, wind and its hybrids can be further explored to meet the ever-increasing load demand of energy consumers, especially in high energy demand facilities including information technology (IT) services. Critical IT infrastructures represent a core backbone in research institutions, hence the need for hybrid energy solutions is pertinent for increased sustainability. This work compared hybrid energy sources of solar and wind against its independent sources using the IT laboratory in Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ebonyi, Nigeria. An appropriate sizing of individual and a hybrid of wind, solar, and battery energy source was done, after which the input-output voltages across the set-ups was measured during peak and off-peak periods for a 300W laboratory IT load. The experimental result showed the input/output peak and off-peak DC voltages for solar, wind, and its hybrid energy are 12.67V/12.02V / 12.47V/11.61V, 12.53V / 11.90V / 12.48V / 11.87V, and 12.78V / 12.09V / 12.57 / 11.95V respectively signifying a significant increase from the on-load peak period while the on-load off-peak period is seen to be lower. The results also show that a hybrid solar-wind-battery system tested at 5 minutes time intervals gives a superior output voltage regulation and efficiency when compared to the solar or wind individual systems. It was concluded that the hybrid system of solar, wind, and battery energy source is an ideal standalone renewable energy power option for IT laboratory in the university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The escalating cases of security threats on the global scene, especially in the cyberspace, demands urgent need to deploy sophisticated measures to mitigate these calamitous threats. To this end, various lock mechanisms have been developed and deployed to prevent access to control systems from potential intruders. This paper provides a solution to this pervasive problem, addressing concerns on the physical and virtual components of an access control system. A locally generated One-Time-Passkeys (OTPs) was created, leveraging ambient noise as entropy input. The system was deployed on an Arduino microcontroller embedded in a safe-cabinet secured with a 12V solenoid lock. The design was implemented and tested against standard metrics. Results achieved include algorithmic optimizations of existing local OTP protocol implementations, and the realization of a safe lock module, which interfaces with a mobile application developed on Android over a secured Bluetooth connection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]