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The purpose of this paper is to use rainwater quality parameters as indicators of pollution to assess the level of aerial pollution for sustainable environmental development.

Rainwaters were collected in open spaces within commercial, industrial and residential areas in Ibadan metropolis, Nigeria during onset, peak and late rainy season. Values of NO₃⁻, NH₄⁺, Cl⁻, SO₄²⁻, pH, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solid, total acidity and total alkalinity were determined using certified wet chemistry procedures, whereas those of Ca²⁺, Na⁺, K⁺ and Mg²⁺ were measured using atomic absorption spectrophotometry.

Overall results showed that the concentrations of the physical parameters, anions and cations, were comparatively higher at the onset of the rainy period than the latter periods, indicating washout of the pollutants as the rainy season progressed. Results of Pearson correlation matrix and Cluster analysis results showed that many of the parameters have similar source(s). Analysis of variance and t-test results indicated significant difference between the concentrations of the analyzed parameters at different rainy periods, whereas ratio values of sea salt fraction were higher than non-sea salt fraction for all species, depicting anthropogenic influences.

From the findings, the study concluded that the quality of the rainwaters was substandard due elevated levels of most of the analyzed quality parameters; this method proved to be economical, effective and simple compared to the conventional methods; it also proved rainwater quality to be a reliable pointer of aerial pollution and the concept can be used to assess the pollution level of areas of similar settings.

This paper aims to provide a review of the role of robots for monitoring the environment.

Following a short introduction, this paper discusses developments in aquatic, terrestrial and airborne robots for monitoring the environment. Brief conclusions are drawn.

This shows that robots are being developed for all manner of environmental monitoring applications. Aquatic devices are attracting the greatest attention but both terrestrial and airborne robots have the potential to play an important, future role. In many instances, their deployment reflects the difficulties in or impossibility of using manual monitoring methods. A longer‐term vision of large numbers of robots conducting environmental monitoring on a routine basis is unlikely to be realised unless lower cost solutions can be developed.

Environmental monitoring robots have been under development since the 1990s and this paper provides a review of recent activities.

The paper reports a study of the behaviour of on‐line searchers in looking for the answers to set questions. The work was carried out with a view to learning more about the way actual searches are conducted, so that instructions to users can be given to optimize the generation of references. The study suggests that developments in user education would be made considerably easier by some rationalization among file producers and systems, especially in spelling, vocabulary, basic commands and indexing philosophy.

Monitoring air, water and soil contamination by means of animals, plants, fungi and bacteria is increasingly in demand for assessing environmental quality, environmental impacts, and health and safety. It is essential that environmental monitoring by bioassays is credibly based on standardized procedures and on substantial scientific evidence which should include background measurements to establish baseline data. Cites case studies involving the use of organisms for monitoring heavy metals and radionuclides in order to demonstrate such procedural pre‐requisites in environmental surveillance.

‘The business of America’, said Calvin Coolidge in 1925, ‘is business’. Such a view, uncompromising and perhaps a trifle complacent, has been consistently reiterated in the West by many others. Such a proposition provided the basis for the protective managerial ideology with which the early English entrepreneurs sought to defend themselves against the Establishment in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The activities of those industrial pioneers irrevocably changed the society in which they lived. They ushered in not only a new technology upon which we are unalterably dependent, but a new hierarchical ordering of society and a new morality of utilitarianism to go with it. They institutionalized a new form of social conflict and provided the arena in which that conflict could take place.

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) ensures integration of socially, environmentally and economically feasible practices in entire supply chain. SSCM principles can be implemented to improve efficiency and productivity of a system by different attributes of the system. The purpose of this article is to identify the most appropriate existing (SSCM) framework that can be implemented suitably in Indian smart manufacturing industries.

Validity and reliability analysis on the existing SSCM frameworks was carried out with the help of empirical data collected using questionnaire survey methodology from various Indian smart manufacturing organizations. The empirical data were gathered from various experts from top- and middle-level management in different smart manufacturing organizations across the country. Further, factor analysis was carried on the collected data to estimate the unidimensionality of each SSCM frameworks. Cronbach's alpha value was used to assess reliability of each framework. Subsequently, the frequency distribution analysis was done to obtain familiar elements in the segregated frameworks based on validity and reliability analysis.

The work observed that only five SSCM frameworks have shown unidimensionality in terms of the elements or constructs. The work further found that these segregated frameworks have not shown sufficiently high level of reliability. Additionally, this work attempted frequency distribution analysis and observed that there were very few elements which were being repeatedly used in numerous frameworks proposed by researchers. Based on the findings of this work, the work concluded that there is acute need of a new SSCM framework for Indian smart manufacturing industries.

This study gathered empirical data from 388 Indian smart manufacturing organizations. Thus, before generalizing the findings of the study across the sectors, there is a possibility of some more explication.

The main purpose of this article is to explore the feasibility of the existing SSCM frameworks in Indian smart manufacturing sector. The study also assumes that the manufacturing managers and executives may have the complete understanding on the existing sustainable manufacturing frameworks and a chance to executing proper suitable framework in the respective manufacturing organization.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the growing role of robots in environmental monitoring.

Following an introduction, this first considers aerial robots for monitoring atmospheric pollution. It then discusses the role of aerial, surface and underwater robots to monitor aquatic environments. Some examples are then provided of the robotic monitoring of the terrestrial environment, and finally, brief conclusions are drawn.

Robots are playing an important role in numerous environmental monitoring applications and have overcome many of the limitations of traditional methodologies. They operate in all media and frequently provide data with enhanced spatial and temporal coverage. In addition to detecting pollution and characterising environmental conditions, they can assist in locating illicit activities. Drones have benefited from the availability of small and lightweight imaging devices and sensors that can detect airborne pollutants and also characterise certain features of aquatic and terrestrial environments. As with other robotic applications, environmental drone imagery is benefiting from the use of AI techniques. Ranging from short-term local deployments to extended-duration oceanic missions, aquatic robots are increasingly being used to monitor and characterise freshwater and marine environments.

This provides a detailed insight into the growing number of ways that robots are being used to monitor the environment.

The diverse nature of agricultural information and an increasing number of online databases containing relevant material present problems for the online searcher. Limited database comparisons have been previously carried out, but these have only concerned themselves with comparisons between major agricultural files. The present study compares eleven databases which contain information on various aspects of agriculture, in particular agrochemicals. An in‐depth investigation was carried out on the degree of database overlap with respect to two test questions, and the value of the available search facilities evaluated. The databases were ranked according to the volume of relevant output retrievable from the test questions, and the percentage of novel references calculated with respect to the highest ranking database, and also with respect to all databases. The larger biological databases and Chemical Abstracts supplied the greatest number of references with a relatively low level of overlap. The environmental files produced a lower number of references — even to a question on pollution of freshwater, although figures for percentage novelty were comparable. Thus a comprehensive search would entail the use of multiple databases, although 66% (question 1) to 84% (question 2) of the total number of references were retrieved using 2–3 files. A number of databases could be searched using classification codes, and four files contained abstracts which were searchable via keywords. The improvement in recall from using codes varied across the databases and, to a lesser degree, between questions. There was a uniformly marked increase in relevant recall when keywords were retrieved from abstracts. It was considered valuable for searchers to apply these techniques to other subject areas.