To reach the goal of sustainable agriculture, smart farming is taking advantage of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. These smart farms are designed to be run by interconnected devices and vehicles. Some enormous potentials can be achieved by the integration of different IoT technologies to achieve automated operations with minimum supervision. This paper outlines some major applications of IoT and UAV in smart farming, explores the communication technologies, network functionalities and connectivity requirements for Smart farming. The connectivity limitations of smart agriculture and it’s solutions are analysed with two case studies. In case study-1, we propose and evaluate meshed Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) gateways to address connectivity limitations of Smart Farming. While in case study-2, we explore satellite communication systems to provide connectivity to smart farms in remote areas of Australia. Finally, we conclude the paper by identifying future research challenges on this topic and outlining directions to address those challenges.

In recent years, education institutions have offered a wide range of course selections with overlaps. This presents significant challenges to students in selecting successful courses that match their current knowledge and personal goals. Although many studies have been conducted on Recommender Systems (RS), a review of methodologies used in course RS is still insufficiently explored. To fill this literature gap, this paper presents the state of the art of methodologies used in course RS along with the summary of the types of data sources used to evaluate these techniques. This review aims to recognize emerging trends in course RS techniques in recent research literature to deliver insights for researchers for further investigation. We provide a systematic review process followed by research findings on the current methodologies implemented in different course RS in selected research journals such as: collaborative, content-based, knowledge-based, Data Mining (DM), hybrid, statistical and Conversational RS (CRS). This study analyzed publications between 2016 and June 2020, in three repositories; IEEE Xplore, ACM, and Google Scholar. These papers were explored and classified based on the methodology used in recommending courses. This review has revealed that there is a growing popularity in hybrid course RS and followed by DM techniques in recent publications. However, few CRS-based course RS were present in the selected publications. Finally, we discussed future avenues based on the research outcome, which might lead to next-generation course RS.

This paper offers a review of different types of Error Correction Scheme (ECS) used in communication systems in general, which is followed by a summary of the IEEE standard for Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). The possible types of channels and network models for WBAN are presented that are crucial to the design and implementation of ECS. Following that, a literature review on the proposed ECSs for WBAN is conducted based on different aspects. One aspect of the review is to examine what type of parameters are considered during the research work. The second aspect of the review is to analyse how the reliability is measured and whether the research works consider the different types of reliability and delay requirement for different data types or not. The review indicates that the current literatures do not utilize the constraints that are faced by WBAN nodes during ECS design. Subsequently, we put forward future research challenges and opportunities on ECS design and the implementation for WBAN when considering computational complexity and the energy-constrained nature of nodes.

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Error Correction Schemes (ECSs) significantly contribute to enhancing reliability and energy efficiency of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). This review paper offers an overview of the different types of ECS used in communication systems and a synopsis of the standards for WSN. We also discuss channels and network models for WSN as they are crucial for efficient ECS design and implementation. The literature review conducted on the proposed energy consumption and efficiency models for WSN indicates that existing research work has not considered Single Hop Asymmetric Structure (SHAS) with high performing Error Correcting Codes (ECCs). We present a review on proposed ECS for WSN based on three criteria: Forward Error Correction (FEC), adaptive error correction techniques, and other techniques. Based on our review work, we found that there are limited works on ECS design on a realistic network model i.e., a modified multi-hop WSN model. Finally, we offer future research challenges and opportunities on ECS design and implementation for WSN.Keywords: error control scheme (ECS); energy efficiency; forward error correction (FEC); hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ); wireless sensor network (WSN)

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