Harmonization and Visualization of Data from a Transnational Multi-Sensor Personal Exposure Campaign

Abstract

Use of a multi-sensor approach can provide citizens with holistic insights into the air quality of their immediate surroundings and their personal exposure to urban stressors. Our work, as part of the ICARUS H2020 project, which included over 600 participants from seven European cities, discusses the data fusion and harmonization of a diverse set of multi-sensor data streams to provide a comprehensive and understandable report for participants. Harmonizing the data streams identified issues with the sensor devices and protocols, such as non-uniform timestamps, data gaps, difficult data retrieval from commercial devices, and coarse activity data logging. Our process of data fusion and harmonization allowed us to automate visualizations and reports, and consequently provide each participant with a detailed individualized report. Results showed that a key solution was to streamline the code and speed up the process, which necessitated certain compromises in visualizing the data. A thought-out process of data fusion and harmonization of a diverse set of multi-sensor data streams considerably improved the quality and quantity of distilled data that a research participant received. Though automation considerably accelerated the production of the reports, manual and structured double checks are strongly recommended.

Assessment of Individual-Level Exposure to Airborne Particulate Matter during Periods of Atmospheric Thermal Inversion

“…After harmonizing the data sets of the PPM and TAD (described in detail in Novak et al [ 38 ]), data were selected based on a specific set of criteria: (a) they were part of the heating period data set, (b) data were available for the period when ATIs occurred, (c) the PPM consistently provided data, and (d) the TADs were filled out.…”

User-Centred Design of a Final Results Report for Participants in Multi-Sensor Personal Air Pollution Exposure Monitoring Campaigns

“…Several had practical expertise in social sciences and science communication. Moreover, the team behind the final results report also included database management experts, who wrote the codes to generate the reports [ 45 ]. The team’s diversity enabled different perspectives to be taken into account and sufficient collaboration over design, including, for example, communication of user needs and feedback and implementing trade-offs while considering technical limitations and meeting the objective of the report.…”

“…Adding information about technical uncertainty is considered a positive practice when communicating the results [ 58 ]. The challenges were identified, and steps for data harmonisation, cleaning and fusion with an R script and models to identify outliers and fill data gaps were established [ 45 ].…”

“…Any conflicts were resolved considering reasonability, technical limitations and incorrect interpretations of figures (an example report can be found in Supplementary Material File S5 ). An R script was written to generate the final uniform reports to all participants for all participating cities [ 45 ]. The final results report was translated to the different languages by the local case study researchers and sent to the participants by email as a PDF document in April 2020.…”

Web-Based Information and Analytical Monitoring System Tools – Online Visualization and Analysis of Surface Water Quality of Mining and Chemical Enterprises

“…Environmental monitoring of water bodies on the territory of the enterprise should be based on the following data: sampling, data collection, analysis of the existing set of environmental measures to reduce the level of pollution of water bodies, identification of sources of water body pollution, assessment of the ecological state of water bodies, forecasting process of pollution of water bodies and disturbance of ecological balance, creation of an information-analytical or geoinformational observation and monitoring system, development of measures to improve the ecological state and restore ecological balance (Bakharev The state of environmental monitoring in the region can be significantly improved by speeding up and improving the work of employees of scientific research ecological stations, as well as visualization of the ecological state of the area in the form of interactive pollution maps (P. Chen, 2019; Lu et al, 2017). Visual information is better perceived as well as enables to quickly and effectively convey thoughts and ideas to the viewer (Novak et al, 2021). Physiologically, perception of visual information is basic for a person.…”