A team in California is working with communities—and a suite of AI tools—to better understand air pollution.
, also used visual identification and showed increases in particulate matter related to coal trains.
The technique used in Richmond could also help monitor other sources of pollution that have historically been difficult to track. Vallejo, a waterfront city about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco, has five oil refineries and a shipyard within a 20 mile radius, making it hard to discern a pollutant’s origin. Some residents hope more data may help attract regulatory attention where their own concerns have not.
The team planted new cameras and programmed them to take a photo each minute. After months of collecting enough images of the tracks, UC Davis students categorized them into groups—train or no train, day or night—using Playstation controllers. The team created software designed to play like a video game, which sped up the process, Spada said, by allowing the students to filter through more images than if they simply used a mouse or trackpad to click through pictures on a computer.
Nicholas Spada holds a piece of graphite tape used to collect dust samples in the field. Spada and his colleague Bart Ostro didn’t originally envision using AI in their coal train study in Richmond. But, Spada said, using the technology was a “game changer.”Hanna Best, former student of Spada’s, classifies train images with with the help of a Playstation controller. Best classified hundreds of thousands of images as a part of a team of UC Davis students who helped train the AI model.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Scientists say they've found a direct link between planet-warming pollution and polar bear survivalScientists say they have found a link between human-related greenhouse gas emissions and polar bear reproduction and survival rates for the first time in a new study, potentially overcoming a barrier to protecting the species.
Read more »
Scientists Say There May Be Another Earth-Sized Planet Lurking in the Solar SystemPlanetary scientists suggest an Earth-like planet, no bigger than three times the Earth's mass, could lurk beyond the orbit of Neptune.
Read more »
Paving the Way for Tiny Devices Integrated Into Human Tissues – Scientists Develop New “Droplet” BatteryResearchers from the University of Oxford have achieved a major advancement toward realizing miniature bio-integrated devices, capable of directly stimulating cells. Their findings were recently published in the journal Nature. Small bio-integrated devices that can interact with and stimulate cel
Read more »
Chemistry Breakthrough: Scientists Take Photoclick Chemistry to the Next LevelThrough a collaborative effort involving the Universities of Groningen and Amsterdam in the Netherlands, along with Italy's European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy, scientists have significantly advanced photoclick chemistry. They enhanced the reactivity of the photoclick compound used in th
Read more »
Scientists discovered how to make concrete 30% stronger with used coffee groundsEngineers have come up with a way to make stronger concrete and cut down on the amount of spent coffee grounds wasted each yar.
Read more »
Scientists Investigate Why Wild Boars Are So RadioactiveResearch suggests wild boars in Germany have become contaminated with radioactive fallout that dates back to the Cold War.
Read more »