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Brazil is an agricultural nation whose process of spraying pesticides is mainly carried out by using aircrafts. However, the use of aircrafts with on-board pilots has often resulted in chemicals being sprayed outside the intended areas. The precision required for spraying on crop fields is often impaired by external factors, like changes in wind speed and direction. To address this problem, ensuring that the pesticides are sprayed accurately, this paper proposes the use of artificial neural networks (ANN) on programmable UAVs. For such, the UAV is programmed to spray chemicals on the target crop field considering dynamic context. To control the UAV ight route planning, we investigated several optimization techniques including Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). We employ PSO to find near-optimal parameters for static environments and then train a neural network to interpolate PSO solutions in order to improve the UAV route in dynamic environments. Experimental results showed a gain in the spraying precision in dynamic environments when ANN and PSO were combined. We demonstrate the improvement in figures when compared against the exclusive use of PSO. This approach will be embedded in UAVs with programmable boards, such as Raspberry PIs or Beaglebones. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach is feasible and can meet the demand for a fast response time needed by the UAV to adjust its route in a highly dynamic environment, while seeking to spray pesticides accurately.

The ultimate solution to the high volume of excess foundry sands generated in metal casting facilities is to beneficially reuse them. A variety of possible reuse programs suit the utilization of foundry sands. These programs mainly relate to civil and agricultural applications, e.g., highway embankment, concrete, backfills, topsoil, and growing amendments. Foundry sand exhibits qualified physical, mechanical, or chemical properties for these end-use products and is acknowledged as a marketable resource. Most often, foundry sand is characterized to match a target material, which has been adopted as a standardized component in an end-use product, e.g. fine aggregate in concrete. If the match gives favorable outcomes, the foundary sand is introduced fully or partially replacing the target material to form a technically competitive end-use product, e.g. foundry sand used in concrete. In addition to its engineering qualifications, foundry sand's environmental safety is also ensured to comply with regulations. The chemical characterization of foundry sand needs to be accomplished to demonstrate that it will not pose a thread to environments and human health during reuse programs. This chapter is organized to present the system (foundry) sand operation, foundry sand generation and management, chemical characterization of foundry sand, reuse applications of foundry sand.