Keywords

1 Introduction

The acquisition of data in the field is one of the most important activities in any type of research; however, currently carrying out this procedure represents several difficulties because there are not adaptive technological tools that satisficed the specific needs of users and can be used in any type of environment [1, 2]. This paper presents the development and implementation of a system for the acquisition, management and processing of data in the field. The particular case that is addressed is the Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) tracking at the coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico [3, 4]. At present this species is in danger of extinction, so it is vital to acquire information on their behavior, migratory routes, food and health status, to identify possible threats and the factors that cause them. In order to obtain an optimum result it is necessary to capture the largest possible amount of information in the field accurately and as soon as possible [5].

This paper is structured as follows, in Sect. 2 describe the Blue Whale tracking process and the currently limitations, in Sect. 3 define the system proposal for the management of the information acquired in field, in Sect. 4 present the tests and the discussion of results obtained, and finally in Sect. 5 present the conclusions of the research and future work to be done.

2 Blue Whale Tracking

The lack of technological tools that can be used during the Blue Whale tracking forces the researchers to use methods of acquire information developed by them. In most cases tabular sheets are used where information is recorded manually as can be seen in Fig. 1, in other cases, improvised systems are developed that allow them to capture the information digitally, as shown in Fig. 2; however, in this type of systems once the data have been recorded there is no possibility to edit them, which forces the researcher to repeat the whole record in case of making a mistake; also may present inconsistencies in the communication between the devices, which prevents the record of new information, when this happens is necessary restart the computer and the system to proceed with the data capture. At present, for any of the cases, whether manual or electronic, data acquisition in the field represents a laborious and time-consuming task for the user, causing delays and setbacks in the development of the researches.

Fig. 1.
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Tabular sheet used to record information during Blue Whale tracking

Fig. 2.
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System developed by researchers to acquire information during Blue Whale tracking

Due to these difficulties, it was made an analysis of the acquire information process during Blue Whale tracking, in which the specific needs of the research, the profile of the users and the failures of the current electronic systems were considered. Thanks to this, it was possible to define the necessary requirements to develop a system that allows to acquire, manage and process the data in the field, and can be used in any type of environment with different computer equipment. As part of the requirements obtained were defined the functions that must be done by the system during the monitoring and the data necessary to perform an optimum analysis of the species. Table 1 presents the information that researchers need to record during the sighting of an individual.

Table 1. Information needed to capture during a sighting

Also, a protocol was established that must be done by the system during Blue Whale tracking. This establishes that when selecting the individual to observe should define the type to which it belongs, this could be “alone” or “mother and child”, then must be assigned an alphanumeric identifier according to the type of the individual, after could be done the capture of the sightings. Each sighting begins when the individual emerges to the surface and ends when submerged, while the individual is on the surface are captured their descriptive data, and the geographical position and time of when a sighting begins and ends. The rest of the data can be captured during or after the sighting.

3 Proposed System

The proposed system was developed using a model-view controller architecture (MVC) [6], thus programming for data and process management are independent of the user interface (GUI) [7], allowing the defined catch protocol can be carried out in a systematized manner. The information captured is stored in a local database, making it possible to edit and update the data at any time. The controls used in the interface present an automated behavior that depends on the events of the system and the restrictions of the protocol, which causes the system to act according to the information that is entered and adapted to the situation. The system interface is shown in Fig. 3, it consists of 8 main components: (1) Date: Shows the current date of the computer on which the system is running. (2) GPS panel: Displays the serial ports (COM) that are active on the computer. Selecting the GPS device port will give you updated position information. (3) Position panel: The position acquired by the GPS is displayed, it is divided into latitude and longitude. (4) Specimen Panel: Displays the identifier and the number of sightings of the specimen corresponding to the current tracking sheet. (5) New Tracking Sheet or New Specimen: Contains the controls to create a new tracking sheet according to the type of specimen selected: Single or Mother and child. (6) Sighting control panel: Encompass controls to add a new sighting (initial position) to the current sighting sheet and to end the sighting in which you are currently working (final position). These will be activated or deactivated according to the case that is needed in the tracking sheet. (7) Sample panel and photos: In this panel are the buttons to attach the identifiers of feces and skin samples, as well as the identifier of the photo corresponding to the sighting that is worked on the current tracking sheet. (8) Tracking Sheet Panel: Displays the created worksheets that are active. In this panel it is possible to interchange between the tracking sheets and work with each one according to how it is necessary.

Fig. 3.
figure 3

Interface of the proposed system. (1) Date. (2) GPS panel. (3) Position panel. (4) Specimen panel. (5) New sheet of tracking sheet or new specimen. (6) Sighting control panel. (7) Sample panel and photos. (8) Tracking sheets panel.

4 Tests and Discussion of Results

The system was tested on a Toughbook CF-U1 which incorporates a GPS device. Thanks to the mobility of the Toughbook, it was possible to carry out tests in different environments. Each test consisted in capturing the data of a group of individuals in a random order. Some captures were made simultaneously in the same equipment with the objective of evaluating the capacity of the system to manage different amounts of information.

The average capture time of a sighting with the system is 3 min, during this period of time the first 12 fields of information mentioned in Table 1 are captured, this means that each field of information is filled in Approximately 15 s each. This represents a considerable improvement in the time and effort of capturing the information because the average capture time was usually 7 min, in addition to systematizing the capture of various fields the researcher can devote more attention to observing the actions of the Individual and make the corresponding observations in each system record. By using this system it was possible to register information of up to 5 specimens simultaneously while manually it was only possible to register the information of 2 specimens.

Thanks to the identification of the necessary data to be captured and the definition of the monitoring protocol, it was possible to include validation rules in the system, which confirm that the data entered have an appropriate format for the subsequent analysis. It was also possible to automate some activities such as the generation of identifiers for individuals according to their type and the capture of the navigation log. This log records the GPS positions of the device every 5 min when no active tracking sheet is found and every 2 min when monitoring an individual.

The automatic generations reports is one of the main contributions to the Blue Whale tracking, because the reports are generated at the time and do not require the information to be managed by another system or as previously required, transcribing all the information capture into a different computing device for further analysis. The generated reports are made up of a log of ship positions and the tracking sheets of each registered specimen.

5 Conclusions and Future Work

The system presented in this work was designed under an MVC architecture to systematize most of the process of management of the information entered, allowing the user to only have to dedicate himself to enter the data requested by the system. In this way, an intuitive interface was designed to guide the investigator in the process of catching the sighting.

With this system the time of information capture during Blue Whale tracking has been reduced by 50%, in addition to that the catch errors have been reduced by approximately 60%, mainly because many of the data are automatically registered and validated before making any changes. Thanks to this, the amount of work and time spent by researchers to validate, manage and acquire information has been considerably reduced.

This system is one of the first tools that adapts to the specific needs of users and also gives them the possibility of using it in any type of environment with any computer equipment.

As a future work, it is planned to adapt this system to share the information by various research groups in a general database, which allows a better comparison between the data collected, as well as the adequacy of the system to obtain automatic information regarding identification systems that are currently used, which will allow a better record of the evolution of Blue Whale specimens.