Background: Improving the accuracy of bird population estimation is crucial for determining their species concern. In Scotland, several species, including the Eurasian Bittern and the Corn Crake, pose challenges as their choice of habitat and behaviour makes it extremely difficult for researchers to obtain accurate population numbers. Aims: To identify the targeted species individuals and aid researchers in pinpointing their location. Method: A low-cost open-source Edge-based passive acoustic monitoring system was designed (PANDI). Results: The PANDI system design and initial validation are presented in this paper. Future work: Include increasing classification accuracy and scope and commencement of long-term field-trials.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of multiple devices known as "things" which includes sensors, security cameras, smart lights, smart TV, traffic lights etc. in the smart home or industrial environment. In many applications, these IoT devices are installed in open areas for example traffic lights/ security cameras in a smart city. Strong authentication and authorisation for these devices need to be deployed to ensure trust among IoT networks. IoT devices produce and forward security-sensitive data and hence confidentiality, authentication and proper authorisation should be the primary priority of an IoT system. Implementing Certificate Authority-based digital certificate solutions is costly because of the number of devices involved in IoT networks. Blockchain is a decentralized ledgerbased technology which can help to provide seamless yet costeffective solutions for confidentiality, authentication, and authorisation for IoT environments. A blockchain-based system for device registration, authentication, authorisation, and data confidentiality is proposed. The paper shows the methodological and procedural details of the proposed security scheme.

The utilization of Internet of Things (IoT) devices in various smart city and industrial applications is growing rapidly. Within a trusted authority (TA), such as an industry or smart city, all IoT devices are closely monitored in a controlled infrastructure. However, in cases where an IoT device from one TA needs to communicate with another IoT device from a different TA, the trust establishment between these devices becomes extremely important. Obtaining a digital certificate from a certificate authority for each IoT device can be expensive. To solve this issue, a group authentication framework is proposed that can establish trust between group IoT devices owned by different entities. The Chebyshev polynomial has many important properties, semigroup is one of the most important. These properties make the Chebyshev polynomial a good candidate for the proposed group authentication mechanism. The secure exchange of information between trusted authorities is supported by Blockchain technology. The proposed framework was implemented and tested using Python and deployed on Blockchain using Ethereum’s Goerli’s testnet. The results show that the proposed framework can reasonably use Chebyshev polynomials with degrees up to four digits in length. The values of various parameters related to Blockchain are also discussed to understand the usability of the proposed framework.