Paul Hodgson

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• Bachelor of Engineering
• Adjunct Lecturer at Saint Francis University

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a global concern, especially in regions with fast-aging populations like Hong Kong (HK). Innovative methodologies for relieving AD symptoms are urgently required. Past studies have qualitatively examined the benefits of reminiscence therapy on elderly individuals with dementia. This study extends this work by quantitativ...

CubeSats are small satellites designed for specific applications in space. They have a limited life and given their small size have special considerations with regards to the function, internal power available and maneuverability. They are inexpensive when compared to conventional satellites in terms of production costs and launch costs. Usually th...

This project seeks to collect and analyze data using the tool photometer from urban and rural areas in Hong Kong to identify the areas with the most significant light pollution, as well as the primary sources of the issue. The light intensity measurements with a lux meter will be used to compare the results of different areas in Hong Kong, namely H...

The safety of people crossing roadways has been a consideration as far back as the time of horse and cart. According to the WHO, currently pedestrians constituted 23% of all road fatalities in 2021, so is a major public health concern. Previous work focused mainly on public education and education with some effort on the physical aspects of the pro...

The increasing demand for sustainable energy sources has led to the growing use of solar panels in residential and commercial buildings. Monitoring and recording the performance of solar panels was critical to ensure their efficiency and identify potential issues. However, commercial power monitoring systems were expensive, and their proprietary na...

The use of photovoltaic (PV) cells in solar panels remains a leading source of growth in renewable electricity generation. With its capacity forecast to increase by 48% in 2023 (from 2021 levels) to a new record of over 1320 GW according to the International Energy Agency [1]. While adoption is increasing, using current technology, only 20% of ener...

Throughout the past year, traffic jams during rush hour and other peak times of the day have been a significant issue, causing considerable financial losses and time costs. These congestion problems are primarily the result of daily vehicle traffic patterns and traffic accidents. Given the growing need for efficient traffic management solutions, re...

In 1899, Swedish inventor Ernst Waldemar Jungner (June 19 , 1869-August 30 , 1924), invented a nickel-iron (NiFe) battery. Thomas Edison adopted the design to promote the use of electric vehicles as an alternative gasoline powered ones. Although his electric vehicles were less successful than gasoline-powered cars, the Edison battery, using an alka...

Radioactive elements, specifically uranium and thorium, are naturally occurring and contain a vast array of unique properties. A key characteristic of radioactive elements is the release of energy generated as the element breaks down. This is used as an energy source for nuclear reactors, weapons and medical equipment. Because of these distinct pro...

The Shing Mun River plays a significant role in Hong Kong due to its environmental and societal importance. It stretches for 7km and is used by many recreational users. However, in 2015, the river's water quality changed drastically, raising concerns about contamination. This investigation evaluates the river's sediment and raw water quality and it...

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #3 promotes healthy lives and well-being for all. However, the current decade of rising advancements has yet to improve the mental well-being of modern-day youths. The current generation of teenagers is experiencing many forms of stress, anxiety, and depression from various sources, commonly due...

Throughout the past year, traffic jams during rush hour and other peak times of the day have been a significant issue, causing considerable financial losses and time costs. These congestion problems are primarily the result of daily vehicle traffic patterns and traffic accidents. Given the growing need for efficient traffic management solutions, re...

Lead (Pb) contamination in the Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter has been an ongoing issue in Hong Kong, with findings showing concentrations of up to 778pp in surface sediment. Pb is especially toxic for humans which is why cost-effective and environmentally friendly treatment methods need to be explored. This paper investigated the capabilities of bioreme...

Marine reserves are designated locations that prohibit human activity to increase the population of the fishes and restore biodiversity. Historically, there has been a lack of precise information to substantiate the actual effectiveness of marine reserves. The conventional way has been to deploy a diver who would manually count the fish on the spot...

4 Iron meteorite samples were collected close to the water using a neodymium magnet at the Hong Kong High Island Reservoir, part of the High Island Caldera that formed 140 million years ago [1]. The samples were roughly 1x1x1 cm in size. Three simple and accessible rough testing methods were used to estimate whether the samples were meteorites: Bor...

In recent years, industrialisation and globalization has threatened the stability of ocean systems. Specifically, rapid ocean acidification as a result of an increase in carbon dioxide (CO 2) levels from our use of fossil fuels for energy. Transport vehicles and manufacturing threatens the health of coastal ecosystems and local communities [4], and...

This research paper presents a new wave buoy designed to measure significant wave height, period of waves, and general wave direction. The buoy's low cost and high versatility aim to facilitate oceanic data collection to increase awareness of upcoming climate crises. This is a challenge due to the high costs of existing wave data collection technol...

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought attention towards bats as a transmitter of the coronavirus. Under rapid urbanization, the mammalian species is now found in urban parks, trees or even households in areas in Hong Kong with high population densities. Previous research has attempted to identify bat species in the city through mist-net capturing techn...

In this project, a simple method was formulated to detect micro-plastics underwater. Microplastics are pieces of degraded plastic with less than five millimeters in length.

Insomnia is a sleep disorder that affects nearly every adult at some point in their lives [1]. It is classified as having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and waking up too early [2]. Insomnia causes an increased risk of heart attack, depression, anxiety, and reduced cognitive function [3]. Drugs can be used to ease the body into sleep, but...

It has been suggested that a species of horseshoe bats are the primary sources of the COVID-19 virus. There have been reports stating that the COVID-19 corona virus passed through at least one other animal before it could infect humans. Additionally, the corona virus can also infect other local bat species. For this reason, the distribution pattern...

For many years propellers have driven both ships and aircraft but few people realize that these vehicles never make it to their full speed potential due to cavitation. It's not just propellers that have such a problem; turbines are impacted by this too. Over the years many famous passenger ships have had very powerful steam turbine engines that cou...

This project's focus is monitoring particulate matter density at different sizes, altitude levels, and time of day in order to observe if there is a difference in air quality among these three factors. Particulate matter sensors were positioned at different altitudes along the side of the Hong Kong International School (HKIS) middle school building...

Hong Kong's many beaches serve as some of the city's most popular locations for tourism and leisure. However, past research concerning these beaches has proven high statistics of heavy metals existing in the waters, with Hong Kong Island being where around 20% of Hong Kong residents reside, and home to beaches such as Aberdeen Beach, it is crucial...

Hong Kong is built on top of an old supervolcano classified to be extinct. It last erupted 140 million years ago. The Earth has six such volcanoes recorded as possibly active and has experienced 50 since humans existed. Volcano tectonic earthquakes can occur as low-intensity tremor swarms giving an indication of volcanic activity. These tremors can...

Coral reefs are probably the most diverse habitats in the marine environment. Although they cover less than 0.1% of the ocean, but they involve 30% of fish and 25% of the life cycle of all marine species. Therefore, these areas are monitored and protection is very important. CoralWatch is a method for monitoring coral reef health. In this study Cor...

Back problems have been plaguing humans probably since we started to walk upright. The pain can be a sudden pain or a constant dull ache. There are many causes and the incidence increases with a person's age. There are also many remedies, involving one or more of pain medication, lifestyle changes, surgery and special exercises. Studies have shown...

In the present study, aerial photography data made available by the Lands Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was obtained and analysed. With the method of remote sensing and the use of programs written in the programming language R, we were able to calculate the NDVI (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index) values of each pix...

Human disturbance of wildlife behavior has been a repeated result of increasing park recreation in recent years. Country parks were originally built to present visitors with a taste of natural areas including wildlife, but many sites have attracted an aberrant number of humans. In 2017 alone, country and marine parks in Hong Kong received a total o...

While much research and awareness has been conducted for dolphin populations in Hong Kong's western waters, vulnerable dolphin populations exist across Hong Kong's territorial waters. Specifically, there has been little to no research carried out about the populations of cetaceans in Hong Kong's eastern waters. It is well-known by the local fishin...

Particulate matter (PM) air pollution has significant implications for human health, including stroke, heart disease, and lung cancer, one of the most common cancers in Hong Kong. In 2019, only 10.5% of the Hong Kong population smoked, a principal cause of lung cancer, while globally smokers make up approximately 20% of the population. Yet 0.071% o...

CAN (Controller Area Network) is a messaging protocol that allows various devices to communicate with each other within the same bus network. This project intends to integrate CAN bus communication electronics with a Blue Robotics thruster. All electronics are required to be housed inside a streamlined enclosure and be waterproof to at least 5 mete...

The purpose of this paper is to describe an array of tools for simulating underwater vehicles in the virtual reality software platform Unity. The advantage of using Unity is that it provides a helpful interface to modify an object's attributes and its scripts easily. This allows the user to change and adapt the simulator to different environmental...

Airborne particulate matter (PM) have been receiving increasing attention for their toxicity potential, their roles in health problems and the bad visibility they can cause. Because of their ability to bypass the human breathing filtration system, particulates with a diameter of 2.5μm or less (PM2.5) are known to cause cardiovascular and respirator...

In the past, in order to quickly mitigate damaged local forest tree populations in areas of Hong Kong, fast growing exotic species have been planted. These species are locally invasive and compete with the local species. The AFCD has since revised its replanting strategy to include local species only. It has also started an exchange forestry progra...

This research used soundscapes to examine how the renovation and presence of Hong Kong International School and its community impact the surrounding natural environment of Tai Tam Country Park. Terrestrial acoustic recordings were conducted using passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) equipment at 5 sites in Tai Tam Country Park and around HKIS between...

A tank cleaning robot using commercially is developed in this project. It substitutes technical workers in carrying out cleaning work in confined space of harsh conditions. The prototype robot consists of five systems, including a control system, ducted fan adhesion system, locomotion system, inspection system, and cleaning system. The prototype ro...

Forest, or hill fires, is one of the factors that impact Hong Kong's forest ecosystem and the variety of plants and wildlife which constitute it. Captured images, using aerial drones, were utilized to compare the visible features from six forest sites; two sites were healthy forest control sites and four were forests that have experienced forest fi...

Plastic wastes discharged into the ocean experience weathering and will eventually break down into microplastic particles. High concentration levels have been discovered in the ocean. However, there is a lack of information of the situation in Hong Kong. The purpose of this study is to record the amount and types of microplastics in two study site...

Although the long-spined sea urchin Diadema setosum and the gastropod Drupella rugosa are both known to bio-erode scleractinian corals, the relationship between these two grazers has not been well defined. A high proportion of the coral colonies in Hoi Ha Wan, Hong Kong have been observed to have suffered a significant amount of bio-erosion, the so...

The availability and ease of collection of fish data is crucial for the quantification of this marine resource. For example, it can be used to determine breeding grounds and other key sensitive areas in need of protection. It also provides critical information for fisheries management and conservation. Visual census techniques have been used for ma...

An increased awareness of the mounting pressure on the marine ecosystem as well as the enormity of the recreational SCUBA dive industry has brought about a greater awareness of the challenges facing the marine environment. One key issue is destructive fishing. Destructive fishing is a blanket term used to describe a multitude of fishing methods wh...

Destructive fishing is a significant area of focus for fisheries management. It is at odds with a sustainable fisheries management policy. Key examples of destructive fishing include blast fishing, cyanide fishing, illegal netting, and bottom trawling. It is characterized by indiscriminate killing, stunning, and/or waste of marine life. These metho...

In Tolo Harbour, Hong Kong, where hypoxia occurs periodically, a large amount of benthic epifauna was found to be absent in the summer but become abundant again in the winter. This observation may indicate that some species are sensitive in detecting low dissolved oxygen (DO) levels and are able to escape from the harbour to more oxygenated, open w...

The Bekker Theory of Locomotion has long been the leading applied theory when it comes to calculating and predicting soil-tyre interaction for terrestrial wheeled and tracked vehicles. Whilst the theory is applicable for terrestrial systems, there is no evidence to suggest it also applies under water. Furthermore, the complications of measuring the...

This paper describes the early development of autonomous vehicle for undersea exploration at depths of as much 1000 m. It is to combine several methods of propulsion, including wheels and legs.

The monitoring of environmental parameters of Hong Kong waters has usually been achieved by accumulating collected data from single point sources just below the sea surface, once or twice a month by the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department. There has also been some experimentation involving data loggers placed on the seabed. However all of...

Sixteen species of ahermatypic scleractinian corals have been collected from two submarine caves in Hong Kong. These are Ballanophyllia eguchii, B. ponderosa, Dendrophyllia arbuscula, D. ehrenbergiana, D. coccinea, D. compressa, D. gracilis, Turbastrea coccinea, T. faulkneri, T. diaphana, T. sibogae, T. turbinata, Cyathellia axillaris, Culicia japo...

DataBuoy^TM I, a three dimensional, real-time marine environment monitoring system with connection to the internet, has been developed by the Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong (CityU). This equipment can multiplex up to five sensors placed at different depths in the water column for monitoring of temperatu...

Hong Kong has a unique marine environment. The intermixing of low salinity water, from the nearby Pearl River estuary outflows, with sea water from three different marine currents producing a variety of varying marine environmental conditions at different times of the year. Hoi Ha Wan is a shallow, small, enclosed bay in the north-east corner of Ho...

An underwater surveillance camera has been designed for monitoring fish species activity on an inshore coral reef in a Marine Park in Hong Kong. The system consisted of a high-resolution camera. It was connected to the shore base station via a fibre-optic cable with power conductors. The camera could record video on a DVD recorder with hard disk in...

This study evaluated the use of video transects obtained from SCUBA divers or remote operated vehicle (ROV) and point intercept transect (PIT) method from divers for monitoring subtropical coral communities. Comparisons were made between the datasets obtained by the ROV and SCUBA diver video transect (‘Diver’) and the PIT method on three nearby cor...