GreenDisc: a HW/SW energy optimization framework in globally distributed computation

In recent future, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) will experience a broad high-scale deployment (millions of nodes in the national area) with multiple information sources per node, and with very specific requirements for signal processing. In parallel, the broad range deployment of WSNs facilitates the definition and execution of ambitious studies, with a large input data set and high computational complexity. These computation resources, very often heterogeneous and driven on-demand, can only be satisfied by high-performance Data Centers (DCs). The high economical and environmental impact of the energy consumption in DCs requires aggressive energy optimization policies. These policies have been already detected but not successfully proposed. In this context, this paper shows the following on-going research lines and obtained results. In the field of WSNs: energy optimization in the processing nodes from different abstraction levels, including reconfigurable application specific architectures, efficient customization of the memory hierarchy, energy-aware management of the wireless interface, and design automation for signal processing applications. In the field of DCs: energy-optimal workload assignment policies in heterogeneous DCs, resource management policies with energy consciousness, and efficient cooling mechanisms that will cooperate in the minimization of the electricity bill of the DCs that process the data provided by the WSNs.

GreenDisc: a HW/SW energy optimization framework in globally distributed computation

In recent future, wireless sensor networks ({WSNs}) will experience a broad high-scale deployment (millions of nodes in the national area) with multiple information sources per node, and with very specific requirements for signal processing. In parallel, the broad range deployment of {WSNs} facilitates the definition and execution of ambitious studies, with a large input data set and high computational complexity. These computation resources, very often heterogeneous and driven on-demand, can only be satisfied by high-performance Data Centers ({DCs}). The high economical and environmental impact of the energy consumption in {DCs} requires aggressive energy optimization policies. These policies have been already detected but not successfully proposed. In this context, this paper shows the following on-going research lines and obtained results. In the field of {WSNs}: energy optimization in the processing nodes from different abstraction levels, including reconfigurable application specific architectures, efficient customization of the memory hierarchy, energy-aware management of the wireless interface, and design automation for signal processing applications. In the field of {DCs}: energy-optimal workload assignment policies in heterogeneous {DCs}, resource management policies with energy consciousness, and efficient cooling mechanisms that will cooperate in the minimization of the electricity bill of the DCs that process the data provided by the WSNs.

Clasificación de tráfico de Internet mediante análisis de datos

Poder clasificar de manera precisa la aplicación o programa del que provienen los flujos que conforman el tráfico de uso de Internet dentro de una red permite tanto a empresas como a organismos una útil herramienta de gestión de los recursos de sus redes, así como la posibilidad de establecer políticas de prohibición o priorización de tráfico específico. La proliferación de nuevas aplicaciones y de nuevas técnicas han dificultado el uso de valores conocidos (well-known) en puertos de aplicaciones proporcionados por la IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) para la detección de dichas aplicaciones. Las redes P2P (Peer to Peer), el uso de puertos no conocidos o aleatorios, y el enmascaramiento de tráfico de muchas aplicaciones en tráfico HTTP y HTTPS con el fin de atravesar firewalls y NATs (Network Address Translation), entre otros, crea la necesidad de nuevos métodos de detección de tráfico. El objetivo de este estudio es desarrollar una serie de prácticas que permitan realizar dicha tarea a través de técnicas que están más allá de la observación de puertos y otros valores conocidos. Existen una serie de metodologías como Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) que se basa en la búsqueda de firmas, signatures, en base a patrones creados por el contenido de los paquetes, incluido el payload, que caracterizan cada aplicación. Otras basadas en el aprendizaje automático de parámetros de los flujos, Machine Learning, que permite determinar mediante análisis estadísticos a qué aplicación pueden pertenecer dichos flujos y, por último, técnicas de carácter más heurístico basadas en la intuición o el conocimiento propio sobre tráfico de red. En concreto, se propone el uso de alguna de las técnicas anteriormente comentadas en conjunto con técnicas de minería de datos como son el Análisis de Componentes Principales (PCA por sus siglas en inglés) y Clustering de estadísticos extraídos de los flujos procedentes de ficheros de tráfico de red. Esto implicará la configuración de diversos parámetros que precisarán de un proceso iterativo de prueba y error que permita dar con una clasificación del tráfico fiable. El resultado ideal sería aquel en el que se pudiera identificar cada aplicación presente en el tráfico en un clúster distinto, o en clusters que agrupen grupos de aplicaciones de similar naturaleza. Para ello, se crearán capturas de tráfico dentro de un entorno controlado e identificando cada tráfico con su aplicación correspondiente, a continuación se extraerán los flujos de dichas capturas. Tras esto, parámetros determinados de los paquetes pertenecientes a dichos flujos serán obtenidos, como por ejemplo la fecha y hora de llagada o la longitud en octetos del paquete IP. Estos parámetros serán cargados en una base de datos MySQL y serán usados para obtener estadísticos que ayuden, en un siguiente paso, a realizar una clasificación de los flujos mediante minería de datos. Concretamente, se usarán las técnicas de PCA y clustering haciendo uso del software RapidMiner. Por último, los resultados obtenidos serán plasmados en una matriz de confusión que nos permitirá que sean valorados correctamente. ABSTRACT. Being able to classify the applications that generate the traffic flows in an Internet network allows companies and organisms to implement efficient resource management policies such as prohibition of specific applications or prioritization of certain application traffic, looking for an optimization of the available bandwidth. The proliferation of new applications and new technics in the last years has made it more difficult to use well-known values assigned by the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority), like UDP and TCP ports, to identify the traffic. Also, P2P networks and data encapsulation over HTTP and HTTPS traffic has increased the necessity to improve these traffic analysis technics. The aim of this project is to develop a number of techniques that make us able to classify the traffic with more than the simple observation of the well-known ports. There are some proposals that have been created to cover this necessity; Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) tries to find signatures in the packets reading the information contained in them, the payload, looking for patterns that can be used to characterize the applications to which that traffic belongs; Machine Learning procedures work with statistical analysis of the flows, trying to generate an automatic process that learns from those statistical parameters and calculate the likelihood of a flow pertaining to a certain application; Heuristic Techniques, finally, are based in the intuition or the knowledge of the researcher himself about the traffic being analyzed that can help him to characterize the traffic. Specifically, the use of some of the techniques previously mentioned in combination with data mining technics such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Clustering (grouping) of the flows extracted from network traffic captures are proposed. An iterative process based in success and failure will be needed to configure these data mining techniques looking for a reliable traffic classification. The perfect result would be the one in which the traffic flows of each application is grouped correctly in each cluster or in clusters that contain group of applications of similar nature. To do this, network traffic captures will be created in a controlled environment in which every capture is classified and known to pertain to a specific application. Then, for each capture, all the flows will be extracted. These flows will be used to extract from them information such as date and arrival time or the IP length of the packets inside them. This information will be then loaded to a MySQL database where all the packets defining a flow will be classified and also, each flow will be assigned to its specific application. All the information obtained from the packets will be used to generate statistical parameters in order to describe each flow in the best possible way. After that, data mining techniques previously mentioned (PCA and Clustering) will be used on these parameters making use of the software RapidMiner. Finally, the results obtained from the data mining will be compared with the real classification of the flows that can be obtained from the database. A Confusion Matrix will be used for the comparison, letting us measure the veracity of the developed classification process.

European legislation and implementation measures in the management of construction and demolition waste.

The intense activity in the construction sector during the last decade has generated huge volumes of construction and demolition (C&D) waste. In average, Europe has generated around 890 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste per year. Although now the activity has entered in a phase of decline, due to the change of the economic cycle, we don’t have to forget all the problems caused by such waste, or rather, by their management which is still far from achieving the overall target of 70% for C&D waste --excludes soil and stones not containing dangerous substances-- should be recycled in the EU Countries by 2020 (Waste Framework Directive). But in fact, the reality is that only 50% of the C&D waste generated in EU is recycled and 40% of it corresponds to the recycling of soil and stones not containing dangerous substances. Aware of this situation, the European Countries are implementing national policies as well as different measures to prevent the waste that can be avoidable and to promote measures to increase recycling and recovering. In this aspect, this article gives an overview of the amount of C&D waste generated in European countries, as well as the amount of this waste that is being recycled and the different measures that European countries have applied to solve this situation.

An example of integration between en economic and an hydrologic model in the framework of water resource management problems

Growing scarcity, increasing demand and bad management of water resources are causing weighty competition for water and consequently managers are facing more and more pressure in an attempt to satisfy users? requirement. In many regions agriculture is one of the most important users at river basin scale since it concentrates high volumes of water consumption during relatively short periods (irrigation season), with a significant economic, social and environmental impact. The interdisciplinary characteristics of related water resources problems require, as established in the Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC, an integrated and participative approach to water management and assigns an essential role to economic analysis as a decision support tool. For this reason, a methodology is developed to analyse the economic and environmental implications of water resource management under different scenarios, with a focus on the agricultural sector. This research integrates both economic and hydrologic components in modelling, defining scenarios of water resource management with the goal of preventing critical situations, such as droughts. The model follows the Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) approach, an innovative methodology successfully used for agricultural policy analysis in the last decade and also applied in several analyses regarding water use in agriculture. This approach has, among others, the very important capability of perfectly calibrating the baseline scenario using a very limited database. However one important disadvantage is its limited capacity to simulate activities non-observed during the reference period but which could be adopted if the scenario changed. To overcome this problem the classical methodology is extended in order to simulate a more realistic farmers? response to new agricultural policies or modified water availability. In this way an economic model has been developed to reproduce the farmers? behaviour within two irrigation districts in the Tiber High Valley. This economic model is then integrated with SIMBAT, an hydrologic model developed for the Tiber basin which allows to simulate the balance between the water volumes available at the Montedoglio dam and the water volumes required by the various irrigation users.

Reaching the unreached: An initiative to bridge the gap between the gap by active role of management institutes/schools

There are large numbers of business communities in India which neither had any formal education nor they took any professional training but still they contribute in successful business formation. Their presence can be felt in all areas of business. Still there is a big professional gap between the educational institutes, specially the B-Schools and this independent business community. With the help of this paper an effort is made to develop a Two-Way learning relationship for the mutual benefit of both entities. It will also highlight the role of an educational institute beyond academics for the well being of society. This may lead to derive and develop the exchange of innovative business ideas and framing the suitable policies for long term sustainability in today´s competitive arena. The study conducted by researcher with a sample size of 100 which includes a mix of well known academic professionals, MBA students and non academic business professionals has revealed that there is a need of an exchange program for the mutual benefits. There exists a big professional gap in this area which can be filled with the active and effective initiative by management institutes. An effort is made in this paper to highlight this gap and to suggest some framework to bridge the gap

Energy- and environmentally efficient road management: The case of the Spanish motorway network

Transport is responsible for 41% of CO2 emissions in Spain, and around 65% of that figure is due to road traffic. Tolled motorways are currently managed according to economic criteria: minimizing operational costs and maximizing revenues from tolls. Within this framework, this paper develops a new methodology for managing motorways based on a target of maximum energy efficiency. It includes technological and demand-driven policies, which are applied to two case studies. Various conclusions emerge from this study. One is, that the use of intelligent payment systems is recommended; and another, is that the most sustainable policy would involve defining the most efficient strategy for each motorway section, including the maximum use of its capacity, the toll level which attracts the most vehicles, and the optimum speed limit for each type of vehicle.

The new challenges of end-of-life tyres management systems: a Spanish case study

Directive 2008/98/EC released by the European Union represents a significant step forward in all relevant aspects of waste management. Under the already established, extended produced responsibility (EPR) principle, new policies have been enunciated to continuously achieve better overall environmental performance of key products throughout their life phases. This paper discusses how the directive is being articulated in Spain by the main integrated management system (IMS) for end-of-life (EOL) tyres since its creation in 2006. Focusing on the IMS technological, economic and legal aspects, the study provides a global perspective and evaluation of how the IMS is facing the current issues to resolve, the new challenges that have appeared and the management vision for the coming years.

Economic analysis of the renewable energy policies in the European Union

The European energy sector is undergoing a major transformation and is facing a series of difficult challenges. These include a high and increasing dependence on external energy resources; dramatically reduce the need for the emissions of greenhouse gases to meet environmental objectives and the difficulties related to the promotion of energy market effectively integrated and competitive. Some of the policies associated with the various objectives are sometimes in conflict with each other, while in other cases are mutually reinforcing.The aim of this paper is to do a scienti?c analysis of the developments so far and the expectations for the coming period focusing on the pillars of energy policy in the EU in terms of security of supply, environment, climate change and promoting a competitive and integrated market. The use of renewable energy sources is seen as a key element of European energy policy and should help to: reduce dependence on fuel from non-member countries; reduce emissions from carbon-based energy sources, and; decouple energy costs from oil prices.

Integration of research advances in modelling and monitoring in support of WFD river basin management planning in the context of climate change

The integration of scientific knowledge about possible climate change impacts on water resources has a direct implication on the way water policies are being implemented and evolving. This is particularly true regarding various technical steps embedded into the EU Water Framework Directive river basin management planning, such as risk characterisation, monitoring, design and implementation of action programmes and evaluation of the "good status" objective achievements (in 2015). The need to incorporate climate change considerations into the implementation of EU water policy is currently discussed with a wide range of experts and stakeholders at EU level. Research trends are also on-going, striving to support policy developments and examining how scientific findings and recommendations could be best taken on board by policy-makers and water managers within the forthcoming years. This paper provides a snapshot of policy discussions about climate change in the context of the WFD river basin management planning and specific advancements of related EU-funded research projects. Perspectives for strengthening links among the scientific and policy-making communities in this area are also highlighted.

An Integrated Approach to Strategic Asset Management

This paper focuses on identifying and analysing the elements of Strategic Management for infrastructure and engineering assets. These elements are contended to involve an understanding of governance, corporate policy, corporate objectives, corporate strategy and interagency collaboration and will in turn, allow the ability determine a broader and more comprehensive framework for engineering asset management, ie a ‘staged approach’ to understanding how assets are managed within organisations. While the assets themselves have often been the sole concern for good management practices, other social and contextual elements have come into the mix in order to promote strategic asset management. The development of an integrated approach to asset management is at the base of the research question. What are the considerations and implications for adopting and implementing an integrated strategic asset management (ISAM) framework? While operational matters have been given prominence, a subset of corporate governance, Asset Governance, details the policies and processes needed to acquire, utilise, maintain and account for an organisation’s assets. Asset governance stems from the organisation’s overarching corporate governance principles; as a result it defines the management context in which engineering asset management is implemented. This aspect will be examined to determine the appropriate relationship between organisational strategic management and strategic asset management to further the theoretical engagement with the maturity of strategy,policy and governance for infrastructure and engineered assets. Asset governance stems from the organisation’s overarching corporate governance principles; as a result it defines the management context in which engineering asset management is implemented. The research proceeds by a document analysis of corporate reports and policy recommendations in terms of infrastructure and engineered assets. The paper concludes that incorporating an integrated asset management framework can promote a more robust conceptualisation of public assets and how they combine to provide a comprehensive system of service outcomes.

Management of Urban Mobility to Control Climate Change in Cities

The need of decarbonization of urban mobility is one of the main priorities for all countries to achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets. In general, the transport modes which have experienced the most growth in recent years tend to be the most polluting. Most efforts have been focused on the vehicle efficiency improvements and vehicle fleet renewal; nevertheless more emphasis should be placed on strategies related to the management of urban mobility and modal share. Research of individual travel which analyzes CO2 emissions and car and public transport share in daily mobility will enable better assessments of the potential of urban mobility measures introduced to limit GHG emissions produced by transport in cities. This paper explores the sustainability impacts of daily mobility in Spain using data from two National Travel Surveys (NTSs) (2000 and 2006) and includes a method by which to estimate the CO2 emissions associated with each journey and each surveyed individual. The results demonstrate that in the 2000 to 2006 period, there has been an increase in daily mobility which has led to a 17% increase in CO2 emissions. When separated by transport mode, cars prove to be the main contributor to that increase, followed by public transport. More focus should be directed toward modal shift strategies which not only take the number of journeys into account but also consider distance. The contributions of this paper have potential applications in the assessment of current and future urban transport policies.

Efficient management of available technologies. Aplication to mining operations for industry supplies

Nowadays, processing Industry Sector is going through a series of changes, including right management and reduction of environmental affections. Any productive process which looks for sustainable management is incomplete if Cycle of Life of mineral resources sustainability is not taken into account. Raw materials for manufacturing are provided by mineral resources extraction processes, such as copper, aluminum, iron, gold, silver, silicon, titanium? Those elements are necessary for Mankind development and are obtained from the Earth through mineral extractive processes. Mineral extraction processes are operations which must take care about the environmental consequences. Extraction of huge volumes of rock for their transformation into raw materials for industry must be optimized to reduce ecological cost of the final product as l was possible. Reducing the ecological balance on a global scale has no sense to design an efficient manufacturing in secondary industry (transformation), if in first steps of the supply chain (extraction) impact exceeds the savings of resources in successive phases. Mining operations size suggests that it is an environmental aggressive activity, but precisely because of its great impact must be the first element to be considered. That idea implies that a new concept born: Reduce economical and environmental cost This work aims to make a reflection on the parameters that can be modified to reduce the energy cost of the process without an increasing in operational costs and always ensuring the same production capacity. That means minimize economic and environmental cost at same time. An efficient design of mining operation which has taken into account that idea does not implies an increasing of the operating cost. To get this objective is necessary to think in global operation view to make that all departments involved have common guidelines which make you think in the optimization of global energy costs. Sometimes a single operational cost must be increased to reduce global cost. This work makes a review through different design parameters of surface mining setting some key performance indicators (KPIs) which are estimated from an efficient point of view. Those KPIs can be included by HQE Policies as global indicators. The new concept developed is that a new criteria has to be applied in company policies: improve management, improving OPERATIONAL efficiency. That means, that is better to use current resources properly (machinery, equipment,?) than to replace them with new things but not used correctly. As a conclusion, through an efficient management of current technologies in each extractive operation an important reduction of the energy can be achieved looking at downstream in the process. That implies a lower energetic cost in the whole cycle of life in manufactured product.

Management of urban mobility to control climate change in cities in Spain

The need to decarbonize urban mobility is one of the main motivations for all countries to achieve reduction targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In general, the transport modes that have experienced the most growth in recent years tend to be the most polluting. Most efforts have focused on improvements in vehicle efficiency and on the renewal of vehicle fleets; more emphasis should be placed on strategies related to the management of urban mobility and modal share. Research of individual travel that analyzes carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and car and public transport share in daily mobility will enable better assessments of the potential of urban mobility measures introduced to limit GHG emissions produced by transport in cities. The climate change impacts of daily mobility in Spain are explored with data from two national travel surveys in 2000 and 2006, and a method for estimating the CO2 emissions associated with each journey and each surveyed individual is provided. The results demonstrate that from 2000 to 2006, daily mobility has increased and has led to a 17% increase in CO2 emissions. When these results are separated by transport mode, cars prove to be the main contributor to that increase, followed by public transport. More focus should be directed toward modal shift strategies, which take into account not only the number of journeys but also the distance traveled. These contributions have potential applications in the assessment of current and future urban transport policies related to low-carbon urban transportation.

Evaluation of the utilization of electric vehicles for building energy management in hotels

Governments are working in new policies to slow down total energy consumption and greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, promoting the deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) in all countries. In order to facilitate this deployment and help to reduce the final costs of their batteries, additional utilization of EVs when those are parked has been proposed. EVs can be used to minimize the total electricity cost of buildings (named vehicle to building applications, V2B). In this paper an economic evaluation of EVs in the Building Energy Management System is shown. The optimal storage capacity and its equivalent number of EVs are determined. This value is then used for determining the optimal charging schedule to be applied to the batteries. From this schedule, the total expected profit is derived for the case of a real hotel in Spain.