Green IT : a matter of business and information systems engineering?

This panel discusses the impact of Green IT on information systems and how information systems can meet environmental challenges and ensure sustainability. We wish to highlight the role of green business processes, and specifically the contributions that the management of these processes can play in leveraging the transformative power of IS in order to create an environmentally sustainable society. The management of business processes has typically been thought of in terms of business improvement alongside the dimensions time, cost, quality, or flexibility – the so-called ‘devil’s quadrangle’. Contemporary organizations, however, increasingly become aware of the need to create more sustainable, IT-enabled business processes that are also successful in terms of their economic, ecological, as well as social impact. Exemplary ecological key performance indicators that increasingly find their way into the agenda of managers include carbon emissions, data center energy, or renewable energy consumption (SAP 2010). The key challenge, therefore, is to extend the devil’s quadrangle to a devil’s pentagon, including sustainability as an important fifth dimension in process change.

Reflections on a year of engineering leadership

Doug Hargreaves has completed a year as President of Engineers Australia, a 90,000 strong membership based organisation representing the engineering profession. In preparing for the year Doug decided that the core of his own leadership is his values and that the legacy he wanted to be remembered for at the end of his year, was how his values underpinned everything he did. The framework for this values approach was a book he co-authored entitled 'Values Driven Leadership'. The essence of Doug's philosophy is that a leader who bases their leadership on a strong sense of values will create an environment where people have a strong sense of Belonging, Identity and Purpose. This paper reflects on Doug's year of leadership of Engineers Australia and offers insights and examples of where his values driven leadership approach played out and contributed to various scenarios he encountered over the year. The paper will share Doug's approach to leadership and offer an understanding of how an effective leader actually does what he does. Too often leadership is seen as a nebulous capacity that people either have or do not have. In this paper, we will identify the specific skills and abilities within a values framework that will allow any leader to be more effective in their role.

Hybrid-Game Strategies for multi-objective design optimization in engineering

A number of Game Strategies (GS) have been developed in past decades. They have been used in the fields of economics, engineering, computer science and biology due to their efficiency in solving design optimization problems. In addition, research in multi-objective (MO) and multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) has focused on developing robust and efficient optimization methods to produce a set of high quality solutions with low computational cost. In this paper, two optimization techniques are considered; the first optimization method uses multi-fidelity hierarchical Pareto optimality. The second optimization method uses the combination of two Game Strategies; Nash-equilibrium and Pareto optimality. The paper shows how Game Strategies can be hybridised and coupled to Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEA) to accelerate convergence speed and to produce a set of high quality solutions. Numerical results obtained from both optimization methods are compared in terms of computational expense and model quality. The benefits of using Hybrid-Game Strategies are clearly demonstrated

Demand side response to mitigate electrical peak demand in Eastern and Southern Australia

The aim of this work is to develop a Demand-Side-Response (DSR) model, which assists electricity end-users to be engaged in mitigating peak demands on the electricity network in Eastern and Southern Australia. The proposed innovative model will comprise a technical set-up of a programmable internet relay, a router, solid state switches in addition to the suitable software to control electricity demand at user's premises. The software on appropriate multimedia tool (CD Rom) will be curtailing/shifting electric loads to the most appropriate time of the day following the implemented economic model, which is designed to be maximizing financial benefits to electricity consumers. Additionally the model is targeting a national electrical load be spread-out evenly throughout the year in order to satisfy best economic performance for electricity generation, transmission and distribution. The model is applicable in region managed by the Australian Energy Management Operator (AEMO) covering states of Eastern-, Southern-Australia and Tasmania.

Optimum demand side response of smart grid with renewable energy source and electrical vehicles

The paper presents a demand side response scheme,which assists electricity consumers to proactively control own demands in such a way to deliberately avert congestion periods on the electrical network. The scheme allows shifting loads from peak to low demand periods in an attempt to flattening the national electricity requirement. The scheme can be concurrently used to accommodate the utilization of renewable energy sources,that might be available at user’s premises. In addition the scheme allows a full-capacity utilization of the available electrical infrastructure by organizing a wide-use of electric vehicles. The scheme is applicable in the Eastern and Southern States of Australia managed by the Australian Energy Market Operator. The results indicate the potential of the scheme to achieve energy savings and release capacity to accommodate renewable energy and electrical vehicle technologies.

Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering Design Theme Conference 2008 Conference Proceedings

Proceedings of the Design Theme Postgraduate Student Conference, held 10th September 2008 at Queensland University of Technology.

Middle school students' perceptions of engineering

This paper focuses on implementing engineering education in middle school classrooms (grade levels 7-9). One of the aims of the study was to foster students’ and teachers’ knowledge and understanding of engineering in society. Given the increasing importance of engineering in shaping our daily lives, it is imperative that we foster in students an interest and drive to participate in engineering education, increase their awareness of engineering as a career path, and inform them of the links between engineering and the enabling subjects, mathematics, science, and technology. Data for the study are drawn from five classes across three schools. Grade 7 students’ responded to initial whole class discussions on what is an engineer, what is engineering, what characteristics engineers require, engineers (family/friends) that they know, and subjects that may facilitate an engineering career. Students generally viewed engineers as creative, future-oriented, and artistic problem finders and solvers; planners and designers; “seekers” and inventors; and builders of constructions. Students also viewed engineers as adventurous, decisive, community-minded, reliable, and “smart.” In addition to a range of mathematics and science topics, students identified business studies, ICT, graphics, art, and history as facilitating careers in engineering. Although students displayed a broadened awareness of engineering than the existing research suggests, there was limited knowledge of various engineering fields and a strong perception of engineering as large construction.

Reversed bias Pt/nanostructured ZnO Schottky diode with enhanced electric field for hydrogen sensing

In this paper, the effect of electric field enhancement on Pt/nanostructured ZnO Schottky diode based hydrogen sensors under reverse bias condition has been investigated. Current-voltage characteristics of these diodes have been studied at temperatures from 25 to 620 °C and their free carrier density concentration was estimated by exposing the sensors to hydrogen gas. The experimental results show a significantly lower breakdown voltage in reversed bias current-voltage characteristics than the conventional Schottky diodes and also greater lateral voltage shift in reverse bias operation than the forward bias. This can be ascribed to the increased localized electric fields emanating from the sharp edges and corners of the nanostructured morphologies. At 620 °C, voltage shifts of 114 and 325 mV for 0.06% and 1% hydrogen have been recorded from dynamic response under the reverse bias condition. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Surveying the state of higher education in energy efficiency, in Australian engineering curriculum

This paper presents the method and results of a survey of 27 of the 33 Australian universities teaching engineering education in late 2007, undertaken by The Natural Edge Project (hosted by Griffith University and the Australian National University) and supported by the National Framework for Energy Efficiency. This survey aimed to ascertain the extent of energy efficiency (EE) education, and to identify preferred methods to assist in increasing the extent to which EE education is embedded in engineering curriculum. In this paper the context for the survey is supported by a summary of the key results from a variety of surveys undertaken over the last decade internationally. The paper concludes that EE education across universities and engineering disciplines in Australia is currently highly variable and ad hoc. Based on the results of the survey, this paper highlights a number of preferred options to support educators to embed sustainability within engineering programs, and future opportunities for monitoring EE, within the context of engineering education for sustainable development (EESD).