Implementing Green IT approach for transferring Big Data over Parallel Data Link

The whole research of the current Master Thesis project is related to Big Data transfer over Parallel Data Link and my main objective is to assist the Saint-Petersburg National Research University ITMO research team to accomplish this project and apply Green IT methods for the data transfer system. The goal of the team is to transfer Big Data by using parallel data links with SDN Openflow approach. My task as a team member was to compare existing data transfer applications in case to verify which results the highest data transfer speed in which occasions and explain the reasons. In the context of this thesis work a comparison between 5 different utilities was done, which including Fast Data Transfer (FDT), BBCP, BBFTP, GridFTP, and FTS3. A number of scripts where developed which consist of creating random binary data to be incompressible to have fair comparison between utilities, execute the Utilities with specified parameters, create log files, results, system parameters, and plot graphs to compare the results. Transferring such an enormous variety of data can take a long time, and hence, the necessity appears to reduce the energy consumption to make them greener. In the context of Green IT approach, our team used Cloud Computing infrastructure called OpenStack. It’s more efficient to allocated specific amount of hardware resources to test different scenarios rather than using the whole resources from our testbed. Testing our implementation with OpenStack infrastructure results that the virtual channel does not consist of any traffic and we can achieve the highest possible throughput. After receiving the final results we are in place to identify which utilities produce faster data transfer in different scenarios with specific TCP parameters and we can use them in real network data links.

Benchmark of routing protocols regarding green considerations

In Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANET) the participating nodes have several roles such as sender, receiver and router. Hence there is a lot of energy consumed by the nodes for the normal working of the network since each node has many different roles. Also in MANET the nodes keep moving constantly and this in turn consumes a lot of energy. Since battery capacity of these nodes is limited it fails to fulfil the high demand of energy. The scarcity of energy makes the energy conservation in mobile ad-hoc networks an important concern. There is several research carried out on the energy consumption of mobile ad-hoc networks these days. Some of this research suggests sleep mode, transmission power control, load balancing etc. In this thesis, we are comparing various proposed energy efficient models for some of the ad-hoc protocols. We compare different energy efficient models for Optimised Linked State Algorithm (OLSR) and Ad-hoc On Demand Distance Vector (AODV). The routing protocols are compared for different parameters such as average remaining energy, number of nodes alive, payload data received and performance with different mobility speed. The simulation results helps in benchmarking the various energy efficient routing models for OLSR and AODV protocols. The benchmarking of the routing protocols can be based on many factors but this thesis concentrates on benchmarking the MANET routing protocols mainly based on the energy efficiency and increased network lifetime.

Green Service Level Agreement under Sustainability Lens in IT Industry

Nowadays, when most of the business are moving forward to sustainability by providing or getting different services from different vendors, Service Level Agreement (SLA) becomes very important for both the business providers/vendors and as well as for users/customers. There are many ways to inform users/customers about various services with its inherent execution functionalities and even non-functional/Quality of Services (QoS) aspects through negotiating, evaluating or monitoring SLAs. However, these traditional SLA actually do not cover eco-efficient green issues or IT ethics issues for sustainability. That is why green SLA (GSLA) should come into play. GSLA is a formal agreement incorporating all the traditional commitments as well as green issues and ethics issues in IT business sectors. GSLA research would survey on different traditional SLA parameters for various services like as network, compute, storage and multimedia in IT business areas. At the same time, this survey could focus on finding the gaps and incorporation of these traditional SLA parameters with green issues for all these mentioned services. This research is mainly points on integration of green parameters in existing SLAs, defining GSLA with new green performance indicators and their measurable units. Finally, a GSLA template could define compiling all the green indicators such as recycling, radio-wave, toxic material usage, obsolescence indication, ICT product life cycles, energy cost etc for sustainable development. Moreover, people’s interaction and IT ethics issues such as security and privacy, user satisfaction, intellectual property right, user reliability, confidentiality etc could also need to add for proposing a new GSLA. However, integration of new and existing performance indicators in the proposed GSLA for sustainable development could be difficult for ICT engineers. Therefore, this research also discovers the management complexity of proposed green SLA through designing a general informational model and analyses of all the relationships, dependencies and effects between various newly identified services under sustainability pillars. However, sustainability could only be achieved through proper implementation of newly proposed GSLA, which largely depends on monitoring the performance of the green indicators. Therefore, this research focuses on monitoring and evaluating phase of GSLA indicators through the interactions with traditional basic SLA indicators, which would help to achieve proper implementation of future GSLA. Finally, this newly proposed GSLA informational model and monitoring aspects could definitely help different service providers/vendors to design their future business strategy in this new transitional sustainable society.

Green ICT metrics and Biomimicry

Sustainability issue of ICT have gathered attention in recent years, and researchers are working on this problem. Sustainability incorporates numerous interconnected aspects as well as methods to achieve it in ICT, so it is quite complicated to have a general view on a problem without a proper framework. However, a general methodology for such a research is missing. In this work it is proposed to use Biomimicry approach as a framework for sustainability research and development, as it introduces systematics and also forces to account sustainable aspects. Additionally, an interesting problem of green network measurements for enhancing sustainability in ICT will be researched using mentioned approach. The goal is to investigate Biomimicry as a systemic approach for developing sustainable systems, as well as to apply it in green network measurements study. Comparative study is performed for examining Biomimicry approach, as well as a use case of green network measurements research is presented. As a result, green network measurement can potentially improve sustainability, but only to a limited extent as it cannot incorporate all the aspects; within Biomimicry approach, two methodologies exist. It is possible to conclude that Biomimicry is a good framework for developing sustainable systems, nevertheless, another methodology has to be introduced within it; new methodology has to incorporate advantages of two existing ones.

“Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters”. Luonto L. M. Montgomeryn Anne of Green Gables –teoksessa

Kanadalaisen kirjailijan L. M. Montgomeryn tunnetun ja rakastetun Anna-sarjan ensimmäinen osa Anne of Green Gables -teos (1908) kertoo orvosta tytöstä, joka pääsee Prinssi Edwardin saaren Avonlean kylään asumaan naimattoman sisarusparin Marilla ja Matthew`n kasvattilapseksi. Luonto on keskeisellä sijalla teoksessa: Anna on luontoa rakastava ja luonnon keskellä viihtyvä tyttö ja myös teoksen kertoja kuvaa paljon luontoa. Tutkimukseni käsittelee luontoa Anne of Green Gables -teoksessa. Tutkin luontoteemaa teoksessa seuraavista näkökulmista: Analysoin, kuinka luonto kuvataan teoksessa ja millainen on teoksen luontokuva. Luontokuvaa käsittelen pastoraalin käsitteen kautta, ja kysyn teokselta, voidaanko se tulkita pastoraaliksi ja kuinka teos asettuu pastoraalin traditioon. Lisäksi erittelen, millainen on päähenkilön Annan luontosuhde. Millaisen arvon hän antaa luonnolle ja mitä merkityksiä hän liittää luontoon? Tutkimus asettuu ekokriittiseen viitekehykseen, ja pohdin myös sitä, minkälainen on teoksen representaatio luonnosta ekokriittisesti tarkastellen. Amerikkalaisen transsendentalistin Ralph Waldo Emersonin luontofilosofia kulkee myös taustajuonteena tutkielmassa ja erittelen, mitä yhtymäkohtia hänen luontofilosofiassaan on Anne of Green Gables -teokseen. Anne of Green Gables -teoksen luontokuvaa voidaan luonnehtia romantisoiduksi ja idealisoivaksi. Luonto kuvataan kauniiksi, ja sen kauneutta ylistää niin Anna kuin teoksen kaikkitietävä kertojakin. Teoksen luontokuva on pastoraalinen, sillä siinä esiintyy vahvasti pastoraaliin liittyvä diskurssi maaseudun ja kaupungin vastakkainasettelusta siten, että maaseutu assosioituu positiivisesti, kun taas kaupunki nähdään negatiivisessa valossa. Luonnonläheinen Avonlean kylä näyttäytyy teoksessa niin idealisoidussa valossa, että se muistuttaa jo jonkinlaista myyttistä paratiisia. Näin ollen teoksen pastoraalisuus saa pejoratiivisiakin piirteitä. Annan luontosuhdetta värittää voimakas kunnioitus ja arvostus luontoa kohtaan. Hänen luontoon liittämistä arvoista keskeiselle sijalle nousee luonnon kauneus. Luonnon kauneuden arvostaminen toimii kuitenkin porttina luonnon toiseuttamiseen, mistä syntyy pieni arvoristiriita. Toisaalta kuitenkin Anna samaistuu luontoon tavalla, joka hämärtää perinteistä subjekti–objekti-dikotomiaa. Anna näyttäytyy vihreän maailman arkkityyppinä, lapsena, joka sulautuu luontoon ja kokee sen kodikseen. Luonto edustaa Annalle vapautta ja herättää myös hänen mielikuvituksena ja taiteellisen inspiraation. Lisäksi luonto on Annalle paikka, jossa voi saavuttaa autenttisen yhteyden Jumalaan.

A method for fast determination of epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), epicatechin (EC), catechin (C) and caffeine (CAF) in green tea using HPLC

Tea has been considered a medicine and a healthy beverage since ancient times, but recently it has received a great deal of attention because of its antioxidant properties. Green tea polyphenols have demonstrated to be an effective chemopreventive agent. Recently, investigators have found that EGCG, one of the green tea catechins, could have anti-HIV effects when bound to CD4 receptor. Many factors can constitute important influences on the composition of tea, such as species, season, age of the leaf, climate, and horticultural practices (soil, water, minerals, fertilizers). This paper presents an HPLC analytical methodology development, using column RP-18 and mobile phase composed by water, acetonitrile, methanol, ethyl acetate, glacial acetic acid (89:6:1:3:1 v/v/v/v/v) for simultaneous determination and quantification of caffeine (CAF), catechin (C), epicatechin (EC) and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) in samples of Camellia sinensis (green tea) grown in Brazil and harvested in spring, in summer and in autumn, in comparison to Brazilian black tea, to samples of Japanese and Chinese green tea and to two standardized dry extracts of green tea. The method has been statistically evaluated and has proved to be adequate to qualitative and quantitative determination of the samples.

THE ROLE OF CULTURAL AWARENESS IN BUILDING CHINESE HEALTH FOOD BRANDS Using Netnography in Searching Cultural Arguments to Be Used for Marketing Health Foods in China

Despite the complexity of the Chinese culture consumer product businesses should apply them in building brands for Chinese markets. There are reasons to believe that cultural values and attitudes affect the buying behavior of Chinese consumers. Companies that wish to create brands in China should therefore be aware of the prevailing cultural values and consumer attitudes. This thesis will examine which values and attitudes mostly affect Chinese consumers of health food products. The study will be done by conducting a netnography. Because netnography is actually a collection methods rather than a single method, other auxiliary methods will also be applied. These methods are emotion, language and sentiment analysis (ELS analysis). Emotion analysis will be conducted because cultural values are mostly built on emotional basis. Sentiment analysis will assist in recognizing the key factors that help to locate values and attitudes. Because the netnography will be conducted in Chinese web forums by a non-native researcher, linguistic aspects should also be analyzed in parallel with emotions and sentiment analysis. The study shows that the Chinese consumers of health food products put much importance on functional, analytical and collectivistic attitudes as well as social and psychological values. Of all the twelve cultural values defined, the role of family rose above all. Also perseverance, frugality, guanxi and harmony were highly presented. The attitudes were found by recognizing certain attitude factors. Of all the factors, health foods’ functional benefits and aesthetic content together with consumers’ value consciousness surpassed other factors. Besides these results that can be applied by foreign health food companies willing to enter Chinese consumer markets, also academia can benefit this new approach for conducting ethnographies online.

Comparison of volatile and polyphenolic compounds in Brazilian green propolis and its botanical origin Baccharis dracunculifolia

Ethanolic extracts and essential oils from Green Propolis from southeastern Brazil and leaf buds from its botanical origin Baccharis dracunculifolia were analyzed by Reversed Phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography (RP-HPLC), Reversed Phase High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (RP-HPTLC) and Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). The essential oils were obtained by hydro-distillation. Both ethanolic extracts and essential oils showed similar chromatographic profiles. Thirteen flavonoids were identified by RP-HPLC and RP-HPTLC analyses in both samples. Twenty-three volatile compounds were identified by GC-MS analyses. Seventeen were present in both essential oils. The major flavonoid compound in both extracts was artepillin C. The major volatile compound in both essential oils was nerolidol. The major compounds identified in this work could be used as chemical markers in order to classify and identify botanical origins of propolis.