Service level agreement framework for differentiated survivability in GMPLS-based IP-over-optical networks

In the next generation optical internet, GMPLS based IP-over-optical networks, ISPs will be required to support a wide variety of applications each having their own requirements. These requirements are contracted by means of the SLA. This paper describes a recovery framework that may be included in the SLA contract between ISP and customers in order to provide the required level of survivability. A key concern with such a recovery framework is how to present the different survivability alternatives including recovery techniques, failure scenario and layered integration into a transparent manner for customers. In this paper, two issues are investigated. First, the performance of the recovery framework when applying a proposed mapping procedure as an admission control mechanism in the edge router considering a smart-edge simple-core GMPLS-based IP/WDM network is considered. The second issue pertains to the performance of a pre-allocated restoration and its ability to provide protected connections under different failure scenarios

Energy efficiency in discrete-manufacturing systems: insights, trends, and control strategies

Since the depletion of fossil energy sources, rising energy prices, and governmental regulation restrictions, the current manufacturing industry is shifting towards more efficient and sustainable systems. This transformation has promoted the identification of energy saving opportunities and the development of new technologies and strategies oriented to improve the energy efficiency of such systems. This paper outlines and discusses most of the research reported during the last decade regarding energy efficiency in manufacturing systems, the current technologies and strategies to improve that efficiency, identifying and remarking those related to the design of management/control strategies. Based on this fact, this paper aims to provide a review of strategies for reducing energy consumption and optimizing the use of resources within a plant into the context of discrete manufacturing. The review performed concerning the current context of manufacturing systems, control systems implemented, and their transformation towards Industry 4.0 might be useful in both the academic and industrial dimension to identify trends and critical points and suggest further research lines.Peer ReviewedPreprin

Human experience in the natural and built environment : implications for research policy and practice

22nd IAPS conference. Edited book of abstracts. 427 pp. University of Strathclyde, Sheffield and West of Scotland Publication. ISBN: 978-0-94-764988-3

Formulating an FM strategy for climate change mitigation and adaptation of commercial built assets

As per the UKCIP 09 climate change projections the United Kingdom is very likely to experience increased sea level rise, increased winter rainfall, heat waves and an increase in frequency and severity of extreme weather events. Such inevitable impacts of climate change will require adaptation measures to be implemented for the management of existing commercial built assets if they are to continue to fulfil their primary function and support every organisation’s business operations. However, it is not clear as to how far adaptation solutions are effectively integrated into facilities or built-asset management planning? While seeking the answers to above questions, this thesis develops an approach for facilities and built-asset management, which will improve the resilience of existing commercial built assets to future physical climate-change impacts. The study undertakes a participatory study with a large commercial organisation and a questionnaire survey of UK facilities managers. The participatory study involved selective team of facilities management and operational (FM&O) professionals from a commercial organisation that managed around 3,400 built assets valued at £370 billion in 2003–05 in the United Kingdom. By working closely with the organisation, an approach to built-asset management was developed which integrated the existing UKCIP decision-making framework and UKCIP02 climate-change projections. In developing this approach, the strategic risk perception and managerial attitude to climate change were identified and included as important factors affecting the decision-making process. To test the wider applicability of the decision-making framework that was developed in the participatory study, a questionnaire survey of the wider facilities management community was undertaken. It was deduced from the survey results that the intent and process of decision making remains constant amongst FM professionals in commercial settings – for example: (a) The experience of a financial loss due to an existing climate-related extreme event is the initiation point for strategic stakeholders for considering future action regarding climate change; and (b) The operational adaptation measures are restricted to securing insurance deals and making renewed disaster-recovery and business-continuity plans. Additional outcomes from participatory and survey study covered logistic models describing the adaptation and mitigation approaches within a commercial setting. Taken as a whole, the findings from this study show that mitigation efforts which are supported by legislation and have well defined targets achieve a strategic importance within an organisation, while an absence of such targets and external drivers means that adaptation is viewed as an operational activity and, , as a short-term activity that has to compete for funds within annual budgets. To raise the profile of adaptation within commercial organisations requires a shift in the perception of climate change as risks amongst FM&O professionals and ability to better recognize climate change impacts on the business and built asset functions. This requires action to be initiated at both governmental and organisational level. However, such action needs to consider other constraints, such as the time span of the climate change projections. In particular, as FM&O professionals consider adaptation as an operational issue for which the planning period is normally short term (3–5 years), while the long-term projections associated with climate change are for 20–30 years as a minimum. In order to support decision making, this ‘temporal scale’ discrepancy needs to be addressed. The study has demonstrated that although decision-making frameworks and projections are useful tools to the adaptation of existing commercial built assets, they need to be synchronised with the short-term business planning and operational time line. The mitigation approach due to legislative and market-performance forces is quantified and gains a strategic importance, securing substantial financial support. In contrast to this, the adaptation agenda is taken into account only in the presence of an extreme event-related financial and functional loss. In this case, adaptation to climate change remains a reactive rather than a planned process and lacks legislative drivers. In the absence of legislative impetus and a standardised quantitative assessment method, it is difficult to derive short term or long-term targets according to which maintenance management interventions can be planned and strategic support can be achieved. In addition, the perception of built-asset managers about climate change risk is also found to be affecting the adaptation and mitigation agenda for built-asset maintenance and management

Questions of resilience in municipal finance response to a shock event: a case study of the Cape Town drought

The gaining prominence of resilience in urban policy has meant that urban decision makers are increasingly being asked to exhibit foresight and preparedness in how the urban system is planned and managed. The City of Cape Town has accepted this principle of resilience as a key means of driving collective understanding and action within the urban system in a time of growing uncertainty. Cape Town recently experienced the worst natural disaster in the history of its city-dom, in the form of a three-year drought. The impact of this drought on the municipal budget has been formidable. In terms of expenditure, considerable adjustments to the planned expenditure had to be made in order to source the funds required for large-scale infrastructure projects designed to increase resilience within the municipal water supply. In terms of revenue, there is significant concern around the fiscal sustainability of the municipality as more and more households are developing their own water supply in the form of rainwater tanks and boreholes, which is anticipated to decrease the municipal revenue gained from water tariffs dramatically (CCT, 2018f). The story of how the municipal budget system was affected by and reacted to the drought provides an opportunity to observe the application of the City’s understanding of resilience to a complex system, where many actors undertake simultaneous and independent activities, and the impact of these activities is evident at multiple levels and across multiple systems and sub-systems

Counting the cost: Coping with tariff increases amidst power supply shortfalls in urban households in Ethiopia

Although affordability is important, people do not need to be money poor to experience energy deprivation. This paper examines how an electricity tariff increase affects household energy consumption by situating the price change within the broader context of energy service provision in Ethiopia. We place households’ lived experience in interaction with the institutional and infrastructural dynamics that constitute the energy sector in Addis Ababa to observe how the price increase intersects with service provision. Since the tariff increase was implemented, households have changed their daily routines to control cost. Our findings show that energy consumption behaviour is also shaped by service-related inadequacies (unreliable supply and frequent power outages). However, families coping capacity (to the tariff increase and power supply shortfalls) is undermined by an energy market that is rife with information asymmetries and uncertainties. Thus, although socioeconomic factors underpin the energy insecurity households experience, inadequate supply, and diminishing confidence in service providing institutions appears to heighten their vulnerability. The paper argues that while the price change has an overall effect on consumption, its impact needs to be seen within the context of its systemic interaction with the broader energy governance and service delivery challenges

Electricity transmission: an overview of the current debate

Electricity transmission has emerged as critical for successfully liberalising powermarkets. This paper surveys the issues currently under discussion and provides a framework for the remaining papers in this issue. We conclude that signalling the efficient location of generation investment might require even a competitive LMP system to be complemented with deep connection charges. Although a Europe-wide LMP system is desirable, it appears politically problematic, so an integrated system of market coupling, possibly evolving by voluntary participation, should have high priority. Merchant investors may be able to increase interconnector capacity, although this is not unproblematic and raises new regulatory issues. A key issue that needs further research is how to better incentivize TSOs, especially with respect to cross-border issues

Evaluating and Managing the Energy Transition Towards Truly Sustainable University Campuses

This thesis is about the current role of university campuses to contribute to a fair and sustainable transition towards a low-carbon society. The fundamental argument is that there is a serious gap between the aspiration of higher education institutions in relation to sustainability and the current reality. Whilst formally moving towards sustainability within their curricula and resources management, universities are still immersed in all the complexity, the uncertainty, the scarcity of resources and the leading green-washing paradigm of the cities they are in. This thesis uses the Politecnico di Torino as the main case study, compared with universities in Italy, the UK, Japan, and Mexico, to answer the following questions: (1) What are universities doing in their sustainability efforts that has the potential to be measurable and transferable? And (2) How can we evaluate if universities are truly sustainable? This thesis treats university campuses as small cities nested in bigger cities; heterotopies expressing otherness and maintaining reciprocal relationships within the context. It is proposed that the immediate impacts deriving from educating and practising a wiser use of waste, water, energy and the built environment in universities help to create long term effects toward resilient, fair, and environmentally aware communities. Comparable clusters of universities, bottom-up management schemes and transferrable lessons for the wider urban and global practices are presented and discussed across the different case studies. To facilitate the dialogue between the economic, the social and the environmental fields of action, embedded within university’s sustainability metrics and the attempts to operationalise urban resilience determinants in the campus management, this thesis helps in tailoring appropriate assessment methodologies and operative strategies towards truly sustainable university campuses