Reverse logistics

This paper gives an overview of scientific literature that describes and discusses cases of reverse logistics activities in practice. Over sixty case studies are considered. Based on these studies we are able to indicate critical factors for the practice of reverse logistics. In addition we compare practice with theoretical models and point out research opportunities in the field

Exploring initial challenges for green software engineering: summary of the first GREENS workshop, at ICSE 2012

The GREENS workshop provides a forum for practitioners and academics to share knowledge, ideas, practices and current results related to green and sustainable software engineering. This first workshop was held at ICSE 2012 in Zurich, Switzerland. It featured a keynote talk, twelve research position statements and two breakout sessions that discussed topics that ranged from bringing sustainability and energy efficiency into all software lifecycle stages, to green measures and estimations, practices, notations, and tools to both greening the software engineering process, and greening the resulting Information and Communication Technology systems. This report presents the themes of the workshop, summarizes the results of the discussions held in the breakout sessions, as well as the identified research challenge

Energy-Efficient Software

The energy consumption of ICT is growing at an unprecedented pace. The main drivers for this growth are the widespread diffusion of mobile devices and the proliferation of datacenters, the most power-hungry IT facilities. In addition, it is predicted that the demand for ICT technologies and services will increase in the coming years. Finding solutions to decrease ICT energy footprint is and will be a top priority for researchers and professionals in the field. As a matter of fact, hardware technology has substantially improved throughout the years: modern ICT devices are definitely more energy efficient than their predecessors, in terms of performance per watt. However, as recent studies show, these improvements are not effectively reducing the growth rate of ICT energy consumption. This suggests that these devices are not used in an energy-efficient way. Hence, we have to look at software. Modern software applications are not designed and implemented with energy efficiency in mind. As hardware became more and more powerful (and cheaper), software developers were not concerned anymore with optimizing resource usage. Rather, they focused on providing additional features, adding layers of abstraction and complexity to their products. This ultimately resulted in bloated, slow software applications that waste hardware resources -- and consequently, energy. In this dissertation, the relationship between software behavior and hardware energy consumption is explored in detail. For this purpose, the abstraction levels of software are traversed upwards, from source code to architectural components. Empirical research methods and evidence-based software engineering approaches serve as a basis. First of all, this dissertation shows the relevance of software over energy consumption. Secondly, it gives examples of best practices and tactics that can be adopted to improve software energy efficiency, or design energy-efficient software from scratch. Finally, this knowledge is synthesized in a conceptual framework that gives the reader an overview of possible strategies for software energy efficiency, along with examples and suggestions for future research

A methodology for the 'live' capture and reuse of project knowledge in construction

The importance of capturing and sharing useful knowledge from construction projects has been recognised by the construction industry. However, issues such as the loss of important insights due to the time lapse in capturing the knowledge, the need for sharing the knowledge captured as soon as possible in order to maximise the benefits brought about by reusing the knowledge, and the need to share the knowledge before the opportunities for reusing the knowledge diminish have not been adequately addressed. To address this, it is crucial for knowledge to be captured as soon as possible once it is created or identified (i.e. 'live') in a collaborative environment, and presented in a format that will facilitate its reuse during and after the project. This research was aimed at developing a methodology that facilitates the `live' capture and reuse of project knowledge in construction. An extensive literature review was first conducted on the concept of knowledge management and the current practices for managing project knowledge. Subsequently, case studies involving six companies were carried out to investigate the shortcomings of current practice and the end-user requirements for the capture and reuse of project knowledge. These requirements informed the development of the methodology for `live' capture and reuse of project knowledge. The Web IS Development Methodology (Avison and Fitzgerald, 2003) employing ASP. NET 2.0 was adopted to encapsulate the methodology into a Web-based prototype application. The evaluation of the prototype revealed that the methodology can enable project knowledge to be captured and shared `live' across different organisations without significant additional workload and costs. It is concluded that the `live' capture and reuse of project knowledge in construction is important in preventing knowledge loss and helping to harness the project knowledge captured. A combination of both KM technologies and techniques is essential for the effective management of tacit and explicit knowledge. The prototype application developed can facilitate the `live' capture and reuse of project knowledge as shown by the results of the evaluation. There is scope for enhancing this study by exploring the integration of the prototype application with other information systems, and the use of software agents to automatically locate useful knowledge from the Internet and project extranets. The methodology developed will help construction organisation to leverage their knowledge in a timely way to meet the challenge of today's fast evolving world

A taxonomy for planning and designing smart mobility services

The development of smart mobility initiatives requires specialized and contextualized policies addressing the needs and interests of many stakeholders involved. Since the development of such policies is challenging, there is a need to learn from the experience of many cities around the world offering efficient and successfully adopted smart mobility services. However, in practice, the information provided about such initiatives is shallow and unstructured. To address this issue, we study the state of the art in mobility services, reviewing scientific publications and 42 smart mobility services delivered by nine smart cities around the world, and we propose a taxonomy for planning and designing smart mobility services. The taxonomy provides a common vocabulary to discuss and share information about such services. It comprises eight dimensions: type of services, maturity level, users, applied technologies, delivery channels, benefits, beneficiaries, and common functionality. The contribution of the proposed taxonomy is to serve as a tool for guiding policy makers by identifying a spectrum of mobility services that can be provided, to whom, what technologies can be used to deliver them, and what is the delivered public value so to justify their implementation. In addition, the taxonomy can also assist researchers in further developing the domain. By identifying common functionality, it could also help Information Technology (IT) teams in building and maintaining smart mobility services. Finally, we further discuss usage scenarios of the taxonomy by policy makers, IT staff and researchers.NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000037, supported by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (EFDR). The first author is also supported by the Portuguese funding agency, FCT, under grant PD/BD/52238/201

Towards green IT: assessing the environmental impact of public administration

The Public Administration (PA) in Portugal is impacted by the constant acceleration and evolution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), where the Portuguese State, transposing European Union directives, has legislated and encouraged their use as instruments of added value for the PA. Establishing rigorous and sustainable governance is crucial, ensuring that the organization’s strategic objectives are aligned with ICT and, preferably, with Green IT practices. In this context, it is necessary to be able to estimate and subsequently evaluate the impact of strategic and operational choices on improving environmental quality. For such, this article presents a framework developed to optimize ICT management practices and indicators that, in this environmental area, support the forecasting and assessment of the impact of the choices made in the search for technologically advanced solutions in the Barreiro municipality. These choices enable, among other things, a reduction in energy consumption, implying a reduction in financial costs, resulting in environmental benefits, such as a reduction in CO2 emissions into the atmosphere or less deforestation. The results presented, obtained in a real-world context, make it possible to assess the progress of alignment with Green IT in this area, as well as the overall result.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Post-2015 WASH targets and indicators: a review from a Human Rights Perspective

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E-Waste: Current Research and Future Perspective on Developing Countries

Increase of population, purchasing power, and development of technology give consequence to Waste of Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) or e-waste generation. Increasing rate of e-waste production and its hazardous content raise the concern regarding e-waste. This paper aims to describe the research development on e-waste in various countries and propose the perspective of future research. The study based on literature survey in open access journals using ‘e-waste’ as the keyword. Article selection was done by considering the reputability of the source and cited frequency. From the articles reviewed, China contributed to most of the researches. Some of most studied topic namely e-waste management, e-waste impact to human health and environment and current status of e-waste treatment in specific country. Brief explanation on each topic and insight on future research are also provided.