170,423 research outputs found

    Experiences from Using Gamification and IoT-based Educational Tools in High Schools towards Energy Savings

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    Raising awareness among young people, and especially students, on the relevance of behavior change for achieving energy savings is increasingly being considered as a key enabler towards long-term and cost-effective energy efficiency policies. However, the way to successfully apply educational interventions focused on such targets inside schools is still an open question. In this paper, we present our approach for enabling IoT-based energy savings and sustainability awareness lectures and promoting data-driven energy-saving behaviors focused on a high school audience. We present our experiences toward the successful application of sets of educational tools and software over a real-world Internet of Things (IoT) deployment. We discuss the use of gamification and competition as a very effective end-user engagement mechanism for school audiences. We also present the design of an IoT-based hands-on lab activity, integrated within a high school computer science curricula utilizing IoT devices and data produced inside the school building, along with the Node-RED platform. We describe the tools used, the organization of the educational activities and related goals. We report on the experience carried out in both directions in a high school in Italy and conclude by discussing the results in terms of achieved energy savings within an observation period.Comment: to be presented at 2019 European Conference on Ambient Intelligenc

    A Circuit-Level Implementation of Voltage-Tuning Scheme for Realizing Optical PAM-4 Using Three-Segment Microring Modulator

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    Silicon Photonics, as one of the solutions to satisfy ever-increasing data bandwidth growth, becomes more challenging due to the latest technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT). Higher order pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) schemes is one of the answers to push towards higher data transmission in the presence of bandwidth limited optical devices. In this paper, we have implemented a circuit-level PAM-4 transmitter design based on the voltage-tuning scheme for realizing optical PAM-4 using a three-segment microring modulator. Simulation results based on the extracted layout using TSMC 65nm LP technology and IMEC-ePIXfab SiPhotonics ISIPP50G technology show that our proposed circuit-level transmitter structure is able to achieve PAM-4 data rate of 25-Gb/s with extinction ratio of 9dB and PAM-4 energy efficiency of 0.5pJ/bit. The results also verify that the scheme is able to achieve high tuning flexibility, but the proposed transmitter will consume more power as a result

    Charge-Spin Conversion and Electronic Transport in Two-Dimensional Materials and van der Waals Heterostructures

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    Applications related to artificial intelligence (AI), 5G communication, cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT) will necessitate wide range of data collection, communication and processing. Current charge-based technology using conventional materials suffers adverse effects with down-scaling the device size and has limited efficiency in meeting the future demands for computation and data storage. The exploration of alternative device technology along with new materials is important to enhance computing performance and energy efficiency. In this thesis, I investigated new materials for future memory and logic technologies.\ua0 Recently developed 2D materials such as graphene, semiconductors, and semimetals exhibit remarkable new properties that promise faster and energy efficient non-volatile memory and logic functionalities. For non-volatile memory technologies, increasing efforts are being directed towards exploiting charge-spin conversion phenomena in high spin-orbit coupling (SOC) materials to realize all-electric magnetic memory. Interestingly, magnetic memory devices have been demonstrated on an industrial scale; however, the moderate efficiency and fundamental limitations of the conventional materials employed limit their use in consumer electronics. This thesis addresses some of these critical challenges and presents charge-spin conversion mechanisms in layered high SOC materials such as topological insulators, semimetals, and two-dimensional (2D) materials heterostructures. At the same time, this thesis contributes in the direction of integrating memory and logic devices by investigating 2D semiconductor devices with sub-20 nm narrow channel width and memristive switching in field-effect transistors using 2D semiconductors with graphene contacts. Such 2D semiconductors have enormous prospects for next-generation high-performance and energy-efficient nanoscale field-effect transistors and integration with memory technologies. These studies of charge and spin transport in 2D materials and heterostructures can open the door for nanometer-scale memory, logic and sensing technologies

    An Energy-aware Ad-hoc Routing Strategy for Queriable Wireless Sensor Networks

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    The data volume handled by wireless sensor networks (WSN) is ever growing due to increasing node counts and node complexity – be it in traditional WSN applications or for Car2X or Internet-of-Things. Queriable WSN are a concept to handle the large data volumes in such networks by abstracting the network as a virtual database table to which users can pose queries. This declarative approach enables networks which can flexibly adapt to changing application requirements. In addition they possess a flat learning curve since users do not need to have a high technological understanding of the sensor node firmware. Upon executing a query it is first propagated through the network and once it has reached the desired nodes, results are collected and send back through the query-posing node (usually the sink). The routing which is used for the data aggregation step plays a major role in the energy efficiency in networks with increasing node and sensor value counts as represented by Car2X networks for instance. In this paper, an ad-hoc routing strategy for queriable WSN is proposed which is both energy-aware and application-specific. It will be shown that this routing can contribute greatly towards decreasing the energy consumption needed for data aggregation and thus helps increasing the network’s lifespan

    Smart Water Management System

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    Water is one of the fundamental resources that aid life and there are speculations that estimate at 2025 almost half of the urban population will live under short supply and water stress. With the usage of new technological advancements in IoT (Internet of Things) powered smart devices for water management, it can become a worthy implementation towards avoiding the predicted water depletion. In the past years up until recently, water monitoring and management were manually carried out with intensive power requirements and high capital expense with low efficiency recorded. Overflow of water overhead tanks in residential, commercial, cooperate and educational settings, as well as broken pipes resulting in spillage, contribute to wastage at large. Regular reservoirs for water cannot monitor nor give analytics and automated water level detection in the tank. Vandalization or transmission blockages on distributions pipes may take so long to discover. The proposed model addresses problems mentioned above by the application of portable smart systems with interoperability and easily configurable to handle automated management of water supply with energy efficiency and a reduction in power cost in both homes and enterprise environment within smart cities as well as reduction of the rate of building degradation as a result of overflow from overhead tanks. Our model also integrates the application of Natural Language Processing for speech recognition as an alternate medium useful in operating the system

    Scenarios for Educational and Game Activities using Internet of Things Data

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    Raising awareness among young people and changing their behavior and habits concerning energy usage and the environment is key to achieving a sustainable planet. The goal to address the global climate problem requires informing the population on their roles in mitigation actions and adaptation of sustainable behaviors. Addressing climate change and achieve ambitious energy and climate targets requires a change in citizen behavior and consumption practices. IoT sensing and related scenario and practices, which address school children via discovery, gamification, and educational activities, are examined in this paper. Use of seawater sensors in STEM education, that has not previously been addressed, is included in these educational scenaria
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