A Comparative Study on the Energy Consumption of PHP Single and Double Quotes

This paper is an enhanced version of the paper presented at the SEEDS Conference (Olaoluwa, et. al, 2015). The increasing rate of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emission resulting from the use of IT and other human activities to the atmosphere has become a major source of concern. It is imperative for the IT sector to ensure that its products are effective and energy efficient accompanied by mitigated negative impact on the environment. Reducing energy consumption of IT products is a key to contributing towards a greener environment. Another alternative is to produce energy efficient codes for software applications. In programming or scripting languages, an end result can be achieved in more than one way. For example, in PHP, a print command can be executed using a single quote and can also be achieved using a double quote. They have similar functions with similar quality of the intended outcomes. The aim of this research is conduct an investigation on the energy consumption of selected PHP scripts that perform similar functions: print single and double quote; echo single and double quote, etc… The Joulemeter energy measuring tool is used to measure the amount of energy consumed when run the various PHP scripts

A WEB-BASED ENVIRONMENTAL TOOLKIT TO SUPPORT SMES IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

With small and medium sized-enterprises (SMEs) taking up the majority of the global businesses, it is important they act in an environmentally responsible manner. Environmental management systems (EMS) help companies evaluate and improve their environmental impact but they often require human, financial, and temporary resources that not all SMEs can afford. This research encompasses interviews with representatives of two small enterprises in Germany to provide insights into their understanding, and knowledge of an EMS and how they perceive their responsibility towards the environment. Furthermore, it presents a toolkit created especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. It serves as a simplified version of an EMS based on the ISO 14001 standard and is evaluated by target users and appropriate representatives. Some of the findings are: while open to the idea of improving their environmental impact, SMEs do not always feel it is their responsibility to do so; they seem to lack the means to fully implement an EMS. The developed toolkit is considered useful and usable and recommendations are drawn for its future enhancement

ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF MOBILE PHONES

Battery consumption in mobile applications development is a very important aspect and has to be considered by all the developers in their applications. This study will present an analysis of different relevant concepts and parameters that may have an impact on energy consumption of Windows Phone applications. This operating system was chosen because limited research related thereto has been conducted, even though there are related studies for Android and iOS operating systems. Furthermore, another reason is the increasing number of Windows Phone users. The objective of this research is to categorise the energy consumption parameters (e.g. use of one thread or several threads for the same output). The result for each group of experiments will be analysed and a rule will be derived. The set of derived rules will serve as a guide for developers who intend to develop energy efficient Windows Phone applications. For each experiment, one application is created for each concept and the results are presented in two ways; a table and a chart. The table presents the duration of the experiment, the battery consumed in the experiment, the expected battery lifetime, and the energy consumption, while the charts display the energy distribution based on the main threads: UI thread, application thread, and network thread

A Green Programming Model for Cloud Software Efficiency

Cloud computing is emerging as a methodology for delivering more energy efficient computing provision. The potential advantages are well-known, and are primarily based on the opportunities to achieve economies of scale through resource sharing: in particular, by concentrating data storage and processing within data centers, where energy efficiency and measurement are well established activities. However, this addresses only a part of the overall energy cost of the totality of the cloud: energy is also required to power the networking connections and the end user systems through which access to the data center is provided, and researchers are beginning to recognize this. One further aspect of cloud provision is less well understood: the impact of application software behavior on the overall system’s energy use. This is of particular concern when one considers the current trend towards “off the shelf” applications accessed from application stores. This mass market for complete applications, or code segments which are included within other applications, creates a very real need for that code to be as efficient as possible, since even small inefficiencies when massively duplicated will result in significant energy loss. This position paper identifies this problem in detail, and proposes a support tool which will indicate to software developers the energy efficiency of their software as it is developed. Fundamental to the delivery of any workable solution is the measurement and selection of suitable metrics, we propose appropriate metrics and indicate how they may be derived and applied within our proposed system. Addressing the potential cost of application development is fundamental to achieving energy saving within the cloud – particularly as the application store model gains acceptance

Environmental responsibility assessment using belief rule based inference

This book chapter is an extension of (Bazarhanova et al., Belief rule-based environmental responsibility assessment for small and medium-sized enterprises (note: this includes a comparison with fuzzy logic), Proceedings of 2016 IEEE Future Technologies Conference, 6–7 December, San Francisco, US, 2016; Bazarhanova et al., A Belief Rule-Based Environmental Responsibility Assessment System for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (note: without comparison with fuzzy logic), International SEEDS Conference, 14–15th September, 2016, Leeds. (Won Highly Commended Award for Green Infrastructure Category, 2016)) and adaptation from (Bazarhanova, A Belief Rule-Based Environmental Responsibility Assessment System for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, An unpublished Masters Degree Dissertation, Leeds Beckett University. URL: https://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/124773/Thesis%20Bazarhanova.pdf?sequence=2, 2016). This chapter proposes the use of belief rule-based (BRB) inference engine for Environmental Responsibility assessment in small- and medium-sized enterprises. Such a context-adapted approach is believed to generate well-balanced, sensible, and Green ICT readiness-adapted results, to help enterprises focus on making improvement on more sustainable business operations

Green cloud software engineering for big data processing

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Internet of Things (IoT) coupled with big data analytics is emerging as the core of smart and sustainable systems which bolsters economic, environmental and social sustainability. Cloud-based data centers provide high performance computing power to analyze voluminous IoT data to provide invaluable insights to support decision making. However, multifarious servers in data centers appear to be the black hole of superfluous energy consumption that contributes to 23% of the global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) industry. IoT-related energy research focuses on low-power sensors and enhanced machine-to-machine communication performance. To date, cloud-based data centers still face energy-related challenges which are detrimental to the environment. Virtual machine (VM) consolidation is a well-known approach to affect energy-efficient cloud infrastructures. Although several research works demonstrate positive results for VM consolidation in simulated environments, there is a gap for investigations on real, physical cloud infrastructure for big data workloads. This research work addresses the gap of conducting real physical cloud infrastructure-based experiments. The primary goal of setting up a real physical cloud infrastructure is for the evaluation of dynamic VM consolidation approaches which include integrated algorithms from existing relevant research. An open source VM consolidation framework, Openstack NEAT is adopted and experiments are conducted on a Multi-node Openstack Cloud with Apache Spark as the big data platform. Open sourced Openstack has been deployed because it enables rapid innovation, and boosts scalability as well as resource utilization. Additionally, this research work investigates the performance based on service level agreement (SLA) metrics and energy usage of compute hosts. Relevant results concerning the best performing combination of algorithms are presented and discussed

An Evaluation of ICT Smart Systems to Reduce the Carbon Footprint

This research aims to assess and evaluate the impact on sustainability in buildings through implementation of ICT Smart Systems. The setting for this research will be for a large global organisation’s headquarters in Germany. The list of objectives is: to audit the ICT infrastructure used and to survey the existing smart systems implemented; to investigate the total energy expenditure and carbon footprint for ICT equipment during a yearly period; and to explore how to best transfer best green ICT practices to other buildings. Based on the findings in this paper, investing in energy-saving ICT equipment, or even a BMS, can be very cost beneficial to a company and reduce the carbon footprint of commercial buildings when implemented correctly

Comparison of Very Low Energy Diet Products Available in Australia and How to Tailor Them to Optimise Protein Content for Younger and Older Adult Men and Women

Very low energy diets (VLED) are efficacious in inducing rapid weight loss but may not contain adequate macronutrients or micronutrients for individuals with varying nutritional requirements. Adequate protein intake during weight loss appears particularly important to help preserve fat free mass and control appetite, and low energy and carbohydrate content also contributes to appetite control. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare the nutritional content (with a focus on protein), nutritional adequacy and cost of all commercially-available VLED brands in Australia. Nutritional content and cost were extracted and compared between brands and to the Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI) or adequate intake (AI) of macronutrients and micronutrients for men and women aged 19–70 years or >70 years. There was wide variability in the nutritional content, nutritional adequacy and cost of VLED brands. Most notably, even brands with the highest daily protein content, based on consuming three products/day (KicStart™ and Optislim®, ~60 g/day), only met estimated protein requirements of the smallest and youngest women for whom a VLED would be indicated. Considering multiple options to optimise protein content, we propose that adding pure powdered protein is the most suitable option because it minimizes additional energy, carbohydrate and cost of VLEDs

Obstetric near-miss and maternal mortality in maternity university hospital, Damascus, Syria: a retrospective study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Investigating severe maternal morbidity (near-miss) is a newly recognised tool that identifies women at highest risk of maternal death and helps allocate resources especially in low income countries. This study aims to i. document the frequency and nature of maternal near-miss at hospital level in Damascus, Capital of Syria, ii. evaluate the level of care at maternal life-saving emergency services by comparatively analysing near-misses and maternal mortalities.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Retrospective facility-based review of cases of near-miss and maternal mortality that took place in the years 2006-2007 at Damascus Maternity University Hospital, Syria. Near-miss cases were defined based on disease-specific criteria (Filippi 2005) including: haemorrhage, hypertensive disorders in pregnancy, dystocia, infection and anaemia. Main outcomes included maternal mortality ratio (MMR), maternal near miss ratio (MNMR), mortality indices and proportion of near-miss cases and mortality cases to hospital admissions.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There were 28 025 deliveries, 15 maternal deaths and 901 near-miss cases. The study showed a MNMR of 32.9/1000 live births, a MMR of 54.8/100 000 live births and a relatively low mortality index of 1.7%. Hypertensive disorders (52%) and haemorrhage (34%) were the top causes of near-misses. Late pregnancy haemorrhage was the leading cause of maternal mortality (60%) while sepsis had the highest mortality index (7.4%). Most cases (93%) were referred in critical conditions from other facilities; namely traditional birth attendants homes (67%), primary (5%) and secondary (10%) healthcare unites and private practices (11%). 26% of near-miss cases were admitted to Intensive Care Unit (ICU).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Near-miss analyses provide valuable information on obstetric care. The study highlights the need to improve antenatal care which would help early identification of high risk pregnancies. It also emphasises the importance of both: developing protocols to prevent/manage post-partum haemorrhage and training health care professionals to manage infrequent but fatal conditions like sepsis. An urgent review of the referral system and the emergency obstetric care in Syria is highly recommended.</p