Green Measurements for Software Product Based on Sustainability Dimensions

Software is a central component in the modern world and vastly affects the environment’s sustainability. The demand for energy and resource requirements is rising when producing hardware and software units. Literature study reveals that many studies focused on green hardware; however, limited efforts were made in the greenness of software products. Green software products are necessary to solve the issues and problems related to the long-term use of software, especially from a sustainability perspective. Without a proper mechanism for measuring the greenness of a particular software product executed in a specific environment, the mentioned benefits will not be attained. Currently, there are not enough works to address this problem, and the green status of software products is uncertain and unsure. This paper aims to identify the green measurements based on sustainable dimensions in a software product. The second objective is to reveal the relationships between the elements and measurements through empirical study. The study is conducted in two phases. The first phase is the theoretical phase, where the main components, measurements and practices that influence the sustainability of a software product are identified. The second phase is the empirical study that involved 103 respondents in Malaysia investigating current practices of green software in the industrial environment and further identifying the main sustainability dimensions and measurements and their impact on achieving green software products. This study has revealed seven green measurements of software product: Productivity, Usability, Cost Reduction, Employee Support, Energy Efficiency, Resource Efficiency and Tool Support. The relationships are statistically significant, with a significance level of less than 0.01 (p = 0.000). Thus, the hypothesised relationships were all accepted. The contributions of this study revolve around the research perspectives of the measurements to attain a green software product.     

Fire safe,sustainable loose furnishing

The aim of this exploratory study has been to investigate the fire properties and environmental aspects of different upholstery material combinations, mainly for domestic applications. An analysis of the sustainability and circularity of selected textiles, along with lifecycle assessment, is used to qualitatively evaluate materials from an environmental perspective. The cone calorimeter was the primary tool used to screen 20 different material combinations from a fire performance perspective. It was found that textile covers of conventional fibres such as wool, cotton and polyester, can be improved by blending them with fire resistant speciality fibres. A new three‐dimensional web structure has been examined as an alternative padding material, showing preliminary promising fire properties with regard to ignition time, heat release rates and smoke production.     

Blends of Bio-Based Poly(Limonene Carbonate) with Commodity Polymers

In this study, blends of the bio-based poly(limonene carbonate) (PLimC) with different commodity polymers are investigated in order to explore the potential of PLimC toward generating more sustainable polymer materials by reducing the amount of petro- or food-based polymers. PLimC is employed as minority component in the blends. Next to the morphology and thermal properties of the blends the impact of PLimC on the mechanical properties of the matrix polymers is studied. The interplay of incompatibility and zero-shear melt viscosity contrast determines the blend morphology, leading for all blends to a dispersed droplet morphology for PLimC. Blends with polymers of similar structure to PLimC (i.e., aliphatic/aromatic polyester) show the best performance with respect to mechanical properties, whereas blends with polystyrene or poly(methyl methacrylate) are too brittle and polyamide 12 blends show very low elongations at break. In blends with Ecoflex (poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate)) and Arnitel EM400 (copoly(ether ester)) with poly(butylene terephthalate) hard and polytetrahydrofuran soft segments) a threefold increase in E-modulus can be achieved, while keeping the elongation at break at reasonable high values of ≈200%, making these blends highly interesting for applications.     

Rethinking Enterprise Architecture for Sustainable Energy System Development

The development of a sustainable energy system throughout an enterprise is a complex task, which requires an agile holistic approach. Such an approach needs to include a variety of objectives including energy strategy formation and strategic decision-making, which are directly related to the analysis and management of the main areas of sustainable development:The economic, technological, environmental, and social. These multidimensional requirements of sustainability are often difficult to achieve within the enterprise, because these aspects are interrelated and influenced by various internal and external environment factors. This paper first reviews the main challenges for an energy system, and then demonstrates how a strategic agile enterprise architecture driven approach could effectively guide the sustainable energy system development. The study presented in this paper provides a holistic approach that contributes to the advancement and usage of literature dealing with issues of sustainable energy system development and agile enterprise architecture, which has not been discussed before to any great extent.     

大牛地气田气井无阻流量的确定方法研究

大牛地气田气井试井大多采用一点法，由于气层渗透性差，测试时间短，流压很难达到稳定，计算的无阻流量往往偏高，且无法获得正确的产能方程。通过气田多口井修正等时试井数据进行统计分析，获得了一点法试井在不同生产时间下计算无阻流量的经验公式；利用气田修正等时试井的二项式方程系数曰，计算惯性阻力系数并经过曲线回归处理获得了经验关系式，很好地解决了一点法试井计算产能方程的问题。     

Energy indicators for tracking sustainability in developing countries

Due to the fact that human activities and most sustainability issues are closely related to energy use, the energy system is a sound framework for providing lead indicators for sustainable development. Common energy-economic models enable the estimation of future states of the energy system. An energy system-based lead indicator set can be used to develop consistent and coherent future indicator estimates and to track sustainability, a clear advantage over existing sets.     

Shift in thinking to address the 21st century hunger gap

The present water policy debate is dominated by the 30 yr old mission to secure water supply and sanitation to all people. The water needed to produce a nutritionally acceptable diet for one person is however 70 times as large as the amount needed for domestic water supply. The food security dilemma is largest in arid climate regions, a situation constituting a formidable challenge. It is suggested that an additional 5 600 km³/yr of consumptive water use will be needed to produce an adequate amount of food by 2050 – i.e almost a doubling of today’s consumptive use of 6800 km³/yr. Past misinterpretations and conceptual deficiencies show the importance of a shift in thinking. Combining the scale of the challenge and the time scale of the efforts to feed humanity and eradicate hunger leads to an impression of great urgency. This urgency strengthens the call for international research both for supporting agricultural upgrading, and for much better handling of issues of environmental sustainability. What stands out is the need of a new generation of water professionals, able to handle complexity and able to incorporate water implications of land use and of ecosystem health in integrated water resources management. It will for those reasons be essential and urgent to upgrade the educational system to producing this new generation.     

关于最优等效替代法的实质及其应用条件的研究

本文研究了经济分析基本方法之一最优等效替代法的实质,系统地导出了被评价方案的绝对经济指标与相对经济指标的关系,并结合典型案例分析指出了该方法的应用条件,对正确进行建设项目的经济评价具有现实意义。     

Urban growth and environmental degradation: The case of Cairo, Egypt

The immense growth of cities, especially in developing countries, is resulting in the urbanization of both poverty and environmental degradation to a greater degree than ever before. This paper examines the processes of growth and degradation in the Greater Cairo Metropolitan Region (GCMR), currently the world’s tenth largest mega-city. It reviews the region’s growth and selected environmental issues as well as impacts of current efforts on managing the region. The assertion of this paper is that current management policies and bodies lack a comprehensive view of urban governance for the region, which does not bode well for the future environmental and economic sustainability of the region.     

Helicoseir as Shape of a Rotating String (I): 2D Theory and Simulation Using ANCF

A physically simple but mathematically cumbersome problem of rotating heavy string with one fixed top point was studied. A nonlinear equation of its two-dimensional shapes of relative equilibrium was obtained and solved numerically. A linear case of small displacements was analyzed in terms of Bessel functions. The qualitative and quantitative behavior of the problem is discussed with the help of a bifurcation diagram. Dynamics of the two-dimensional model near the equilibrium positions were studied with the help of a simulation using the absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF); the equilibriums were found to be instable. The reason for instability is explained using a variational principle. The outlines for further full three-dimensional analysis are briefly proposed in this paper, and the full derivation will be explained in the next paper.