Alejandro Fernández-Montes

A study on saving energy in artificial lighting by making smart use of wireless sensor networks and actuators

This article is focused on adapting lighting conditions to user lighting preferences. A theoretical analysis of lighting conditions is carried out, and a case study is shown by means of the setup of an experimental environment and an empirical analysis of lighting conditions. Finally, a methodology for saving energy, which adjusts luminance to user preferences, is presented, and a study of the consumption results is given.

Smart scheduling for saving energy in grid computing

Highlights? Within IT, grids and data centres represent the hungriest consumers of energy. ? Energy saving involves two direct benefits: sustainability and cost reduction. ? We model seven energy policies for Grid computing environments. ? This paper proves proved that 40policy is applied. ? Simulation software is available and results for real scenarios can be obtained. Energy saving involves two direct benefits: sustainability and cost reduction. Within the field of Information Technology, clusters, grids and data centres represent the hungriest consumers of energy and therefore energy (saving) policies for these infrastructures should be applied in order to maximize their resources. It is proved in this paper that approximately 40% of energy can be saved in a data centre if an adequate policy is applied. Furthermore, a software tool is presented where simulations can be run and results for real scenarios can be obtained.

Energy wasting at internet data centers due to fear

Data centers represent the hungriest consumers of energy within IT companies.Energy saving involves two direct benefits: sustainability and cost reduction.This paper provides measurement of risk aversion experienced by administrators. The fear experienced by datacenter administrators presents an ongoing problem due to the low percentage of machines that they are willing to switch off in order to save energy. This risk aversion can be assessed from a cognitive system. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the extra costs incurred by maintaining all the machines of a data center executing continuously for fear of damaging hardware, degradating the service, or losing data. To this end, an objective function which minimizes energy consumption depending on the number of times that the machines are switched on/off is provided. The risk aversion experienced by these data center administrators can be measured from the percentage of machines that they are willing to switch off. It is shown that it is always the best option to turn off machines in order to reduce costs, given a formulation of the cognitive aspects of the fear experienced by datacenter administrators.

Software reference architecture for smart environments: Perception

Abstract With the increase of intelligent devices, ubiquitous computing is spreading to all scopes of people life. Smart home (or industrial) environments include automation and control devices to save energy, perform tasks, assist and give comfort in order to satisfy specific preferences. This paper focuses on the proposal for Software Reference Architecture for the development of smart applications and their deployment in smart environments. The motivation for this Reference Architecture and its benefits are also explained. The proposal considers three main processes in the software architecture of these applications: perception, reasoning and acting. This paper centres attention on the definition of the Perception process and provides an example for its implementation and subsequent validation of the proposal. The software presented implements the Perception process of a smart environment for a standard office, by retrieving data from the real world and storing it for further reasoning and acting processes. The objectives of this solution include the provision of comfort for the users and the saving of energy in lighting. Through this verification, it is also shown that developments under this proposal produce major benefits within the software life cycle.

Smart Environment Software Reference Architecture

Nowadays ubiquitous computing is spreading to all scopes of our lives. Smart environments are present at every location such us homes with automation and control devices, offices full of control networks to assist workers, or hotels with even more control devices in order to save energy and satisfy guests preferences.This paper focus on the proposal of a Reference Architecture for developing Smart Applications and deploy them in Smart Environments. The proposal consider three main process in the Software Architecture of these applications:a) perception, b) reasoning and c) acting.

Service-Oriented Device Integration for Ubiquitous Ambient Assisted Living Environments

As a result of the increment of population in countries of Europe, a lot of efforts from European Authorities are coming from. In our research we want to bring forward a suite of developments related to build a ubiquitous AAL (Ambient Assisted Living) environment. We consider that recent approaches are based on ad-hoc technologies so its application is in this context isolated just in one domain of application. Our approach addresses to a reliable services platform for heterogeneous devices integration. On this basis we want to consider as well, the underlying benefits that a Service-oriented platform is giving to us in our Ambient Assisted Living Applications.

Public resource usage in health systems: a data envelopment analysis of the efficiency of health systems of autonomous communities in Spain

OBJECTIVES The efficiency in the management of public resources is one of the main pillars of the welfare state. The objective of this work is to analyze the efficiency of the public resources that regional governments in Spain (Autonomous Communities (AC)) invest in health systems (HS). STUDY DESIGN A dataset from of the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality of Spain has been used, which contains the most important indicators from the National HS. The following variables have been chosen in this study: the health care expenses per resident, the percentage of this investment that is forwarded to labour expenses, frequency of hospital care services, frequency of specialized external health care services and, primary health care services in medicine and nursing per resident. METHODS To this end, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is applied, which enables researchers and managers to obtain measurements of efficiency of the analyzed regions, and to propose corrective steps to achieve efficiency for inefficient HS. Moreover, the super-efficiency measurement is shown for a constant and a variable scale. RESULTS The results show that there are three groups of AC, first a group composed by six HS that are globally efficient, a second group composed by eight HS that are globally inefficient, and a third group composed by three HS that are efficient in some terms and their efficiency can be improved. CONCLUSIONS It is concluded that DEA is an appropriate method for evaluating efficiencies of health systems and giving the adjustments for the application of economic, social and organizational policies to improve their efficiencies.

Evaluating decision-making performance in a grid-computing environment using DEA

Energy saving involves two direct benefits: sustainability and cost reduction, both of which Information Technologies must be aware. In this context, clusters, grids and data centres represent the hungriest consumers of energy. Energy-saving policies for these infrastructures must be applied in order to maximize their resources. The aim of this paper is to compare how efficient these policies are in each location of a grid infrastructure. By identifying efficient policies in each location and the slack in inputs and outputs of the inefficient locations, Data Envelopment Analysis presents a very useful technique for comparing and improving efficiency level. This work enables managers to uncover any misuse of resources so that corrective action can be taken.

A Home E-Health System for Dependent People Based on OSGI

This chapter presents a e-health system for dependent people installed in a home environment. After reviewing the state of art in e-health applications and technologies several limitations have been detected because many solutions are proprietary and lack interoperability. The developed home e-health system provides an architecture capable to integrate different telecare services in a smart home gateway hardware independent from the application layer. We propose a rule system to define users– behavior and monitor relevant events. Two example systems have been implemented to monitor patients. A data model for the e-health platform is described as well.

Modeling Smart Homes for Prediction Algorithms

This paper reviews the goals of the Domoweb project and the solutions adopted to achieve them. As a result we enjoy a great support to develop smart home techniques and solutions. As a consequence of the acquired experiences a Smart home model is proposed as a division of four main categories. In relation with the smart home model, we show the essential features a smart environment prediction algorithm should satisfy and a procedure to select relevant information from the model to achieve artificial intelligence based solutions.