• Energy Research
• 7. Clean energy close
• 12. Responsible consumption close
• 1. No poverty close
• DE close
• AU close
• NL close

In recent years, sustainability concerns have gained increasing attention among countries and stakeholders worldwide. Towards the transition to sustainable rural development, the rural web framework (RWF) has become a consistent tool. Indicators from the RWF have been used to explore sustainable rural development for decision-making tasks, which improves the social, economic, and environmental performance of rural regions. However, the application of the RWF in studies is on the decline. Furthermore, there is a lack of literature reviews on the importance of the RWF and its relationship with different facets of sustainable development. We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) (a) to explore how studies have used the RWF in the context of sustainable development and (b) to identify areas for further research. This study found that the RWF has mostly been used in developed countries, with fewer applications in developing countries. We suggest that there should be increased application of the RWF, particularly in developing countries, to broaden the rural web–sustainable development discourse and its relevance. This paper presents several areas where the indicators of the RWF can be applied to illustrate their relevance for policy decisions towards the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is comprised of a number of sensor nodes (SNs) that are randomly placed in an open, harsh environment for many applications. Due to the resource-constrained nature of SNs and hostile deployment environments, energy efficiency and security are considered two key factors in designing WSN routing protocols. This paper proposes an Energy Efficient Secure Multipath (EESM) routing protocol to securely construct efficient routes and transmit data packets between SNs and the base station (BS). EESM achieves energy efficiency through minimal task allocation among SNs whereas all computation-intensive tasks such as network information collection, routing table generation, and network maintenance are performed by the BS. The proposed protocol incorporates lightweight security mechanisms including a one-way hash chain, message authentication code, encryption, and clique-based coordinator selection and monitoring schemes to defend against numerous security attacks. Simulation results show that EESM can successfully detect and protect the network against various security attacks such as replay attacks, sybil attacks, sinkhole attacks, spoofing attacks, compromised node attacks, and so on. In terms of energy efficiency, the proposed protocol achieves an up to 37% increase in network lifetime and a 6% increase in throughput over Secure and Energy Efficient Multipath (SEEM) routing, Secure and Reliable Multipath Routing (SRMR), and Reliable and Multipath Encounter Routing (RMER) protocols. The paper implements the protocol in a real environment using Arduino motes to analyze security overheads and network setup time.

Lithium-ion batteries are fast becoming the battery of choice in applications such as electric/hybrid electric vehicles (EV/HEV) and renewable energy systems. This increasing usage demands an improved reliability of the battery systems, which in turn heavily relies on the control and optimization algorithms. Of particular importance is ensuring that each lithium-ion cell within a battery pack remains strictly within an acceptable charge range to avoid untimely degradation of the battery pack. Unfortunately, current battery models make the design of charge equalization circuitry difficult due to their limitations. The aim of this paper is to develop a component-wise control-oriented physics-based battery pack model to facilitate implementation of advanced model-based control and optimization algorithms. In the first stage some existing results are used to obtain a simplified electrochemical ODE model of an individual lithium-ion cell. Then, the cell model is used as the building block of the complete battery pack model. Different charge/discharge scenarios are presented to illustrate the potential of the modeling approach in facilitating the implementation of advanced control and optimization algorithms in improved power equalization and hence prolonging the battery pack lifetime.

Cogeneration of heat and electricity is an important pillar of energy and climate policy. To plan the production and distribution system of combined heat and power (CHP) systems for residential heating, suitable methods for decision support are needed. For a comprehensive feasibility analysis, the integration of the location and capacity planning of the power plants, the choice of customers, and the network planning of the heating network into one optimization model are necessary. Thus, we develop an optimization model for electricity generation and heat supply. This mixed integer linear program (MILP) is based on graph theory for network flow problems. We apply the network location model for the optimization of district heating systems in the City of Osorno in Chile, which exhibits the “checkerboard layout” typically found in many South American cities. The network location model can support the strategic planning of investments in renewable energy projects because it permits the analysis of changing energy prices, calculation of break-even prices for heat and electricity, and estimation of greenhouse gas emission savings.

Pervasive computing and business process modeling are increasingly joining forces, as mobile human users shall be seamlessly integrated into business processes. In respective scenarios, humans use mobile devices and wireless technology to interact with workflows running in a powerful back-end infrastructure. However, the frequent interaction between humans and workflows causes a high communication overhead and, thus, high energy consumption on mobile devices. This impacts the usability and efficiency of the business process due to rapidly drained batteries and the resulting short life-times of the devices and applications. We present an approach based on a minimum-cut algorithm for reducing costly data transmissions during workflow execution by distributing parts of a workflow to the users' devices. Our motivation is to reduce the energy consumption on the mobile devices and, thus, avoid draining batteries in the field. We prove that our algorithm finds the optimal solution for a given network and workflow, decreasing the energy consumed on mobile devices by 32-37% compared to an approach where the entire workflow is executed in the infrastructure. Thus, in typical domains like logistics and health care, one third of the energy can be saved. This either means that devices have to be charged less frequently, leading to less distraction in the business process, or that mobile device specifications can be lowered. Significant cost reductions result in both cases.

After a halt of four years, the n TOF spallation neutron facility at CERN has resumed operation in November 2008 with a new spallation target characterized by an improved safety and engineering design, resulting in a more robust overall performance and e cient cooling. The rst measurement during the 2009 run has aimed at the full characterization of the neutron beam. Several detectors, such as calibrated ssion chambers, the n TOF Silicon Monitor, a Mi- croMegas detector with 10B and 235U samples, as well as liquid and solid scintillators have been used in order to characterize the properties of the neutron uence. The spatial pro le of the beam has been studied with a specially designed \X-Y

Abstract Nanofluids have been introduced for the enhancement in the heat transfer phenomena in the last few years. In this paper a corrugated bottom triangular solar collector has been studied introducing water based nanofluids inside the enclosure. The corrugated bottom is kept at a constant high temperature whereas the side walls of the triangular enclosure are kept at a low temperature. Three types of nanoparticles are taken into consideration: Cu, Al2O3, and TiO2. The effect of solid volume fraction (ϕ) of the nanoparticle of nanofluid has been studied numerically by Galerkin weighted residual method of finite element for a wide range of Grashof number (Gr) 104–106. Calculations are carried out for ϕ = 0, 0.05, 0.08, and 0.1 and dimensionless time, τ = 0.1, 0.5, and 1. For the specified conditions streamlines and isotherm contours are obtained and detailed results of the interaction between different parameters are studied using overall Nusselt number. It has been found that both Grashof number and solid volume fraction have significant influence on streamlines and isotherms in the enclosure. It is also found that heat transfer increased by 24.28% from the heated surface as volume fraction ϕ increases from 0% to 10% at Gr = 106 and τ = 1 for copper water nanofluid.