Advanced Computational Techniques for Sustainable Computing

Megha Rathi, Adwitiya Sinha, Megha Rathi, Adwitiya Sinha

• Editorial: Chapman and Hall/CRC
• Año: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000454338
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Informatica
• Categoría: Elaborazione di dati su cloud

Advanced Computational Techniques for Sustainable Computing is considered multi-disciplinary field encompassing advanced computational techniques across several domain, including, Computer Science, Statistical Computation and Electronics Engineering. The core idea of sustainable computing is to deploy algorithms, models, policies and protocols to improve energy efficiency and management of resources, enhancing ecological balance, biological sustenance and other services on societal contexts.

The book offers a comprehensive coverage of some of the most essential topics:

• It provides aninsight on building smart sustainable solutions.

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• Includes details of applying mining, learning, IOT and sensor-based techniques for sustainable computing.

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• Entails data extraction from various sources followed with pre-processing of data, and how to make effective use of extracted data for application-based research.

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• Involves practical usage of data analytic language, including R, Python, etc. for improving sustainable services offered by multi-disciplinary domains.

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• Encompasses comparison and analysis of recent technologies and trends.

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• Includes development of smart models for information gain and effective decision making with visualization.

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The readers would get acquainted with the utilization of massive data sets for intelligent mining and processing. It includes the integration of data mining techniques for effective decision-making in the social, economic, and global environmental domains to achieve sustainability. The implementation of computational frameworks can be accomplished using open-source software for the building of resource-efficient models. The content of the book demonstrates the usage of data science and the internet of things for the advent of smart and realistic solutions for attaining sustainability.

1 Sustainable Computing—An Overview

Paras Chaudhary, Adwitiya Sinha, and Somya Jain

Jaypee Institute of Information Technology

DOI: 10.1201/9781003046431-1

CONTENTS

• 1.1 What Is Sustainability?
• 1.2 Sustainable Development: Motivations and Obstacles
  • 1.2.1 Present versus Future Generations
  • 1.2.2 Economic versus Environmental Perspectives
• 1.3 Goals to Strive toward Sustainable Development
• 1.4 Sustainability and Computing
  • 1.4.1 Product from Hardware Perspective
  • 1.4.2 Product from Software Perspective
  • 1.4.3 Production Processes from Hardware Perspective
  • 1.4.4 Production Processes from Software Perspective
  • 1.4.5 Consumption Processes from Hardware Perspective
  • 1.4.6 Consumption Processes from Software Perspective
• 1.5 Computing Paradigms for Individual Sustainable Development Goals
  • 1.5.1 No Poverty
  • 1.5.2 Zero Hunger
  • 1.5.3 Good Health and Well-Being
  • 1.5.4 Quality Education
  • 1.5.5 Gender Equality
  • 1.5.6 Clean Water and Sanitation
  • 1.5.7 Affordable/Clean Energy
  • 1.5.8 Decent Work/Economic Growth
  • 1.5.9 Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
  • 1.5.10 Reduced Inequalities
  • 1.5.11 Sustainable Cities/Communities
  • 1.5.12 Responsible Consumption/Production
  • 1.5.13 Climate Action
  • 1.5.14 Life below Water
  • 1.5.15 Life on Land
  • 1.5.16 Peace/Justice/Strong Institutions
  • 1.5.17 Partnerships for the Goals
• 1.6 Conclusion and Future Scope of Research
• References

1.1 What Is Sustainability?

Sustainability in a crude sense is the capability of a given set-up to exist and to continue to produce on a long-term basis. However, in the modern context, sustainability has been often defined as the bridging of multiple disciplines with a singular aim of determining the manner in which the resource requirements of the present should be fulfilled without adversely affecting the generations to come in the future (Gewin, 2008). This bridging further paves the way for Homo sapiens to do what they have been doing since their very first appearance on the face of the Earth 2.5 million years ago, striving toward better standards of living but this time with more consciousness and a higher sense of responsibility. This incorporation of a sustainability mindset into the general course of development can be termed sustainable development.

1.2 Sustainable Development: Motivations and Obstacles

The term sustainable development when searched on Google generates more than 350 million hits (Borowy, 2013). This omnipresent nature of the term lies in sharp contrast with the diffused understanding of the profoundness and eminence of the term in real-life developments. Historically, there have been several attempts to define and describe the term and its functioning, respectively, starting from the mid-20th century. Some of these attempts being those of Kenneth Boulding, Luis Sanchez, International Institute for Environment and Development, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Lester Brown, World Bank, and the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) of the United Nations (UN) in the years 1966, 1974, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1983, and 1986 in a report 3 years after its conceptualization, respectively. Despite the aesthetics and simplicity of the definition of sustainable development given by WCED that defines it as fulfilling the present demands without compromising the future generations’ ability to fulfill theirs, it is the attempt of Luiz Sanchez at describing eco-development that truly captured the balancing nature of sustainable development by calling it a developmental approach of some ecosystem or locality, in the discussion, that can harmonize ecological and economic aspects to assure optimal use of both the natural and human resources of the area to best meet the aspirations and the needs sustainably of maximum people. Therefore, one can conclude that a successful sustainability strategy reconciles tensions between the following.

1.2.1 Present versus Future Generations

One might argue that the millions of years of human evolution is the direct evidence of the fact that we as a race have mastered the art of living sustainably. This mastery although was never complete and the skills prove insufficient locally, so many times societies have declined, relocated, and/or collapsed because they failed to plan enough. However, now in a globalized world, even local calamities have the potential to threaten the survival and well-being of the whole world. This global era can be defined as Anthropocene and in times like these extreme policy changes are needed to urgently stop the present generation’s maximizing of benefits for itself that will leave nothing but an overwhelming heap of problems, due to resource exhaustion, for the global future generations (Figure 1.1).

FIGURE 1.1 Visual representation of how sustainability is a balancing act between present and future.

1.2.2 Economic versus Environmental Perspectives

Originally, the human economy was always rooted in a context of nature and environment where it is self-evident that the growth is limited. But in the late 19th century, the fragmentation and specialization of the subjects resulted in the elimination of nature from economic theory. Now, economics emphasized mathematical and theoretical modeling methods and ignored contextual and empirical data. Ecological factors were now regarded as “externalities” that were beyond the general interests of economists and hence made the idea of endless growth possible. This separation got so ingrained throughout the 20th century that ecologists and economists found it tough to communicate and agree on issues of importance. And with the human proclivity for more monetary power, majority institutions have been moving with a singular aim of maximizing revenue ignoring the possibility of crashing ecological systems important to human survival. This ignorance toward environmental collapse can also be attributed to human inability to imagine or realistically gauge extremely improbable phenomena (the black swan phenomenon), the tendency to underestimate risks related to a factor that also provides benefits, and to ignore obvious signs of danger when other people do so too (bystander apathy). Therefore, a workable concept and policy of sustainable development would overcome these human biases to balance economic and environmental perspectives out (Figure 1.2).

FIGURE 1.2 Sustainability and its connectedness with economical growth and environmental sciences.

1.3 Goals to Strive toward Sustainable Development

To implement the theoretical idea of sustainable development and drive policy change in the right direction, it has been broken into three subpillars: social, economic, and environmental. In the 1990s, this idea was promoted by Mohan Munasinghe, a renowned economist and scientist, and was then adopted by United Nations Member States in the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development’s fifth paragraph in September 2002 (DESA, 2014). With the proceedings of world international conferences such as World Summit on Sustainable Development, Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, World Summit for Social Development, Beijing Platform for Action, United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, and Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development; the states of UN jointly announced 169 associated targets and 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that came into effect on January 1 and has been guiding decisions since then and will continue to do so till 2030 (Assembly, 2016). With several leaders from all around the world pledging common action and endeavor across such a universal and broad policy agenda, it became the torchbearer of the idea of sustainable development for the complete benefit of all, for both today’s and the future generation. The following are the agenda’s 17 agreed-upon SDGs along with their brief descriptions of the UN summit for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda as per the draft outcome document:

• No Poverty—Eradicating poverty in all possible forms everywhere
• Zero Hunger—Eradicating hunger while promoting sustainable agriculture
• Good Health and Well-Being—Promoting well-being while ensuring healthy lives for all at all ages
• Quality Education—Ensuring quality education that is equitable and conclusive for all
• Gender Equality—Empowering all women and girls and achieving gender equality
• Clean Water and Sanitation—Managing sustainable water and sanitation for all
• Affordable and Clean Energy—Making available reliable, affordable, and modern energy for everyone
• Decent Work and Economic Growth—Ensuring productive employment for everyone by promoting both sustained and sustainable economic growth
• Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure—Building infrastructure that is resilient to promote sustainable industrialization to drive innovation
• Reduced Inequalities—Reducing inter- and intracountry inequalities
• Sustainable Cities and Communities—Making human settlements like cities safe, sustainable, and inclusive
• Responsible Consumption and Production—Ensuring patterns in consumption and production that are sustainable
• Climate Action—Acting to fight climate change urgently to reduce its long-term impacts
• Life below Water—Conserving the water bodies such as seas and oceans while sustainably using marine resources
• Life on Land—Restoring and promoting sustainable use of ecosystems that are terrestrial by combating desertification, and halting land degradation and biodiversity loss
• Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions—Providing easy access to justice for everyone by building accountable and effective institutions at all levels
• Partnerships for the Goals—Strengthening the ways to implement and revitalize the Global Partnerships to collaborate to achieve sustainable development (Figure 1.3)

FIGURE 1.3 Seventeen SDGs based on strata of sustainability.

1.4 Sustainability and Computing

In an age that is governed by computing and when the success and failure of almost all human ventures hinge so much on the use of contemporary technologies, it was of prime importance to come up with ...