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Newsletter - Volume 6 Issue 1 - January 2018

Monthly bulletin of the IEEE Computer Society Special Technical Community on Sustainable Computing

Providing quick access to timely information on sustainable computing.

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Message from the editor

Cristina Rottondi, Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence 

It is my pleasure to open the January issue of the IEEE STC Newsletter with my warmest wishes to our readership for a flourishing 2018! With the new year, an important announcement has to be formally done: we are excited to welcome our new Chair Prof. Christopher Stewart and to wholeheartedly thank Prof. Niklas Carlsson for his invaluable service to the STC community during the past two and a half years!!

Therefore, this issue opens with a goodbye message from our outgoing Chair Niklas and a new year message from our recently appointed Chair Christopher. Moreover, we host a report by Prof. Vincenzo Piuri and Renè Garello on the activities of the IEEE Environmental Engineering Initiative. Finally, Prof. Jasminko Novak updates us on the progress of the enCOMPASS European project.


As usual, the newsletter closes with the list of upcoming conferences and workshops in the field of sustainable computing.


Message from the outgoing chair

By Niklas Carlsson, Linköping University, Sweden


Happy New Year to you all! With this letter I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year, but most importantly announce that Christopher Stewart will take over the role as chair for the IEEE Special Technical Committee on Sustainable Computing (STC-SC).

I am very excited that Chris accepted the position, as I believe that he will be a great next chair for the STC-SC. Chris has been with the STC-SC from day one, has been an integral part of the STC-SC, and is somebody that I think can take the STC-SC to the next level. He is already active in the community, has a forward looking vision, and is bringing great energy to the position and the community.

However, before officially handing over the chair position to Chris, I first wanted to take this opportunity to thank the STC-SC for giving me the opportunity to serve as chair for the last two+ year. It has been two+ fun years, during which I very much have enjoyed following the efforts taking place in our society. However, it is now time for me to step back and let Chris take over the leadership of the STC-SC.

Finally, I want to thank for all the help I have gotten from both members and non-members the last two years, with special thanks going to Cristina Rottondi (newsletter editor) and Yan Shvartzshnaider (webmaster). Both of you have done an excellent job helping make sure that the newsletter has been running smoothly.

Let us together welcome Chris as chair and let us make 2018 a successful year during which we together continue to help make the world a better and more sustainable place to live one step at a time. Best wishes to all of you!


New Year's Wishes from the Chair

By Christopher Stewart  Ohio State University, US

I am honored to chair the IEEE Special Technical Committee on Sustainable Computing (STC on SC). Thank you for this opportunity.
Since 2011, this organization has benefited from excellent leadership. As a founding member, I witnessed the passion previous chairs poured into this organization, from Martin and Ishfaq to Anirban to Danilo to Niklas. I am especially thankful for Niklas' work to inclusively broaden our membership and broaden our view of sustainability. His leadership was timely and helped set up our STC for future success. Thanks Niklas. 

My friends, can you sense it? Our field is changing. 

In 2011, sustainable computing was still an imminent topic advanced by niche communities--- but now, 7 years after this STC was founded, our field is on the verge of eminence. Sustainable computing concepts, from energy efficiency to carbon footprints to integrated financial models, pervade all of computer science. It is exciting, but there are risks. Will widespread adoption defang our mission, making sustainable computing yet another buzz word? How will our community grow up? Will we reach out to new researchers looking to define their own agenda in sustainable computing? Will we grow inclusively and sustainably by including men and women from all countries and backgrounds in our mission? STC members will answer these questions--- as you have for the last 7 years. My job is to listen and enact your agenda. 


I would be remiss if I failed to thank Cristina Rottondi, Editor of the Sustainable Computing Register. The newsletter is crucial for our STC. Cristina has done a wonderful job ensuring its timely publication. I also want to thank everyone that contributes to the newsletter and the rest of our leadership team. We will depend on
your efforts more than ever to guide our field, sustainable computing, to eminence.

 

The IEEE Environmental Engineering Initiative

Prof. René Garello, Télécom Bretagne, France

Prof. Vincenzo Piuri, Universita' degli Studi di Milano, Italy

The IEEE Environmental Engineering Initiative intends to create an interdisciplinary forum for the community interested in the area of environmental engineering, including components in various S/Cs which are using our technologies and methodologies but are not yet embraced by our IEEE communities.

Through the initiative, the IEEE community will:

  • Share experiences and efforts
  • Improve interdisciplinary vision
  • Reach out to underserved technical segments
  • Embrace and empower the whole community working on environmental engineering
  • Expand knowledge dissemination (conferences, publications, curated collections, webinars, educational activities)
  • Contribute to expanding people networking
  • Contribute to supporting standardization activities

The IEEE Environmental Engineering closely collaborates with the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA), which has been leading the effort to nurture, develop, and advance standards in the field of Environmental Engineering. This critically important field encompasses the development and deployment of green and clean technologies to protect and improve the quality of the environment, the earth, and overall human life.

Through collaboration between IEEE Environmental Engineering and IEEE-SA, we hope to advance global standards related to Environmental Engineering.


enCOMPASS on the Road to User Engagement

Prof Jasminko NovakenCOMPASS Pilot Director


The enCOMPASS project aims at developing digital systems and applications that make energy saving effective and easy to do for citizens, schools, building managers and utilities. In particular, we are investigating how this can happen in ways that are not only effective but also fun and uncompromising of users’ comfort.

Working closely with end users and stakeholders is key to ensure that we develop solutions, which deliver what users need and can work effectively in real world practice. In enCOMPASS we are involving target users and stakeholders from early on to identify user needs and requirements, verify and co-develop solution ideas. Most recently, we carried out a series of outreach workshops in all three countries of the enCOMPASS pilots (Greece, Switzerland and Germany) with all the different target groups for the enCOMPASS system (citizens, students, teachers, building and utility managers). To help the envisioning process, we created a series of storyboards and visual mockups illustrating the intended usage and functionalities of the enCOMPASS system. It was great to get from the reactions of users that we are on the right track, and even better to hear what really matters to them and what we need to do to make it really easy and effective for them to use the enCOMPASS system in their daily practice.

As the analysis of requirements is coming to a close, user stories and requirements have been defined and the architecture design for the enCOMPASS platform is progressing, as are also the first prototypes of the individual modules, and the mechanics of the overall system approach. Furthermore, the first designs of the visualization model, the basic recommender concept, and the first techniques for user presence and activity detection are by now developed. An extensive review of the state-of-the-art on determinants of energy saving behavior, as well as different interventions and strategies to support it, is by now undertaken, the initial collection of energy saving tips built up and the evaluation methodology for the pilots specified. With this, the project has set the ground for the system development to push ahead with full force.

Some of these early results have been presented in early contributions to workshops and conferences for a timely exchange with the scientific community (e.g. at the GIoTS 2017 – the Global Internet of Things Summit, and ECGBL 2017 – the European Conference on Game-based Learning) and can be found on our website.

We have also been active at communicating and disseminating the project news and results to a wider audience through social media, and presentations at meetings and conferences for utilities, businesses and energy professionals, such as the European Utility Week 2017. To find out about such events, new developments, and where you can meet us, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Read on in this issue, to find out more about one of our pilots and our presence at the European Utility Week 2017, but also about FUNERGY, the enCOMPASS game for energy education, and some new tips for saving energy.




 

Upcoming Events

The following venues are requesting submissions on subtopics related to sustainable computing or IT for sustainability.

 

Conference, Workshop & Symposium Call For Papers

Short Name

Main Topic

Location

Dates

Paper Due

Notification

eEnergy 2018

Future Energy Systems

Karlsruhe, Germany

June 12-15, 2018

January 22, 2018

April 9, 2018

ICGEA 2018

2nd International Conference on Green Energy and Applications

Singapore

Mar 24 - 26, 2018

January 25, 2018

February 10, 2018

ICSD 2018

6th International Conference on Sustainable Development

Rome, Italy

Sep 12 - 13, 2018

Mar 10, 2018

March 30, 2018

ICOGE 2018

2nd International Conference on Green Energy

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Aug 12- 14, 2018

April 5, 2018

May 5, 2018

GREEN 2018

The Third International Conference on Green Communications, Computing and Technologies

Venice, Italy

Sep 16- 20, 2018

Apr 30, 2018

Jul 2, 2018

EMSICC 2018

International Workshop on Energy Management for Sustainable Internet-of-Things and Cloud Computing

Barcelona, Spain

Aug 6- 8, 2018

April 30, 2018

May 30, 2018

 

Journal and Special Issue Call For Papers

Journal                                                                                                                             Papers Due

Elsevier Sustainable Computing                                                                                        (Open)

IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Computing                                                                  (Open)

IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking                                       (Open)

IEEE Access, special issue on Social Computing Applications for Smart Cities                                                             (http://ieeeaccess.ieee.org/special-sections/social-computing-applications-smart-cities/)                       Jan. 31, 2018

Elsevier Sustainable Computing  Special Issue Recent Advances on                                                                                                 Sustainability for green Cloud and Fog Computing                                                     Jan. 30, 2018