77 FR 59203 - Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC)

Science.gov (United States)

2012-09-26

... Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council. [FR Doc. 2012-23666 Filed 9-25-12; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 9910-9P-P ... DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY [Docket No. DHS-2012-0051] Critical Infrastructure Partnership... meeting. SUMMARY: The Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC) Plenary Meeting will be...

31 CFR 800.208 - Critical infrastructure.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 31 Money and Finance: Treasury 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Critical infrastructure. 800.208 Section 800.208 Money and Finance: Treasury Regulations Relating to Money and Finance (Continued) OFFICE... infrastructure means, in the context of a particular covered transaction, a system or asset, whether physical or...

Risk and Interdependencies in Critical Infrastructures A Guideline for Analysis

CERN Document Server

Utne, Ingrid; Vatn, Jørn

2012-01-01

Today’s society is completely dependent on critical networks such as  water supply, sewage, electricity, ICT and transportation. Risk and vulnerability analyses are needed to grasp the impact of threats and hazards. However, these become quite complex as there are strong interdependencies both within and between infrastructure systems. Risk and Interdependencies in Critical Infrastructures: A  guideline for analysis provides methods for analyzing risks and interdependencies of critical infrastructures.  A number of analysis approaches are described and are adapted to each of these infrastructures. Various approaches are also revised, and all are supported by several examples and illustrations. Particular emphasis is given to the analysis of various interdependencies that often exist between the infrastructures.  Risk and Interdependencies in Critical Infrastructures: A  guideline for analysis provides a good tool to identify the hazards that are threatening your infrastructures, and will enhance the un...

Critical Foundations: Protecting America's Infrastructures. The Report of the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

1997-01-01

There is no doubt that our critical infrastructures are the best in the world-largely the result of the tremendous efficiency and global reach made possible by incorporation of our rapidly advancing...

International Conference on Durability of Critical Infrastructure

CERN Document Server

Cherepetskaya, Elena; Pospichal, Vaclav

2017-01-01

This book presents the proceedings of the International Conference on Durability of Critical Infrastructure. Monitoring and Testing held in Satov, Czech Republic from 6 to 9 December 2016. It discusses the developments in the theoretical and practical aspects in the fields of Safety, Sustainability and Durability of the Critical Infrastructure. The contributions are dealing with monitoring and testing of structural and composite materials with a new methods for their using for protection and prevention of the selected objects.

Critical Infrastructure Protection- Los Alamos National Laboratory

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bofman, Ryan K. [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2017-02-24

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has been a key facet of Critical National Infrastructure since the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima exposed the nature of the Laboratory’s work in 1945. Common knowledge of the nature of sensitive information contained here presents a necessity to protect this critical infrastructure as a matter of national security. This protection occurs in multiple forms beginning with physical security, followed by cybersecurity, safeguarding of classified information, and concluded by the missions of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

How to Quantify Deterrence and Reduce Critical Infrastructure Risk

OpenAIRE

Taquechel, Eric F.; Lewis, Ted G.

2012-01-01

This article appeared in Homeland Security Affairs (August 2012), v.8, article 12 "We propose a definition of critical infrastructure deterrence and develop a methodology to explicitly quantify the deterrent effects of critical infrastructure security strategies. We leverage historical work on analyzing deterrence, game theory and utility theory. Our methodology quantifies deterrence as the extent to which an attacker's expected utility from an infrastructure attack changes after a defende...

Situational Management Of Critical Infrastructure Resources Under Threat

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Krupa Tadeusz

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This article presents a synthesis of knowledge about safety management procedures for critical infrastructure in the context of risk management theory and the provisions of the Polish law on emergency management launched on of April 26, 2007. In this paper, the inadequacy of the accepted procedures at present is highlighted, as well as their continuous improvement and adaptation to prevailing political, legal, social, and economic conditions. This paper proposes using the concept of situational management and knowledge management to develop a new method of predicting, preventing, and responding to emerging crises within critical infrastructure. The considerations presented in this paper lead to a proposed concept system supporting critical infrastructure safety management through the implementation of knowledge management methods.

75 FR 75611 - Critical Infrastructure Protection Month, 2010

Science.gov (United States)

2010-12-03

...; and the public--to identify and protect our infrastructure from hazards or attack. These critical... cyber infrastructure more resilient. Working together, we can raise awareness of the important role our...

Handbook on Securing Cyber-Physical Critical Infrastructure

CERN Document Server

Das, Sajal K; Zhang, Nan

2012-01-01

The worldwide reach of the Internet allows malicious cyber criminals to coordinate and launch attacks on both cyber and cyber-physical infrastructure from anywhere in the world. This purpose of this handbook is to introduce the theoretical foundations and practical solution techniques for securing critical cyber and physical infrastructures as well as their underlying computing and communication architectures and systems. Examples of such infrastructures include utility networks (e.g., electrical power grids), ground transportation systems (automotives, roads, bridges and tunnels), airports a

78 FR 11737 - Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity

Science.gov (United States)

2013-02-19

..., security, business confidentiality, privacy, and civil liberties. We can achieve these goals through a... security measures or controls on business confidentiality, and to protect individual privacy and civil... critical infrastructure demonstrate the need for improved cybersecurity. The cyber threat to critical...

The legal imperative to protect critical energy infrastructure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shore, J.J.M.

2008-03-15

Canada's critical infrastructure is comprised of energy facilities, communications centres, finance, health care, food, government and transportation sectors. All sectors face a range of physical or cyber threats from terrorism and natural phenomenon. Failures or disruptions in the sectors can cascade through other systems and disrupt essential services. The power outage in 2003 demonstrated gaps in North America's emergency preparedness. In 2006, al-Qaida called for terrorist attacks on North American oil fields and pipelines, specifically targeting Canada. Studies have confirmed that Canada is vulnerable to attacks on energy infrastructure. Government agencies and the private sector must work ensure the safety of Canada's energy infrastructure, as the primary responsibility of government is the protection of its citizenry. The fulfilment of the government's commitment to national security cannot be achieved without protecting Canada's critical energy infrastructure. However, Canada has not yet provided a framework linking federal government with critical infrastructures, despite the fact that a draft strategy has been under development for several years. It was concluded that governments and the private sector should work together to reduce risks, protect the public, and secure the economy. National security litigation against the government and legal imperatives for energy facility owners and operators were also reviewed. 98 refs., 20 figs.

78 FR 57644 - Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC)

Science.gov (United States)

2013-09-19

... committee has completed its business. To accommodate as many speakers as possible, oral presentations will... infrastructure resilience. Topics such as the Executive Order for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity...

Intelligent monitoring, control, and security of critical infrastructure systems

CERN Document Server

Polycarpou, Marios

2015-01-01

This book describes the challenges that critical infrastructure systems face, and presents state of the art solutions to address them. How can we design intelligent systems or intelligent agents that can make appropriate real-time decisions in the management of such large-scale, complex systems? What are the primary challenges for critical infrastructure systems? The book also provides readers with the relevant information to recognize how important infrastructures are, and their role in connection with a society’s economy, security and prosperity. It goes on to describe state-of-the-art solutions to address these points, including new methodologies and instrumentation tools (e.g. embedded software and intelligent algorithms) for transforming and optimizing target infrastructures. The book is the most comprehensive resource to date for professionals in both the private and public sectors, while also offering an essential guide for students and researchers in the areas of modeling and analysis of critical in...

Cyber Attack on Critical Infrastructure and Its Influence on International Security

OpenAIRE

出口 雅史

2017-01-01

　Since the internet appeared, with increasing cyber threats, the vulnerability of critical infrastructure has become a vital issue for international security. Although cyber attack was not lethal in the past, new type of cyber assaults such as stuxnet are able to damage not only computer system digitally, but also critical infrastructure physically.　This article will investigate how the recent cyber attacks have threatened critical infrastructure and their influence on international security....

A Comprehensive Assessment Model for Critical Infrastructure Protection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Häyhtiö Markus

2017-12-01

Full Text Available International business demands seamless service and IT-infrastructure throughout the entire supply chain. However, dependencies between different parts of this vulnerable ecosystem form a fragile web. Assessment of the financial effects of any abnormalities in any part of the network is demanded in order to protect this network in a financially viable way. Contractual environment between the actors in a supply chain, different business domains and functions requires a management model, which enables a network wide protection for critical infrastructure. In this paper authors introduce such a model. It can be used to assess financial differences between centralized and decentralized protection of critical infrastructure. As an end result of this assessment business resilience to unknown threats can be improved across the entire supply chain.

Critical Infrastructures: Background, Policy, and Implementation

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Moteff, John D

2005-01-01

.... electricity, the power plants that generate it, and the electric grid upon which it is distributed). The national security community has been concerned for sometime about the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to both physical and cyber attack...

CHDS Sponsors Critical Infrastructure Protection Workshop

OpenAIRE

Center for Homeland Defense and Security

2008-01-01

Center for Homeland Defense and Security, PRESS RELEASES The NPS Center for Homeland Defense and Security in partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently hosted its first Critical Infrastructure Protection Workshop. The workshop brought together practitioners and...

Critical infrastructure dependencies 1-0-1

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Luiijf, H.A.M.; Nieuwenhuijs, A.H.; Klaver, M.H.A.

2008-01-01

Most of our critical infrastructures consist of complex systems-of-systems that provide services or products. The coupling mechanism between the chained systems in such complex systems of systems is dependencies. Dependencies may propagate cascading failures. Most studies on dependencies in

What's My Lane? Identifying the State Government Role in Critical Infrastructure Protection

OpenAIRE

Donnelly, Timothy S.

2012-01-01

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited What constitutes an effective Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources (CIKR) protection program for Massachusetts This study evaluates existing literature regarding CIKR to extrapolate an infrastructure protection role for Massachusetts. By reviewing historical events and government strategies regarding infrastructure protection, Chapters I and II will provide scope and context for issues surrounding critical infrastructure. Chapter ...

Risk Assessment Methodology for Protecting Our Critical Physical Infrastructures

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

BIRINGER,BETTY E.; DANNEELS,JEFFREY J.

2000-12-13

Critical infrastructures are central to our national defense and our economic well-being, but many are taken for granted. Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 63 highlights the importance of eight of our critical infrastructures and outlines a plan for action. Greatly enhanced physical security systems will be required to protect these national assets from new and emerging threats. Sandia National Laboratories has been the lead laboratory for the Department of Energy (DOE) in developing and deploying physical security systems for the past twenty-five years. Many of the tools, processes, and systems employed in the protection of high consequence facilities can be adapted to the civilian infrastructure.

75 FR 60771 - Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC)

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY [Docket No. DHS-2010-0080] Critical Infrastructure Partnership... that the meeting may adjourn early if the committee has completed its business. For additional..., Section Chief Partnership Programs, Partnership and Outreach Division, Office of Infrastructure Protection...

Critical infrastructure – content, structure and problems of its protection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ladislav Hofreiter

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Security, economic and social stability of the country, its functionality but also protecting the lives and property of citizens are dependent on the proper functioning of many infrastructure systems of state. Disruptions, lack or destruction of such systems, institutions, facilities and other services could cause disruption of social stability and national security, provoke a crisis situation or seriously affect the operation of state and local governments in crisis situations. This is known as critical infrastructure. It is in the interest of the State to the critical infrastructure effectively protected.

Systematic risk assessment methodology for critical infrastructure elements - Oil and Gas subsectors

Science.gov (United States)

Gheorghiu, A.-D.; Ozunu, A.

2012-04-01

The concern for the protection of critical infrastructure has been rapidly growing in the last few years in Europe. The level of knowledge and preparedness in this field is beginning to develop in a lawfully organized manner, for the identification and designation of critical infrastructure elements of national and European interest. Oil and gas production, refining, treatment, storage and transmission by pipelines facilities, are considered European critical infrastructure sectors, as per Annex I of the Council Directive 2008/114/EC of 8 December 2008 on the identification and designation of European critical infrastructures and the assessment of the need to improve their protection. Besides identifying European and national critical infrastructure elements, member states also need to perform a risk analysis for these infrastructure items, as stated in Annex II of the above mentioned Directive. In the field of risk assessment, there are a series of acknowledged and successfully used methods in the world, but not all hazard identification and assessment methods and techniques are suitable for a given site, situation, or type of hazard. As Theoharidou, M. et al. noted (Theoharidou, M., P. Kotzanikolaou, and D. Gritzalis 2009. Risk-Based Criticality Analysis. In Critical Infrastructure Protection III. Proceedings. Third Annual IFIP WG 11.10 International Conference on Critical Infrastructure Protection. Hanover, New Hampshire, USA, March 23-25, 2009: revised selected papers, edited by C. Palmer and S. Shenoi, 35-49. Berlin: Springer.), despite the wealth of knowledge already created, there is a need for simple, feasible, and standardized criticality analyses. The proposed systematic risk assessment methodology includes three basic steps: the first step (preliminary analysis) includes the identification of hazards (including possible natural hazards) for each installation/section within a given site, followed by a criterial analysis and then a detailed analysis step

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR INFRASTRUCTURE EUROPEAN FUNDED PROJECTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sebastian-Ion Ceptureanu

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Absorption of European funds is on top of Romania’s public agenda for the last years although the first programming period has ended and the necessary lessons were learned so far. To have a high degree of absorption of funds provided by the EU must be of quality projects and their implementation to be successful. Through this work we aimed to investigate the success factors of infrastructure projects with European funding in Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine, Serbia and Kosovo, and identify critical success factors of these projects through a research surveying the teams of consultants and support personnel from the countries in an international consulting company. The research results are therefore constitute the empirical evidence of what constitutes critical success factors of infrastructure projects financed by the European Union and can be used as a starting point for scientific studies of the management of European projects or other actions that investigates measures that can be taken to improve the success rate of projects implemented in the area mentioned above.One of the contributions of this paper is to identify the critical success factors of success factors present in literature. With more so as they are critical success factors of infrastructure projects with European funding still required field studies and analysis performed in the present context. In addition, the critical factors were operationalized in a conceptual framework. Moreover, this framework includes leadership style of project manager as critical success factor has been identified in the research as the most important in the context in which it was conducted. As such, this paper demonstrates, with the necessary limitations, the importance of management style of project managers in the context of specific European funded infrastructure projects. And this is happening even though there are sophisticated project management tools availabe and relevant knowledge exists

Critical Infrastructure Information Disclosure and Homeland Security

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Moteff, John D; Stevens, Gina M

2003-01-01

Critical infrastructures have been defined as those systems and assets so vital to the United States that the incapacity of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on the United States...

The impact of natural hazard on critical infrastructure systems: definition of an ontology

Science.gov (United States)

Dimauro, Carmelo; Bouchon, Sara; Frattini, Paolo; Giusto, Claudia

2013-04-01

According to the Council of the European Union Directive (2008), 'critical infrastructure' means an asset, system or part thereof which is essential for the maintenance of vital societal functions, health, safety, security, economic or social well-being of people, and the disruption or destruction of which would have a significant impact as a result of the failure to maintain those functions. Critical infrastructure networks are exposed to natural events, such as floods, storms, landslides, earthquakes, etc. Recent natural disasters show that socio-economic consequences can be very much aggravated by the impact on these infrastructures. Though, there is still a lack of a recognized approach or methodology to assess the vulnerability of critical infrastructure assets against natural threats. The difficulty to define such an approach is increased by the need to consider a very high number of natural events, which differ in nature, magnitude and probability, as well as the need to assess the vulnerability of a high variety of infrastructure assets (e.g. bridges, roads, tunnels, pipelines, etc.) To meet this challenge, the objective of the THREVI2 EU-CIPS project is to create a database linking the relationships between natural hazards and critical infrastructure assets. The query of the database will allow the end-users (critical infrastructure protection authorities and operators) to identify the relevant scenarios according to the own priorities and criteria. The database builds on an ontology optimized for the assessment of the impact of threats on critical infrastructures. The ontology aims at capturing the existing knowledge on natural hazards, critical infrastructures assets and their related vulnerabilities. Natural phenomena that can threaten critical infrastructures are classified as "events", and organized in a genetic-oriented hierarchy. The main attributes associated to each event are the probability, the magnitude and the "modus". The modus refers to the

Resilience? Insights into the role of Critical Infrastructures Disaster Mitigation Strategies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sara Bouchon

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Critical infrastructures (CI systems provide essential services “for the maintenance of critical societal functions, including the supply chain, health, safety, security and economic or social well-being of the people” (European Commission, 2008. These systems are exposed to a great number of hazards and threats, which may result in severe consequences for the population, the socio-economic system, and the environment. The issue is particularly relevant at urban level, where the disruption of one CI system can propagate to the other systems and paralyze the entire area. It is therefore necessary, not only to protect CIs through Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP strategies, but also to enhance the resilience of these areas. This article aims thus at providing some insights related to the evolution of the critical infrastructures disaster mitigation strategies from the sole protection towards resilience: what kind of strategies based on resilience can be developed to address CIs disruption at local or regional level? To what extent do these strategies contribute to increase the resilience level of the entire urban or metropolitan area? The first section focuses on the urban critical infrastructures systems as well as on the way their disruption can impact urban areas. The second section provides with some examples of key measures to operationalize resilience in the field of critical infrastructure disaster mitigation strategies. The last section highlights how the key measures developed to enhance the resilience against CI disruptions can benefit also to broader urban resilience. 

Optimal recovery sequencing for critical infrastructure resilience assessment.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vugrin, Eric D.; Brown, Nathanael J. K.; Turnquist, Mark Alan (Cornell University, Ithaca, NY)

2010-09-01

Critical infrastructure resilience has become a national priority for the U. S. Department of Homeland Security. System resilience has been studied for several decades in many different disciplines, but no standards or unifying methods exist for critical infrastructure resilience analysis. This report documents the results of a late-start Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project that investigated the identification of optimal recovery strategies that maximize resilience. To this goal, we formulate a bi-level optimization problem for infrastructure network models. In the 'inner' problem, we solve for network flows, and we use the 'outer' problem to identify the optimal recovery modes and sequences. We draw from the literature of multi-mode project scheduling problems to create an effective solution strategy for the resilience optimization model. We demonstrate the application of this approach to a set of network models, including a national railroad model and a supply chain for Army munitions production.

Cybersecurity protecting critical infrastructures from cyber attack and cyber warfare

CERN Document Server

Johnson, Thomas A

2015-01-01

The World Economic Forum regards the threat of cyber attack as one of the top five global risks confronting nations of the world today. Cyber attacks are increasingly targeting the core functions of the economies in nations throughout the world. The threat to attack critical infrastructures, disrupt critical services, and induce a wide range of damage is becoming more difficult to defend against. Cybersecurity: Protecting Critical Infrastructures from Cyber Attack and Cyber Warfare examines the current cyber threat landscape and discusses the strategies being used by governments and corporatio

Onsite and Electric Backup Capabilities at Critical Infrastructure Facilities in the United States

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Phillips, Julia A. [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Wallace, Kelly E. [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Kudo, Terence Y. [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Eto, Joseph H. [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

2016-04-01

The following analysis, conducted by Argonne National Laboratory’s (Argonne’s) Risk and Infrastructure Science Center (RISC), details an analysis of electric power backup of national critical infrastructure as captured through the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) Enhanced Critical Infrastructure Program (ECIP) Initiative. Between January 1, 2011, and September 2014, 3,174 ECIP facility surveys have been conducted. This study focused first on backup capabilities by infrastructure type and then expanded to infrastructure type by census region.

A database of volcanic hazards and their physical impacts to critical infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson, Grant; Wilson, Thomas; Deligne, Natalia

2013-04-01

Approximately 10% of the world's population lives within 100 km of historically active volcanoes. Consequently, considerable critical infrastructure is at risk of being affected by volcanic eruptions, where critical infrastructure includes: electricity and wastewater networks; water supply systems; transport routes; communications; and buildings. Appropriate risk management strategies are required to minimise the risk to infrastructure, which necessitates detailed understanding of both volcanic hazards and infrastructure parameters and vulnerabilities. To address this, we are developing a database of the physical impacts and vulnerability of critical infrastructure observed during/following historic eruptions, placed in the context of event-specific volcanic hazard and infrastructure parameters. Our database considers: volcanic hazard parameters for each case study eruption (tephra thickness, dynamic pressure of PDCs, etc.); inventory of infrastructure elements present within the study area (geographical extent, age, etc.); the type and number of impacts and disruption caused to particular infrastructure sectors; and the quantified assessment of the vulnerability of built environments. Data have been compiled from a wide range of literature, focussing in particular on impact assessment studies which document in detail the damage sustained by critical infrastructure during a given eruption. We are creating a new vulnerability ranking to quantify the vulnerability of built environments affected by volcanic eruptions. The ranking is based upon a range of physical impacts and service disruption criteria, and is assigned to each case study. This ranking will permit comparison of vulnerabilities between case studies as well as indicate expected vulnerability during future eruptions. We are also developing hazard intensity thresholds indicating when specific damage states are expected for different critical infrastructure sectors. Finally, we have developed a data quality

Using Gamification to Raise Awareness of Cyber Threats to Critical National Infrastructure

OpenAIRE

Cook, Allan; Smith, Richard; Maglaras, Leandros; Janicke, Helge

2016-01-01

Linked to the SCIPS tabletop game Senior executives of critical national infrastructure facilities face competing requirements for investment budgets. Whilst the impact of a cyber attack upon such utilities is potentially catastrophic, the risks to continued operations from failing to upgrade ageing infrastructure, or not meeting mandated regulatory regimes, are considered higher given the demonstrable impact of such circumstances. As cyber attacks on critical national infrastructure remai...

Dynamic Hazards In Critical Infrastructure Of State

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ostrowska Teresa

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The authors are interested in some aspects of a development project entitled “The methodology of risk assessment for the purposes of crisis management system RP (ID 193751”. The project funded by the National Research and Development Centre under the Competition 3/2012 (security and defense. As part of the project the following items were reviewed and analyzed: materials related to the Government Security Centre, already completed and available products of the project ID 193751, and literature relating to, among other things, crisis management, critical infrastructure, business continuity, security, and threats. The basic emphasis of the article is focused on the resource-critical infrastructure interpretation of the state, whereby the state is perceived as a complex administrative structure in which, on the basis of external and internal interactions of resources, the risk of threats measurement is done.

Risk analysis of critical infrastructures emphasizing electricity supply and interdependencies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kjølle, G.H.; Utne, I.B.; Gjerde, O.

2012-01-01

Failures in critical infrastructures can cause major damage to society. Wide-area interruptions (blackouts) in the electricity supply system have severe impacts on societal critical functions and other critical infrastructures, but there is no agreed-upon framework on how to analyze and predict the reliability of electricity supply. Thus, there is a need for an approach to cross-sector risk analyses, which facilitates risk analysis of outages in the electricity supply system and enables investigation of cascading failures and consequences in other infrastructures. This paper presents such an approach, which includes contingency analysis (power flow) and reliability analysis of power systems, as well as use of a cascade diagram for investigating interdependencies. A case study was carried out together with the Emergency Preparedness Group in the city of Oslo, Norway and the network company Hafslund Nett. The case study results highlight the need for cross-sector analyses by showing that the total estimated societal costs are substantially higher when cascading effects and consequences to other infrastructures are taken into account compared to only considering the costs of electricity interruptions as seen by the network company. The approach is a promising starting point for cross-sector risk analysis of electricity supply interruptions and consequences for dependent infrastructures.

A threat analysis framework as applied to critical infrastructures in the Energy Sector.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Michalski, John T.; Duggan, David Patrick

2007-09-01

The need to protect national critical infrastructure has led to the development of a threat analysis framework. The threat analysis framework can be used to identify the elements required to quantify threats against critical infrastructure assets and provide a means of distributing actionable threat information to critical infrastructure entities for the protection of infrastructure assets. This document identifies and describes five key elements needed to perform a comprehensive analysis of threat: the identification of an adversary, the development of generic threat profiles, the identification of generic attack paths, the discovery of adversary intent, and the identification of mitigation strategies.

People at risk - nexus critical infrastructure and society

Science.gov (United States)

Heiser, Micha; Thaler, Thomas; Fuchs, Sven

2016-04-01

Strategic infrastructure networks include the highly complex and interconnected systems that are so vital to a city or state that any sudden disruption can result in debilitating impacts on human life, the economy and the society as a whole. Recently, various studies have applied complex network-based models to study the performance and vulnerability of infrastructure systems under various types of attacks and hazards - a major part of them is, particularly after the 9/11 incident, related to terrorism attacks. Here, vulnerability is generally defined as the performance drop of an infrastructure system under a given disruptive event. The performance can be measured by different metrics, which correspond to various levels of resilience. In this paper, we will address vulnerability and exposure of critical infrastructure in the Eastern Alps. The Federal State Tyrol is an international transport route and an essential component of the north-south transport connectivity in Europe. Any interruption of the transport flow leads to incommensurable consequences in terms of indirect losses, since the system does not feature redundant elements at comparable economic efficiency. Natural hazard processes such as floods, debris flows, rock falls and avalanches, endanger this infrastructure line, such as large flood events in 2005 or 2012, rock falls 2014, which had strong impacts to the critical infrastructure, such as disruption of the railway lines (in 2005 and 2012), highways and motorways (in 2014). The aim of this paper is to present how critical infrastructures as well as communities and societies are vulnerable and can be resilient against natural hazard risks and the relative cascading effects to different compartments (industrial, infrastructural, societal, institutional, cultural, etc.), which is the dominant by the type of hazard (avalanches, torrential flooding, debris flow, rock falls). Specific themes will be addressed in various case studies to allow cross

Recovery from chemical, biological, and radiological incidents. Critical infrastructure and economic impact considerations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Franco, David Oliver [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States); Yang, Lynn I. [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States); Hammer, Ann E. [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States)

2012-06-01

To restore regional lifeline services and economic activity as quickly as possible after a chemical, biological or radiological incident, emergency planners and managers will need to prioritize critical infrastructure across many sectors for restoration. In parallel, state and local governments will need to identify and implement measures to promote reoccupation and economy recovery in the region. This document provides guidance on predisaster planning for two of the National Disaster Recovery Framework Recovery Support Functions: Infrastructure Systems and Economic Recovery. It identifies key considerations for infrastructure restoration, outlines a process for prioritizing critical infrastructure for restoration, and identifies critical considerations for promoting regional economic recovery following a widearea disaster. Its goal is to equip members of the emergency preparedness community to systematically prioritize critical infrastructure for restoration, and to develop effective economic recovery plans in preparation for a widearea CBR disaster.

Critical infrastructure security assessment, prevention, detection, response

CERN Document Server

FLAMMINI, F

2012-01-01

The most comprehensive handbook on critical infrastructures (CI), addressing both logical and physical security from an engineering point of view. The book surveys state-of-the-art methodologies and tools for CI analysis as well as strategies and technologies for CI protection.

The European cooperative approach to securing critical information infrastructure.

Science.gov (United States)

Purser, Steve

2011-10-01

This paper provides an overview of the EU approach to securing critical information infrastructure, as defined in the Action Plan contained in the Commission Communication of March 2009, entitled 'Protecting Europe from large-scale cyber-attacks and disruptions: enhancing preparedness, security and resilience' and further elaborated by the Communication of May 2011 on critical Information infrastructure protection 'Achievements and next steps: towards global cyber-security'. After explaining the need for pan-European cooperation in this area, the CIIP Action Plan is explained in detail. Finally, the current state of progress is summarised together with the proposed next steps.

Cyber Security Insider Threats :: Government’s Role in Protecting India’s Critical Infrastructure Sectors

OpenAIRE

Vohra, Pulkit

2014-01-01

This research identifies the problem of insider threats in the critical infrastructure sectors of India. It is structured to answer the research question: "Why insider threats should be the primary concern for Indian government to protect its critical infrastructure sectors.” It defines the critical infrastructure sectors and portrays the cyber security scenario of India. Also, through the research study, it identifies the lack of awareness and non-seriousness of employees in the critical sec...

78 FR 76986 - Version 5 Critical Infrastructure Protection Reliability Standards

Science.gov (United States)

2013-12-20

...; Order No. 791] Version 5 Critical Infrastructure Protection Reliability Standards AGENCY: Federal Energy... 72755). The regulations approved certain reliability standards proposed by the North American Electric... Infrastructure Protection Reliability Standards, 145 FERC ] 61,160 (2013). This errata notice serves to correct P...

Guarding America: Security Guards and U.S. Critical Infrastructure Protection

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Parfomak, Paul W

2004-01-01

The Bush Administration's 2003 National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructures and Key Assets indicates that security guards are an important source of protection for critical facilities...

Assessing Vulnerabilities, Risks, and Consequences of Damage to Critical Infrastructure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Suski, N.; Wuest, C.

2011-01-01

Since the publication of 'Critical Foundations: Protecting America's Infrastructure,' there has been a keen understanding of the complexity, interdependencies, and shared responsibility required to protect the nation's most critical assets that are essential to our way of life. The original 5 sectors defined in 1997 have grown to 18 Critical Infrastructures and Key Resources (CIKR), which are discussed in the 2009 National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) and its supporting sector-specific plans. The NIPP provides the structure for a national program dedicated to enhanced protection and resiliency of the nation's infrastructure. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) provides in-depth, multi-disciplinary assessments of threat, vulnerability, and consequence across all 18 sectors at scales ranging from specific facilities to infrastructures spanning multi-state regions, such as the Oil and Natural Gas (ONG) sector. Like many of the CIKR sectors, the ONG sector is comprised of production, processing, distribution, and storage of highly valuable and potentially dangerous commodities. Furthermore, there are significant interdependencies with other sectors, including transportation, communication, finance, and government. Understanding the potentially devastating consequences and collateral damage resulting from a terrorist attack or natural event is an important element of LLNL's infrastructure security programs. Our work began in the energy sector in the late 1990s and quickly expanded other critical infrastructure sectors. We have performed over 600 physical assessments with a particular emphasis on those sectors that utilize, store, or ship potentially hazardous materials and for whom cyber security is important. The success of our approach is based on building awareness of vulnerabilities and risks and working directly with industry partners to collectively advance infrastructure protection. This approach consists of three phases: The Pre

Integrating Critical Disability Studies into the Historiography of Infrastructures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Galis, Vasilis; Tympas, Aristotle; Tzokas, Spyros

Infrastructures are habitually associated with enabling, with facilitating mobility. Attention to accidents and related failures of infrastructures, due to accidental or endemic reasons, has substantially enriched the historiography of infrastructures while, at the same time, pointing to limits...... infrastructures became sites for regulating and controlling certain groups. Seen like this, transport technologies, at remote national borders and in the heart of a national metropolis, were a key field for sociotechnical battles that produced dis/abled-displaced bodies, that is, a new corporeal subject. Dis...... idea of the human being “(Shildrick, 2010)....

78 FR 27113 - Version 5 Critical Infrastructure Protection Reliability Standards

Science.gov (United States)

2013-05-09

... approve certain reliability standards proposed by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation... Infrastructure Protection Reliability Standards, 143 FERC ] 61,055 (2013). This errata notice serves to correct P... Commission 18 CFR Part 40 [Docket No. RM13-5-000] Version 5 Critical Infrastructure Protection Reliability...

Challenges in the vulnerability and risk analysis of critical infrastructures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zio, Enrico

2016-01-01

The objective of this paper is to provide a systematic view on the problem of vulnerability and risk analysis of critical infrastructures. Reflections are made on the inherent complexities of these systems, related challenges are identified and possible ways forward for their analysis and management are indicated. Specifically: the framework of vulnerability and risk analysis is examined in relation to its application for the protection and resilience of critical infrastructures; it is argued that the complexity of these systems is a challenging characteristic, which calls for the integration of different modeling perspectives and new approaches of analysis; examples of are given in relation to the Internet and, particularly, the electric power grid, as representative of critical infrastructures and the associated complexity; the integration of different types of analyses and methods of system modeling is put forward for capturing the inherent structural and dynamic complexities of critical infrastructures and eventually evaluating their vulnerability and risk characteristics, so that decisions on protections and resilience actions can be taken with the required confidence. - Highlights: • The problem of the protection and resilience of CIs is the focus of the work. • The vulnerability and risk analysis framework for this is critically examined. • The complexity of CIs is presented as a challenge for system modeling and analysis. • The integration of different modeling perspectives of analysis is put forward as a solution. • The extension of the analysis framework to new methods for dealing with surprises and black swans is advocated.

Ontario-U.S. power outages : impacts on critical infrastructure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2006-01-01

This paper described the power outage and resulting blackout that occurred on August 14, 2003 and identified how critical infrastructure was directly and interdependently impacted in Canada. The aim of the paper was to assist critical infrastructure protection and emergency management professionals in assessing the potential impacts of large-scale critical infrastructure disruptions. Information for the study was acquired from Canadian and American media reports and cross-sectoral information sharing with provincial and federal governments and the private sector. The blackout impacted most of the sources and means of generating, transmitting and distributing power within the area, which in turn impacted all critical infrastructure sectors. Landline and cellular companies experienced operational difficulties, which meant that emergency responders were impacted. Newspapers and the electronic media struggled to release information to the public. The banking and finance industry experienced an immediate degradation of services. The power outage caused shipping and storage difficulties for commercial retailers and dairy producers. A number of incidents were reported where only partially treated waste water was released into neighbouring waterways. The timing of the blackout coincided with the closures of workplaces and created additional difficulties on transportation networks. Many gas station pumps were inoperable. Police, fire departments and ambulance services experienced a dramatic increase in the volume of calls received, and all branches of the emergency services sector encountered transportation delays and difficulties with communications equipment. Nuclear reactors were also impacted. An estimated 150,000 Government of Canada employees were unable to report to work. Estimates have indicated that the power outage cost Ontario's economy between $1 and $2 billion. The outage negatively impacted 82 per cent of small businesses in Ontario. 170 refs., 3 figs

Neural Network Based Intrusion Detection System for Critical Infrastructures

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Todd Vollmer; Ondrej Linda; Milos Manic

2009-07-01

Resiliency and security in control systems such as SCADA and Nuclear plant’s in today’s world of hackers and malware are a relevant concern. Computer systems used within critical infrastructures to control physical functions are not immune to the threat of cyber attacks and may be potentially vulnerable. Tailoring an intrusion detection system to the specifics of critical infrastructures can significantly improve the security of such systems. The IDS-NNM – Intrusion Detection System using Neural Network based Modeling, is presented in this paper. The main contributions of this work are: 1) the use and analyses of real network data (data recorded from an existing critical infrastructure); 2) the development of a specific window based feature extraction technique; 3) the construction of training dataset using randomly generated intrusion vectors; 4) the use of a combination of two neural network learning algorithms – the Error-Back Propagation and Levenberg-Marquardt, for normal behavior modeling. The presented algorithm was evaluated on previously unseen network data. The IDS-NNM algorithm proved to be capable of capturing all intrusion attempts presented in the network communication while not generating any false alerts.

Volcanic ash impacts on critical infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson, Thomas M.; Stewart, Carol; Sword-Daniels, Victoria; Leonard, Graham S.; Johnston, David M.; Cole, Jim W.; Wardman, Johnny; Wilson, Grant; Barnard, Scott T.

2012-01-01

Volcanic eruptions can produce a wide range of hazards. Although phenomena such as pyroclastic flows and surges, sector collapses, lahars and ballistic blocks are the most destructive and dangerous, volcanic ash is by far the most widely distributed eruption product. Although ash falls rarely endanger human life directly, threats to public health and disruption to critical infrastructure services, aviation and primary production can lead to significant societal impacts. Even relatively small eruptions can cause widespread disruption, damage and economic loss. Volcanic eruptions are, in general, infrequent and somewhat exotic occurrences, and consequently in many parts of the world, the management of critical infrastructure during volcanic crises can be improved with greater knowledge of the likely impacts. This article presents an overview of volcanic ash impacts on critical infrastructure, other than aviation and fuel supply, illustrated by findings from impact assessment reconnaissance trips carried out to a wide range of locations worldwide by our international research group and local collaborators. ‘Critical infrastructure’ includes those assets, frequently taken for granted, which are essential for the functioning of a society and economy. Electricity networks are very vulnerable to disruption from volcanic ash falls. This is particularly the case when fine ash is erupted because it has a greater tendency to adhere to line and substation insulators, where it can cause flashover (unintended electrical discharge) which can in turn cause widespread and disruptive outages. Weather conditions are a major determinant of flashover risk. Dry ash is not conductive, and heavy rain will wash ash from insulators, but light rain/mist will mobilise readily-soluble salts on the surface of the ash grains and lower the ash layer’s resistivity. Wet ash is also heavier than dry ash, increasing the risk of line breakage or tower/pole collapse. Particular issues for water

Critical Infrastructure References: Documented Literature Search

Science.gov (United States)

2012-10-01

that the economy typically experiences following extreme events: (i) significant changes in consumption patterns due to lingering public fear and (ii...when making choices related to critical infrastructure and security. • The case studies are drawn from the Victorian Bushfires of 2009. o The first...case study covers the impact of the Victorian bushfires on environmental security, or more specifically, water supply. This case study highlights

Critical Energy Infrastructure Protection in Canada

Science.gov (United States)

2010-12-01

department for the Energy sector, has been pro- active and innovative in enhancing protection for national critical energy infrastructure (NCI). While...prospérité (PSP), mais des relations transfrontalières plus informelles entre les propriétaires/opérateurs et leurs associations industrielles ...create innovative solutions for CIP. 9. International Cooperation: participate in international CIP initiatives and to strengthen information-sharing

Critical success factors in infrastructure projects

Science.gov (United States)

Zakaria, Siti Fairus; Zin, Rosli Mohamad; Mohamad, Ismail; Balubaid, Saeed; Mydin, Shaik Hussein; Mohd Rahim, E. M. Roodienyanto

2017-11-01

Construction of infrastructure project is different from buildings. The main difference is term of project site where infrastructure project need to command a long stretch while building mostly confine to a limited area. As such factors that are critical to infrastructure project may not be that significant to building project and vice versa. Flood mitigation can be classified under infrastructure projects under which their developments are planned by the government with the specific objective to reduce or avoid the negative effects of flood to the environment and livelihood. One of the indicators in project success is delay. The impact of project delay in construction industry is significant that it decelerates the projects implementation, specifically the government projects. This study attempted to identify and compare the success factors between infrastructure and building projects, as such comparison rarely found in the current literature. A model of flood mitigation projects' success factors was developed by merging the experts' views and reports from the existing literature. The experts' views were obtained from the responses to open-ended questions on the required fundamentals to achieve successful completion of flood mitigation projects. An affinity analysis was applied to these responses to develop the model. The developed model was then compared to the established success factors found in building project, extracted from the previous studies to identify the similarities and differences between the two models. This study would assist the government and construction players to become more effective in constructing successful flood mitigation projects for the future practice in a flood-prone country like Malaysia.

the GFCE-Meridian Good Practice Guide on Critical Information Infrastructure Protection for governmental policy-makers

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Luiijf, H.A.M.; Schie, T.C.C. van; Ruijven, T.W.J. van; Huistra, A.W.W.

2016-01-01

Critical Information Infrastructure Protection (CIIP) is a complex but important topic for nations. Nations at large critically depend on Critical Infrastructure (CI) services such as energy supply, telecommunications, financial systems, drinking water, and governmental services. Critical

A fault diagnosis system for interdependent critical infrastructures based on HMMs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ntalampiras, Stavros; Soupionis, Yannis; Giannopoulos, Georgios

2015-01-01

Modern society depends on the smooth functioning of critical infrastructures which provide services of fundamental importance, e.g. telecommunications and water supply. These infrastructures may suffer from faults/malfunctions coming e.g. from aging effects or they may even comprise targets of terrorist attacks. Prompt detection and accommodation of these situations is of paramount significance. This paper proposes a probabilistic modeling scheme for analyzing malicious events appearing in interdependent critical infrastructures. The proposed scheme is based on modeling the relationship between datastreams coming from two network nodes by means of a hidden Markov model (HMM) trained on the parameters of linear time-invariant dynamic systems which estimate the relationships existing among the specific nodes over consecutive time windows. Our study includes an energy network (IEEE 30 model bus) operated via a telecommunications infrastructure. The relationships among the elements of the network of infrastructures are represented by an HMM and the novel data is categorized according to its distance (computed in the probabilistic space) from the training ones. We considered two types of cyber-attacks (denial of service and integrity/replay) and report encouraging results in terms of false positive rate, false negative rate and detection delay. - Highlights: • An HMM-based scheme is proposed for analyzing malicious events in critical infrastructures. • We use the IEEE 30 model bus operated via an emulated ICT infrastructure. • Novel data is categorized based on its probabilistic distance from the training one. • We considered two types of cyber-attacks and report results of extensive experiments

Critical Infrastructure Interdependency Modeling: A Survey of U.S. and International Research

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

2006-08-01

The Nation’s health, wealth, and security rely on the production and distribution of certain goods and services. The array of physical assets, processes, and organizations across which these goods and services move are called "critical infrastructures".1 This statement is as true in the U.S. as in any country in the world. Recent world events such as the 9-11 terrorist attacks, London bombings, and gulf coast hurricanes have highlighted the importance of stable electric, gas and oil, water, transportation, banking and finance, and control and communication infrastructure systems. Be it through direct connectivity, policies and procedures, or geospatial proximity, most critical infrastructure systems interact. These interactions often create complex relationships, dependencies, and interdependencies that cross infrastructure boundaries. The modeling and analysis of interdependencies between critical infrastructure elements is a relatively new and very important field of study. The U.S. Technical Support Working Group (TSWG) has sponsored this survey to identify and describe this current area of research including the current activities in this field being conducted both in the U.S. and internationally. The main objective of this study is to develop a single source reference of critical infrastructure interdependency modeling tools (CIIMT) that could be applied to allow users to objectively assess the capabilities of CIIMT. This information will provide guidance for directing research and development to address the gaps in development. The results will inform researchers of the TSWG Infrastructure Protection Subgroup of research and development efforts and allow a more focused approach to addressing the needs of CIIMT end-user needs. This report first presents the field of infrastructure interdependency analysis, describes the survey methodology, and presents the leading research efforts in both a cumulative table and through individual datasheets. Data was

Government of Canada position paper on a national strategy for critical infrastructure protection

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2004-11-01

The Government of Canada's position on the development of a comprehensive national approach to critical infrastructure protection (CIP) was presented along with a policy framework for developing a national cyber security strategy and a review of the Emergency Preparedness Act. Canada's national critical infrastructure (NCI) is defined as physical and information technology facilities, networks, services and assets, which if destroyed, would have a serious impact on health, safety, security and economics. The CIP strategy includes an NCI assurance program for various sectors of the economy, including the energy, transportation, finance, health care, food, communications, water, safety and manufacturing sectors. It also includes CIP for the government sector. This report described the key elements of an NCI protection strategy. These include guiding principles, risk management, information sharing, inventory of critical infrastructure assets, threats and warnings, critical infrastructure interdependencies, governance mechanisms, research and development, and international cooperation. refs., tabs., figs.

Assessing dependability and resilience in critical infrastructures: challenges and opportunities

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Avritzer, Alberto; Di Giandomenico, Felicita; Remke, Anne Katharina Ingrid; Riedl, Martin; Wolter, Katinka; Avritzer, Alberto; Vieira, Marco; van Moorsel, Aad

2012-01-01

Critical infrastructures (CI) are very complex and highly interdependent systems, networks and assets that provide essential services in our daily life. Most CI are either built upon or monitored and controlled by vulnerable information and communication technology (ICT) systems. Critical

Critical Infrastructure Protection and Information Assurance (CIPIA) Fellow Program

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Chen, Peter

2003-01-01

LSU was one of the universities chosen to participate in the project of training new researchers to work on the Critical Infrastructure Protection and Information Assurance (CIPIA) areas. Three Ph.D...

'System-of-systems' approach for interdependent critical infrastructures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eusgeld, Irene; Nan, Cen; Dietz, Sven

2011-01-01

The study of the interdependencies within critical infrastructures (CI) is a growing field of research as the importance of potential failure propagation among infrastructures may lead to cascades affecting all supply networks. New powerful methods are required to model and describe such 'systems-of-systems' (SoS) as a whole. An overall model is required to provide security and reliability assessment taking into account various kinds of threats and failures. A significant challenge associated with this model may be to create 'what-if' scenarios for the analysis of interdependencies. In this paper the interdependencies between industrial control systems (ICS), in particular SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), and the underlying critical infrastructures to address the vulnerabilities related to the coupling of these systems are analyzed. The modeling alternatives for system-of-systems, integrated versus coupled models, are discussed. An integrated model contains detailed low level models of (sub)systems as well as a high level model, covering all hierarchical levels. On the other hand, a coupled model aggregates different simulated outputs of the low level models as inputs at a higher level. Strengths and weaknesses of both approaches are analyzed and a model architecture for SCADA and the 'system under control' are proposed. Furthermore, the HLA simulation standard is introduced and discussed in this paper as a promising approach to represent interdependencies between infrastructures. To demonstrate the capabilities of the HLA standard for the interdependencies study, an exemplary application and some first results are also briefly presented in this paper.

Protecting Critical Infrastructure by Identifying Pathways of Exposure to Risk

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Philip O’Neill

2013-08-01

Full Text Available Increasingly, our critical infrastructure is managed and controlled by computers and the information networks that connect them. Cyber-terrorists and other malicious actors understand the economic and social impact that a successful attack on these systems could have. While it is imperative that we defend against such attacks, it is equally imperative that we realize how best to react to them. This article presents the strongest-path method of analyzing all potential pathways of exposure to risk – no matter how indirect or circuitous they may be – in a network model of infrastructure and operations. The method makes direct use of expert knowledge about entities and dependency relationships without the need for any simulation or any other models. By using path analysis in a directed graph model of critical infrastructure, planners can model and assess the effects of a potential attack and develop resilient responses.

Critical Infrastructure Protection: EMP Impacts on the U.S. Electric Grid

Science.gov (United States)

Boston, Edwin J., Jr.

The purpose of this research is to identify the United States electric grid infrastructure systems vulnerabilities to electromagnetic pulse attacks and the cyber-based impacts of those vulnerabilities to the electric grid. Additionally, the research identifies multiple defensive strategies designed to harden the electric grid against electromagnetic pulse attack that include prevention, mitigation and recovery postures. Research results confirm the importance of the electric grid to the United States critical infrastructures system and that an electromagnetic pulse attack against the electric grid could result in electric grid degradation, critical infrastructure(s) damage and the potential for societal collapse. The conclusions of this research indicate that while an electromagnetic pulse attack against the United States electric grid could have catastrophic impacts on American society, there are currently many defensive strategies under consideration designed to prevent, mitigate and or recover from an electromagnetic pulse attack. However, additional research is essential to further identify future target hardening opportunities, efficient implementation strategies and funding resources.

Assessing the dynamic material criticality of infrastructure transitions: A case of low carbon electricity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roelich, Katy; Dawson, David A.; Purnell, Phil; Knoeri, Christof; Revell, Ruairi; Busch, Jonathan; Steinberger, Julia K.

2014-01-01

Highlights: • We present a method to analyse material criticality of infrastructure transitions. • Criticality is defined as the potential for, and exposure to, supply disruption. • Our method is dynamic reducing the probability of lock-in to at-risk technologies. • We show that supply disruption potential is reducing but exposure is increasing. - Abstract: Decarbonisation of existing infrastructure systems requires a dynamic roll-out of technology at an unprecedented scale. The potential disruption in supply of critical materials could endanger such a transition to low-carbon infrastructure and, by extension, compromise energy security more broadly because low carbon technologies are reliant on these materials in a way that fossil-fuelled energy infrastructure is not. Criticality is currently defined as the combination of the potential for supply disruption and the exposure of a system of interest to that disruption. We build on this definition and develop a dynamic approach to quantifying criticality, which monitors the change in criticality during the transition towards a low-carbon infrastructure goal. This allows us to assess the relative risk of different technology pathways to reach a particular goal and reduce the probability of being ‘locked in’ to currently attractive but potentially future-critical technologies. To demonstrate, we apply our method to criticality of the proposed UK electricity system transition, with a focus on neodymium. We anticipate that the supply disruption potential of neodymium will decrease by almost 30% by 2050; however, our results show the criticality of low carbon electricity production increases ninefold over this period, as a result of increasing exposure to neodymium-reliant technologies

METHODS OF MANAGING TRAFFIC DISTRIBUTION IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION NETWORKS OF CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS

OpenAIRE

Kosenko, Viktor; Persiyanova, Elena; Belotskyy, Oleksiy; Malyeyeva, Olga

2017-01-01

The subject matter of the article is information and communication networks (ICN) of critical infrastructure systems (CIS). The goal of the work is to create methods for managing the data flows and resources of the ICN of CIS to improve the efficiency of information processing. The following tasks were solved in the article: the data flow model of multi-level ICN structure was developed, the method of adaptive distribution of data flows was developed, the method of network resource assignment...

relevance of information warfare models to critical infrastructure

African Journals Online (AJOL)

ismith

Critical infrastructure models, strategies and policies should take information ... gain an advantage over a competitor or adversary through the use of one's own .... digital communications system, where the vehicles are analogous to bits or packets, ..... performance degraded, causing an increase in traffic finding a new route.

Interdependency control : compensation strategies for the inherent vulnerability of critical infrastructure networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mao, D.; Sotoodeh, M.; Monu, K.; Marti, J.R.; Srivastava, K.D.

2009-01-01

Today's increasingly interacting national critical infrastructures (NCIs) can tolerate most stochastic local disturbances. However, they are extremely fragile under global disturbances, as the latter may either push the whole system into a critical state or reveal many unexpected hidden interdependencies, inducing or triggering cascading failures among all possible layers. This robust yet fragile duality is an inherent vulnerability of modern infrastructures. It is therefore expected that weather-related disasters will be more frequent under a changing climate. This paper proposed an interdependency control strategy (ICS) that would maintain the survival of the most critical services, and compensate for this inherent vulnerability during emergency states. The paper also proposed a generalized adjacency matrix (GAM) to represent the physical interdependencies intra/inter of various infrastructure networks. The vulnerable section in the network can be identified, based on computed results of GAM, number of islands in the network, and influence domain(s) of each component. These features render ICS more effective and convincing. Last, the paper proposed a survivability index for isolated sub-networks and described relevant measures for improving this index during the four phases of emergency management. It was concluded that the proposed strategy is an effective means to reduce the inherent vulnerability and increase the resiliency of these critical infrastructures networks. 20 refs., 5 figs

Cyber Security Threats to Safety-Critical, Space-Based Infrastructures

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, C. W.; Atencia Yepez, A.

2012-01-01

Space-based systems play an important role within national critical infrastructures. They are being integrated into advanced air-traffic management applications, rail signalling systems, energy distribution software etc. Unfortunately, the end users of communications, location sensing and timing applications often fail to understand that these infrastructures are vulnerable to a wide range of security threats. The following pages focus on concerns associated with potential cyber-attacks. These are important because future attacks may invalidate many of the safety assumptions that support the provision of critical space-based services. These safety assumptions are based on standard forms of hazard analysis that ignore cyber-security considerations This is a significant limitation when, for instance, security attacks can simultaneously exploit multiple vulnerabilities in a manner that would never occur without a deliberate enemy seeking to damage space based systems and ground infrastructures. We address this concern through the development of a combined safety and security risk assessment methodology. The aim is to identify attack scenarios that justify the allocation of additional design resources so that safety barriers can be strengthened to increase our resilience against security threats.

Safety impacts of bicycle infrastructure: A critical review.

Science.gov (United States)

DiGioia, Jonathan; Watkins, Kari Edison; Xu, Yanzhi; Rodgers, Michael; Guensler, Randall

2017-06-01

This paper takes a critical look at the present state of bicycle infrastructure treatment safety research, highlighting data needs. Safety literature relating to 22 bicycle treatments is examined, including findings, study methodologies, and data sources used in the studies. Some preliminary conclusions related to research efficacy are drawn from the available data and findings in the research. While the current body of bicycle safety literature points toward some defensible conclusions regarding the safety and effectiveness of certain bicycle treatments, such as bike lanes and removal of on-street parking, the vast majority treatments are still in need of rigorous research. Fundamental questions arise regarding appropriate exposure measures, crash measures, and crash data sources. This research will aid transportation departments with regard to decisions about bicycle infrastructure and guide future research efforts toward understanding safety impacts of bicycle infrastructure. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd and National Safety Council. All rights reserved.

Reliability issues related to the usage of Cloud Computing in Critical Infrastructures

OpenAIRE

Diez Gonzalez, Oscar Manuel; Silva Vazquez, Andrés

2011-01-01

The use of cloud computing is extending to all kind of systems, including the ones that are part of Critical Infrastructures, and measuring the reliability is becoming more difficult. Computing is becoming the 5th utility, in part thanks to the use of cloud services. Cloud computing is used now by all types of systems and organizations, including critical infrastructure, creating hidden inter-dependencies on both public and private cloud models. This paper investigates the use of cloud co...

Safeguarding information intensive critical infrastructures against novel types of emerging failures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Balducelli, C.; Bologna, S.; Lavalle, L.; Vicoli, G.

2007-01-01

The complexity of information intensive critical infrastructures, like electricity networks, telecommunication networks and public transportation networks is today augmented much more than in the past: such complexity augments the number of possible failures and anomalous working conditions and consequently decreases the survivability of the infrastructures. In this paper, the possibility is investigated to detect early anomalies and failures inside information intensive critical infrastructures by the introduction of anomaly detectors being 'self-aware' about the normal working conditions of the infrastructure itself. This approach has the objective to improve the performance of the most popular signature-based algorithms for intrusion detection, and makes use of different classes of time-oriented algorithms based on artificial intelligence paradigm. It has the advantage to work also in presence of unknown and unexpected types of attacks or failures. The tests, to evaluate the performance of the utilised detectors, are executed inside an emulated supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system of an electrical power transmission grid, and a proposal for the future integration inside real SCADA systems is also reported

Safeguarding information intensive critical infrastructures against novel types of emerging failures

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Balducelli, C. [ENEA-Italian National Agency for new Technology, Energy and the Environment Via Anguillasere 301, 00060 Rome (Italy)]. E-mail: claudio.balducelli@casaccia.enea.it; Bologna, S. [ENEA-Italian National Agency for new Technology, Energy and the Environment Via Anguillasere 301, 00060 Rome (Italy); Lavalle, L. [ENEA-Italian National Agency for new Technology, Energy and the Environment Via Anguillasere 301, 00060 Rome (Italy); Vicoli, G. [ENEA-Italian National Agency for new Technology, Energy and the Environment Via Anguillasere 301, 00060 Rome (Italy)

2007-09-15

The complexity of information intensive critical infrastructures, like electricity networks, telecommunication networks and public transportation networks is today augmented much more than in the past: such complexity augments the number of possible failures and anomalous working conditions and consequently decreases the survivability of the infrastructures. In this paper, the possibility is investigated to detect early anomalies and failures inside information intensive critical infrastructures by the introduction of anomaly detectors being 'self-aware' about the normal working conditions of the infrastructure itself. This approach has the objective to improve the performance of the most popular signature-based algorithms for intrusion detection, and makes use of different classes of time-oriented algorithms based on artificial intelligence paradigm. It has the advantage to work also in presence of unknown and unexpected types of attacks or failures. The tests, to evaluate the performance of the utilised detectors, are executed inside an emulated supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system of an electrical power transmission grid, and a proposal for the future integration inside real SCADA systems is also reported.

Defending Critical Infrastructure as Cyber Key Terrain

Science.gov (United States)

2016-08-01

to Secure Cyberspace (NSSC) is as it lists three strategic objectives:4 1) Prevent cyber attacks against America’s critical infrastructures; 2...House, “National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace,” (Washington, DC: The White House, 2003) Trey Herr, "PrEP: A framework for malware & cyber weapons...David Kuipers and Mark Fabro. “Control Systems Cyber Security : Defense in Depth Strategies,” [United States: Department of Energy, 2006]: 4

New concept of critical infrastructure strengthening

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gazizov, Talgat R.; Orlov, Pavel E.; Zabolotsky, Alexander M.; Kuksenko, Sergey P.

2016-01-01

Strengthening of critical infrastructure is considered. Modal reservation of electronics is proposed as a new concept of the strengthening. The concept combines a widely used cold backup and a recently proposed modal filtration. It makes electronics reliable as well as protected against electromagnetic interference, especially the ultra-wide band pulses. New printed circuit board structure is suggested for implementation of the proposed concept. Results of simulation in time and frequency domains are presented for the suggested structures. Considerable attenuation of dangerous excitations shows that the new concept and structure are promising.

New concept of critical infrastructure strengthening

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gazizov, Talgat R.; Orlov, Pavel E.; Zabolotsky, Alexander M.; Kuksenko, Sergey P. [Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics, 634050, Lenin Ave., Tomsk (Russian Federation)

2016-06-08

Strengthening of critical infrastructure is considered. Modal reservation of electronics is proposed as a new concept of the strengthening. The concept combines a widely used cold backup and a recently proposed modal filtration. It makes electronics reliable as well as protected against electromagnetic interference, especially the ultra-wide band pulses. New printed circuit board structure is suggested for implementation of the proposed concept. Results of simulation in time and frequency domains are presented for the suggested structures. Considerable attenuation of dangerous excitations shows that the new concept and structure are promising.

Development of the efficient emergency preparedness system for the nuclear critical infrastructure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kostadinov, V.; Marn, J.; Petelin, S.

2007-01-01

The evaluation of the critical nuclear infrastructure vulnerability to threats like human occurrences, terrorist attacks and natural disasters and the preparation of emergency response plans with the estimation of optimized costs are of the vital importance for the assurance of a safe nuclear facilities operation and the national security. In the past national emergency systems did not include vulnerability assessments of the critical nuclear infrastructure as the important part of the comprehensive preparedness framework. The fundamental aims of the efficient emergency preparedness and response system are to provide a sustained emergency readiness and to prevent an emergency situation and accidents. But when an event happens the mission is to mitigate consequences and to protect the people and environment against the nuclear and radiological damage. The efficient emergency response system, which would be activated in the case of the nuclear and/or radiological emergency and release of the radioactivity to the environment, is an important element of a comprehensive system of the nuclear and radiation safety. In the article the new methodology for the critical nuclear infrastructure vulnerability assessment as a missing part of an efficient emergency preparedness system is presented. It can help the overall national energy sectors to identify and better understand the terrorist threats and vulnerabilities of their critical infrastructure. The presented methodology could also facilitate national agencies to develop and implement a vulnerability awareness and education programs for their critical assets to enhance the security, reliability and safe operation of the whole energy infrastructure. The vulnerability assessment methodology will also assist nuclear power plants to develop, validate, and disseminate the assessment and survey of new efficient countermeasures. The significant benefits of the new vulnerability assessment research are to increase nuclear power

DNS as critical infrastructure, the energy system case study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Casalicchio, E.; Gheorghe, A.V.; Caselli, M.; Coletta, A.; Nai Fovino, I.

2013-01-01

Modern critical infrastructures (e.g., power plants, energy grids, oil pipelines, etc.), make nowadays extensive use of information and communication technologies (ICT). As a direct consequence their exposure to cyber-attacks is becoming a matter of public security. In this paper, we analyse a

Methodology for prioritizing cyber-vulnerable critical infrastructure equipment and mitigation strategies.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dawson, Lon Andrew; Stinebaugh, Jennifer A.

2010-04-01

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Cyber Security Division (NSCD), Control Systems Security Program (CSSP), contracted Sandia National Laboratories to develop a generic methodology for prioritizing cyber-vulnerable, critical infrastructure assets and the development of mitigation strategies for their loss or compromise. The initial project has been divided into three discrete deliverables: (1) A generic methodology report suitable to all Critical Infrastructure and Key Resource (CIKR) Sectors (this report); (2) a sector-specific report for Electrical Power Distribution; and (3) a sector-specific report for the water sector, including generation, water treatment, and wastewater systems. Specific reports for the water and electric sectors are available from Sandia National Laboratories.

A reference model for model-based design of critical infrastructure protection systems

Science.gov (United States)

Shin, Young Don; Park, Cheol Young; Lee, Jae-Chon

2015-05-01

Today's war field environment is getting versatile as the activities of unconventional wars such as terrorist attacks and cyber-attacks have noticeably increased lately. The damage caused by such unconventional wars has also turned out to be serious particularly if targets are critical infrastructures that are constructed in support of banking and finance, transportation, power, information and communication, government, and so on. The critical infrastructures are usually interconnected to each other and thus are very vulnerable to attack. As such, to ensure the security of critical infrastructures is very important and thus the concept of critical infrastructure protection (CIP) has come. The program to realize the CIP at national level becomes the form of statute in each country. On the other hand, it is also needed to protect each individual critical infrastructure. The objective of this paper is to study on an effort to do so, which can be called the CIP system (CIPS). There could be a variety of ways to design CIPS's. Instead of considering the design of each individual CIPS, a reference model-based approach is taken in this paper. The reference model represents the design of all the CIPS's that have many design elements in common. In addition, the development of the reference model is also carried out using a variety of model diagrams. The modeling language used therein is the systems modeling language (SysML), which was developed and is managed by Object Management Group (OMG) and a de facto standard. Using SysML, the structure and operational concept of the reference model are designed to fulfil the goal of CIPS's, resulting in the block definition and activity diagrams. As a case study, the operational scenario of the nuclear power plant while being attacked by terrorists is studied using the reference model. The effectiveness of the results is also analyzed using multiple analysis models. It is thus expected that the approach taken here has some merits

78 FR 73202 - Review and Revision of the National Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience (NCISR...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-12-05

... critical physical and cyber infrastructure. IV. NCISR R&D Plan Outline Below is the list of the topic areas... research and development topics are welcomed. V. Specific Questions Answers to the below specific questions... Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience (NCISR) Research and Development (R&D) Plan Outline and...

The strategy for the development of information society in Serbia by 2020: Information security and critical infrastructure

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danijela D. Protić

2012-10-01

Full Text Available The development of technology has changed the world economy and induced new political trends. The European Union (EU and many non-EU member states apply the strategies of information society development that raise the level of information security (IS. The Serbian Government (Government has adopted the Strategy for Information Society in Serbia by 2020 (Strategy, and pointed to the challenges for the development of a modern Serbian information society. This paper presents an overview of the open-ended questions about IS, critical infrastructures and protection of critical infrastructures. Based on publicly available data, some critical national infrastructures are listed. As a possible solution to the problem of IS, the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI-based Information security integrated information system (ISIIS is presented. The ISIIS provides modularity and interoperability of critical infrastructures both in Serbia and neighboring countries.

The Influence of State Policies on Critical Infrastructure Resilience: An Approach for Analyzing Transportation and Capital Investment

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wall, Thomas [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Trail, Jessica [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Gevondyan, Erna [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Phillips, Julia [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Ford, Janet [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Marks, James [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

2017-09-01

During times of crisis, communities and regions rely heavily on critical infrastructure systems to support their emergency management response and recovery activities. Therefore, the resilience of critical infrastructure systems to crises is a pivotal factor to a community’s overall resilience. Critical infrastructure resilience can be influenced by many factors, including State policies – which are not always uniform in their structure or application across the United States – were identified by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as an area of particular interest with respect to their the influence on the resilience of critical infrastructure systems. This study focuses on developing an analytical methodology to assess links between policy and resilience, and applies that methodology to critical infrastructure in the Transportation Systems Sector. Specifically, this study seeks to identify potentially influential linkages between State transportation capital funding policies and the resilience of bridges located on roadways that are under the management of public agencies. This study yielded notable methodological outcomes, including the general capability of the analytical methodology to yield – in the case of some States – significant results connecting State policies with critical infrastructure resilience, with the suggestion that further refinement of the methodology may be beneficial.

78 FR 6807 - Critical Infrastructure Protection and Cyber Security Trade Mission to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-31

... coordinating and sponsoring an executive-led Critical Infrastructure Protection and Cyber Security mission to... on the cyber security, critical infrastructure protection, and emergency management, ports of entry... security, including border protection, civil defense capabilities, and coast guard and maritime...

A novel critical infrastructure resilience assessment approach using dynamic Bayesian networks

Science.gov (United States)

Cai, Baoping; Xie, Min; Liu, Yonghong; Liu, Yiliu; Ji, Renjie; Feng, Qiang

2017-10-01

The word resilience originally originates from the Latin word "resiliere", which means to "bounce back". The concept has been used in various fields, such as ecology, economics, psychology, and society, with different definitions. In the field of critical infrastructure, although some resilience metrics are proposed, they are totally different from each other, which are determined by the performances of the objects of evaluation. Here we bridge the gap by developing a universal critical infrastructure resilience metric from the perspective of reliability engineering. A dynamic Bayesian networks-based assessment approach is proposed to calculate the resilience value. A series, parallel and voting system is used to demonstrate the application of the developed resilience metric and assessment approach.

The role of minimum supply and social vulnerability assessment for governing critical infrastructure failure: current gaps and future agenda

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Garschagen

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Increased attention has lately been given to the resilience of critical infrastructure in the context of natural hazards and disasters. The major focus therein is on the sensitivity of critical infrastructure technologies and their management contingencies. However, strikingly little attention has been given to assessing and mitigating social vulnerabilities towards the failure of critical infrastructure and to the development, design and implementation of minimum supply standards in situations of major infrastructure failure. Addressing this gap and contributing to a more integrative perspective on critical infrastructure resilience is the objective of this paper. It asks which role social vulnerability assessments and minimum supply considerations can, should and do – or do not – play for the management and governance of critical infrastructure failure. In its first part, the paper provides a structured review on achievements and remaining gaps in the management of critical infrastructure and the understanding of social vulnerabilities towards disaster-related infrastructure failures. Special attention is given to the current state of minimum supply concepts with a regional focus on policies in Germany and the EU. In its second part, the paper then responds to the identified gaps by developing a heuristic model on the linkages of critical infrastructure management, social vulnerability and minimum supply. This framework helps to inform a vision of a future research agenda, which is presented in the paper's third part. Overall, the analysis suggests that the assessment of socially differentiated vulnerabilities towards critical infrastructure failure needs to be undertaken more stringently to inform the scientifically and politically difficult debate about minimum supply standards and the shared responsibilities for securing them.

The role of minimum supply and social vulnerability assessment for governing critical infrastructure failure: current gaps and future agenda

Science.gov (United States)

Garschagen, Matthias; Sandholz, Simone

2018-04-01

Increased attention has lately been given to the resilience of critical infrastructure in the context of natural hazards and disasters. The major focus therein is on the sensitivity of critical infrastructure technologies and their management contingencies. However, strikingly little attention has been given to assessing and mitigating social vulnerabilities towards the failure of critical infrastructure and to the development, design and implementation of minimum supply standards in situations of major infrastructure failure. Addressing this gap and contributing to a more integrative perspective on critical infrastructure resilience is the objective of this paper. It asks which role social vulnerability assessments and minimum supply considerations can, should and do - or do not - play for the management and governance of critical infrastructure failure. In its first part, the paper provides a structured review on achievements and remaining gaps in the management of critical infrastructure and the understanding of social vulnerabilities towards disaster-related infrastructure failures. Special attention is given to the current state of minimum supply concepts with a regional focus on policies in Germany and the EU. In its second part, the paper then responds to the identified gaps by developing a heuristic model on the linkages of critical infrastructure management, social vulnerability and minimum supply. This framework helps to inform a vision of a future research agenda, which is presented in the paper's third part. Overall, the analysis suggests that the assessment of socially differentiated vulnerabilities towards critical infrastructure failure needs to be undertaken more stringently to inform the scientifically and politically difficult debate about minimum supply standards and the shared responsibilities for securing them.

76 FR 50487 - Protected Critical Infrastructure Information (PCII) Stakeholder Survey

Science.gov (United States)

2011-08-15

... DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY [Docket No. DHS-2011-0018] Protected Critical Infrastructure Information (PCII) Stakeholder Survey AGENCY: National Protection and Programs Directorate, DHS. ACTION: 30... Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), Office of...

76 FR 17935 - Protected Critical Infrastructure Information (PCII) Stakeholder Survey

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-31

... DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY [Docket No. DHS-2011-0018] Protected Critical Infrastructure Information (PCII) Stakeholder Survey AGENCY: National Protection and Programs Directorate, DHS. ACTION: 60... Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), Office of...

Increasing impacts of climate extremes on critical infrastructures in Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Forzieri, Giovanni; Bianchi, Alessandra; Feyen, Luc; Silva, Filipe Batista e.; Marin, Mario; Lavalle, Carlo; Leblois, Antoine

2016-04-01

The projected increases in exposure to multiple climate hazards in many regions of Europe, emphasize the relevance of a multi-hazard risk assessment to comprehensively quantify potential impacts of climate change and develop suitable adaptation strategies. In this context, quantifying the future impacts of climatic extremes on critical infrastructures is crucial due to their key role for human wellbeing and their effects on the overall economy. Critical infrastructures describe the existing assets and systems that are essential for the maintenance of vital societal functions, health, safety, security, economic or social well-being of people, and the disruption or destruction of which would have a significant impact as a result of the failure to maintain those functions. We assess the direct damages of heat and cold waves, river and coastal flooding, droughts, wildfires and windstorms to energy, transport, industry and social infrastructures in Europe along the 21st century. The methodology integrates in a coherent framework climate hazard, exposure and vulnerability components. Overall damage is expected to rise up to 38 billion €/yr, ten time-folds the current climate damage, with drastic variations in risk scenarios. Exemplificative are drought and heat-related damages that could represent 70% of the overall climate damage in 2080s versus the current 12%. Many regions, prominently Southern Europe, will likely suffer multiple stresses and systematic infrastructure failures due to climate extremes if no suitable adaptation measures will be taken.

A Good Practice Guide on Critical Infor-mation Infrastructure Protection

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Luiijf, H.A.M.; Schie, T.C.C. van

2017-01-01

Early 2016, the Meridian Process and the GFCE tasked the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research TNO to develop a Good Practice Guide on Critical Information Infrastructure Protection (CIIP) for governmental policy-makers [1]. The guide primarily aims at governmental policy-makers,

NEW ASPECTS REGARDING THE EVALUATION OF INVESTMENTS IN CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lupan Mariana

2009-05-01

Full Text Available The additional risks associated to the actual global and contagious crisis put a severe pressure on the investments in critical infrastructure and there is a real need for new valuations especially those regarding the synergic financing strategies in crit

DIESIS : An Interoperable European Federated Simulation Network for Critical Infrastructures

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rome, E.; Bologna, S.; Gelenbe, E.; Luiijf, H.A.M.; Masucci, V.

2009-01-01

Critical Infrastructures (CI) that are vital for a society and an economy, such as telecommunication systems, energy supply systems, transport systems and others, are getting more and more complex. Dependencies emerge in various ways, due to the use of information and communication technologies,

Trustworthy Critical Infrastructures via Physics-Aware Just-Ahead-Of-Time Verification

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2017-01-01

Dr. Saman Zonouz, assistant professor at Rutgers University, NJ and the director of the 4N6 Cyber Security and Forensics Laboratory is visiting CERN for a collaboration meeting. His previous works and research interests include PLC program analysis, security of embedded systems, and malware analysis and reverse engineering. Before the collaboration meeting, Dr. Zonouz is giving a 30-minutes-long talk, titled 'Trustworthy Critical Infrastructures via Physics-Aware Just-Ahead-Of-Time Verification', followed by Q&A and discussions. You can find the abstract of the talk below. The presentation is open to anyone interested, but please register on Indico to know the size of the room needed. (Please note the new room: 31/3-004, IT Auditorium.) Abstract Critical cyber-physical infrastructures, such as the power grid, integrate networks of computational and physical processes to provide the people across the globe with essential functionalities and services. Protecting these critical infrastructu...

Defense Industrial Base: Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources Sector-Specific Plan as Input to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

2007-01-01

This Defense Industrial Base (DIB) Sector-Specific Plan (SSP), developed in collaboration with industry and government security partners, provides sector-level critical infrastructure and key resources (CI/KR...

Protection of critical infrastructure using fiber optic sensors embedded in technical textiles

Science.gov (United States)

Krebber, Katerina; Lenke, Philipp; Liehr, Sascha; Noether, Nils; Wendt, Mario; Wosniok, Aleksander

2010-04-01

Terrorists and criminals more and more attack and destroy important infrastructures like routes, railways, bridges, tunnels, dikes and dams, important buildings. Therefore, reliable on-line and long-term monitoring systems are required to protect such critical infrastructures. Fiber optic sensors are well-suited for that. They can be installed over many kilometers and are able to measure continuously distributed strain, pressure, temperature and further mechanical and physical quantities. The very tiny optical fibers can be integrated into structures and materials and can provide information about any significant changes or damages of the structures. These so-called smart materials and smart structures are able to monitor itself or its environment. Particularly smart technical textiles with embedded fiber optic sensors have become very attractive because of their high importance for the structural health monitoring of geotechnical and masonry infrastructures. Such textiles are usually used for reinforcement of the structures; the embedded fiber optic sensors provide information about the condition of the structures and detect the presence of any damages and destructions in real time. Thus, critical infrastructures can be preventively protected. The paper will introduce this innovative field and will present the results achieved within several German and European projects.

Emergent Risks In Critical Infrastructures

Science.gov (United States)

Dynes, Scott

Firms cannot function successfully without managing a host of internal and external organizational and process interdependencies. Part of this involves business continuity planning, which directly aects how resilient arm and its business sector are in the face of disruptions. This paper presents the results of eld studies related to information risk management practices in the health care and retail sectors. The studies explore information risk management coordinating signals within and across rms in these sectors as well as the potential eects of cyber disruptions on the rms as stand-alone entities and as part of a critical infrastructure. The health care case study investigates the impact of the Zotob worm on the ability to deliver medical care and treatment. The retail study examines the resilience of certain elements of the food supply chain to cyber disruptions.

Planning virtual infrastructures for time critical applications with multiple deadline constraints

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wang, J.; Taal, A.; Martin, P.; Hu, Y.; Zhou, H.; Pang, J.; de Laat, C.; Zhao, Z.

2017-01-01

Executing time critical applications within cloud environments while satisfying execution deadlines and response time requirements is challenging due to the difficulty of securing guaranteed performance from the underlying virtual infrastructure. Cost-effective solutions for hosting such

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) Systems and Cyber-Security: Best Practices to Secure Critical Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Morsey, Christopher

2017-01-01

In the critical infrastructure world, many critical infrastructure sectors use a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. The sectors that use SCADA systems are the electric power, nuclear power and water. These systems are used to control, monitor and extract data from the systems that give us all the ability to light our homes…

Visualizing common operating picture of critical infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Rummukainen, Lauri; Oksama, Lauri; Timonen, Jussi; Vankka, Jouko

2014-05-01

This paper presents a solution for visualizing the common operating picture (COP) of the critical infrastructure (CI). The purpose is to improve the situational awareness (SA) of the strategic-level actor and the source system operator in order to support decision making. The information is obtained through the Situational Awareness of Critical Infrastructure and Networks (SACIN) framework. The system consists of an agent-based solution for gathering, storing, and analyzing the information, and a user interface (UI) is presented in this paper. The UI consists of multiple views visualizing information from the CI in different ways. Different CI actors are categorized in 11 separate sectors, and events are used to present meaningful incidents. Past and current states, together with geographical distribution and logical dependencies, are presented to the user. The current states are visualized as segmented circles to represent event categories. Geographical distribution of assets is displayed with a well-known map tool. Logical dependencies are presented in a simple directed graph, and users also have a timeline to review past events. The objective of the UI is to provide an easily understandable overview of the CI status. Therefore, testing methods, such as a walkthrough, an informal walkthrough, and the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT), were used in the evaluation of the UI. Results showed that users were able to obtain an understanding of the current state of CI, and the usability of the UI was rated as good. In particular, the designated display for the CI overview and the timeline were found to be efficient.

A Methodology and Toolkit for Deploying Reliable Security Policies in Critical Infrastructures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Faouzi Jaïdi

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Substantial advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT bring out novel concepts, solutions, trends, and challenges to integrate intelligent and autonomous systems in critical infrastructures. A new generation of ICT environments (such as smart cities, Internet of Things, edge-fog-social-cloud computing, and big data analytics is emerging; it has different applications to critical domains (such as transportation, communication, finance, commerce, and healthcare and different interconnections via multiple layers of public and private networks, forming a grid of critical cyberphysical infrastructures. Protecting sensitive and private data and services in critical infrastructures is, at the same time, a main objective and a great challenge for deploying secure systems. It essentially requires setting up trusted security policies. Unfortunately, security solutions should remain compliant and regularly updated to follow and track the evolution of security threats. To address this issue, we propose an advanced methodology for deploying and monitoring the compliance of trusted access control policies. Our proposal extends the traditional life cycle of access control policies with pertinent activities. It integrates formal and semiformal techniques allowing the specification, the verification, the implementation, the reverse-engineering, the validation, the risk assessment, and the optimization of access control policies. To automate and facilitate the practice of our methodology, we introduce our system SVIRVRO that allows managing the extended life cycle of access control policies. We refer to an illustrative example to highlight the relevance of our contributions.

Enabling software defined networking experiments in networked critical infrastructures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Béla Genge

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, the fact that Networked Critical Infrastructures (NCI, e.g., power plants, water plants, oil and gas distribution infrastructures, and electricity grids, are targeted by significant cyber threats is well known. Nevertheless, recent research has shown that specific characteristics of NCI can be exploited in the enabling of more efficient mitigation techniques, while novel techniques from the field of IP networks can bring significant advantages. In this paper we explore the interconnection of NCI communication infrastructures with Software Defined Networking (SDN-enabled network topologies. SDN provides the means to create virtual networking services and to implement global networking decisions. It relies on OpenFlow to enable communication with remote devices and has been recently categorized as the “Next Big Technology”, which will revolutionize the way decisions are implemented in switches and routers. Therefore, the paper documents the first steps towards enabling an SDN-NCI and presents the impact of a Denial of Service experiment over traffic resulting from an XBee sensor network which is routed across an emulated SDN network.

RISK ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION FOR CRITICAL LOGISTICAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sascha Düerkop

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Logistical infrastructure builds the backbone of an economy. Without an effective logistical infrastructure in place, the supply for both enterprises and consumers might not be met. But even a high-quality logistical infrastructure can be threatened by risks. Thus, it is important to identify, analyse, and evaluate risks for logistical infrastructure that might threaten logistical processes. Only if those risks are known and their impact estimated, decision makers can implement counteractive measures to reduce risks. In this article, we develop a network-based approach that allows for the evaluation of risks and their consequences onto the logistical network. We will demonstrate the relevance of this approach by applying it to the logistics network of the central German state of Hesse. Even though transport data is extensively tracked and recorded nowadays, typical daily risks, like accidents on a motorway, and extraordinary risks, like a bridge at risk to collapse, terrorist attacks or climate-related catastrophes, are not systematically anticipated. Several studies unveiled recently that the overall impact for an economy of possible failures of single nodes and/or edges in a network are not calculated, and particularly critical edges are not identified in advance. We address this information gap by a method that helps to identify and quantify risks in a given network. To reach this objective, we define a mathematical optimization model that quantifies the current “risk-related costs” of the overall network and quantify the risk by investigating the change of the overall costs in the case a risk is realized.

Applying the Msharpp Method in Risk Assessment for the Water Supply Critical Infrastructure Sector

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Badea Dorel

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The paper highlights a manner to assess risks for an important sector of critical infrastructure, that of water supply, frequently regulated in international legal systems. We took into consideration the fact that risk is a problem related to the processes of decision making under conditions of uncertainty in most cases, so that by this approach we bring to the attention of critical infrastructure managers, drawing on their experience, a simple method that can be considered in a preliminary stage of risk assessment specific to water supply.

System Dynamics Approach for Critical Infrastructure and Decision Support. A Model for a Potable Water System.

Science.gov (United States)

Pasqualini, D.; Witkowski, M.

2005-12-01

The Critical Infrastructure Protection / Decision Support System (CIP/DSS) project, supported by the Science and Technology Office, has been developing a risk-informed Decision Support System that provides insights for making critical infrastructure protection decisions. The system considers seventeen different Department of Homeland Security defined Critical Infrastructures (potable water system, telecommunications, public health, economics, etc.) and their primary interdependencies. These infrastructures have been modeling in one model called CIP/DSS Metropolitan Model. The modeling approach used is a system dynamics modeling approach. System dynamics modeling combines control theory and the nonlinear dynamics theory, which is defined by a set of coupled differential equations, which seeks to explain how the structure of a given system determines its behavior. In this poster we present a system dynamics model for one of the seventeen critical infrastructures, a generic metropolitan potable water system (MPWS). Three are the goals: 1) to gain a better understanding of the MPWS infrastructure; 2) to identify improvements that would help protect MPWS; and 3) to understand the consequences, interdependencies, and impacts, when perturbations occur to the system. The model represents raw water sources, the metropolitan water treatment process, storage of treated water, damage and repair to the MPWS, distribution of water, and end user demand, but does not explicitly represent the detailed network topology of an actual MPWS. The MPWS model is dependent upon inputs from the metropolitan population, energy, telecommunication, public health, and transportation models as well as the national water and transportation models. We present modeling results and sensitivity analysis indicating critical choke points, negative and positive feedback loops in the system. A general scenario is also analyzed where the potable water system responds to a generic disruption.

Multi-stage crypto ransomware attacks: A new emerging cyber threat to critical infrastructure and industrial control systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aaron Zimba

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The inevitable integration of critical infrastructure to public networks has exposed the underlying industrial control systems to various attack vectors. In this paper, we model multi-stage crypto ransomware attacks, which are today an emerging cyber threat to critical infrastructure. We evaluate our modeling approach using multi-stage attacks by the infamous WannaCry ransomware. The static malware analysis results uncover the techniques employed by the ransomware to discover vulnerable nodes in different SCADA and production subnets, and for the subsequent network propagation. Based on the uncovered artifacts, we recommend a cascaded network segmentation approach, which prioritizes the security of production network devices. Keywords: Critical infrastructure, Cyber-attack, Industrial control system, Crypto ransomware, Vulnerability

Modelling a critical infrastructure-driven spatial database for proactive disaster management: A developing country context

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David O. Baloye

2016-04-01

Full Text Available The understanding and institutionalisation of the seamless link between urban critical infrastructure and disaster management has greatly helped the developed world to establish effective disaster management processes. However, this link is conspicuously missing in developing countries, where disaster management has been more reactive than proactive. The consequence of this is typified in poor response time and uncoordinated ways in which disasters and emergency situations are handled. As is the case with many Nigerian cities, the challenges of urban development in the city of Abeokuta have limited the effectiveness of disaster and emergency first responders and managers. Using geospatial techniques, the study attempted to design and deploy a spatial database running a web-based information system to track the characteristics and distribution of critical infrastructure for effective use during disaster and emergencies, with the purpose of proactively improving disaster and emergency management processes in Abeokuta. Keywords: Disaster Management; Emergency; Critical Infrastructure; Geospatial Database; Developing Countries; Nigeria

Counter terrorism functions to enhance critical infrastructure resilience against CBRNe terrorism

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bonsen, I.M.; Gaasbeek, R.C.

2009-01-01

Current approaches in critical infrastructure protection use long lists of items that fail to give its user a structured answer to the state of protection of its object. The functionality approach uses different terrorist functions to structure the threat (which are to have intent, to scout, to

Managing the complexity of critical infrastructures a modelling and simulation approach

CERN Document Server

Rosato, Vittorio; Kyriakides, Elias; Rome, Erich

2016-01-01

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book summarizes work being pursued in the context of the CIPRNet (Critical Infrastructure Preparedness and Resilience Research Network) research project, co-funded by the European Union under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The project is intended to provide concrete and on-going support to the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) research communities, enhancing their preparedness for CI-related emergencies, while also providing expertise and technologies for other stakeholders to promote their understanding and mitigation of the consequences of CI disruptions, leading to enhanced resilience. The book collects the tutorial material developed by the authors for several courses on the modelling, simulation and analysis of CIs, representing extensive and integrated CIP expertise. It will help CI stakeholders, CI operators and civil protection authorities understand the complex system of CIs, and help them adapt to these changes and threats in or...

Flood Risk Assessment on Selected Critical Infrastructure in Kota Marudu Town, Sabah, Malaysia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ayog Janice Lynn

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This study investigates the risk of flood on selected critical infrastructure in a flood-prone catchment in Sabah, Malaysia. Kota Marudu, located in the Bandau floodplain, one of the Sabah’s northern water catchments, was selected as the study site due to its frequent flood occurrence and large floodplain coverage. Two of its largest rivers, namely Sungai Bongon and Sungai Bandau, tends to flood during rainy season and cause temporary displacements of thousands of people living in the floodplain. A total of 362 respondents participated in the questionnaire survey in order to gather information on historical flood occurrence. Three flood depth groups were determined, which are 1 less than 0.3 meter, 2 0.3 – 0.6 meter and 3 more than 0.6 meter, while three categories of critical infrastructure were defined, namely transportation system, communication system and buildings. It is found that the transportation system encounters the most severe impact as flood inundation increases, where 92% of the respondents believe that the transportation access should be abandoned when flood depth is more than 0.6m. The findings of this study will be used for detailed risk assessment, specifically on the vulnerability of the critical infrastructures to flood in this floodplain.

Organizational Strategies for Critical Transportation Infrastructure: Characteristics of Urban Resilience. The Case of Montreal.

Science.gov (United States)

Beauregard, Stéphane; Therrien, Marie-Christine; Normandin, Julie-Maude

2010-05-01

Organizational Strategies for Critical Transportation Infrastructure: Characteristics of Urban Resilience. The Case of Montreal. Stéphane Beauregard M.Sc. Candidate École nationale d'administration publique Julie-Maude Normandin Ph.D. Candidate École nationale d'administration publique Marie-Christine Therrien Professor École nationale d'administration publique The proposed paper presents preliminary results on the resilience of organizations managing critical infrastructure in the Metropolitan Montreal area (Canada). A resilient city is characterized by a network of infrastructures and individuals capable of maintaining their activities in spite of a disturbance (Godschalk, 2002). Critical infrastructures provide essential services for the functioning of society. In a crisis situation, the interruption or a decrease in performance of critical infrastructures could have important impacts on the population. They are also vulnerable to accidents and cascading effects because on their complexity and tight interdependence (Perrow, 1984). For these reasons, protection and security of the essential assets and networks are one of the objectives of organizations and governments. But prevention and recovery are two endpoints of a continuum which include also intermediate concerns: ensuring organizational robustness or failing with elegance rather than catastrophically. This continuum also includes organizational resilience (or system), or the ability to recover quickly after an interruption has occurred. Wildavsky (1988) proposes that anticipation strategies work better against known problems while resilience strategies focus on unknown problems. Anticipation policies can unnecessarily immobilize investments against risks, while resilience strategies include the potential for a certain sacrifice in the interests of a more long-term survival and adaptation to changing threats. In addition, a too large confidence in anticipation strategies can bring loss of capacity of an

Identification of critical locations across multiple infrastructures for terrorist actions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Patterson, S.A.; Apostolakis, G.E.

2007-01-01

This paper presents a possible approach to ranking geographic regions that can influence multiple infrastructures. Once ranked, decision makers can determine whether these regions are critical locations based on their susceptibility to terrorist acts. We identify these locations by calculating a value for a geographic region that represents the combined values to the decision makers of all the infrastructures crossing through that region. These values, as well as the size of the geographic region, are conditional on an assumed destructive threat of a given size. In our case study, the threat is assumed to be minor, e.g., a bomb that can affect objects within 7 m of it. This approach first requires an assessment of the users of the system. During this assessment, each user is assigned a performance index (PI) based on the disutility of the loss of each infrastructure's resource via multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT). A Monte Carlo network analysis is then performed to develop importance measures (IM) for the elements of each infrastructure for their ability to service each user. We combine the IMs with the user PIs to a value that we call valued worth (VW) for each infrastructure's elements independently. Then we use spatial analysis techniques within a geographic information system (GIS) to combine the VWs of each infrastructure's elements in a geographic area, conditional on the threat, into a total value we call geographic valued worth (GVW). The GVW is displayed graphically in the GIS system in a color scheme that shows the numerical ranking of these geographic areas. The map and rankings are then submitted to the decision makers to better allocate anti-terrorism resources. A case study of this methodology is performed on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus. The results of the study show how the methodology can bring attention to areas that are important when several infrastructures are considered, but may be ignored when infrastructures

Geovisualization applications to examine and explore high-density and hierarchical critical infrastructure data

Science.gov (United States)

Edsall, Robert; Hembree, Harvey

2018-05-01

The geospatial research and development team in the National and Homeland Security Division at Idaho National Laboratory was tasked with providing tools to derive insight from the substantial amount of data currently available - and continuously being produced - associated with the critical infrastructure of the US. This effort is in support of the Department of Homeland Security, whose mission includes the protection of this infrastructure and the enhancement of its resilience to hazards, both natural and human. We present geovisual-analytics-based approaches for analysis of vulnerabilities and resilience of critical infrastructure, designed so that decision makers, analysts, and infrastructure owners and managers can manage risk, prepare for hazards, and direct resources before and after an incident that might result in an interruption in service. Our designs are based on iterative discussions with DHS leadership and analysts, who in turn will use these tools to explore and communicate data in partnership with utility providers, law enforcement, and emergency response and recovery organizations, among others. In most cases these partners desire summaries of large amounts of data, but increasingly, our users seek the additional capability of focusing on, for example, a specific infrastructure sector, a particular geographic region, or time period, or of examining data in a variety of generalization or aggregation levels. These needs align well with tenets of in-formation-visualization design; in this paper, selected applications among those that we have designed are described and positioned within geovisualization, geovisual analytical, and information visualization frameworks.

Cyber resilience: a review of critical national infrastructure and cyber security protection measures applied in the UK and USA.

Science.gov (United States)

Harrop, Wayne; Matteson, Ashley

This paper presents cyber resilience as key strand of national security. It establishes the importance of critical national infrastructure protection and the growing vicarious nature of remote, well-planned, and well executed cyber attacks on critical infrastructures. Examples of well-known historical cyber attacks are presented, and the emergence of 'internet of things' as a cyber vulnerability issue yet to be tackled is explored. The paper identifies key steps being undertaken by those responsible for detecting, deterring, and disrupting cyber attacks on critical national infrastructure in the United Kingdom and the USA.

Fragility: The Next Wave in Critical Infrastructure Protection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Allan McDougall

2009-01-01

Full Text Available In North America today, we are about to embark on a significant effort to repair, or even upgrade, many aspects of our infrastructure. Many of these efforts are linked to economic recovery packages. Others are based on sheer need. The challenge for decision makers and planners involves ensuring that scarce economic resources are put to their best use. Understanding the concept of fragility plays a pivotal part in reaching that understanding.Fragility, like many other systems—particularly Information Technology (IT systems—works on the concept of subjects and objects. Subjects are those entities that seek to exploit the services (or capacity offered by the object. Objects, on the other hand, are those entities that deliver some good or service to the overall system. Of course, something may act as the object in one pairing and the subject in another pairing—they are not exclusive in nature.

Multi-stage crypto ransomware attacks: A new emerging cyber threat to critical infrastructure and industrial control systems

OpenAIRE

Aaron Zimba; Zhaoshun Wang; Hongsong Chen

2018-01-01

The inevitable integration of critical infrastructure to public networks has exposed the underlying industrial control systems to various attack vectors. In this paper, we model multi-stage crypto ransomware attacks, which are today an emerging cyber threat to critical infrastructure. We evaluate our modeling approach using multi-stage attacks by the infamous WannaCry ransomware. The static malware analysis results uncover the techniques employed by the ransomware to discover vulnerable nodes...

Railway infrastructure security

CERN Document Server

Sforza, Antonio; Vittorini, Valeria; Pragliola, Concetta

2015-01-01

This comprehensive monograph addresses crucial issues in the protection of railway systems, with the objective of enhancing the understanding of railway infrastructure security. Based on analyses by academics, technology providers, and railway operators, it explains how to assess terrorist and criminal threats, design countermeasures, and implement effective security strategies. In so doing, it draws upon a range of experiences from different countries in Europe and beyond. The book is the first to be devoted entirely to this subject. It will serve as a timely reminder of the attractiveness of the railway infrastructure system as a target for criminals and terrorists and, more importantly, as a valuable resource for stakeholders and professionals in the railway security field aiming to develop effective security based on a mix of methodological, technological, and organizational tools. Besides researchers and decision makers in the field, the book will appeal to students interested in critical infrastructur...

Assessing the Vulnerability of Large Critical Infrastructure Using Fully-Coupled Blast Effects Modeling

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

McMichael, L D; Noble, C R; Margraf, J D; Glascoe, L G

2009-03-26

Structural failures, such as the MacArthur Maze I-880 overpass in Oakland, California and the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, are recent examples of our national infrastructure's fragility and serve as an important reminder of such infrastructure in our everyday lives. These two failures, as well as the World Trade Center's collapse and the levee failures in New Orleans, highlight the national importance of protecting our infrastructure as much as possible against acts of terrorism and natural hazards. This paper describes a process for evaluating the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to large blast loads using a fully-coupled finite element approach. A description of the finite element software and modeling technique is discussed along with the experimental validation of the numerical tools. We discuss how such an approach can be used for specific problems such as modeling the progressive collapse of a building.

Integration of resilience capabilities for Critical Infrastructures into the Emergency Management set-up

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kozine, Igor; Andersen, Henning Boje

2015-01-01

We suggest an approach for maintaining and enhancing resilience that integrates the resilience capabilities of Critical Infrastructures (CIs) into the emergency management cycle (prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery). This allows emergency services to explicitly address resilience...

Subject Comprehension and Critical Thinking: An Intervention for Subject Comprehension and Critical Thinking in Mixed-Academic-Ability University Students

Science.gov (United States)

Bellaera, Lauren; Debney, Lauren; Baker, Sara T.

2016-01-01

Subject comprehension and critical thinking are both key goals of higher education. However, while the former is, on the whole, successfully cultivated in undergraduate students, the latter is not. Few empirical studies have investigated the relationship between subject comprehension and critical thinking. In the present article we suggest that…

Review on modeling and simulation of interdependent critical infrastructure systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ouyang, Min

2014-01-01

Modern societies are becoming increasingly dependent on critical infrastructure systems (CISs) to provide essential services that support economic prosperity, governance, and quality of life. These systems are not alone but interdependent at multiple levels to enhance their overall performance. However, recent worldwide events such as the 9/11 terrorist attack, Gulf Coast hurricanes, the Chile and Japanese earthquakes, and even heat waves have highlighted that interdependencies among CISs increase the potential for cascading failures and amplify the impact of both large and small scale initial failures into events of catastrophic proportions. To better understand CISs to support planning, maintenance and emergency decision making, modeling and simulation of interdependencies across CISs has recently become a key field of study. This paper reviews the studies in the field and broadly groups the existing modeling and simulation approaches into six types: empirical approaches, agent based approaches, system dynamics based approaches, economic theory based approaches, network based approaches, and others. Different studies for each type of the approaches are categorized and reviewed in terms of fundamental principles, such as research focus, modeling rationale, and the analysis method, while different types of approaches are further compared according to several criteria, such as the notion of resilience. Finally, this paper offers future research directions and identifies critical challenges in the field. - Highlights: • Modeling approaches on interdependent critical infrastructure systems are reviewed. • I mainly review empirical, agent-based, system-dynamics, economic, network approaches. • Studies by each approach are sorted out in terms of fundamental principles. • Different approaches are further compared with resilience as the main criterion

Cyber security deterrence and it protection for critical infrastructures

CERN Document Server

Martellini, Maurizio

2013-01-01

The experts of the International Working Group-Landau Network Centro Volta (IWG-LNCV) discuss aspects of cyber security and present possible methods of deterrence, defense and resilience against cyber attacks. This SpringerBrief covers state-of-the-art documentation on the deterrence power of cyber attacks and argues that nations are entering a new cyber arms race. The brief also provides a technical analysis of possible cyber attacks towards critical infrastructures in the chemical industry and chemical safety industry. The authors also propose modern analyses and a holistic approach to resil

Protective design of critical infrastructure with high performance concretes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Riedel, W.; Nöldgen, M.; Stolz, A.; Roller, C.

2012-01-01

Conclusions: High performance concrete constructions will allow innovative design solutions for critical infrastructures. Validation of engineering methods can reside on large and model scale experiments conducted on conventional concrete structures. New consistent impact experiments show extreme protection potential for UHPC. Modern FEM with concrete models and explicit rebar can model HPC and UHPC penetration resistance. SDOF and TDOF approaches are valuable design tools on local and global level. Combination of at least 2 out of 3 design methods FEM – XDOF- EXP allow reliable prediction and efficient innovative designs

Cyber Vulnerabilities Within Critical Infrastructure: The Flaws of Industrial Control Systems in the Oil and Gas Industry

Science.gov (United States)

Alpi, Danielle Marie

The 16 sectors of critical infrastructure in the US are susceptible to cyber-attacks. Potential attacks come from internal and external threats. These attacks target the industrial control systems (ICS) of companies within critical infrastructure. Weakness in the energy sector's ICS, specifically the oil and gas industry, can result in economic and ecological disaster. The purpose of this study was to establish means for oil companies to identify and stop cyber-attacks specifically APT threats. This research reviewed current cyber vulnerabilities and ways in which a cyber-attack may be deterred. This research found that there are insecure devices within ICS that are not regularly updated. Therefore, security issues have amassed. Safety procedures and training thereof are often neglected. Jurisdiction is unclear in regard to critical infrastructure. The recommendations this research offers are further examination of information sharing methods, development of analytic platforms, and better methods for the implementation of defense-in-depth security measures.

Protecting America: Reorganizing the Nation's Security Forces to Ensure the Protection of Our Critical Infrastructure

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Williams

2004-01-01

.... This national strategy amplified the significant responsibilities of states, localities, the private sector, and private citizens to protect and defend our communities and our critical infrastructure...

PROTECTING CRITICAL DATABASES – TOWARDS A RISK-BASED ASSESSMENT OF CRITICAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURES (CIIS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mzukisi N Njotini

2013-04-01

Full Text Available South Africa has made great strides towards protecting critical information infrastructures (CIIs. For example, South Africa recognises the significance of safeguarding places or areas that are essential to the national security of South Africa or the economic and social well-being of South African citizens. For this reason South Africa has established mechanisms to assist in preserving the integrity and security of CIIs. The measures provide inter alia for the identification of CIIs; the registration of the full names, address and contact details of the CII administrators (the persons who manage CIIs; the identification of the location(s of CIIs or their component parts; and the outlining of the general descriptions of information or data stored in CIIs.It is argued that the measures to protect CIIs in South Africa are inadequate. In particular, the measures rely on a one-size-fits-all approach to identify and classify CIIs. For this reason the South African measures are likely to lead to the adoption of a paradigm that considers every infrastructure, data or database, regardless of its significance or importance, to be key or critical.

Trust and Reputation Management for Critical Infrastructure Protection

Science.gov (United States)

Caldeira, Filipe; Monteiro, Edmundo; Simões, Paulo

Today's Critical Infrastructures (CI) depend of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to deliver their services with the required level of quality and availability. ICT security plays a major role in CI protection and risk prevention for single and also for interconnected CIs were cascading effects might occur because of the interdependencies that exist among different CIs. This paper addresses the problem of ICT security in interconnected CIs. Trust and reputation management using the Policy Based Management paradigm is the proposed solution to be applied at the CI interconnection points for information exchange. The proposed solution is being applied to the Security Mediation Gateway being developed in the European FP7 MICIE project, to allow for information exchange among interconnected CIs.

Network Randomization and Dynamic Defense for Critical Infrastructure Systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chavez, Adrian R. [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Martin, Mitchell Tyler [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Hamlet, Jason [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Stout, William M.S. [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Lee, Erik [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

2015-04-01

Critical Infrastructure control systems continue to foster predictable communication paths, static configurations, and unpatched systems that allow easy access to our nation's most critical assets. This makes them attractive targets for cyber intrusion. We seek to address these attack vectors by automatically randomizing network settings, randomizing applications on the end devices themselves, and dynamically defending these systems against active attacks. Applying these protective measures will convert control systems into moving targets that proactively defend themselves against attack. Sandia National Laboratories has led this effort by gathering operational and technical requirements from Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and performing research and development to create a proof-of-concept solution. Our proof-of-concept has been tested in a laboratory environment with over 300 nodes. The vision of this project is to enhance control system security by converting existing control systems into moving targets and building these security measures into future systems while meeting the unique constraints that control systems face.

Critical infrastructure systems of systems assessment methodology.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sholander, Peter E.; Darby, John L.; Phelan, James M.; Smith, Bryan; Wyss, Gregory Dane; Walter, Andrew; Varnado, G. Bruce; Depoy, Jennifer Mae

2006-10-01

Assessing the risk of malevolent attacks against large-scale critical infrastructures requires modifications to existing methodologies that separately consider physical security and cyber security. This research has developed a risk assessment methodology that explicitly accounts for both physical and cyber security, while preserving the traditional security paradigm of detect, delay, and respond. This methodology also accounts for the condition that a facility may be able to recover from or mitigate the impact of a successful attack before serious consequences occur. The methodology uses evidence-based techniques (which are a generalization of probability theory) to evaluate the security posture of the cyber protection systems. Cyber threats are compared against cyber security posture using a category-based approach nested within a path-based analysis to determine the most vulnerable cyber attack path. The methodology summarizes the impact of a blended cyber/physical adversary attack in a conditional risk estimate where the consequence term is scaled by a ''willingness to pay'' avoidance approach.

The role of network theory and object-oriented modeling within a framework for the vulnerability analysis of critical infrastructures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eusgeld, Irene; Kroeger, Wolfgang; Sansavini, Giovanni; Schlaepfer, Markus; Zio, Enrico

2009-01-01

A framework for the analysis of the vulnerability of critical infrastructures has been proposed by some of the authors. The framework basically consists of two successive stages: (i) a screening analysis for identifying the parts of the critical infrastructure most relevant with respect to its vulnerability and (ii) a detailed modeling of the operational dynamics of the identified parts for gaining insights on the causes and mechanisms responsible for the vulnerability. In this paper, a critical presentation is offered of the results of a set of investigations aimed at evaluating the potentials of (i) using network analysis based on measures of topological interconnection and reliability efficiency, for the screening task; (ii) using object-oriented modeling as the simulation framework to capture the detailed dynamics of the operational scenarios involving the most vulnerable parts of the critical infrastructure as identified by the preceding network analysis. A case study based on the Swiss high-voltage transmission system is considered. The results are cross-compared and evaluated; the needs of further research are defined

Critical infrastructure monitoring using UAV imagery

Science.gov (United States)

Maltezos, Evangelos; Skitsas, Michael; Charalambous, Elisavet; Koutras, Nikolaos; Bliziotis, Dimitris; Themistocleous, Kyriacos

2016-08-01

The constant technological evolution in Computer Vision enabled the development of new techniques which in conjunction with the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) may extract high quality photogrammetric products for several applications. Dense Image Matching (DIM) is a Computer Vision technique that can generate a dense 3D point cloud of an area or object. The use of UAV systems and DIM techniques is not only a flexible and attractive solution to produce accurate and high qualitative photogrammetric results but also is a major contribution to cost effectiveness. In this context, this study aims to highlight the benefits of the use of the UAVs in critical infrastructure monitoring applying DIM. A Multi-View Stereo (MVS) approach using multiple images (RGB digital aerial and oblique images), to fully cover the area of interest, is implemented. The application area is an Olympic venue in Attica, Greece, at an area of 400 acres. The results of our study indicate that the UAV+DIM approach respond very well to the increasingly greater demands for accurate and cost effective applications when provided with, a 3D point cloud and orthomosaic.

Concepts to Analyze the Vulnerability of Critical Infrastructures - Taking into account Cybernetics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Frédéric Petit

2010-02-01

Full Text Available Critical Infrastructures (CIs are complex systems. For their operations, these infrastructures are increasingly using Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA systems. Management practices are therefore highly dependent on the cyber tools, but also on the data needed to make these tools work. Therefore, CIs are greatly vulnerable to degradation of data. In this context, this paper aims at presenting the fundamentals of a method for analyzing the vulnerabilities of CIs towards the use of cyber data. By characterizing cyber vulnerability of CIs, it will be possible to improve the resilience of these networks and to foster a proactive approach to risk management not only by considering cybernetics from a cyber-attack point of view but also by considering the consequences of the use of corrupted data.

Design of a Mobile Agent-Based Adaptive Communication Middleware for Federations of Critical Infrastructure Simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Görbil, Gökçe; Gelenbe, Erol

The simulation of critical infrastructures (CI) can involve the use of diverse domain specific simulators that run on geographically distant sites. These diverse simulators must then be coordinated to run concurrently in order to evaluate the performance of critical infrastructures which influence each other, especially in emergency or resource-critical situations. We therefore describe the design of an adaptive communication middleware that provides reliable and real-time one-to-one and group communications for federations of CI simulators over a wide-area network (WAN). The proposed middleware is composed of mobile agent-based peer-to-peer (P2P) overlays, called virtual networks (VNets), to enable resilient, adaptive and real-time communications over unreliable and dynamic physical networks (PNets). The autonomous software agents comprising the communication middleware monitor their performance and the underlying PNet, and dynamically adapt the P2P overlay and migrate over the PNet in order to optimize communications according to the requirements of the federation and the current conditions of the PNet. Reliable communications is provided via redundancy within the communication middleware and intelligent migration of agents over the PNet. The proposed middleware integrates security methods in order to protect the communication infrastructure against attacks and provide privacy and anonymity to the participants of the federation. Experiments with an initial version of the communication middleware over a real-life networking testbed show that promising improvements can be obtained for unicast and group communications via the agent migration capability of our middleware.

Cyber and physical infrastructure interdependencies.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Phillips, Laurence R.; Kelic, Andjelka; Warren, Drake E.

2008-09-01

The goal of the work discussed in this document is to understand the risk to the nation of cyber attacks on critical infrastructures. The large body of research results on cyber attacks against physical infrastructure vulnerabilities has not resulted in clear understanding of the cascading effects a cyber-caused disruption can have on critical national infrastructures and the ability of these affected infrastructures to deliver services. This document discusses current research and methodologies aimed at assessing the translation of a cyber-based effect into a physical disruption of infrastructure and thence into quantification of the economic consequences of the resultant disruption and damage. The document discusses the deficiencies of the existing methods in correlating cyber attacks with physical consequences. The document then outlines a research plan to correct those deficiencies. When completed, the research plan will result in a fully supported methodology to quantify the economic consequences of events that begin with cyber effects, cascade into other physical infrastructure impacts, and result in degradation of the critical infrastructure's ability to deliver services and products. This methodology enables quantification of the risks to national critical infrastructure of cyber threats. The work addresses the electric power sector as an example of how the methodology can be applied.

Development of a structural health monitoring system for the life assessment of critical transportation infrastructure.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Roach, Dennis Patrick; Jauregui, David Villegas (New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM); Daumueller, Andrew Nicholas (New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM)

2012-02-01

Recent structural failures such as the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge in Minnesota have underscored the urgent need for improved methods and procedures for evaluating our aging transportation infrastructure. This research seeks to develop a basis for a Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) system to provide quantitative information related to the structural integrity of metallic structures to make appropriate management decisions and ensuring public safety. This research employs advanced structural analysis and nondestructive testing (NDT) methods for an accurate fatigue analysis. Metal railroad bridges in New Mexico will be the focus since many of these structures are over 100 years old and classified as fracture-critical. The term fracture-critical indicates that failure of a single component may result in complete collapse of the structure such as the one experienced by the I-35W Bridge. Failure may originate from sources such as loss of section due to corrosion or cracking caused by fatigue loading. Because standard inspection practice is primarily visual, these types of defects can go undetected due to oversight, lack of access to critical areas, or, in riveted members, hidden defects that are beneath fasteners or connection angles. Another issue is that it is difficult to determine the fatigue damage that a structure has experienced and the rate at which damage is accumulating due to uncertain history and load distribution in supporting members. A SHM system has several advantages that can overcome these limitations. SHM allows critical areas of the structure to be monitored more quantitatively under actual loading. The research needed to apply SHM to metallic structures was performed and a case study was carried out to show the potential of SHM-driven fatigue evaluation to assess the condition of critical transportation infrastructure and to guide inspectors to potential problem areas. This project combines the expertise in transportation infrastructure at New

Durability of critical infrastructures

OpenAIRE

Raluca Pascu; Ramiro Sofronie

2011-01-01

The paper deals with those infrastructures by which world society, under the pressure ofdemographic explosion, self-survives. The main threatening comes not from terrorist attacks, but fromthe great natural catastrophes and global climate change. It’s not for the first time in history when suchmeasures of self-protection are built up. First objective of this paper is to present the background fordurability analysis. Then, with the aid of these mathematical tools the absolute durability of thr...

Critical Infrastructure for Ocean Research and Societal Needs in 2030

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

National Research Council

2011-04-22

of each potential infrastructure investment, and funding those investments that collectively produce the largest expected net benefit over time. While this type of process is clearly subject to budget constraints, it could quantify the often informal evaluation of linkages between infrastructure, ocean research, the value of information produced, societal objectives, and economic benefits. Addressing the numerous complex science questions facing the entire ocean research enterprise in 2030 from government to academia, industry to nonprofits, local to global scale represents a major challenge, requiring collaboration across the breadth of the ocean sciences community and nearly seamless coordination between ocean-related federal agencies.

78 FR 39712 - Critical Infrastructure Protection and Cyber Security Trade Mission to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-07-02

... DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE International Trade Administration Critical Infrastructure Protection and Cyber Security Trade Mission to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait Clarification and Amendment AGENCY... cyber-security firms and trade organizations which have not already submitted an application are...

An Analysis of IT Governance Practices in the Federal Government: Protecting U.S. Critical Infrastructure from Cyber Terrorist Attacks

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, R. LeWayne

2012-01-01

Much of the governing process in the United States (U.S.) today depends on a reliable and well protected public information technology (IT) infrastructure. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is tasked with the responsibility of protecting the country's IT infrastructure. Critics contend that the DHS has failed to address planning and…

Damage assessment of bridge infrastructure subjected to flood-related hazards

Science.gov (United States)

Michalis, Panagiotis; Cahill, Paul; Bekić, Damir; Kerin, Igor; Pakrashi, Vikram; Lapthorne, John; Morais, João Gonçalo Martins Paulo; McKeogh, Eamon

2017-04-01

Transportation assets represent a critical component of society's infrastructure systems. Flood-related hazards are considered one of the main climate change impacts on highway and railway infrastructure, threatening the security and functionality of transportation systems. Of such hazards, flood-induced scour is a primarily cause of bridge collapses worldwide and one of the most complex and challenging water flow and erosion phenomena, leading to structural instability and ultimately catastrophic failures. Evaluation of scour risk under severe flood events is a particularly challenging issue considering that depth of foundations is very difficult to evaluate in water environment. The continual inspection, assessment and maintenance of bridges and other hydraulic structures under extreme flood events requires a multidisciplinary approach, including knowledge and expertise of hydraulics, hydrology, structural engineering, geotechnics and infrastructure management. The large number of bridges under a single management unit also highlights the need for efficient management, information sharing and self-informing systems to provide reliable, cost-effective flood and scour risk management. The "Intelligent Bridge Assessment Maintenance and Management System" (BRIDGE SMS) is an EU/FP7 funded project which aims to couple state-of-the art scientific expertise in multidisciplinary engineering sectors with industrial knowledge in infrastructure management. This involves the application of integrated low-cost structural health monitoring systems to provide real-time information towards the development of an intelligent decision support tool and a web-based platform to assess and efficiently manage bridge assets. This study documents the technological experience and presents results obtained from the application of sensing systems focusing on the damage assessment of water-hazards at bridges over watercourses in Ireland. The applied instrumentation is interfaced with an open

Effects of a significant New Madrid Seismic Zone event on oil and natural gas pipelines and their cascading effects to critical infrastructures

Science.gov (United States)

Fields, Damon E.

Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) is a construct that relates preparedness and responsiveness to natural or man-made disasters that involve vulnerable assets deemed essential for the functioning of our economy and society. Infrastructure systems (power grids, bridges, airports, etc.) are vulnerable to disastrous types of events--natural or man-made. Failures of these systems can have devastating effects on communities and entire regions. CIP relates our willingness, ability, and capability to defend, mitigate, and re-constitute those assets that succumb to disasters affecting one or more infrastructure sectors. This qualitative research utilized ethnography and employed interviews with subject matter experts (SMEs) from various fields of study regarding CIP with respect to oil and natural gas pipelines in the New Madrid Seismic Zone. The study focused on the research question: What can be done to mitigate vulnerabilities in the oil and natural gas infrastructures, along with the potential cascading effects to interdependent systems, associated with a New Madrid fault event? The researcher also analyzed National Level Exercises (NLE) and real world events, and associated After Action Reports (AAR) and Lessons Learned (LL) in order to place a holistic lens across all infrastructures and their dependencies and interdependencies. Three main themes related to the research question emerged: (a) preparedness, (b) mitigation, and (c) impacts. These themes comprised several dimensions: (a) redundancy, (b) node hardening, (c) education, (d) infrastructure damage, (e) cascading effects, (f) interdependencies, (g) exercises, and (h) earthquake readiness. As themes and dimensions are analyzed, they are considered against findings in AARs and LL from previous real world events and large scale exercise events for validation or rejection.

Complexity and Vulnerability Analysis of Critical Infrastructures: A Methodological Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yongliang Deng

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Vulnerability analysis of network models has been widely adopted to explore the potential impacts of random disturbances, deliberate attacks, and natural disasters. However, almost all these models are based on a fixed topological structure, in which the physical properties of infrastructure components and their interrelationships are not well captured. In this paper, a new research framework is put forward to quantitatively explore and assess the complexity and vulnerability of critical infrastructure systems. Then, a case study is presented to prove the feasibility and validity of the proposed framework. After constructing metro physical network (MPN, Pajek is employed to analyze its corresponding topological properties, including degree, betweenness, average path length, network diameter, and clustering coefficient. With a comprehensive understanding of the complexity of MPN, it would be beneficial for metro system to restrain original near-miss or accidents and support decision-making in emergency situations. Moreover, through the analysis of two simulation protocols for system component failure, it is found that the MPN turned to be vulnerable under the condition that the high-degree nodes or high-betweenness edges are attacked. These findings will be conductive to offer recommendations and proposals for robust design, risk-based decision-making, and prioritization of risk reduction investment.

THE SECURITY OF CRITICAL ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE AGE OF MULTIPLE ATTACK VECTORS: NATO’S MULTI-FACETED APPROACH

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sorin Dumitru Ducaru

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The current NATO threat landscape is characterized by a combination or “hybrid blend” of unconventional emerging challenges (like cyber and terrorist attacks and re-emerging conventional ones (like Russia’s recent military resurgence and assertiveness, that led to the illegal annexation of Crimea and destabilization in Eastern Ukraine. While the resurgence of the Russian military activity pushed the Alliance in the direction of re-discovering its deterrence and collective defence role, the new, not-traditional, trans-national and essentially non-military treats that generate effects below the threshold of an armed attack require a new paradigm shift with a focus on resilience although the protection of critical energy infrastructure is first and foremost a national responsibility, NATO can contribute to meeting the infrastructure protection challenge on many levels. Given the fact that its core deterrence and defence mandate relies in a great measure on the security of Allies’ energy infrastructure NATO’s role and actions in reducing the vulnerabilities and strengthening the resilience of such infrastructure can only increase. A multi-faceted, multi-stakeholder and networked approach is needed to be able to strengthen defences and resilience of critical infrastructure such as energy. Understanding and defending against cyber or terrorist threat vectors, increased situational awareness, education, training, exercises, trusted partnerships as well as increasing strategic security dialogue and cooperation are key for such a comprehensive/network approach to the challenge.

Advanced simulation for analysis of critical infrastructure : abstract cascades, the electric power grid, and Fedwire.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Glass, Robert John, Jr.; Stamber, Kevin Louis; Beyeler, Walter Eugene

2004-08-01

Critical Infrastructures are formed by a large number of components that interact within complex networks. As a rule, infrastructures contain strong feedbacks either explicitly through the action of hardware/software control, or implicitly through the action/reaction of people. Individual infrastructures influence others and grow, adapt, and thus evolve in response to their multifaceted physical, economic, cultural, and political environments. Simply put, critical infrastructures are complex adaptive systems. In the Advanced Modeling and Techniques Investigations (AMTI) subgroup of the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC), we are studying infrastructures as complex adaptive systems. In one of AMTI's efforts, we are focusing on cascading failure as can occur with devastating results within and between infrastructures. Over the past year we have synthesized and extended the large variety of abstract cascade models developed in the field of complexity science and have started to apply them to specific infrastructures that might experience cascading failure. In this report we introduce our comprehensive model, Polynet, which simulates cascading failure over a wide range of network topologies, interaction rules, and adaptive responses as well as multiple interacting and growing networks. We first demonstrate Polynet for the classical Bac, Tang, and Wiesenfeld or BTW sand-pile in several network topologies. We then apply Polynet to two very different critical infrastructures: the high voltage electric power transmission system which relays electricity from generators to groups of distribution-level consumers, and Fedwire which is a Federal Reserve service for sending large-value payments between banks and other large financial institutions. For these two applications, we tailor interaction rules to represent appropriate unit behavior and consider the influence of random transactions within two stylized networks: a regular homogeneous array

Resilience framework for critical infrastructures: An empirical study in a nuclear plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Labaka, Leire; Hernantes, Josune; Sarriegi, Jose M.

2015-01-01

The safety and proper functioning of Critical Infrastructures (CIs) are essential for ensuring the welfare of society, which puts the issue of improving their resilience level at the forefront of the field of crisis management. Most of the resilience-building principles defined in the literature do not cover all the dimensions that make up resilience and most of them only focus within the boundaries of the CI, neglecting the role of the external agents that also have an influence on enhancing resilience. Furthermore, most of the principles that are present in the literature are theoretical and difficult to implement in practice. In light of this situation, the aim of this research is to present a holistic resilience framework for critical infrastructures in order to improve their resilience level by taking into account internal and external agents and covering all the resilience dimensions. Furthermore, this framework has been defined in close collaboration with the general management of CIs to facilitate its implementation in practice. Finally, in order to illustrate the value added of this framework it was implemented in a nuclear plant. - Highlights: • Resilience protects against foreseen and unpredicted events. • There are two types of resilience: internal resilience and external resilience. • Sixteen policies and thirty sub-policies assist on building resilience. • Power nuclear plant focused on risk management approach rather than resilience. • The plant’s event driven risk management was enhanced with an all hazard approach

Economics in Criticality and Restoration of Energy Infrastructures.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Boyd, Gale A.; Flaim, Silvio J.; Folga, Stephen M.; Gotham, Douglas J.; McLamore, Michael R.; Novak, Mary H.; Roop, Joe M.; Rossmann, Charles G.; Shamsuddin, Shabbir A.; Zeichner, Lee M.; Stamber, Kevin L.

2005-03-01

Economists, systems analysts, engineers, regulatory specialists, and other experts were assembled from academia, the national laboratories, and the energy industry to discuss present restoration practices (many have already been defined to the level of operational protocols) in the sectors of the energy infrastructure as well as other infrastructures, to identify whether economics, a discipline concerned with the allocation of scarce resources, is explicitly or implicitly a part of restoration strategies, and if there are novel economic techniques and solution methods that could be used help encourage the restoration of energy services more quickly than present practices or to restore service more efficiently from an economic perspective. AcknowledgementsDevelopment of this work into a coherent product with a useful message has occurred thanks to the thoughtful support of several individuals:Kenneth Friedman, Department of Energy, Office of Energy Assurance, provided the impetus for the work, as well as several suggestions and reminders of direction along the way. Funding from DOE/OEA was critical to the completion of this effort.Arnold Baker, Chief Economist, Sandia National Laboratories, and James Peerenboom, Director, Infrastructure Assurance Center, Argonne National Laboratory, provided valuable contacts that helped to populate the authoring team with the proper mix of economists, engineers, and systems and regulatory specialists to meet the objectives of the work.Several individuals provided valuable review of the document at various stages of completion, and provided suggestions that were valuable to the editing process. This list of reviewers includes Jeffrey Roark, Economist, Tennessee Valley Authority; James R. Dalrymple, Manager of Transmission System Services and Transmission/Power Supply, Tennessee Valley Authority; William Mampre, Vice President, EN Engineering; Kevin Degenstein, EN Engineering; and Patrick Wilgang, Department of Energy, Office of

Security Economics and Critical National Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, Ross; Fuloria, Shailendra

There has been considerable effort and expenditure since 9/11 on the protection of ‘Critical National Infrastructure' against online attack. This is commonly interpreted to mean preventing online sabotage against utilities such as electricity,oil and gas, water, and sewage - including pipelines, refineries, generators, storage depots and transport facilities such as tankers and terminals. A consensus is emerging that the protection of such assets is more a matter of business models and regulation - in short, of security economics - than of technology. We describe the problems, and the state of play, in this paper. Industrial control systems operate in a different world from systems previously studied by security economists; we find the same issues (lock-in, externalities, asymmetric information and so on) but in different forms. Lock-in is physical, rather than based on network effects, while the most serious externalities result from correlated failure, whether from cascade failures, common-mode failures or simultaneous attacks. There is also an interesting natural experiment happening, in that the USA is regulating cyber security in the electric power industry, but not in oil and gas, while the UK is not regulating at all but rather encouraging industry's own efforts. Some European governments are intervening, while others are leaving cybersecurity entirely to plant owners to worry about. We already note some perverse effects of the U.S. regulation regime as companies game the system, to the detriment of overall dependability.

Reliability and vulnerability analyses of critical infrastructures: Comparing two approaches in the context of power systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Johansson, Jonas; Hassel, Henrik; Zio, Enrico

2013-01-01

Society depends on services provided by critical infrastructures, and hence it is important that they are reliable and robust. Two main approaches for gaining knowledge required for designing and improving critical infrastructures are reliability analysis and vulnerability analysis. The former analyses the ability of the system to perform its intended function; the latter analyses its inability to withstand strains and the effects of the consequent failures. The two approaches have similarities but also some differences with respect to what type of information they generate about the system. In this view, the main purpose of this paper is to discuss and contrast these approaches. To strengthen the discussion and exemplify its findings, a Monte Carlo-based reliability analysis and a vulnerability analysis are considered in their application to a relatively simple, but representative, system the IEEE RTS96 electric power test system. The exemplification reveals that reliability analysis provides a good picture of the system likely behaviour, but fails to capture a large portion of the high consequence scenarios, which are instead captured in the vulnerability analysis. Although these scenarios might be estimated to have small probabilities of occurrence, they should be identified, considered and treated cautiously, as probabilistic analyses should not be the only input to decision-making for the design and protection of critical infrastructures. The general conclusion that can be drawn from the findings of the example is that vulnerability analysis should be used to complement reliability studies, as well as other forms of probabilistic risk analysis. Measures should be sought for reducing both the vulnerability, i.e. improving the system ability to withstand strains and stresses, and the reliability, i.e. improving the likely behaviour

A Conceptual Framework for Vulnerability Assessment of Climate Change Impact on Critical Oil and Gas Infrastructure in the Niger Delta

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Justin Udie

2018-02-01

Full Text Available The impact of climate change on the Niger Delta is severe, as extreme weather events have inflicted various degrees of stress on critical oil/gas infrastructure. Typically, assets managers and government agencies lack a clear framework for evaluating the vulnerability of these systems. This paper presents a participatory framework for the vulnerability assessment of critical oil/gas infrastructure to climate change impacts in the Niger Delta context. Through a critical review of relevant literature and triangulating observational and exploratory data from the field, this paper has developed a conceptual framework with three elements: (1 a preliminary scoping activity; (2 the vulnerability assessment; and (3 mainstreaming the results into institutional asset management codes. Scoping involves the definition of research aims and objectives, review of prevailing climate burdens and impacts, exploratory investigation, screening for new (planned assets and selection of relevant infrastructure. The emphasis on screening for planned infrastructure is to facilitate the incorporation of sustainable adaptive capacities into the original design of identified systems. A conceptual framework for vulnerability assessment is presented as a robust systematic iterative model for the evaluation of selected assets using an appropriate methodology. In this study, analytic hierarchy process (AHP is applied while mainstreaming as part of the research framework is emphasised to aid commercial implementation from an expert-based perspective. The study recommends the use of other suitable methodologies and systematic approaches to test the flexibility of the framework.

Examining Cybersecurity of Cyberphysical Systems for Critical Infrastructures Through Work Domain Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Hao; Lau, Nathan; Gerdes, Ryan M

2018-04-01

The aim of this study was to apply work domain analysis for cybersecurity assessment and design of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. Adoption of information and communication technology in cyberphysical systems (CPSs) for critical infrastructures enables automated and distributed control but introduces cybersecurity risk. Many CPSs employ SCADA industrial control systems that have become the target of cyberattacks, which inflict physical damage without use of force. Given that absolute security is not feasible for complex systems, cyberintrusions that introduce unanticipated events will occur; a proper response will in turn require human adaptive ability. Therefore, analysis techniques that can support security assessment and human factors engineering are invaluable for defending CPSs. We conducted work domain analysis using the abstraction hierarchy (AH) to model a generic SCADA implementation to identify the functional structures and means-ends relations. We then adopted a case study approach examining the Stuxnet cyberattack by developing and integrating AHs for the uranium enrichment process, SCADA implementation, and malware to investigate the interactions between the three aspects of cybersecurity in CPSs. The AHs for modeling a generic SCADA implementation and studying the Stuxnet cyberattack are useful for mapping attack vectors, identifying deficiencies in security processes and features, and evaluating proposed security solutions with respect to system objectives. Work domain analysis is an effective analytical method for studying cybersecurity of CPSs for critical infrastructures in a psychologically relevant manner. Work domain analysis should be applied to assess cybersecurity risk and inform engineering and user interface design.

Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack: Critical National Infrastructures

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Foster, Jr., John S; Gjelde, Earl; Graham, William R; Hermann, Robert J; Kluepfel, Henry M; Lawson, Richard L; Soper, Gordon K; Wood, Lowell L; Woodard, Joan B

2008-01-01

...) attack on our critical national infrastructures. An earlier report, Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP), Volume 1: Executive Report (2004...

The ISTIMES project: a new integrated system for monitoring critical transport infrastructures interested by natural hazards

Science.gov (United States)

Proto, Monica; Massimo, Bavusi; Francesco, Soldovieri

2010-05-01

The research project "Integrated System for Transport Infrastructure surveillance and Monitoring by Electromagnetic Sensing" (ISTIMES), was approved in the 7th Framework Programme, in the Joint Call ICT and Security and started on 1st July 2009. The purpose of ISTIMES project is to design, assess and promote an ICT-based system, exploiting distributed and local sensors, for non-destructive electromagnetic monitoring in order to achieve the critical transport infrastructures more reliable and safe. The transportation sector's components are susceptible to the consequences of natural disasters and can also be attractive as terrorist targets. The sector's size, its physically dispersed and decentralized nature, the many public and private entities involved in its operations, the critical importance of cost considerations, and the inherent requirement of convenient accessibility to its services by all users - make the transportation particularly vulnerable to security and safety threats. As well known, the surface transportation system consists of interconnected infrastructures including highways, transit systems, railroads, airports, waterways, pipelines and ports, and the vehicles, aircraft, and vessels that operate along these networks. Thus, interdependencies exist between transportation and nearly every other sector of the economy and the effective operation of this system is essential to the European economic productivity; therefore, transportation sector protection is of paramount importance since threats to it may impact other industries that rely on it. The system exploits an open network architecture that can accommodate a wide range of sensors, static and mobile, and can be easily scaled up to allow the integration of additional sensors and interfacing with other networks. It relies on heterogeneous state-of-the-art electromagnetic sensors, enabling a self-organizing, self-healing, ad-hoc networking of terrestrial sensors, supported by specific satellite

Critical health infrastructure for refugee resettlement in rural Australia: case study of four rural towns.

Science.gov (United States)

Sypek, Scott; Clugston, Gregory; Phillips, Christine

2008-12-01

To explore the reported impact of regional resettlement of refugees on rural health services, and identify critical health infrastructure for refugee resettlement. Comparative case study, using interviews and situational analysis. Four rural communities in New South Wales, which had been the focus of regional resettlement of refugees since 1999. Refugees, general practitioners, practice managers and volunteer support workers in each town (n = 24). The capacity of health care workers to provide comprehensive care is threatened by low numbers of practitioners, and high levels of turnover of health care staff, which results in attrition of specialised knowledge among health care workers treating refugees. Critical health infrastructure includes general practices with interest and surge capacity, subsidised dental services, mental health support services; clinical support services for rural practitioners; care coordination in the early settlement period; and a supported volunteer network. The need for intensive medical support is greatest in the early resettlement period for 'catch-up' primary health care. The difficulties experienced by rural Australia in securing equitable access to health services are amplified for refugees. While there are economic arguments about resettlement of refugees in regional Australia, the fragility of health services in regional Australia should also be factored into considerations about which towns are best suited to regional resettlement.

System for critical infrastructure security based on multispectral observation-detection module

Science.gov (United States)

Trzaskawka, Piotr; Kastek, Mariusz; Życzkowski, Marek; Dulski, Rafał; Szustakowski, Mieczysław; Ciurapiński, Wiesław; Bareła, Jarosław

2013-10-01

Recent terrorist attacks and possibilities of such actions in future have forced to develop security systems for critical infrastructures that embrace sensors technologies and technical organization of systems. The used till now perimeter protection of stationary objects, based on construction of a ring with two-zone fencing, visual cameras with illumination are efficiently displaced by the systems of the multisensor technology that consists of: visible technology - day/night cameras registering optical contrast of a scene, thermal technology - cheap bolometric cameras recording thermal contrast of a scene and active ground radars - microwave and millimetre wavelengths that record and detect reflected radiation. Merging of these three different technologies into one system requires methodology for selection of technical conditions of installation and parameters of sensors. This procedure enables us to construct a system with correlated range, resolution, field of view and object identification. Important technical problem connected with the multispectral system is its software, which helps couple the radar with the cameras. This software can be used for automatic focusing of cameras, automatic guiding cameras to an object detected by the radar, tracking of the object and localization of the object on the digital map as well as target identification and alerting. Based on "plug and play" architecture, this system provides unmatched flexibility and simplistic integration of sensors and devices in TCP/IP networks. Using a graphical user interface it is possible to control sensors and monitor streaming video and other data over the network, visualize the results of data fusion process and obtain detailed information about detected intruders over a digital map. System provide high-level applications and operator workload reduction with features such as sensor to sensor cueing from detection devices, automatic e-mail notification and alarm triggering. The paper presents

On the Effectiveness of Security Countermeasures for Critical Infrastructures.

Science.gov (United States)

Hausken, Kjell; He, Fei

2016-04-01

A game-theoretic model is developed where an infrastructure of N targets is protected against terrorism threats. An original threat score is determined by the terrorist's threat against each target and the government's inherent protection level and original protection. The final threat score is impacted by the government's additional protection. We investigate and verify the effectiveness of countermeasures using empirical data and two methods. The first is to estimate the model's parameter values to minimize the sum of the squared differences between the government's additional resource investment predicted by the model and the empirical data. The second is to develop a multivariate regression model where the final threat score varies approximately linearly relative to the original threat score, sectors, and threat scenarios, and depends nonlinearly on the additional resource investment. The model and method are offered as tools, and as a way of thinking, to determine optimal resource investments across vulnerable targets subject to terrorism threats. © 2014 Society for Risk Analysis.

A GIS Inventory of Critical Coastal Infrastructure Land Use in Caribbean Island Small Island Developing States: Classification and Criteria Methodology

Science.gov (United States)

D'aversa, N.; Becker, A.; Bove, G.

2017-12-01

Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) face significant natural hazard risks, as demonstrated by recent Hurricanes Jose, Irma, and Maria. Scientists project storms to become more intense and sea level rise to increase over the next century. As a result, the Inter-American Development Bank projections suggest that Caribbean nations could face climate-related losses in excess of $22 billion annually by 2050. Critical infrastructure that supports island economies, such as airports, seaports, cruise ports, and energy facilities, are typically located in the coastal zone with high exposure to natural hazards. Despite the increasing danger from climate driven natural hazards in coastal zones in the region, there is very little data available to identify how much land and associated infrastructure is at risk. This work focuses on the criteria and data standards developed for this new region-wide GIS database, which will then be used to formulate a risk assessment. Results will be integrated into a single, comprehensive source for data of lands identified as critical coastal infrastructure and used to address such questions as: How much of the Caribbean SIDS infrastructure lands are at risk from sea level rise? How might demand for such lands change in the future, based on historical trends? Answers to these questions will help decision makers understand how to prioritize resilience investment decisions in the coming decades.

Critical infrastructures at risk: A need for a new conceptual approach and extended analytical tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kroeger, Wolfgang

2008-01-01

Recent decades have witnessed on the one hand a much greater and tighter integration of goods or services supply systems and growing interconnectedness as well as changing organizational and operational factors, and on the other hand an increased social vulnerability in the face of accidental or intentional disruption. The work of the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) in the field of critical infrastructures has focused on both the risks associated with five individual infrastructures and the issues associated with the increasing interdependence between them. This paper presents a selection of system weaknesses and a number of policy options that have been identified and highlights issues for further investigation and dialogue with stakeholders. Furthermore, the need to extend current modeling and simulation techniques in order to cope with the increasing system complexity is elaborated. An object-oriented, hybrid modeling approach promising to overcome some of the shortcomings of traditional methods is presented

Vulnerability assessment as a missing part of efficient regulatory emergency preparedness system for nuclear critical infrastructure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kostadinov, V.

2007-01-01

One introduces a new model to assess the vulnerability of the nuclear infrastructure critical facilities. The new procedure of the vulnerability assessment (the VA) aims to reevaluate the efficiency of the present-day safeguards. On the basis of deeper insight into the VA new strategy and of the elaborated procedure to analyze the hazards for the nuclear power facilities one recommends the key safeguards affecting the damage magnitude [ru

77 FR 35700 - Protected Critical Infrastructure Information (PCII) Program Survey

Science.gov (United States)

2012-06-14

... (NPPD), Office of Infrastructure Protection (IP), Infrastructure Information Collection Division (IICD... Information Collection Request should be forwarded to DHS/NPPD/IP/IICD, 245 Murray Lane, SW., Mailstop 0602, Arlington, VA 20598-0602. Email requests should go to Vickie Bovell, [email protected] . Written...

Development of an Automated Security Risk Assessment Methodology Tool for Critical Infrastructures.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jaeger, Calvin Dell; Roehrig, Nathaniel S.; Torres, Teresa M.

2008-12-01

This document presents the security automated Risk Assessment Methodology (RAM) prototype tool developed by Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). This work leverages SNL's capabilities and skills in security risk analysis and the development of vulnerability assessment/risk assessment methodologies to develop an automated prototype security RAM tool for critical infrastructures (RAM-CITM). The prototype automated RAM tool provides a user-friendly, systematic, and comprehensive risk-based tool to assist CI sector and security professionals in assessing and managing security risk from malevolent threats. The current tool is structured on the basic RAM framework developed by SNL. It is envisioned that this prototype tool will be adapted to meet the requirements of different CI sectors and thereby provide additional capabilities.

Optimisation of Critical Infrastructure Protection: The SiVe Project on Airport Security

Science.gov (United States)

Breiing, Marcus; Cole, Mara; D'Avanzo, John; Geiger, Gebhard; Goldner, Sascha; Kuhlmann, Andreas; Lorenz, Claudia; Papproth, Alf; Petzel, Erhard; Schwetje, Oliver

This paper outlines the scientific goals, ongoing work and first results of the SiVe research project on critical infrastructure security. The methodology is generic while pilot studies are chosen from airport security. The outline proceeds in three major steps, (1) building a threat scenario, (2) development of simulation models as scenario refinements, and (3) assessment of alternatives. Advanced techniques of systems analysis and simulation are employed to model relevant airport structures and processes as well as offences. Computer experiments are carried out to compare and optimise alternative solutions. The optimality analyses draw on approaches to quantitative risk assessment recently developed in the operational sciences. To exploit the advantages of the various techniques, an integrated simulation workbench is build up in the project.

Critical Infrastructure: Control Systems and the Terrorist Threat

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Shea, Dana A

2003-01-01

.... Industrial control computer systems involved in this infrastructure are specific points of vulnerability, as cyber-security for these systems has not been previously perceived as a high priority...

Critical Infrastructure: Control Systems and the Terrorist Threat

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Shea, Dana A

2004-01-01

.... Industrial control computer systems involved in this infrastructure are specific points of vulnerability, as cyber-security for these systems has not been previously perceived as a high priority...

LA PROTECTION DES INFRASTRUCTURES CRITIQUES – DEFIS ACTUELS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dan Fifoiu

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Considering that in the European Union's plan, it has not been identified a solution for surpassing the legal differences between states (derived from priorities and different interests, Romania continues the program of alignment towards increasing its own standards and interconnecting internal critical infrastructures with the European and regional ones. This process is a lasting one, fact revealed also by the distance, in terms of time, between the first approaches, at a European level, of the problems of critical infrastructures, at the implementation of Directive 114/2008 provisions. The steps taken by the authorities in Bucharest are intended to drive Romania towards a level of development compatible both with the integration in a single European space of critical infrastructures and the fulfillment of an important role in stating the future strategies of the European Union. Currently, Romania’s alignment to the European Union and international standards creates the optimum framework for developing and implementing some specific provisions which, at this time, are materialized as the steps of a single national plan for protecting critical infrastructures, on the way of being configured.

Analysis of students critical thinking skills in socio-scientific issues of biodiversity subject

Science.gov (United States)

Santika, A. R.; Purwianingsih, W.; Nuraeni, E.

2018-05-01

Critical thinking is a skills the which students should have in order to face 21st century demands. Critical thinking skills can help people in facing their daily problems, especially problems roommates relate to science. This research is aimed to analyze students critical thinking skills in socio-scientific issues of biodiversity subject. The method used in this research was descriptive method. The research subject is first-grade students’ in senior high school. The data collected by interview and open-ended question the which classified based on framework : (1) question at issue, (2) information (3) purpose (4) concepts (5) assumptions, (6) point of view, (7) interpretation and inference, and (8) implication and consequences, then it will be assessed by using rubrics. The result of the data showed students critical thinking skills in socio-scientific issues of biodiversity subject is in low and medium category. Therefore we need a learning activity that is able to develop student’s critical thinking skills, especially regarding issues of social science.

Center for Strategic Leadership. Issue Paper, August 2003, Volume 06-03. The National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC): A New Contributor to Strategic Leader Education and Formulation of Critical Infrastructure Policies and Decisions

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Wimbish, William

2003-01-01

...) community in educating future strategic leaders about the realities of the Nation's infrastructure system and in researching the effects that new government security policies and actions would have on the nation's critical assets and public and private sector services.

INFRASTRUCTURE

CERN Document Server

A.Gaddi

2011-01-01

Between the end of March to June 2011, there has been no detector downtime during proton fills due to CMS Infrastructures failures. This exceptional performance is a clear sign of the high quality work done by the CMS Infrastructures unit and its supporting teams. Powering infrastructure At the end of March, the EN/EL group observed a problem with the CMS 48 V system. The problem was a lack of isolation between the negative (return) terminal and earth. Although at that moment we were not seeing any loss of functionality, in the long term it would have led to severe disruption to the CMS power system. The 48 V system is critical to the operation of CMS: in addition to feeding the anti-panic lights, essential for the safety of the underground areas, it powers all the PLCs (Twidos) that control AC power to the racks and front-end electronics of CMS. A failure of the 48 V system would bring down the whole detector and lead to evacuation of the cavern. EN/EL technicians have made an accurate search of the fault, ...

Building safeguards infrastructure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McClelland-Kerr, J.; Stevens, J.

2010-01-01

Much has been written in recent years about the nuclear renaissance - the rebirth of nuclear power as a clean and safe source of electricity around the world. Those who question the nuclear renaissance often cite the risk of proliferation, accidents or an attack on a facility as concerns, all of which merit serious consideration. The integration of three areas - sometimes referred to as 3S, for safety, security and safeguards - is essential to supporting the clean and safe growth of nuclear power, and the infrastructure that supports these three areas should be robust. The focus of this paper will be on the development of the infrastructure necessary to support safeguards, and the integration of safeguards infrastructure with other elements critical to ensuring nuclear energy security

A critical reflection on subjectivity in examination of higher degrees

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Collins C Ngwakwe

2015-11-01

Full Text Available This paper is a critical reflection on seemingly embedded subjectivity in external examination of higher degrees. The paper is significant given that education is a vital pillar of sustainable development; hence, identification of obscure obstacles to this goal is imperative for an equitable and sustainable education that is devoid of class, race and gender. Adopting a critical review approach, the paper rummaged some related researches that bemoan apparent subjectivity amongst some examiners of higher degrees. Findings show a regrettable and seemingly obscured subjectivity and/or misjudgement that constitute an impediment in higher degrees examination process. Thus the paper highlights that whilst it is understandable that misjudgement or error is innate in every human endeavour including higher degree examination, however an error caused by examiner’s partisanship and/or maladroitness in the research focus may be avoidable. In conclusion, the paper stresses that prejudice or ineptitude in higher degree examination should be bridled by inter alia implementing the policy of alternative assessor; checking the pedigree of examiner’s assessment experience and an opportunity for the supervisor/s to present a rebuttal in circumstances where one examiner’s opinion is fraught with apparent subjectivity.

Advanced methodology for risk and vulnerability assessment of interdependency of critical infrastructure in respect to urban floods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Serre Damien

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The behaviour of the urban network infrastructures, and their interactions during flood events, will have direct and indirect consequences on the flood risk level in the built environment. By urban network infrastructures we include all the urban technical networks like transportation, energy, water supply, waste water, telecommunication…able to spread the flood risk in cities, qualified as critical infrastructures due to their major roles for modern living standards. From history, most of cities in the world have been built close to coast lines or to river to beneficiate this means of communication and trade. Step by step, to avoid being flooded, defences like levees have been built. The capacity of the levees to retain the floods depends on their conditions, their performance level and the capacity of the authorities to well maintain these infrastructures. But recent history shows the limits of a flood risk management strategy focused on protection, leading to levee breaks these last decades. Then, in case of levee break, cities will be flooded. The urban technical networks, due to the way they have been designed, their conditions and their locations in the city, will play a major role in the diffusion of the flood extent. Also, the flood risk will have consequences in some not flooded neighbourhoods due to networks collapses and complex interdependencies. This article describes some methods to design spatial decision support systems in that context.

MFC Communications Infrastructure Study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Michael Cannon; Terry Barney; Gary Cook; George Danklefsen, Jr.; Paul Fairbourn; Susan Gihring; Lisa Stearns

2012-01-01

Unprecedented growth of required telecommunications services and telecommunications applications change the way the INL does business today. High speed connectivity compiled with a high demand for telephony and network services requires a robust communications infrastructure.   The current state of the MFC communication infrastructure limits growth opportunities of current and future communication infrastructure services. This limitation is largely due to equipment capacity issues, aging cabling infrastructure (external/internal fiber and copper cable) and inadequate space for telecommunication equipment. While some communication infrastructure improvements have been implemented over time projects, it has been completed without a clear overall plan and technology standard.   This document identifies critical deficiencies with the current state of the communication infrastructure in operation at the MFC facilities and provides an analysis to identify needs and deficiencies to be addressed in order to achieve target architectural standards as defined in STD-170. The intent of STD-170 is to provide a robust, flexible, long-term solution to make communications capabilities align with the INL mission and fit the various programmatic growth and expansion needs.

Enhancing infrastructure resilience through business continuity planning.

Science.gov (United States)

Fisher, Ronald; Norman, Michael; Klett, Mary

2017-01-01

Critical infrastructure is crucial to the functionality and wellbeing of the world around us. It is a complex network that works together to create an efficient society. The core components of critical infrastructure are dependent on one another to function at their full potential. Organisations face unprecedented environmental risks such as increased reliance on information technology and telecommunications, increased infrastructure interdependencies and globalisation. Successful organisations should integrate the components of cyber-physical and infrastructure interdependencies into a holistic risk framework. Physical security plans, cyber security plans and business continuity plans can help mitigate environmental risks. Cyber security plans are becoming the most crucial to have, yet are the least commonly found in organisations. As the reliance on cyber continues to grow, it is imperative that organisations update their business continuity and emergency preparedness activities to include this.

SPECIAL AND MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS AS VITAL PART OF THE CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURES IN ROMANIA. SECURING THEIR PHYSICAL AND INFORMATIONAL PROTECTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Constantin MINCU

2012-11-01

Full Text Available The article presents several arguments on the need to study the critical infrastructure in Romania including various systems (networks and special military communications. It emphasizes the role and place of such systems and networks to provide national defense and security and the risks and vulnerabilities faced by these infrastructures, and some necessary measures to be taken for the physical and informational protection in the case of hostile military actions, natural disasters or other negative phenomena. Finally some conclusions and proposals are formulated.

Freight railway transport: Critical variables to improve the transport applied to infrastructure costs and its associated traffic flow

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zakowska, L.; Pulawska-Obiedowska, S.

2016-07-01

The developed societies have as challenge, among others, to achieve a mobility development based on economic models of low carbon and energy efficient, making it accessible to the entire population. In this context, the sustainable mobility seems to meet the economic, social and environmental needs, minimizing their negative impact. There are three factors that are relevant: (1) infrastructures; (2) modes of transport more ecological and safe, and (3) operations and services for passengers and freights.The objective of this research is to provide guidance to investment in sustainable transport infrastructures that are truly useful and effective. In particular we have studied the case of the railway, using the following information: details of the infrastructure; cost of construction (per kilometre); maintenance cost, and life cycle. This information may be relevant to consider their possible business models.The methodology of this research was focused in the detailed analysis of the infrastructure use and maintenance criteria, the market opportunities for freight development and the available data to validate the obtained results from the software tool reached in this work. Our research includes the different following aspects:• Evaluation of the supported traffic by the rail line.• Relevant items to be considered in the rail infrastructure. Defining the track, we can group items in two sets: civil and rail installations.• Rolling stock available. Locomotives and wagons are modelled to introduce the data as convenience for the user.Besides our research includes the development of software, Decision System Tool (DST), for studying the construction and maintenance cost of railway infrastructure. It is developed in a common and open source program, providing the user the interaction with the critical variable of the line. It has been adjusted using the following references: MOM PlanCargorail; EcoTransIT, and Projects funded by Framework Program of EU (New

Securing energy assets and infrastructure 2007

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2006-06-15

This report describes in detail the energy industry's challenges and solutions for protecting critical assets including oil and gas infrastructure, transmission grids, power plants, storage, pipelines, and all aspects of strategic industry assets. It includes a special section on cyber-terrorism and protecting control systems. Contents: Section I - Introduction; U.S Energy Trends; Vulnerabilities; Protection Measures. Section II - Sector-wise Vulnerabilities Assessments and Security Measures: Coal, Oil and Petroleum, Natural Gas, Electric Power, Cybersecurity and Control Systems, Key Recommendations; Section III - Critical Infrastructure Protection Efforts: Government Initiatives, Agencies, and Checklists.

Representing nature : Late twentieth century green infrastructures in Paris

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Van der Velde, J.R.T.; De Wit, S.I.

2015-01-01

The appreciation of green infrastructures as ‘nature’ by urban communities presents a critical challenge for the green infrastructure concept. While many green infrastructures focus on functional considerations, their refinement as places where concepts of nature are represented and where nature can

Critical energy infrastructure protection in Canada

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gendron, Angela [Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, Carleton University (Canada)

2010-12-15

In Canada government acknowledged the need to protect energy assets against attacks. However, so far no strategy has been developed. The aim of this report is to present the characteristics of the energy sector in Canada, the threats, and how the government is responding to those threats. The energy sector in Canada is concentrated and diverse and is under not only terrorism or cyber attacks threats but also environmental threats. This report shows that the Government of Canada is focusing on the protection and assurance of important energy infrastructures but that they are facing several challenges resulting in long delays in the adoption of a formal strategy.

Kenya's Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review Experience

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ayacko, Ochilo G.M.

2015-01-01

Lessons learnt for INIR preparation: → A detailed Self Evaluation report is critical to proper evaluation of each infrastructure; → Involvement of all relevant organizations in preparation of self evaluation report and the main mission; → Meetings on individual infrastructure issues to consolidate the country position; → Openness during interviews and provision of adequate information

Transactional Infrastructure of the Economy: the Evolution of Concepts and Synthesis of Definitions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maruschak Irina Valeryevna

2017-03-01

Full Text Available The overview of evolution of market infrastructure concepts is provided, the first concepts of institutional infrastructure are revealed in the paper. Evolutionarily developed narrowing of essence of infrastructure in connection with the priority analysis of its physical (material and technological components is proved. It ignores the fact that transactional resources, being drivers (driving forces of economic systems evolution, in turn evolve, becoming harder and harder, combining increase in efficiency of the elements and strengthening of heterogeneity and discrepancy of their structure. Transactional evolution of economy in general and evolution of separate transactional resources of production are the perspective directions of the special analysis. Transactional infrastructure is considered as the integrated complex of institutional, organizational (relational and information infrastructures. The problems of the first concepts of transactional infrastructure connected with difficulties of differentiation of its subsystems always operating jointly are revealed. Prospect of transition from the isolated analysis of separate resources of transactional type (institutes, organizations, information, social capital, trust, etc. to studying corresponding specific software infrastructures and to the system analysis of integrated transactional infrastructure of economy are argued. The transactional sector (as set of the specialized industries and the appropriate collective and individual subjects providing with resources market transaction is offered to be considered as transactional structure of economy. Transactional infrastructure is treated as critically significant factor of economic evolution which in the conditions of post-industrial type of economy gradually purchases transactional nature.

Research on Methods for Discovering and Selecting Cloud Infrastructure Services Based on Feature Modeling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Huamin Zhu

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Nowadays more and more cloud infrastructure service providers are providing large numbers of service instances which are a combination of diversified resources, such as computing, storage, and network. However, for cloud infrastructure services, the lack of a description standard and the inadequate research of systematic discovery and selection methods have exposed difficulties in discovering and choosing services for users. First, considering the highly configurable properties of a cloud infrastructure service, the feature model method is used to describe such a service. Second, based on the description of the cloud infrastructure service, a systematic discovery and selection method for cloud infrastructure services are proposed. The automatic analysis techniques of the feature model are introduced to verify the model’s validity and to perform the matching of the service and demand models. Finally, we determine the critical decision metrics and their corresponding measurement methods for cloud infrastructure services, where the subjective and objective weighting results are combined to determine the weights of the decision metrics. The best matching instances from various providers are then ranked by their comprehensive evaluations. Experimental results show that the proposed methods can effectively improve the accuracy and efficiency of cloud infrastructure service discovery and selection.

Protecting National Critical Infrastructure against Radiological Threat

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yaar, I.; Halevy, I.; Berenstein, Z.; Sharon, A.

2014-01-01

National Critical Infrastructure (NCI) such as transportation, water, energy etc., are essential elements in a developed country's economy. As learned after the 9/11 attackxx, a terror attack on these complex system may cause thousands of casualties and significant economic damage. The attack can be a conventional one; like the train bombing in Spainxxi or the bus bombing in Londonxxii, or a non-conventional one; like the Sarin attack on the underground train in Tokyo, Japanxxiii. A radiological attack on a NCI is also feasiblexxiv. This type of attack must be taken into consideration due to the vulnerability of ani infrastructure to such an attack, and the severe economic outcome of itxxv. The radioactive materials that might be used by terrorists were recently identified and categorized in one of the IAEA Nuclear Security Series publicationxxvi,xxvii. The most common and therefore reachable radio nuclides are the gamma emitters 60Co, 137Cs and 192Ir, the beta emitter 90Sr and the alpha emitters 241Pu, 238Pu and 241Am. A radiological event can be any of two principle scenarios. In the first scenario, a radiological dispersion device (RDD) or ôdirtyö bomb is used. This device consists of a radiation source which is detonated using conventional or improvised explosivesxxviii. Most of the casualties in this event will be from the explosion blast wave. However, some people might become contaminated with different levels of radiationxxix, some might need to go through some type of medical screening process and the costs of the total actions might be significantxxx. The second scenario involves a silent dispersion of radioactive material in a public site. In this event, there are no immediate known casualties, and the fact that people were exposed to radioactive material will be discovered only in the uncommon event when symptoms of radiation sickness will be identified due to exposure to high radiation dosexxxi, or if the radioactive material is discovered by a first

LANL: Weapons Infrastructure Briefing to Naval Reactors, July 18, 2017

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chadwick, Frances [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2018-07-18

Presentation slides address: The Laboratory infrastructure supports hundreds of high hazard, complex operations daily; LANL’s unique science and engineering infrastructure is critical to delivering on our mission; LANL FY17 Budget & Workforce; Direct-Funded Infrastructure Accounts; LANL Org Chart; Weapons Infrastructure Program Office; The Laboratory’s infrastructure relies on both Direct and Indirect funding; NA-50’s Operating, Maintenance & Recapitalization funding is critical to the execution of the mission; Los Alamos is currently executing several concurrent Line Item projects; Maintenance @ LANL; NA-50 is helping us to address D&D needs; We are executing a CHAMP Pilot Project at LANL; G2 = Main Tool for Program Management; MDI: Future Investments are centered on facilities with a high Mission Dependency Index; Los Alamos hosted first “Deep Dive” in November 2016; Safety, Infrastructure & Operations is one of the most important programs at LANL, and is foundational for our mission success.

Transferring lean management infrastructure for increasing productivity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ph.D.Daniel Georgescu

2010-12-01

Full Text Available These years, manufacturing function have been transferred rapidly and globally from matured countries to emerging countries. In this paper is about the critical elements for successful transfer of lean management among sites and countries. Based on this general descriptive analysis, current global transfer activity of Lean as well as its future direction is also described. According to the gradual progress of lean management transfer, necessity of its refinement/reinforcement is recognized and some research subjects are proposed for contributing further encouragement of its global activities. In this paper, based on this understanding, requisites for transfer of lean management are discussed through investigating global activity of Lean and specification of infrastructure enabling its smooth transfer is examined

Infrastructure monitoring with spaceborne SAR sensors

CERN Document Server

ANGHEL, ANDREI; CACOVEANU, REMUS

2017-01-01

This book presents a novel non-intrusive infrastructure monitoring technique based on the detection and tracking of scattering centers in spaceborne SAR images. The methodology essentially consists of refocusing each available SAR image on an imposed 3D point cloud associated to the envisaged infrastructure element and identifying the reliable scatterers to be monitored by means of four dimensional (4D) tomography. The methodology described in this book provides a new perspective on infrastructure monitoring with spaceborne SAR images, is based on a standalone processing chain, and brings innovative technical aspects relative to conventional approaches. The book is intended primarily for professionals and researchers working in the area of critical infrastructure monitoring by radar remote sensing.

Spatial planning, infrastructure and implementation: Implications for ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Infrastructure plays key roles in shaping the spatial form of the city at a macro- and a more local scale, and it influences the sustainability, efficiency and inclusiveness of cities and local areas. Linking infrastructure and spatial planning is therefore critical. Wide-ranging sets of knowledge and skills are required to enable ...

Public private partnerships - risk management in engineering infrastructure projects

OpenAIRE

2012-01-01

M.Phil. Economic growth and the provision of adequate infrastructure are highly interrelated. Infrastructure- plays a critical role in promoting economic growth through enhancing productivity, improving competitiveness, reducing poverty, linking people and organisations together through telecommunications and contributing to environmental sustainability. Population growth and rapid urbanisation have placed enormous pressure on existing infrastructure, thus presenting a daunting challenge t...

Reassessing Subjectivity, Criticality, and Inclusivity: Marcuse's Challenge to Adult Education.

Science.gov (United States)

Brookfield, Stephen

2002-01-01

Although Herbert Marcuse did not write as an adult educator, his analysis of subjectivity, criticality, and inclusivity has implications for adult education. He demonstrated how apparently humanistic tolerance for diversity can be manipulated to reinforce dominant ideology, and he made a case for aesthetic education as a site for critical…

Development of a public health nursing data infrastructure.

Science.gov (United States)

Monsen, Karen A; Bekemeier, Betty; P Newhouse, Robin; Scutchfield, F Douglas

2012-01-01

An invited group of national public health nursing (PHN) scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and other stakeholders met in October 2010 identifying a critical need for a national PHN data infrastructure to support PHN research. This article summarizes the strengths, limitations, and gaps specific to PHN data and proposes a research agenda for development of a PHN data infrastructure. Future implications are suggested, such as issues related to the development of the proposed PHN data infrastructure and future research possibilities enabled by the infrastructure. Such a data infrastructure has potential to improve accountability and measurement, to demonstrate the value of PHN services, and to improve population health. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Unraveling Structural Infrasound: understanding the science for persistent remote monitoring of critical infrastructure (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

McKenna, S. M.; Diaz-Alvarez, H.; McComas, S.; Costley, D.; Whitlow, R. D.; Jordan, A. M.; Taylor, O.

2013-12-01

In 2006, the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) began a program designed to meet the capability gap associated with remote assessment of critical infrastructure. This program addresses issues arising from the use of geophysical techniques to solve engineering problems through persistent monitoring of critical infrastructure using infrasound. In the original 2006-2009 study of a railroad bridge in Ft. Leonard Wood, MO, the fundamental modes of motion of the structure were detected at up to 30 km away, with atmospheric excitation deemed to be the source driver. Follow-on research focused on the mechanically driven modes excited by traffic, with directional acoustic emanations. The success of the Ft. Wood ambient excitation study resulted in several subsequent programs to push the boundaries of this new technique for standoff assessment, discussed herein. Detection of scour and river system health monitoring are serious problems for monitoring civil infrastructure, from both civilian and military perspectives. Knowledge of overall system behavior over time is crucial for assessment of bridge foundations and barge navigation. This research focuses on the same steel-truss bridge from the Ft. Wood study, and analyzes 3D and 2D substructure models coupled with the superstructure reaction loads to assess the modal deformations within the infrasound bandwidth and the correlation to scour of embedment material. The Urban infrasound program is infrasound modeling, data analysis, and sensor research leading to the detection, classification and localization of threat activities in complex propagation environments. Three seismo-acoustic arrays were deployed on rooftops across the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas, Texas, to characterize the urban infrasound environment. Structural sources within 15 km of the arrays have been identified through signal processing and confirmed through acoustical models. Infrasound is also being studied as a means of

77 FR 21989 - Critical Infrastructure Private Sector Clearance Program Request

Science.gov (United States)

2012-04-12

... Advisors email the form to the individual who then emails back the completed form, minus their date and... official who nominated the applicant and by the Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection. Upon...

Fragility: The Next Wave in Critical Infrastructure Protection

OpenAIRE

Allan McDougall

2009-01-01

In North America today, we are about to embark on a significant effort to repair, or even upgrade, many aspects of our infrastructure. Many of these efforts are linked to economic recovery packages. Others are based on sheer need. The challenge for decision makers and planners involves ensuring that scarce economic resources are put to their best use. Understanding the concept of fragility plays a pivotal part in reaching that understanding.Fragility, like many other systems—particularly Info...

ENEA infrastructures toward the LFR development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tarantino, M.; Agostini, P.; Del Nevo, A.; Di Piazza, I.; Rozzia, D.

2013-01-01

ENEA has one of the most relevant EU R&D infrastructures for HLM technological development, and it is strongly involved in the main research programs worldwide supporting the development of sub-critical (MYRRHA) and critical lead cooled reactors (ALFRED). In these frames a large experimental program ranging from HLM thermal-hydraulic to large scale experiment has been implemented

Methods of securing and controlling critical infrastructure assets allocated in information and communications technology sector companies in leading

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Piotr Sieńko

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Critical Infrastructure (CI plays a significant role in maintaining public order and national security. The state may use many different methods to protect and control CI allocated to commercial companies. This article describes the three most important ones: legislation, ownership and government institutions and agencies. The data presented in this paper is the result of research done on the most developed countries in the EU (United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy and their strategic enterprises in the ICT sector, one of the most important sectors in any national security system.

Constructing a resilience index for the Enhanced Critical Infrastructure Protection Program

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fisher, R. E.; Bassett, G. W.; Buehring, W. A.; Collins, M. J.; Dickinson, D. C.; Eaton, L. K.; Haffenden, R. A.; Hussar, N. E.; Klett, M. S.; Lawlor, M. A.; Millier, D. J.; Petit, F. D.; Peyton, S. M.; Wallace, K. E.; Whitfield, R. G.; Peerenboom, J P

2010-10-14

Following recommendations made in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7, which established a national policy for the identification and increased protection of critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) by Federal departments and agencies, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2006 developed the Enhanced Critical Infrastructure Protection (ECIP) program. The ECIP program aimed to provide a closer partnership with state, regional, territorial, local, and tribal authorities in fulfilling the national objective to improve CIKR protection. The program was specifically designed to identify protective measures currently in place in CIKR and to inform facility owners/operators of the benefits of new protective measures. The ECIP program also sought to enhance existing relationships between DHS and owners/operators of CIKR and to build relationships where none existed (DHS 2008; DHS 2009). In 2009, DHS and its protective security advisors (PSAs) began assessing CIKR assets using the ECIP program and ultimately produced individual protective measure and vulnerability values through the protective measure and vulnerability indices (PMI/VI). The PMI/VI assess the protective measures posture of individual facilities at their 'weakest link,' allowing for a detailed analysis of the most vulnerable aspects of the facilities (Schneier 2003), while maintaining the ability to produce an overall protective measures picture. The PMI has six main components (physical security, security management, security force, information sharing, protective measures assessments, and dependencies) and focuses on actions taken by a facility to prevent or deter the occurrence of an incident (Argonne National Laboratory 2009). As CIKR continue to be assessed using the PMI/VI and owners/operators better understand how they can prevent or deter incidents, academic research, practitioner emphasis, and public policy formation have increasingly focused on resilience as a

Monitoring and Control of Urban Critical Infrastructures: A Novel Approach to System Design and Data Fusion

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mario La Manna

2015-02-01

Full Text Available The monitoring and control of urban critical infrastructures consists of the protection of assets such as houses, offices, government and private buildings, with low cost, high quality and high dependability. In order to satisfy all these requirements at the same time, the control of a number of assets has to be performed by means of automated systems based on networks of heterogeneous sensors. This new concept idea is based on the use of unmanned operations at each of the many remote assets (each asset is monitored through a network of sensors and a man-in-the-loop automated control in a central site (Operational Center, which performs alarm detection and system management.

INFRASTRUCTURE

CERN Multimedia

A. Gaddi

2012-01-01

The CMS Infrastructures teams are constantly ensuring the smooth operation of the different services during this critical period when the detector is taking data at full speed. A single failure would spoil hours of high luminosity beam and everything is put in place to avoid such an eventuality. In the meantime however, the fast approaching LS1 requires that we take a look at the various activities to take place from the end of the year onwards. The list of infrastructures consolidation and upgrade tasks is already long and will touch all the services (cooling, gas, inertion, powering, etc.). The definitive list will be available just before the LS1 start. One activity performed by the CMS cooling team that is worth mentioning is the maintenance of the cooling circuits at the CMS Electronics Integration Centre (EIC) at building 904. The old chiller has been replaced by a three-units cooling plant that also serves the HVAC system for the new CSC and RPC factories. The commissioning of this new plant has tak...

Making green infrastructure healthier infrastructure.

Science.gov (United States)

Lõhmus, Mare; Balbus, John

2015-01-01

Increasing urban green and blue structure is often pointed out to be critical for sustainable development and climate change adaptation, which has led to the rapid expansion of greening activities in cities throughout the world. This process is likely to have a direct impact on the citizens' quality of life and public health. However, alongside numerous benefits, green and blue infrastructure also has the potential to create unexpected, undesirable, side-effects for health. This paper considers several potential harmful public health effects that might result from increased urban biodiversity, urban bodies of water, and urban tree cover projects. It does so with the intent of improving awareness and motivating preventive measures when designing and initiating such projects. Although biodiversity has been found to be associated with physiological benefits for humans in several studies, efforts to increase the biodiversity of urban environments may also promote the introduction and survival of vector or host organisms for infectious pathogens with resulting spread of a variety of diseases. In addition, more green connectivity in urban areas may potentiate the role of rats and ticks in the spread of infectious diseases. Bodies of water and wetlands play a crucial role in the urban climate adaptation and mitigation process. However, they also provide habitats for mosquitoes and toxic algal blooms. Finally, increasing urban green space may also adversely affect citizens allergic to pollen. Increased awareness of the potential hazards of urban green and blue infrastructure should not be a reason to stop or scale back projects. Instead, incorporating public health awareness and interventions into urban planning at the earliest stages can help insure that green and blue infrastructure achieves full potential for health promotion.

Sustainable infrastructure system modeling under uncertainties and dynamics

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Yongxi

Infrastructure systems support human activities in transportation, communication, water use, and energy supply. The dissertation research focuses on critical transportation infrastructure and renewable energy infrastructure systems. The goal of the research efforts is to improve the sustainability of the infrastructure systems, with an emphasis on economic viability, system reliability and robustness, and environmental impacts. The research efforts in critical transportation infrastructure concern the development of strategic robust resource allocation strategies in an uncertain decision-making environment, considering both uncertain service availability and accessibility. The study explores the performances of different modeling approaches (i.e., deterministic, stochastic programming, and robust optimization) to reflect various risk preferences. The models are evaluated in a case study of Singapore and results demonstrate that stochastic modeling methods in general offers more robust allocation strategies compared to deterministic approaches in achieving high coverage to critical infrastructures under risks. This general modeling framework can be applied to other emergency service applications, such as, locating medical emergency services. The development of renewable energy infrastructure system development aims to answer the following key research questions: (1) is the renewable energy an economically viable solution? (2) what are the energy distribution and infrastructure system requirements to support such energy supply systems in hedging against potential risks? (3) how does the energy system adapt the dynamics from evolving technology and societal needs in the transition into a renewable energy based society? The study of Renewable Energy System Planning with Risk Management incorporates risk management into its strategic planning of the supply chains. The physical design and operational management are integrated as a whole in seeking mitigations against the

Constructing vulnerabilty and protective measures indices for the enhanced critical infrastructure protection program.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fisher, R. E.; Buehring, W. A.; Whitfield, R. G.; Bassett, G. W.; Dickinson, D. C.; Haffenden, R. A.; Klett, M. S.; Lawlor, M. A.; Decision and Information Sciences; LANL

2009-10-14

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has directed its Protective Security Advisors (PSAs) to form partnerships with the owners and operators of assets most essential to the Nation's well being - a subclass of critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) - and to conduct site visits for these and other high-risk assets as part of the Enhanced Critical Infrastructure Protection (ECIP) Program. During each such visit, the PSA documents information about the facility's current CIKR protection posture and overall security awareness. The primary goals for ECIP site visits (DHS 2009) are to: (1) inform facility owners and operators of the importance of their facilities as an identified high-priority CIKR and the need to be vigilant in light of the ever-present threat of terrorism; (2) identify protective measures currently in place at these facilities, provide comparisons of CIKR protection postures across like assets, and track the implementation of new protective measures; and (3) enhance existing relationships among facility owners and operators; DHS; and various Federal, State, local tribal, and territorial partners. PSAs conduct ECIP visits to assess overall site security; educate facility owners and operators about security; help owners and operators identify gaps and potential improvements; and promote communication and information sharing among facility owners and operators, DHS, State governments, and other security partners. Information collected during ECIP visits is used to develop metrics; conduct sector-by-sector and cross-sector vulnerability comparisons; identify security gaps and trends across CIKR sectors and subsectors; establish sector baseline security survey results; and track progress toward improving CIKR security through activities, programs, outreach, and training (Snyder 2009). The data being collected are used in a framework consistent with the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) risk criteria (DHS 2009). The

Settlement characteristics of major infrastructures in Shanghai

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

X. Jiao

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Critical infrastructures in Shanghai have undergone uneven settlement since their operation, which plays an important role in affecting the security of Shanghai. This paper, taking rail transportation as example, investigates settlement characteristics and influencing factors of this linear engineering, based on long-term settlement monitoring data. Results show that rail settlement is related to geological conditions, regional ground subsidence, surrounding construction activities and structural differences in the rail systems. In order to effectively decrease the impact of regional ground subsidence, a monitoring and early-warning mechanism for critical infrastructure is established by the administrative department and engineering operators, including monitoring network construction, settlement monitoring, information sharing, settlement warning, and so on.

Communications and information infrastructure security

CERN Document Server

Voeller, John G

2014-01-01

Communication and Information Systems Security features articles from the Wiley Handbook of Science and Technology for Homeland Security covering strategies for protecting the telecommunications sector, wireless security, advanced web based technology for emergency situations. Science and technology for critical infrastructure consequence mitigation are also discussed.

Towards a Risk Based Assessment of Critical Information ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

For this reason the South African measures are likely to lead to the adoption of a paradigm that considers every infrastructure, data or database, regardless of its significance or importance, to be key or critical. KEYWORDS: Critical databases; critical information infrastructures; national security; social and economic well- ...

Optimal infrastructure selection to boost regional sustainable economy

OpenAIRE

Martín Utrillas, Manuel Guzmán; Juan-Garcia, F.; Cantó Perelló, Julián; Curiel Esparza, Jorge

2015-01-01

The role of infrastructures in boosting the economic growth of the regions is widely recognized. In many cases, an infrastructure is selected by subjective reasons. Selection of the optimal infrastructure for sustainable economic development of a region should be based on objective and founded reasons, not only economical, but also environmental and social. In this paper is developed such selection through a hybrid method based on Delphi, analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and VIKOR (from Se...

Investing in Natural and Nature-Based Infrastructure: Building Better Along Our Coasts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ariana E. Sutton-Grier

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Much of the United States’ critical infrastructure is either aging or requires significant repair, leaving U.S. communities and the economy vulnerable. Outdated and dilapidated infrastructure places coastal communities, in particular, at risk from the increasingly frequent and intense coastal storm events and rising sea levels. Therefore, investments in coastal infrastructure are urgently needed to ensure community safety and prosperity; however, these investments should not jeopardize the ecosystems and natural resources that underlie economic wealth and human well-being. Over the past 50 years, efforts have been made to integrate built infrastructure with natural landscape features, often termed “green” infrastructure, in order to sustain and restore valuable ecosystem functions and services. For example, significant advances have been made in implementing green infrastructure approaches for stormwater management, wastewater treatment, and drinking water conservation and delivery. However, the implementation of natural and nature-based infrastructure (NNBI aimed at flood prevention and coastal erosion protection is lagging. There is an opportunity now, as the U.S. government reacts to the recent, unprecedented flooding and hurricane damage and considers greater infrastructure investments, to incorporate NNBI into coastal infrastructure projects. Doing so will increase resilience and provide critical services to local communities in a cost-effective manner and thereby help to sustain a growing economy.

Modeling cascading failures in interdependent infrastructures under terrorist attacks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wu, Baichao; Tang, Aiping; Wu, Jie

2016-01-01

An attack strength degradation model has been introduced to further capture the interdependencies among infrastructures and model cascading failures across infrastructures when terrorist attacks occur. A medium-sized energy system including oil network and power network is selected for exploring the vulnerabilities from independent networks to interdependent networks, considering the structural vulnerability and the functional vulnerability. Two types of interdependencies among critical infrastructures are involved in this paper: physical interdependencies and geographical interdependencies, shown by tunable parameters based on the probabilities of failures of nodes in the networks. In this paper, a tolerance parameter α is used to evaluation of the overloads of the substations based on power flow redistribution in power transmission systems under the attack. The results of simulation show that the independent networks or interdependent networks will be collapsed when only a small fraction of nodes are attacked under the attack strength degradation model, especially for the interdependent networks. The methodology introduced in this paper with physical interdependencies and geographical interdependencies involved in can be applied to analyze the vulnerability of the interdependent infrastructures further, and provides the insights of vulnerability of interdependent infrastructures to mitigation actions for critical infrastructure protections. - Highlights: • An attack strength degradation model based on the specified locations has been introduced. • Interdependencies considering both physical and geographical have been analyzed. • The structural vulnerability and the functional vulnerability have been considered.

6 CFR 29.7 - Safeguarding of Protected Critical Infrastructure Information.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... Infrastructure Information. 29.7 Section 29.7 Domestic Security DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, OFFICE OF THE..., and consistent with the Act, for Automated Information Systems that contain PCII. Such security requirements will be in conformance with the information technology security requirements in the Federal...

Making green infrastructure healthier infrastructure

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mare Lõhmus

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Increasing urban green and blue structure is often pointed out to be critical for sustainable development and climate change adaptation, which has led to the rapid expansion of greening activities in cities throughout the world. This process is likely to have a direct impact on the citizens’ quality of life and public health. However, alongside numerous benefits, green and blue infrastructure also has the potential to create unexpected, undesirable, side-effects for health. This paper considers several potential harmful public health effects that might result from increased urban biodiversity, urban bodies of water, and urban tree cover projects. It does so with the intent of improving awareness and motivating preventive measures when designing and initiating such projects. Although biodiversity has been found to be associated with physiological benefits for humans in several studies, efforts to increase the biodiversity of urban environments may also promote the introduction and survival of vector or host organisms for infectious pathogens with resulting spread of a variety of diseases. In addition, more green connectivity in urban areas may potentiate the role of rats and ticks in the spread of infectious diseases. Bodies of water and wetlands play a crucial role in the urban climate adaptation and mitigation process. However, they also provide habitats for mosquitoes and toxic algal blooms. Finally, increasing urban green space may also adversely affect citizens allergic to pollen. Increased awareness of the potential hazards of urban green and blue infrastructure should not be a reason to stop or scale back projects. Instead, incorporating public health awareness and interventions into urban planning at the earliest stages can help insure that green and blue infrastructure achieves full potential for health promotion.

Simulating economic effects of disruptions in the telecommunications infrastructure.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cox, Roger Gary; Barton, Dianne Catherine; Reinert, Rhonda K.; Eidson, Eric D.; Schoenwald, David Alan

2004-01-01

CommAspen is a new agent-based model for simulating the interdependent effects of market decisions and disruptions in the telecommunications infrastructure on other critical infrastructures in the U.S. economy such as banking and finance, and electric power. CommAspen extends and modifies the capabilities of Aspen-EE, an agent-based model previously developed by Sandia National Laboratories to analyze the interdependencies between the electric power system and other critical infrastructures. CommAspen has been tested on a series of scenarios in which the communications network has been disrupted, due to congestion and outages. Analysis of the scenario results indicates that communications networks simulated by the model behave as their counterparts do in the real world. Results also show that the model could be used to analyze the economic impact of communications congestion and outages.

Green Infrastructure, Groundwater and the Sustainable City

Science.gov (United States)

Band, L. E.

2014-12-01

The management of water is among the most important attributes of urbanization. Provision of sufficient quantities and quality of freshwater, treatment and disposal of wastewater and flood protection are critical for urban sustainability. Over the last century, two major shifts in water management paradigms have occurred, the first to improve public health with the provision of infrastructure for centralized sanitary effluent collection and treatment, and the rapid drainage and routing of stormwater. A current shift in paradigm is now occurring in response to the unintended consequences of sanitary and stormwater management, which have degraded downstream water bodies and shifted flood hazard downstream. Current infrastructure is being designed and implemented to retain, rather than rapidly drain, stormwater, with a focus on infiltration based methods. In urban areas, this amounts to a shift in hydrologic behavior to depression focused recharge. While stormwater is defined as surface flow resulting from developed areas, an integrated hydrologic systems approach to urban water management requires treatment of the full critical zone. In urban areas this extends from the top of the vegetation and building canopy, to a subsurface depth including natural soils, fill, saprolite and bedrock. In addition to matric and network flow in fracture systems, an urban "karst" includes multiple generations of current and past infrastructure, which has developed extensive subsurface pipe networks for supply and drainage, enhancing surface/groundwater flows and exchange. In this presentation, Band will discuss the need to focus on the urban critical zone, and the development and adaptation of new modeling and analytical approaches to understand and plan green infrastructure based on surface/groundwater/ecosystem interactions, and implications for the restoration and new design of cities.

A Systems-Based Risk Assessment Framework for Intentional Electromagnetic Interference (IEMI) on Critical Infrastructures.

Science.gov (United States)

Oakes, Benjamin Donald; Mattsson, Lars-Göran; Näsman, Per; Glazunov, Andrés Alayón

2018-01-03

Modern infrastructures are becoming increasingly dependent on electronic systems, leaving them more vulnerable to electrical surges or electromagnetic interference. Electromagnetic disturbances appear in nature, e.g., lightning and solar wind; however, they may also be generated by man-made technology to maliciously damage or disturb electronic equipment. This article presents a systematic risk assessment framework for identifying possible, consequential, and plausible intentional electromagnetic interference (IEMI) attacks on an arbitrary distribution network infrastructure. In the absence of available data on IEMI occurrences, we find that a systems-based risk assessment is more useful than a probabilistic approach. We therefore modify the often applied definition of risk, i.e., a set of triplets containing scenario, probability, and consequence, to a set of quadruplets: scenario, resource requirements, plausibility, and consequence. Probability is "replaced" by resource requirements and plausibility, where the former is the minimum amount and type of equipment necessary to successfully carry out an attack scenario and the latter is a subjective assessment of the extent of the existence of attackers who possess the motivation, knowledge, and resources necessary to carry out the scenario. We apply the concept of intrusion areas and classify electromagnetic source technology according to key attributes. Worst-case scenarios are identified for different quantities of attacker resources. The most plausible and consequential of these are deemed the most important scenarios and should provide useful decision support in a countermeasures effort. Finally, an example of the proposed risk assessment framework, based on notional data, is provided on a hypothetical water distribution network. © 2017 Society for Risk Analysis.

Analysis of Critical Infrastructure Dependencies and Interdependencies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Petit, Frederic [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Verner, Duane [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Brannegan, David [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Buehring, William [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Dickinson, David [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Guziel, Karen [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Haffenden, Rebecca [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Phillips, Julia [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Peerenboom, James [Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

2015-06-01

The report begins by defining dependencies and interdependencies and exploring basic concepts of dependencies in order to facilitate a common understanding and consistent analytical approaches. Key concepts covered include; Characteristics of dependencies: upstream dependencies, internal dependencies, and downstream dependencies; Classes of dependencies: physical, cyber, geographic, and logical; and Dimensions of dependencies: operating environment, coupling and response behavior, type of failure, infrastructure characteristics, and state of operations From there, the report proposes a multi-phase roadmap to support dependency and interdependency assessment activities nationwide, identifying a range of data inputs, analysis activities, and potential products for each phase, as well as key steps needed to progress from one phase to the next. The report concludes by outlining a comprehensive, iterative, and scalable framework for analyzing dependencies and interdependencies that stakeholders can integrate into existing risk and resilience assessment efforts.

A new vision of the post-NIST civil infrastructure program: the challenges of next-generation construction materials and processes

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, H. Felix; Wan, Yan

2014-03-01

Our nation's infrastructural systems are crumbling. The deteriorating process grows over time. The physical aging of these vital facilities and the remediation of their current critical state pose a key societal challenge to the United States. Current sensing technologies, while well developed in controlled laboratory environments, have not yet yielded tools for producing real-time, in-situ data that are adequately comprehensible for infrastructure decision-makers. The need for advanced sensing technologies is national because every municipality and state in the nation faces infrastructure management challenges. The need is critical because portions of infrastructure are reaching the end of their life-spans and there are few cost-effective means to monitor infrastructure integrity and to prioritize the renovation and replacement of infrastructure elements. New advanced sensing technologies that produce cost-effective inspection and real-time monitoring data, and that can also help or aid in meaningful interpretation of the acquired data, therefore will enhance the safety in regard to the public on structural integrity by issuing timely and accurate alert data for effective maintenance to avoid disasters happening. New advanced sensing technologies also allow more informed management of infrastructural investments by avoiding premature replacement of infrastructure and identifying those structures in need of immediate action to prevent from catastrophic failure. Infrastructure management requires that once a structural defect is detected, an economical and efficient repair be made. Advancing the technologies of repairing infrastructure elements in contact with water, road salt, and subjected to thermal changes requires innovative research to significantly extend the service life of repairs, lower the costs of repairs, and provide repair technologies that are suitable for a wide range of conditions. All these new technologies will provide increased lifetimes

The Department of Energy nuclear criticality safety program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Felty, J.R.

2004-01-01

This paper broadly covers key events and activities from which the Department of Energy Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP) evolved. The NCSP maintains fundamental infrastructure that supports operational criticality safety programs. This infrastructure includes continued development and maintenance of key calculational tools, differential and integral data measurements, benchmark compilation, development of training resources, hands-on training, and web-based systems to enhance information preservation and dissemination. The NCSP was initiated in response to Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Recommendation 97-2, Criticality Safety, and evolved from a predecessor program, the Nuclear Criticality Predictability Program, that was initiated in response to Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Recommendation 93-2, The Need for Critical Experiment Capability. This paper also discusses the role Dr. Sol Pearlstein played in helping the Department of Energy lay the foundation for a robust and enduring criticality safety infrastructure.

A Virtual Environment for Resilient Infrastructure Modeling and Design

Science.gov (United States)

2015-09-01

Security CI Critical Infrastructure CID Center for Infrastructure Defense CSV Comma Separated Value DAD Defender-Attacker-Defender DHS Department...responses to disruptive events (e.g., cascading failure behavior) in a context- rich , controlled environment for exercises, education, and training...The general attacker-defender (AD) and defender-attacker-defender ( DAD ) models for CI are defined in Brown et al. (2006). These models help

Assessing the vulnerability of infrastructure to climate change on the Islands of Samoa

Science.gov (United States)

Fakhruddin, S. H. M.; Babel, M. S.; Kawasaki, A.

2015-06-01

Pacific Islanders have been exposed to risks associated with climate change. Samoa, as one of the Pacific Islands, is prone to climatic hazards that will likely increase in the coming decades, affecting coastal communities and infrastructure around the islands. Climate models do not predict a reduction of such disaster events in the future in Samoa; indeed, most predict an increase. This paper identifies key infrastructure and their functions and status in order to provide an overall picture of relative vulnerability to climate-related stresses of such infrastructure on the island. By reviewing existing reports as well as holding a series of consultation meetings, a list of critical infrastructure was developed and shared with stakeholders for their consideration. An indicator-based vulnerability model (SIVM) was developed in collaboration with stakeholders to assess the vulnerability of selected infrastructure systems on the Samoan Islands. Damage costs were extracted from the Cyclone Evan recovery needs document. Additionally, data on criticality and capacity to repair damage were collected from stakeholders. Having stakeholder perspectives on these two issues was important because (a) criticality of a given infrastructure could be viewed differently among different stakeholders, and (b) stakeholders were the best available source (in this study) to estimate the capacity to repair non-physical damage to such infrastructure. Analysis of the results suggested a ranking of sectors from the most vulnerable to least vulnerable are: the transportation sector, the power sector, the water supply sector and the sewerage system.

Protecting and securing the energy infrastructure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gillham, B. [Conoco Canada Ltd., Calgary, AB (Canada)

2002-07-01

Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) includes protection against physical and cyber attacks as well as potential interruptions and vulnerabilities such as natural disasters and human error. CIP makes it possible to deal with the consequences of infrastructure failures that can have regional, national and international impacts. The energy sector is challenged because there has been an irreversible move to automated control systems and electronic transactions. In addition, due to mergers and joint ventures, the line between traditional oil, natural gas companies and power companies is not perfectly clear. Energy industries can no longer be seen in isolation of each other because they depend on other critical infrastructures. Industry should lead CIP programs through risk management assessments, develop and implement global information technology standards, and enhance response and recovery planning. The National Petroleum Council (NPC) will continue to develop the capabilities of the newly formed Information Sharing and Assessment Centre (ISAC). The sector will also continue to develop common vulnerability assessment goals. It was noted that response and recovery plans must include the cyber dimension, because there has been an increasing number of scans and probes from the Internet since the events of September 11, 2001. It was noted that physical incidents can often turn into cyber incidents and vice versa.

Will climate change increase the risk for critical infrastructure failures in Europe due to extreme precipitation?

Science.gov (United States)

Nissen, Katrin; Ulbrich, Uwe

2016-04-01

An event based detection algorithm for extreme precipitation is applied to a multi-model ensemble of regional climate model simulations. The algorithm determines extent, location, duration and severity of extreme precipitation events. We assume that precipitation in excess of the local present-day 10-year return value will potentially exceed the capacity of the drainage systems that protect critical infrastructure elements. This assumption is based on legislation for the design of drainage systems which is in place in many European countries. Thus, events exceeding the local 10-year return value are detected. In this study we distinguish between sub-daily events (3 hourly) with high precipitation intensities and long-duration events (1-3 days) with high precipitation amounts. The climate change simulations investigated here were conducted within the EURO-CORDEX framework and exhibit a horizontal resolution of approximately 12.5 km. The period between 1971-2100 forced with observed and scenario (RCP 8.5 and RCP 4.5) greenhouse gas concentrations was analysed. Examined are changes in event frequency, event duration and size. The simulations show an increase in the number of extreme precipitation events for the future climate period over most of the area, which is strongest in Northern Europe. Strength and statistical significance of the signal increase with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. This work has been conducted within the EU project RAIN (Risk Analysis of Infrastructure Networks in response to extreme weather).

Risk analysis of underground infrastructures in urban areas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cagno, Enrico; De Ambroggi, Massimiliano; Grande, Ottavio; Trucco, Paolo

2011-01-01

The paper presents an integrated approach for vulnerability and resilience analysis for underground infrastructures, i.e. a societal risk analysis of the failures of underground services for an urban area. The approach is based on the detailed study of (1) domino-effects for the components of a single infrastructure and for a given set of infrastructures interoperated and/or belonging to the same area; (2) risk and vulnerability analysis of a given area; (3) identification of a set of intervention guidelines, in order to improve the overall system resilience. The use of an integrated (interoperability and area) approach, breaking down the analysis area extent into sub-areas and assessing the dependencies among sub-areas both in terms of interoperability and damage propagation of critical infrastructures, demonstrates a useful advantage in terms of resilience analysis, more consistent with the 'zoned' nature of failures of the underground infrastructures. An applied case, describing the interoperability and damage propagation analysis with the evaluation of time-dependency for the infrastructures and targets and of different kinds of interventions of the underground infrastructures of a town, is presented for this purpose.

Low carbon technology performance vs infrastructure vulnerability: analysis through the local and global properties space.

Science.gov (United States)

Dawson, David A; Purnell, Phil; Roelich, Katy; Busch, Jonathan; Steinberger, Julia K

2014-11-04

Renewable energy technologies, necessary for low-carbon infrastructure networks, are being adopted to help reduce fossil fuel dependence and meet carbon mitigation targets. The evolution of these technologies has progressed based on the enhancement of technology-specific performance criteria, without explicitly considering the wider system (global) impacts. This paper presents a methodology for simultaneously assessing local (technology) and global (infrastructure) performance, allowing key technological interventions to be evaluated with respect to their effect on the vulnerability of wider infrastructure systems. We use exposure of low carbon infrastructure to critical material supply disruption (criticality) to demonstrate the methodology. A series of local performance changes are analyzed; and by extension of this approach, a method for assessing the combined criticality of multiple materials for one specific technology is proposed. Via a case study of wind turbines at both the material (magnets) and technology (turbine generators) levels, we demonstrate that analysis of a given intervention at different levels can lead to differing conclusions regarding the effect on vulnerability. Infrastructure design decisions should take a systemic approach; without these multilevel considerations, strategic goals aimed to help meet low-carbon targets, that is, through long-term infrastructure transitions, could be significantly jeopardized.

Funding models for financing water infrastructure in South Africa: framework and critical analysis of alternatives

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Ruiters, C

2013-04-01

Full Text Available by putting in place new institutional structures and funding models for effective strategies leading to prompt water infrastructure provision. The research identified several funding models for financing water infrastructure development projects. The existing...

Explorations Around "Graceful Failure" in Transportation Infrastructure: Lessons Learned By the Infrastructure and Climate Network (ICNet)

Science.gov (United States)

Jacobs, J. M.; Thomas, N.; Mo, W.; Kirshen, P. H.; Douglas, E. M.; Daniel, J.; Bell, E.; Friess, L.; Mallick, R.; Kartez, J.; Hayhoe, K.; Croope, S.

2014-12-01

Recent events have demonstrated that the United States' transportation infrastructure is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events which will likely increase in the future. In light of the 60% shortfall of the $900 billion investment needed over the next five years to maintain this aging infrastructure, hardening of all infrastructures is unlikely. Alternative strategies are needed to ensure that critical aspects of the transportation network are maintained during climate extremes. Preliminary concepts around multi-tier service expectations of bridges and roads with reference to network capacity will be presented. Drawing from recent flooding events across the U.S., specific examples for roads/pavement will be used to illustrate impacts, disruptions, and trade-offs between performance during events and subsequent damage. This talk will also address policy and cultural norms within the civil engineering practice that will likely challenge the application of graceful failure pathways during extreme events.

Vulnerability analysis of the wireless infrastructures to intentional electromagnetic interference

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van de Beek, G.S.

2016-01-01

Contemporary society is greatly dependent upon a set of critical infrastructures (CIs) providing security and quality of life. Electronic systems control the safety-critical functioning of most CIs, and these electronic systems are susceptible to electromagnetic interference (EMI). A threat to the

2008 Defense Industrial Base Critical Infrastructure Protection Conference (DIB-CBIP)

Science.gov (United States)

2008-04-09

a cloak -and- dagger thing. It’s about computer architecture and the soundness of electronic systems." Joel Brenner, ODNI Counterintelligence Office...to support advanced network exploitation and launch attacks on the informational and physical elements of our cyber infrastructure. In order to...entities and is vulnerable to attacks and manipulation. Operations in the cyber domain have the ability to impact operations in other war-fighting

Infrastructure protection in the Dutch financial sector

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Oers, M.H.M.; Strous, L.; Berndsen, R.J.; Butts, J.; Shenoi, S.

2012-01-01

This paper presents a case study of critical infrastructure protection in the Dutch financial sector. The organizational structures are examined to discern the roles and functions that facilitate public-private cooperation. An assessment of the organizational structures is provided along with a

Homeland Security -- Reducing the Vulnerability of Public and Private Information Infrastructures to Terrorism: An Overview

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Seifert, Jeffrey W

2002-01-01

This report assesses the impact of the September 11, 2001 attacks on public and private information infrastructures in the context of critical infrastructure protection, continuity of operations (COOP...

Private Sector Investment in Pakistani Agriculture: The Role of Infrastructural Investment

Science.gov (United States)

1999-01-01

private sector will be expected to play the major role in providing capital to the agricultural sector, with the government’s remaining involvement being largely one of furnishing basic infrastructure. The critical question of course is how willing is the private sector to commit capital to agricultural activities in this new policy environment? Has the private sector responded in the past to the increases in profitability provided by an expansion in infrastructure? If so, what types of infrastructure are most conducive in

Eco-logical : an ecosystem approach to developing transportation infrastructure projects in a changing environment

Science.gov (United States)

2009-09-13

The development of infrastructure facilities can negatively impact critical habitat and essential ecosystems. There are a variety of techniques available to avoid, minimize, and mitigate negative impacts of existing infrastructure as well as future i...

Seismic Barrier Protection of Critical Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

2017-05-14

structures , earthquake mitigation I. Introduction Damage caused by earthquakes to critical structures such as nuclear power plants, regional hospitals...the seismic power drop in dB to magnitude drop using the seismic moment magnitude scale, Mw. In figures 5 and 6, the V-trench structure as modeled...representing geological media and V-shaped muffler borehole / trench component structures . Bottom: In this simple analysis, the power drop observed

Cloud Application Architectures Building Applications and Infrastructure in the Cloud

CERN Document Server

Reese, George

2009-01-01

If you're involved in planning IT infrastructure as a network or system architect, system administrator, or developer, this book will help you adapt your skills to work with these highly scalable, highly redundant infrastructure services. Cloud Application Architectures will help you determine whether and how to put your applications into these virtualized services, with critical guidance on issues of cost, availability, performance, scaling, privacy, and security.

Understanding the infrastructure of European Research Infrastructures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lindstrøm, Maria Duclos; Kropp, Kristoffer

2017-01-01

European Research Infrastructure Consortia (ERIC) are a new form of legal and financial framework for the establishment and operation of research infrastructures in Europe. Despite their scope, ambition, and novelty, the topic has received limited scholarly attention. This article analyses one ER....... It is also a promising theoretical framework for addressing the relationship between the ERIC construct and the large diversity of European Research Infrastructures.......European Research Infrastructure Consortia (ERIC) are a new form of legal and financial framework for the establishment and operation of research infrastructures in Europe. Despite their scope, ambition, and novelty, the topic has received limited scholarly attention. This article analyses one ERIC...... became an ERIC using the Bowker and Star’s sociology of infrastructures. We conclude that focusing on ERICs as a European standard for organising and funding research collaboration gives new insights into the problems of membership, durability, and standardisation faced by research infrastructures...

Anti-social networking: crowdsourcing and the cyber defence of national critical infrastructures.

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, Chris W

2014-01-01

We identify four roles that social networking plays in the 'attribution problem', which obscures whether or not cyber-attacks were state-sponsored. First, social networks motivate individuals to participate in Distributed Denial of Service attacks by providing malware and identifying potential targets. Second, attackers use an individual's social network to focus attacks, through spear phishing. Recipients are more likely to open infected attachments when they come from a trusted source. Third, social networking infrastructures create disposable architectures to coordinate attacks through command and control servers. The ubiquitous nature of these architectures makes it difficult to determine who owns and operates the servers. Finally, governments recruit anti-social criminal networks to launch attacks on third-party infrastructures using botnets. The closing sections identify a roadmap to increase resilience against the 'dark side' of social networking.

Regulação de Riscos e Proteção de Infraestruturas Críticas: os novos ventos do fenômeno regulatório / Risk Regulation and Critical Infrastructure Protection: The New Winds of the Regulatory Phenomenon

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Egon C. Guterres

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Purpose – This article analyzes the origins of the Risk Regulation Theory and Critical Infrastructure Protection Programs, and shows their contribution to the Brazilian regulatory experience. Methodology/approach/design – Through several examples, this study presents regulatory policies that emerged as responses to events that caused a significant impact on society. Findings – The unique way that the Critical Infrastructure Protection Programs evolved within the Brazilian regulatory experience is greatly attributable to demands of major international sporting events.

The subjects who have never been historical – a criticism to eurocentric marxism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

João Aldeia

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Despite its limitations, classical Marxism remains an essential theory for the critical understanding of contemporaneity. However, some of its assumptions are unsustainable. Starting from a constructive criticism of Marxism, namely of its Eurocentered nature, this article attempts to deconstruct the notion of the proletariat as historical subject, considering it empirically unverifiable. If there are no groups destined to lead the process of socio-historical change, the real emancipation of the oppressed of the world has necessarily to articulate the struggles of the working classes with those of all the other dominated groups in the world-system.

The Resource Hazards Model for the Critical Infrastructure of the State Emergency Management Process

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ostrowska Teresa

2014-08-01

Full Text Available This paper presents an investigation of the relevant factors related to the construction of a resource model which is designed to be useful in the management processes of the operation of critical infrastructure (CI for state emergencies. The genesis of the research lay in the perceived need for effective protection of multidimensional CI methodologies, and it was influenced by the nature of the physical characteristics of the available resources. It was necessary to establish a clear structure and well defined objectives and to assess the functional and structural resources required, as well as the potential relational susceptibilities deriving from a number of possible threats and the possible seriousness of a specific range of incidents and their possible consequences. The interdependence of CI stocks is shown by the use of tables of resource classes. The dynamics of the interaction of CI resources are modeled by examining how using clusters of potential risks can at any given time create a class of compounds related to susceptibilities and threats to the resources. As a result, the model can be used to conduct multi-dimensional risk calculations for crisis management CI resource configurations.

New York Solar Smart DG Hub-Resilient Solar Project: Economic and Resiliency Impact of PV and Storage on New York Critical Infrastructure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Anderson, Kate; Burman, Kari; Simpkins, Travis; Helson, Erica; Lisell, Lars, Case, Tria

2016-06-01

Resilient PV, which is solar paired with storage ('solar-plus-storage'), provides value both during normal grid operation and power outages as opposed to traditional solar PV, which functions only when the electric grid is operating. During normal grid operations, resilient PV systems help host sites generate revenue and/or reduce electricity bill charges. During grid outages, resilient PV provides critical emergency power that can help people in need and ease demand on emergency fuel supplies. The combination of grid interruptions during recent storms, the proliferation of solar PV, and the growing deployment of battery storage technologies has generated significant interest in using these assets for both economic and resiliency benefits. This report analyzes the technical and economic viability for resilient PV on three critical infrastructure sites in New York City (NYC): a school that is part of a coastal storm shelter system, a fire station, and a NYCHA senior center that serves as a cooling center during heat emergencies. This analysis differs from previous solar-plus-storage studies by placing a monetary value on resiliency and thus, in essence, modeling a new revenue stream for the avoided cost of a power outage. Analysis results show that resilient PV is economically viable for NYC's critical infrastructure and that it may be similarly beneficial to other commercial buildings across the city. This report will help city building owners, managers, and policymakers better understand the economic and resiliency benefits of resilient PV. As NYC fortifies its building stock against future storms of increasing severity, resilient PV can play an important role in disaster response and recovery while also supporting city greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and relieving stress to the electric grid from growing power demands.

Resource-poor settings: infrastructure and capacity building: care of the critically ill and injured during pandemics and disasters: CHEST consensus statement.

Science.gov (United States)

Geiling, James; Burkle, Frederick M; Amundson, Dennis; Dominguez-Cherit, Guillermo; Gomersall, Charles D; Lim, Matthew L; Luyckx, Valerie; Sarani, Babak; Uyeki, Timothy M; West, T Eoin; Christian, Michael D; Devereaux, Asha V; Dichter, Jeffrey R; Kissoon, Niranjan

2014-10-01

Planning for mass critical care (MCC) in resource-poor or constrained settings has been largely ignored, despite their large populations that are prone to suffer disproportionately from natural disasters. Addressing MCC in these settings has the potential to help vast numbers of people and also to inform planning for better-resourced areas. The Resource-Poor Settings panel developed five key question domains; defining the term resource poor and using the traditional phases of disaster (mitigation/preparedness/response/recovery), literature searches were conducted to identify evidence on which to answer the key questions in these areas. Given a lack of data upon which to develop evidence-based recommendations, expert-opinion suggestions were developed, and consensus was achieved using a modified Delphi process. The five key questions were then separated as follows: definition, infrastructure and capacity building, resources, response, and reconstitution/recovery of host nation critical care capabilities and research. Addressing these questions led the panel to offer 33 suggestions. Because of the large number of suggestions, the results have been separated into two sections: part 1, Infrastructure/Capacity in this article, and part 2, Response/Recovery/Research in the accompanying article. Lack of, or presence of, rudimentary ICU resources and limited capacity to enhance services further challenge resource-poor and constrained settings. Hence, capacity building entails preventative strategies and strengthening of primary health services. Assistance from other countries and organizations is needed to mount a surge response. Moreover, planning should include when to disengage and how the host nation can provide capacity beyond the mass casualty care event.

Assessment of municipal infrastructure development and its critical influencing factors in urban China: A FA and STIRPAT approach.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu Li

Full Text Available Municipal infrastructure is a fundamental facility for the normal operation and development of an urban city and is of significance for the stable progress of sustainable urbanization around the world, especially in developing countries. Based on the municipal infrastructure data of the prefecture-level cities in China, municipal infrastructure development is assessed comprehensively using a FA (factor analysis model, and then the stochastic model STIRPAT (stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence and technology is examined to investigate key factors that influence municipal infrastructure of cities in various stages of urbanization and economy. This study indicates that the municipal infrastructure development in urban China demonstrates typical characteristics of regional differentiation, in line with the economic development pattern. Municipal infrastructure development in cities is primarily influenced by income, industrialization and investment. For China and similar developing countries under transformation, national public investment remains the primary driving force of economy as well as the key influencing factor of municipal infrastructure. Contribution from urbanization and the relative consumption level, and the tertiary industry is still scanty, which is a crux issue for many developing countries under transformation. With economic growth and the transformation requirements, the influence of the conventional factors such as public investment and industrialization on municipal infrastructure development would be expected to decline, meanwhile, other factors like the consumption and tertiary industry driven model and the innovation society can become key contributors to municipal infrastructure sustainability.

Assessment of municipal infrastructure development and its critical influencing factors in urban China: A FA and STIRPAT approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Yu; Zheng, Ji; Li, Fei; Jin, Xueting; Xu, Chen

2017-01-01

Municipal infrastructure is a fundamental facility for the normal operation and development of an urban city and is of significance for the stable progress of sustainable urbanization around the world, especially in developing countries. Based on the municipal infrastructure data of the prefecture-level cities in China, municipal infrastructure development is assessed comprehensively using a FA (factor analysis) model, and then the stochastic model STIRPAT (stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence and technology) is examined to investigate key factors that influence municipal infrastructure of cities in various stages of urbanization and economy. This study indicates that the municipal infrastructure development in urban China demonstrates typical characteristics of regional differentiation, in line with the economic development pattern. Municipal infrastructure development in cities is primarily influenced by income, industrialization and investment. For China and similar developing countries under transformation, national public investment remains the primary driving force of economy as well as the key influencing factor of municipal infrastructure. Contribution from urbanization and the relative consumption level, and the tertiary industry is still scanty, which is a crux issue for many developing countries under transformation. With economic growth and the transformation requirements, the influence of the conventional factors such as public investment and industrialization on municipal infrastructure development would be expected to decline, meanwhile, other factors like the consumption and tertiary industry driven model and the innovation society can become key contributors to municipal infrastructure sustainability.

The electricity supply industry as a subject for public criticism

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bartsch, R.

1977-01-01

The German electricity supply industry is becoming the subject for more public criticism although it has supplied the whole population and industry in recent years with electricity without limitations and at a favourable price. In spite of the satisfactory and exemplary achievements of this branch of the economy a wave of criticism has built up, caused by the increase in nuclear power station construction, and this is assuming greater proportions and includes wider fields. This situation requires a matching publicity campaign in a number of directions which must be preceded by comprehensive research into causes. It is urgently necessary to achieve a realisation of the basic questions in this branch of the economy in all those, engaged in electricity supply. Full information on the special physical characteristics of the electricity produced, with all the consequences which follow from these, must be supplied to the relevant groups in society both within and outside the economy and also to the mass media, together with continuous efforts to gain the trust of the public. (orig.) [de

Security Analysis of Smart Grid Cyber Physical Infrastructures Using Modeling and Game Theoretic Simulation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Abercrombie, Robert K [ORNL; Sheldon, Frederick T. [University of Idaho

2015-01-01

Cyber physical computing infrastructures typically consist of a number of sites are interconnected. Its operation critically depends both on cyber components and physical components. Both types of components are subject to attacks of different kinds and frequencies, which must be accounted for the initial provisioning and subsequent operation of the infrastructure via information security analysis. Information security analysis can be performed using game theory implemented in dynamic Agent Based Game Theoretic (ABGT) simulations. Such simulations can be verified with the results from game theory analysis and further used to explore larger scale, real world scenarios involving multiple attackers, defenders, and information assets. We concentrated our analysis on the electric sector failure scenarios and impact analyses by the NESCOR Working Group Study, From the Section 5 electric sector representative failure scenarios; we extracted the four generic failure scenarios and grouped them into three specific threat categories (confidentiality, integrity, and availability) to the system. These specific failure scenarios serve as a demonstration of our simulation. The analysis using our ABGT simulation demonstrates how to model the electric sector functional domain using a set of rationalized game theoretic rules decomposed from the failure scenarios in terms of how those scenarios might impact the cyber physical infrastructure network with respect to CIA.

National software infrastructure for lattice gauge theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brower, Richard C

2005-01-01

The current status of the SciDAC software infrastructure project for lattice gauge theory is summarized. This includes the the design of a QCD application programmers interface (API) that allows existing and future codes to be run efficiently on Terascale hardware facilities and to be rapidly ported to new dedicated or commercial platforms. The critical components of the API have been implemented and are in use on the US QCDOC hardware at BNL and on both the switched and mesh architecture Pentium 4 clusters at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL) and Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab). Future software infrastructure requirements and research directions are also discussed

Collaborative Engagement Approaches For Delivering Sustainable Infrastructure Projects In The AEC Sector

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adetola, Alaba

2011-12-01

Full Text Available The public sector has traditionally financed and operated infrastructure projects using resources from taxes and various levies (e.g. fuel taxes, road user charges. However, the rapid increase in human population growth coupled with extended globalisation complexities and associated social/political/economic challenges have placed new demands on the purveyors and operators of infrastructure projects. The importance of delivering quality infrastructure has been underlined by the United Nations declaration of the Millennium Development Goals; as has the provision of ‘adequate’ basic structures and facilities necessary for the well-being of urban populations in developing countries. Thus, in an effort to finance developing countries’ infrastructure needs, most countries have adopted some form of public-private collaboration strategy. This paper critically reviews these collaborative engagement approaches, identifies and highlights 10 critical themes that need to be appropriately captured and aligned to existing business models in order to successfully deliver sustainable infrastructure projects. Research findings show that infrastructure services can be delivered in many ways, and through various routes. For example, a purely public approach can cause problems such as slow and ineffective decision-making, inefficient organisational and institutional augmentation, and lack of competition and inefficiency (collectively known as government failure. On the other hand, adopting a purely private approach can cause problems such as inequalities in the distribution of infrastructure services (known as market failure. Thus, to overcome both government and market failures, a collaborative approach is advocated which incorporates the strengths of both of these polarised positions.

Governing Critical ICT: Elements that Require Attention

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Luiijf, H.A.M.; Klaver, M.H.A.

2015-01-01

With respect to critical information and communication technologies (ICT), nations most often declare their national critical infrastructure to include telecommunication services and in some cases critical services offered by key Internet Service Providers (ISP). This paper debates whether nations,

Criticality analysis of the EU gas infrastructure: heightened security requirements for gas control and management centres; Kritikalitaetsanalyse der EU-Gasinfrastruktur: Erhoehte Sicherheitsanforderungen an Gasleit- und -kontrollzentren

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nerlich, Uwe; Umbach, Frank [Centre for European Security Strategies (CESS), Muenchen/Berlin (Germany)

2009-11-15

Since the terror attacks of 2001 critical infrastructure objects have gained substantially in strategic importance in the eyes of the German government and EU authorities as well as the European industry. This has not only been due to the worldwide increase in terrorist attacks on energy infrastructure objects but also to the attacks of Madrid on 11 March 2004 and London on 7 July 2005, which have shown that Europe is no longer being spared from terrorism. Strategies for the abatement of these hazards and their repercussions are therefore more urgently needed than ever before. This requires a differentiated assessment of the situation, as has been carried out, for example, in raising the security requirements and investigating the vulnerability of the gas management and control centres of the EU's Octavio project.

The critical success factor approach to strategic alignment: seeking a trail from a health organization's goals to its management information infrastructure.

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, J K

1999-11-01

The critical success factor (CSF) approach is a technique that will aid health administrators, planners and managers to identify, specify and sort among the most relevant and critical factors determining an organization's survival and success. Following a top-down management perspective, this paper discusses the CSF methodology as a strategic information management process comprising several important phases: (i) understanding the external factors such as the organization's industry, market and environment; (ii) achieving strong support and championship from top management; (iii) encouraging the proactive involvement of management and staff in generic CSF identification; (iv) educating and directing the participation of staff members in CSF verification and further refinement of generic CSFs into specific CSFs; and (v) aggregating, prioritizing and translating activity-related CSFs into organizational information requirements for the design of the organization's management information infrastructure. The implementation of this CSF approach is illustrated in the context of a British Columbia community hospital, with insights provided into key issues for future health researchers and practitioners.

The Subject in the Crowd: A Critical Discussion of Jodi Dean’s “Crowds and Party”

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jacob Johanssen

2016-10-01

Full Text Available This article presents a critical discussion of Jodi Dean’s (2016 book “Crowds and Party”. I pay particular attention to her discussion of crowds that is influenced by psychoanalysis. Dean has put forward an important argument for the affectivity within crowds that may be transformed into a Communist Party that is characterised by a similar affective infrastructure. I suggest that Dean’s discussion of affect is slightly vague at times and may be supplemented with Sigmund Freud’s work on affect. In contrast to Dean, who stresses the collectivity and deindividuation of the crowd, I argue that the crowd needs to be thought of as a place where individuality and collectivity come together and remain in tension.

The quest for the oil and gas infrastructure protection in central Asia : time bombs and policy options

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bi, J. [Carleton Univ., Ottawa, ON (Canada). Norman Paterson School of International Affairs

2006-03-15

The growing economies of China and India have increased global anxieties over dwindling fossil fuel resources. Regional countries in central Asia have advocated for more extensive strategic partnerships within the oil and gas industry as insurance against the pressures of more powerful nations. However, non-traditional threats such as terrorism raise serious questions about critical oil and gas infrastructure protection in central Asia. This paper assessed the vulnerability and threats inherent in protecting the critical oil and gas infrastructure of Central Asia, with a specific focus on Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the region of Xinjiang in China. An-depth analysis of the development strategies, terrorist threats, and water issues confronted by Central Asian powers was conducted to demonstrate their vulnerability. The analysis was then used to consider options available for managing oil and gas infrastructure in the regions. It was observed that different perceptions and technological difficulties have made cooperation on critical oil and gas infrastructure protection less important than national sovereignty and domestic stability. It was concluded that a low-key approach to homeland security and oil and gas infrastructure may be the best strategy for Central Asia and China. 44 refs.

Engineering economics and finance for transportation infrastructure

CERN Document Server

Prassas, Elena S

2013-01-01

Transportation infrastructure is often referred to as society’s bloodstream.  It allows for the movement of people and goods to provide the ability to optimize the production and distribution of goods in an effective and efficient manner, and to provide personal opportunities for employment, recreation, education, health care, and other vital activities.   At the same time, the costs to provide, maintain, and operate this complex infrastructure are enormous.  Because so much of the economic resources to be invested come from public funds, it is critical that expenditures are made in a manner that provides society with the best possible return on the investment.  Further, it is important that sufficient investment is made available, and the costs of the investment are equitably borne by taxpayers.   This textbook provides a fundamental overview of the application of engineering economic principles to transportation infrastructure investments.  Basic theory is presented and illustrated with examples spe...

Security infrastructure for dynamically provisioned cloud infrastructure services

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Demchenko, Y.; Ngo, C.; de Laat, C.; Lopez, D.R.; Morales, A.; García-Espín, J.A.; Pearson, S.; Yee, G.

2013-01-01

This chapter discusses conceptual issues, basic requirements and practical suggestions for designing dynamically configured security infrastructure provisioned on demand as part of the cloud-based infrastructure. This chapter describes general use cases for provisioning cloud infrastructure services

Real Option Cost Vulnerability Analysis of Electrical Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Prime, Thomas; Knight, Phil

2015-04-01

Critical infrastructure such as electricity substations are vulnerable to various geo-hazards that arise from climate change. These geo-hazards range from increased vegetation growth to increased temperatures and flood inundation. Of all the identified geo-hazards, coastal flooding has the greatest impact, but to date has had a low probability of occurring. However, in the face of climate change, coastal flooding is likely to occur more often due to extreme water levels being experienced more frequently due to sea-level rise (SLR). Knowing what impact coastal flooding will have now and in the future on critical infrastructure such as electrical substations is important for long-term management. Using a flood inundation model, present day and future flood events have been simulated, from 1 in 1 year events up to 1 in 10,000 year events. The modelling makes an integrated assessment of impact by using sea-level and surge to simulate a storm tide. The geographical area the model covers is part of the Northwest UK coastline with a range of urban and rural areas. The ensemble of flood maps generated allows the identification of critical infrastructure exposed to coastal flooding. Vulnerability has be assessed using an Estimated Annual Damage (EAD) value. Sampling SLR annual probability distributions produces a projected "pathway" for SLR up to 2100. EAD is then calculated using a relationship derived from the flood model. Repeating the sampling process allows a distribution of EAD up to 2100 to be produced. These values are discounted to present day values using an appropriate discount rate. If the cost of building and maintain defences is also removed from this a Net Present Value (NPV) of building the defences can be calculated. This distribution of NPV can be used as part of a cost modelling process involving Real Options, A real option is the right but not obligation to undertake investment decisions. In terms of investment in critical infrastructure resilience this

Commercial Consolidation Model Applied to Transport Infrastructure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Guilherme de Aragão, J.J.; Santos Fontes Pereira, L. dos; Yamashita, Y.

2016-07-01

Since the 1990s, transport concessions, including public-private partnerships (PPPs), have been increasingly adopted by governments as an alternative for financing and operations in public investments, especially in transport infrastructure. The advantage pointed out by proponents of these models lies in merging the expertise and capital of the private sector to the public interest. Several arrangements are possible and have been employed in different cases. After the duration of the first PPP contracts in transportation, many authors have analyzed the success and failure factors of partnerships. The occurrence of failures in some stages of the process can greatly encumber the public administration, incurring losses to the fiscal responsibility of the competent bodies. This article aims to propose a new commercial consolidation model applied to transport infrastructure to ensure fiscal sustainability and overcome the weaknesses of current models. Initially, a systematic review of the literature covering studies on transport concessions between 1990 and 2015 is offered, where the different approaches between various countries are compared and the critical success factors indicated in the studies are identified. In the subsequent part of the paper, an approach for the commercial consolidation of the infrastructure concessions is presented, where the concessionary is paid following a finalistic performance model, which includes the overall fiscal balance of regional growth. Finally, the papers analyses the usefulness of the model in coping with the critical success factors explained before. (Author)

Critical infrastructure protection decision support system decision model : overview and quick-start user's guide.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Samsa, M.; Van Kuiken, J.; Jusko, M.; Decision and Information Sciences

2008-12-01

The Critical Infrastructure Protection Decision Support System Decision Model (CIPDSS-DM) is a useful tool for comparing the effectiveness of alternative risk-mitigation strategies on the basis of CIPDSS consequence scenarios. The model is designed to assist analysts and policy makers in evaluating and selecting the most effective risk-mitigation strategies, as affected by the importance assigned to various impact measures and the likelihood of an incident. A typical CIPDSS-DM decision map plots the relative preference of alternative risk-mitigation options versus the annual probability of an undesired incident occurring once during the protective life of the investment, assumed to be 20 years. The model also enables other types of comparisons, including a decision map that isolates a selected impact variable and displays the relative preference for the options of interest--parameterized on the basis of the contribution of the isolated variable to total impact, as well as the likelihood of the incident. Satisfaction/regret analysis further assists the analyst or policy maker in evaluating the confidence with which one option can be selected over another.

Public Tourism Infrastructure: Challenges in the Development and Maintenance Activities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abdullah Shardy

2014-01-01

Full Text Available In Malaysia, the tourism sector is a major contributor to the nation’s development and is spearheaded by the government’s efforts in investing heavily towards providing sufficient and well-functioning public tourism infrastructure. This infrastructure should be ideally developed with a clear and systematic maintenance plan in hand. The challenge herein is not merely providing the necessary infrastructure to sustain tourism activities but rather a pro-active approach towards establishing and subsequently maintaining this infrastructure at its optimal level. The aim of this paper therefore is to identify critical aspects that need to be in place to further enhance the Malaysian tourism industry. The paper discusses the issues and challenges that need to be addressed as a precursor towards an effectively developed and maintained tourism infrastructure system. Development issues that have been identified revolve around the dimensions of quality, quantity and ability of the public agencies involved, particularly issues of inadequate infrastructure, quality of infrastructure and the capability of the agencies in undertaking efficient maintenance activities. These issues were found to lead towards challenges of working with resource constraints, lack of an effective maintenance culture and system as well as the need for clear and effective policies and strategies.

The Application of Biometrics in Critical Infrastructures Operations: Guidance for Security Managers. ERNCIP Thematic Group Applied Biometrics for CIP. Deliverable: Guidance for Security Managers - Task 2

OpenAIRE

REJMAN-GREENE Marek; BRZOZOWSKI Krzysztof; MANSFIELD Tony; SANCHEZ-REILLO Raul; WAGGETT Peter; WHITAKER Geoff

2015-01-01

Biometric technologies have advanced considerably over the past decade, and have paved the way for more widespread use by governments, commercial enterprises and, more recently, by the consumer through the introduction of sensors and apps on mobile phones. This report provides introductory information about the application of these technologies to achieve secure recognition of individuals by organisations which form part of critical infrastructures in the EU. As a specific example, it offers ...

A systems approach to risk reduction of transportation infrastructure networks subject to multiple hazards : final report, December 31, 2008.

Science.gov (United States)

2008-12-31

Integrity, robustness, reliability, and resiliency of infrastructure networks are vital to the economy, : security and well-being of any country. Faced with threats caused by natural and man-made hazards, : transportation infrastructure network manag...

Assessing urban strategies for reducing the impacts of extreme weather on infrastructure networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Pregnolato, Maria; Ford, Alistair; Robson, Craig; Glenis, Vassilis; Barr, Stuart; Dawson, Richard

2016-05-01

Critical infrastructure networks, including transport, are crucial to the social and economic function of urban areas but are at increasing risk from natural hazards. Minimizing disruption to these networks should form part of a strategy to increase urban resilience. A framework for assessing the disruption from flood events to transport systems is presented that couples a high-resolution urban flood model with transport modelling and network analytics to assess the impacts of extreme rainfall events, and to quantify the resilience value of different adaptation options. A case study in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK shows that both green roof infrastructure and traditional engineering interventions such as culverts or flood walls can reduce transport disruption from flooding. The magnitude of these benefits depends on the flood event and adaptation strategy, but for the scenarios considered here 3-22% improvements in city-wide travel times are achieved. The network metric of betweenness centrality, weighted by travel time, is shown to provide a rapid approach to identify and prioritize the most critical locations for flood risk management intervention. Protecting just the top ranked critical location from flooding provides an 11% reduction in person delays. A city-wide deployment of green roofs achieves a 26% reduction, and although key routes still flood, the benefits of this strategy are more evenly distributed across the transport network as flood depths are reduced across the model domain. Both options should form part of an urban flood risk management strategy, but this method can be used to optimize investment and target limited resources at critical locations, enabling green infrastructure strategies to be gradually implemented over the longer term to provide city-wide benefits. This framework provides a means of prioritizing limited financial resources to improve resilience. This is particularly important as flood management investments must typically exceed

Quantitative physical models of volcanic phenomena for hazards assessment of critical infrastructures

Science.gov (United States)

Costa, Antonio

2016-04-01

Volcanic hazards may have destructive effects on economy, transport, and natural environments at both local and regional scale. Hazardous phenomena include pyroclastic density currents, tephra fall, gas emissions, lava flows, debris flows and avalanches, and lahars. Volcanic hazards assessment is based on available information to characterize potential volcanic sources in the region of interest and to determine whether specific volcanic phenomena might reach a given site. Volcanic hazards assessment is focussed on estimating the distances that volcanic phenomena could travel from potential sources and their intensity at the considered site. Epistemic and aleatory uncertainties strongly affect the resulting hazards assessment. Within the context of critical infrastructures, volcanic eruptions are rare natural events that can create severe hazards. In addition to being rare events, evidence of many past volcanic eruptions is poorly preserved in the geologic record. The models used for describing the impact of volcanic phenomena generally represent a range of model complexities, from simplified physics based conceptual models to highly coupled thermo fluid dynamical approaches. Modelling approaches represent a hierarchy of complexity, which reflects increasing requirements for well characterized data in order to produce a broader range of output information. In selecting models for the hazard analysis related to a specific phenomenon, questions that need to be answered by the models must be carefully considered. Independently of the model, the final hazards assessment strongly depends on input derived from detailed volcanological investigations, such as mapping and stratigraphic correlations. For each phenomenon, an overview of currently available approaches for the evaluation of future hazards will be presented with the aim to provide a foundation for future work in developing an international consensus on volcanic hazards assessment methods.

U.S. National Cyberstrategy and Critical Infrastructure: The Protection Mandate and Its Execution

Science.gov (United States)

2013-09-01

revising this thesis, and balancing the coordination needed for: (1) Piano; (2) Soccer /Baseball; (3) Cubmaster Cub Scout Pack-135; (4) Hospitality...disease and pest response; and provides nutritional assistance. Provides the financial infrastructure of the nation. This sector consists of commercial

Infrastructures of progress and dispossession

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Astrid Oberborbeck

2016-01-01

and organizational infrastructural arrangements, it is argued, can open up for understanding how local and beyond-local processes tangle in complex ways and are productive of new subjectivities; how relations are reconfi gured in neoliberal landscapes of progress and dispossession. Such an approach makes evident how...... to reposition small and medium-scale farmers as backward. Th is article analyzes how farmers struggle to fi nd their place within a neoliberal urban ecology where diff erent conceptions of what constitutes progress in contemporary Peru infl uence the landscape. Using an analytical lens that takes material...... and organizational infrastructures and practices into account, and situates these in specifi c historical processes, the article argues that farmers within the urban landscape of Arequipa struggle to reclaim land and water, and reassert a status that they experience to be losing. Such a historical focus on material...

Securing the United States' power infrastructure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Happenny, Sean F. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

2015-08-01

The United States’ power infrastructure is aging, underfunded, and vulnerable to cyber attack. Emerging smart grid technologies may take some of the burden off of existing systems and make the grid as a whole more efficient, reliable, and secure. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is funding research into several aspects of smart grid technology and grid security, creating a software simulation tool that will allow researchers to test power distribution networks utilizing different smart grid technologies to determine how the grid and these technologies react under different circumstances. Demonstrating security in embedded systems is another research area PNNL is tackling. Many of the systems controlling the U.S. critical infrastructure, such as the power grid, lack integrated security and the networks protecting them are becoming easier to breach. Providing a virtual power substation network to each student team at the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, thereby supporting the education of future cyber security professionals, is another way PNNL is helping to strengthen the security of the nation’s power infrastructure.

Policies to Avoid Cost Overruns in Infrastructure Projects: Critical Evaluation and Recommendations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hans Lind

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Many infrastructure projects have cost overruns and there has been a lot of research both on why these cost overruns occur and what can be done to reduce hem. Bent Flyvbjerg is the leading researcher in the area and in this article his proposals are used as the starting point. Besides a literature review, a questionnaire was sent out to experienced Swedish project managers to find out what they thought could reduce cost overruns. The literature review and the questionnaire were the foundation for the proposals formulated in this article. Proposals concerned three areas: (1. Organisational macro-structure, e.g. using more PPP projects but also decentralisation of budgets where cost overruns in one project in a region lead to less alternative projects in the specific region. (2. Organisational quality: It should be easy to see when and where cost overruns occur and who was responsible. There should be a well-developed knowledge management system in the organisation and an organisation culture of openness with a focus on improvements. (3. Organisational processes, e.g. a systematic use of external reviewers in different stages of a project.   Keywords: Cost overruns, Infrastructure projects, Policy measures

Security infrastructure for on-demand provisioned Cloud infrastructure services

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Demchenko, Y.; Ngo, C.; de Laat, C.; Wlodarczyk, T.W.; Rong, C.; Ziegler, W.

2011-01-01

Providing consistent security services in on-demand provisioned Cloud infrastructure services is of primary importance due to multi-tenant and potentially multi-provider nature of Clouds Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environment. Cloud security infrastructure should address two aspects of the

Infrastructural intelligence: Contemporary entanglements between neuroscience and AI.

Science.gov (United States)

Bruder, Johannes

2017-01-01

In this chapter, I reflect on contemporary entanglements between artificial intelligence and the neurosciences by tracing the development of Google's recent DeepMind algorithms back to their roots in neuroscientific studies of episodic memory and imagination. Google promotes a new form of "infrastructural intelligence," which excels by constantly reassessing its cognitive architecture in exchange with a cloud of data that surrounds it, and exhibits putatively human capacities such as intuition. I argue that such (re)alignments of biological and artificial intelligence have been enabled by a paradigmatic infrastructuralization of the brain in contemporary neuroscience. This infrastructuralization is based in methodologies that epistemically liken the brain to complex systems of an entirely different scale (i.e., global logistics) and has given rise to diverse research efforts that target the neuronal infrastructures of higher cognitive functions such as empathy and creativity. What is at stake in this process is no less than the shape of brains to come and a revised understanding of the intelligent and creative social subject. © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Infrastructure procurement skills gap amongst procurement personnel in Nigeria’s public sector

OpenAIRE

Mahamadu, A.-M. ed; Manu, P.; Booth, C.; Olomolaiye, P.; Coker, A.; Ibrahim, A. ed; Lamond, J.

2018-01-01

Purpose - Procurement of public infrastructure that is fit for purpose partly depends on the competencies of procurement personnel. In many developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria, there is a deficit in the quantity and quality of infrastructure and their procurement is further riddled with deficiencies in the capacity of public procuring entities. It is, however, unclear from the extant literature, what are the critical skills development needs of public personnel invol...

Critical Review of Technical Questions Facing Low Impact Development and Green Infrastructure: A Perspective from the Great Plains.

Science.gov (United States)

Vogel, Jason R; Moore, Trisha L; Coffman, Reid R; Rodie, Steven N; Hutchinson, Stacy L; McDonough, Kelsey R; McLemore, Alex J; McMaine, John T

2015-09-01

Since its inception, Low Impact Development (LID) has become part of urban stormwater management across the United States, marking progress in the gradual transition from centralized to distributed runoff management infrastructure. The ultimate goal of LID is full, cost-effective implementation to maximize watershed-scale ecosystem services and enhance resilience. To reach that goal in the Great Plains, the multi-disciplinary author team presents this critical review based on thirteen technical questions within the context of regional climate and socioeconomics across increasing complexities in scale and function. Although some progress has been made, much remains to be done including continued basic and applied research, development of local LID design specifications, local demonstrations, and identifying funding mechanisms for these solutions. Within the Great Plains and beyond, by addressing these technical questions within a local context, the goal of widespread acceptance of LID can be achieved, resulting in more effective and resilient stormwater management.

The 3D Elevation Program and America's infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Lukas, Vicki; Carswell, Jr., William J.

2016-11-07

Infrastructure—the physical framework of transportation, energy, communications, water supply, and other systems—and construction management—the overall planning, coordination, and control of a project from beginning to end—are critical to the Nation’s prosperity. The American Society of Civil Engineers has warned that, despite the importance of the Nation’s infrastructure, it is in fair to poor condition and needs sizable and urgent investments to maintain and modernize it, and to ensure that it is sustainable and resilient. Three-dimensional (3D) light detection and ranging (lidar) elevation data provide valuable productivity, safety, and cost-saving benefits to infrastructure improvement projects and associated construction management. By providing data to users, the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) of the U.S. Geological Survey reduces users’ costs and risks and allows them to concentrate on their mission objectives. 3DEP includes (1) data acquisition partnerships that leverage funding, (2) contracts with experienced private mapping firms, (3) technical expertise, lidar data standards, and specifications, and (4) most important, public access to high-quality 3D elevation data. The size and breadth of improvements for the Nation’s infrastructure and construction management needs call for an efficient, systematic approach to acquiring foundational 3D elevation data. The 3DEP approach to national data coverage will yield large cost savings over individual project-by-project acquisitions and will ensure that data are accessible for other critical applications.

STOCHASTIC COLOURED PETRINET BASED HEALTHCARE INFRASTRUCTURE INTERDEPENDENCY MODEL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. Nukavarapu

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The Healthcare Critical Infrastructure (HCI protects all sectors of the society from hazards such as terrorism, infectious disease outbreaks, and natural disasters. HCI plays a significant role in response and recovery across all other sectors in the event of a natural or manmade disaster. However, for its continuity of operations and service delivery HCI is dependent on other interdependent Critical Infrastructures (CI such as Communications, Electric Supply, Emergency Services, Transportation Systems, and Water Supply System. During a mass casualty due to disasters such as floods, a major challenge that arises for the HCI is to respond to the crisis in a timely manner in an uncertain and variable environment. To address this issue the HCI should be disaster prepared, by fully understanding the complexities and interdependencies that exist in a hospital, emergency department or emergency response event. Modelling and simulation of a disaster scenario with these complexities would help in training and providing an opportunity for all the stakeholders to work together in a coordinated response to a disaster. The paper would present interdependencies related to HCI based on Stochastic Coloured Petri Nets (SCPN modelling and simulation approach, given a flood scenario as the disaster which would disrupt the infrastructure nodes. The entire model would be integrated with Geographic information based decision support system to visualize the dynamic behaviour of the interdependency of the Healthcare and related CI network in a geographically based environment.

Stochastic Coloured Petrinet Based Healthcare Infrastructure Interdependency Model

Science.gov (United States)

Nukavarapu, Nivedita; Durbha, Surya

2016-06-01

The Healthcare Critical Infrastructure (HCI) protects all sectors of the society from hazards such as terrorism, infectious disease outbreaks, and natural disasters. HCI plays a significant role in response and recovery across all other sectors in the event of a natural or manmade disaster. However, for its continuity of operations and service delivery HCI is dependent on other interdependent Critical Infrastructures (CI) such as Communications, Electric Supply, Emergency Services, Transportation Systems, and Water Supply System. During a mass casualty due to disasters such as floods, a major challenge that arises for the HCI is to respond to the crisis in a timely manner in an uncertain and variable environment. To address this issue the HCI should be disaster prepared, by fully understanding the complexities and interdependencies that exist in a hospital, emergency department or emergency response event. Modelling and simulation of a disaster scenario with these complexities would help in training and providing an opportunity for all the stakeholders to work together in a coordinated response to a disaster. The paper would present interdependencies related to HCI based on Stochastic Coloured Petri Nets (SCPN) modelling and simulation approach, given a flood scenario as the disaster which would disrupt the infrastructure nodes. The entire model would be integrated with Geographic information based decision support system to visualize the dynamic behaviour of the interdependency of the Healthcare and related CI network in a geographically based environment.

Bike Infrastructures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Silva, Victor; Harder, Henrik; Jensen, Ole B.

Bike Infrastructures aims to identify bicycle infrastructure typologies and design elements that can help promote cycling significantly. It is structured as a case study based research where three cycling infrastructures with distinct typologies were analyzed and compared. The three cases......, the findings of this research project can also support bike friendly design and planning, and cyclist advocacy....

Development of Presentation Model with Cloud Based Infrastructure

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Magdalena Widiantari Maria

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Computer mediated communication are the communication activities using technology which have rapidly in progress. Communication interactive activities nowadays has no longer only involving person to person but mediated by technology, and have been done in many fields including in education and teaching activity. In this study, presentation media based on cloud's infrastructure designed to replace face to face or in class lectures. In addition, the presentation will allow media data storage indefinitely, and accessible wherever and anytime. This is in line with the concept of student center learning where students were encouraged to more active in the lecture activities. The purpose of this research is making or designing a presentation model based on cloud‘s infrastructure. This research is using research and development method which is consists of four stages, where the first phase is composing the concept of media presentation design. The second phase are choosing the subject that will be designed as the subject of presentation. The third stage is designing presentation model. And the fourth phase is collecting materials of the subject that will be presented by each lecturer.

Monitoring of levees, bridges, pipelines, and other critical infrastructure during the 2011 flooding in the Mississippi River Basin: Chapter J in 2011 floods of the central United States

Science.gov (United States)

Densmore, Brenda K.; Burton, Bethany L.; Dietsch, Benjamin J.; Cannia, James C.; Huizinga, Richard J.

2014-01-01

During the 2011 Mississippi River Basin flood, the U.S. Geological Survey evaluated aspects of critical river infrastructure at the request of and in support of local, State, and Federal Agencies. Geotechnical and hydrographic data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey at numerous locations were able to provide needed information about 2011 flood effects to those managing the critical infrastructure. These data were collected and processed in a short time frame to provide managers the ability to make a timely evaluation of the safety of the infrastructure and, when needed, to take action to secure and protect critical infrastructure. Critical infrastructure surveyed by the U.S. Geological Survey included levees, bridges, pipeline crossings, power plant intakes and outlets, and an electrical transmission tower. Capacitively coupled resistivity data collected along the flood-protection levees surrounding the Omaha Public Power District Nebraska City power plant (Missouri River Levee Unit R573), mapped the near-subsurface electrical properties of the levee and the materials immediately below it. The near-subsurface maps provided a better understanding of the levee construction and the nature of the lithology beneath the levee. Comparison of the capacitively coupled resistivity surveys and soil borings indicated that low-resistivity value material composing the levee generally is associated with lean clay and silt to about 2 to 4 meters below the surface, overlying a more resistive layer associated with sand deposits. In general, the resistivity structure becomes more resistive to the south and the southern survey sections correlate well with the borehole data that indicate thinner clay and silt at the surface and thicker sand sequences at depth in these sections. With the resistivity data Omaha Public Power District could focus monitoring efforts on areas with higher resistivity values (coarser-grained deposits or more loosely compacted section), which typically are

Hydrogen Infrastructure Market Readiness: Opportunities and Potential for Near-term Cost Reductions; Proceedings of the Hydrogen Infrastructure Market Readiness Workshop and Summary of Feedback Provided through the Hydrogen Station Cost Calculator

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Melaina, M. W.; Steward, D.; Penev, M.; McQueen, S.; Jaffe, S.; Talon, C.

2012-08-01

Recent progress with fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) has focused attention on hydrogen infrastructure as a critical commercialization barrier. With major automakers focused on 2015 as a target timeframe for global FCEV commercialization, the window of opportunity is short for establishing a sufficient network of hydrogen stations to support large-volume vehicle deployments. This report describes expert feedback on the market readiness of hydrogen infrastructure technology from two activities.

The Pedagogy of Complex Work Support Systems: Infrastructuring Practices and the Production of Critical Awareness in Risk Auditing

Science.gov (United States)

Mathisen, Arve; Nerland, Monika

2012-01-01

This paper employs a socio-technical perspective to explore the role of complex work support systems in organising knowledge and providing opportunities for learning in professional work. Drawing on concepts from infrastructure studies, such systems are seen as work infrastructures which connect information, knowledge, standards and work…

EIA application in China's expressway infrastructure: clarifying the decision-making hierarchy.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Kai-Yi; Sheate, William R

2011-06-01

China's EIA Law came into effect in 2003 and formally requires road transport infrastructure development actions to be subject to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). EIAs (including project EIA and plan EIA, or strategic environmental impact assessment, SEA) have been being widely applied in the expressway infrastructure planning field. Among those applications, SEA is applied to provincial level expressway network (PLEI) plans, and project EIA is applied to expressway infrastructure development 'projects' under PLEI plans. Three case studies (one expressway project EIA and two PLEI plan SEAs) were examined to understand currently how EIAs are applied to expressway infrastructure development planning. Through the studies, a number of problems that significantly influence the quality of EIA application in the field were identified. The reasons causing those problems are analyzed and possible solutions are suggested aimed at enhancing EIA practice, helping deliver better decision-making and ultimately improving the environmental performance of expressway infrastructure. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Public key infrastructure for DOE security research

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Aiken, R.; Foster, I.; Johnston, W.E. [and others

1997-06-01

This document summarizes the Department of Energy`s Second Joint Energy Research/Defence Programs Security Research Workshop. The workshop, built on the results of the first Joint Workshop which reviewed security requirements represented in a range of mission-critical ER and DP applications, discussed commonalties and differences in ER/DP requirements and approaches, and identified an integrated common set of security research priorities. One significant conclusion of the first workshop was that progress in a broad spectrum of DOE-relevant security problems and applications could best be addressed through public-key cryptography based systems, and therefore depended upon the existence of a robust, broadly deployed public-key infrastructure. Hence, public-key infrastructure ({open_quotes}PKI{close_quotes}) was adopted as a primary focus for the second workshop. The Second Joint Workshop covered a range of DOE security research and deployment efforts, as well as summaries of the state of the art in various areas relating to public-key technologies. Key findings were that a broad range of DOE applications can benefit from security architectures and technologies built on a robust, flexible, widely deployed public-key infrastructure; that there exists a collection of specific requirements for missing or undeveloped PKI functionality, together with a preliminary assessment of how these requirements can be met; that, while commercial developments can be expected to provide many relevant security technologies, there are important capabilities that commercial developments will not address, due to the unique scale, performance, diversity, distributed nature, and sensitivity of DOE applications; that DOE should encourage and support research activities intended to increase understanding of security technology requirements, and to develop critical components not forthcoming from other sources in a timely manner.

Urban underground infrastructure mapping and assessment

Science.gov (United States)

Huston, Dryver; Xia, Tian; Zhang, Yu; Fan, Taian; Orfeo, Dan; Razinger, Jonathan

2017-04-01

This paper outlines and discusses a few associated details of a smart cities approach to the mapping and condition assessment of urban underground infrastructure. Underground utilities are critical infrastructure for all modern cities. They carry drinking water, storm water, sewage, natural gas, electric power, telecommunications, steam, etc. In most cities, the underground infrastructure reflects the growth and history of the city. Many components are aging, in unknown locations with congested configurations, and in unknown condition. The technique uses sensing and information technology to determine the state of infrastructure and provide it in an appropriate, timely and secure format for managers, planners and users. The sensors include ground penetrating radar and buried sensors for persistent sensing of localized conditions. Signal processing and pattern recognition techniques convert the data in information-laden databases for use in analytics, graphical presentations, metering and planning. The presented data are from construction of the St. Paul St. CCTA Bus Station Project in Burlington, VT; utility replacement sites in Winooski, VT; and laboratory tests of smart phone position registration and magnetic signaling. The soil conditions encountered are favorable for GPR sensing and make it possible to locate buried pipes and soil layers. The present state of the art is that the data collection and processing procedures are manual and somewhat tedious, but that solutions for automating these procedures appear to be viable. Magnetic signaling with moving permanent magnets has the potential for sending lowfrequency telemetry signals through soils that are largely impenetrable by other electromagnetic waves.

Challenges in Spatial Data Infrastructure research: a role for transdisciplinarity?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bregt, A.K.; Crompvoets, J.W.H.C.; Man, de E.; Grus, L.

2009-01-01

The field of Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is developing and approaches rapidly a critical masss of more or less operational SDIs. The purpose of the paper is to anticipate the possible impact of the maturing SDI field on its research agenda. Initial initiatives were predominantly techno centred

Cyber Threats to Nuclear Infrastructures

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Robert S. Anderson; Paul Moskowitz; Mark Schanfein; Trond Bjornard; Curtis St. Michel

2010-07-01

Nuclear facility personnel expend considerable efforts to ensure that their facilities can maintain continuity of operations against both natural and man-made threats. Historically, most attention has been placed on physical security. Recently however, the threat of cyber-related attacks has become a recognized and growing world-wide concern. Much attention has focused on the vulnerability of the electric grid and chemical industries to cyber attacks, in part, because of their use of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. Lessons learned from work in these sectors indicate that the cyber threat may extend to other critical infrastructures including sites where nuclear and radiological materials are now stored. In this context, this white paper presents a hypothetical scenario by which a determined adversary launches a cyber attack that compromises the physical protection system and results in a reduced security posture at such a site. The compromised security posture might then be malevolently exploited in a variety of ways. The authors conclude that the cyber threat should be carefully considered for all nuclear infrastructures.

Cyber Threats to Nuclear Infrastructures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anderson, Robert S.; Moskowitz, Paul; Schanfein, Mark; Bjornard, Trond; St. Michel, Curtis

2010-01-01

Nuclear facility personnel expend considerable efforts to ensure that their facilities can maintain continuity of operations against both natural and man-made threats. Historically, most attention has been placed on physical security. Recently however, the threat of cyber-related attacks has become a recognized and growing world-wide concern. Much attention has focused on the vulnerability of the electric grid and chemical industries to cyber attacks, in part, because of their use of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. Lessons learned from work in these sectors indicate that the cyber threat may extend to other critical infrastructures including sites where nuclear and radiological materials are now stored. In this context, this white paper presents a hypothetical scenario by which a determined adversary launches a cyber attack that compromises the physical protection system and results in a reduced security posture at such a site. The compromised security posture might then be malevolently exploited in a variety of ways. The authors conclude that the cyber threat should be carefully considered for all nuclear infrastructures.

Real-time health monitoring of civil infrastructure systems in Colombia

Science.gov (United States)

Thomson, Peter; Marulanda Casas, Johannio; Marulanda Arbelaez, Johannio; Caicedo, Juan

2001-08-01

Colombia's topography, climatic conditions, intense seismic activity and acute social problems place high demands on the nations deteriorating civil infrastructure. Resources that are available for maintenance of the road and railway networks are often misdirected and actual inspection methods are limited to a visual examination. New techniques for inspection and evaluation of safety and serviceability of civil infrastructure, especially bridges, must be developed. Two cases of civil structures with health monitoring systems in Colombia are presented in this paper. Construction of the Pereria-Dos Quebradas Viaduct was completed in 1997 with a total cost of 58 million dollars, including 1.5 million dollars in health monitoring instrumentation provided and installed by foreign companies. This health monitoring system is not yet fully operational due to the lack of training of national personnel in system operation and extremely limited technical documentation. In contrast to the Pereria-Dos Quebradas Viaduct monitoring system, the authors have proposed a relatively low cost health monitoring system via telemetry. This system has been implemented for real-time monitoring of accelerations of El Hormiguero Bridge spanning the Cauca River using the Colombian Southwest Earthquake Observatory telemetry systems. This two span metallic bridge, located along a critical road between the cities of Puerto Tejada and Cali in the Cauca Valley, was constructed approximately 50 years ago. Experiences with this system demonstrate how effective low cost systems can be used to remotely monitor the structural integrity of deteriorating structures that are continuously subject to high loading conditions.

GEMSS: grid-infrastructure for medical service provision.

Science.gov (United States)

Benkner, S; Berti, G; Engelbrecht, G; Fingberg, J; Kohring, G; Middleton, S E; Schmidt, R

2005-01-01

The European GEMSS Project is concerned with the creation of medical Grid service prototypes and their evaluation in a secure service-oriented infrastructure for distributed on demand/supercomputing. Key aspects of the GEMSS Grid middleware include negotiable QoS support for time-critical service provision, flexible support for business models, and security at all levels in order to ensure privacy of patient data as well as compliance to EU law. The GEMSS Grid infrastructure is based on a service-oriented architecture and is being built on top of existing standard Grid and Web technologies. The GEMSS infrastructure offers a generic Grid service provision framework that hides the complexity of transforming existing applications into Grid services. For the development of client-side applications or portals, a pluggable component framework has been developed, providing developers with full control over business processes, service discovery, QoS negotiation, and workflow, while keeping their underlying implementation hidden from view. A first version of the GEMSS Grid infrastructure is operational and has been used for the set-up of a Grid test-bed deploying six medical Grid service prototypes including maxillo-facial surgery simulation, neuro-surgery support, radio-surgery planning, inhaled drug-delivery simulation, cardiovascular simulation and advanced image reconstruction. The GEMSS Grid infrastructure is based on standard Web Services technology with an anticipated future transition path towards the OGSA standard proposed by the Global Grid Forum. GEMSS demonstrates that the Grid can be used to provide medical practitioners and researchers with access to advanced simulation and image processing services for improved preoperative planning and near real-time surgical support.

Elements for a Geopolitics of Infrastructure Megaprojects in Latin America and Colombia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fabio Vladimir Sánchez Calderón

2008-01-01

Full Text Available This paper develops a critical approach to projects and initiatives of supranational physical connection through infrastructure improvement for transport and energy, regarding specifically their socio-spatial implications at the national and local levels. With this purpose, we examined how infrastructure projects in Colombia are linked to two sub-continental initiatives that seek to build a physical platform for the region: the Plan Puebla Panama (PPP for Central America (including Colombia, and the Initiative for Regional Integration of South America (IIRSA.

Natural disaster risk analysis for critical infrastructure systems: An approach based on statistical learning theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guikema, Seth D.

2009-01-01

Probabilistic risk analysis has historically been developed for situations in which measured data about the overall reliability of a system are limited and expert knowledge is the best source of information available. There continue to be a number of important problem areas characterized by a lack of hard data. However, in other important problem areas the emergence of information technology has transformed the situation from one characterized by little data to one characterized by data overabundance. Natural disaster risk assessments for events impacting large-scale, critical infrastructure systems such as electric power distribution systems, transportation systems, water supply systems, and natural gas supply systems are important examples of problems characterized by data overabundance. There are often substantial amounts of information collected and archived about the behavior of these systems over time. Yet it can be difficult to effectively utilize these large data sets for risk assessment. Using this information for estimating the probability or consequences of system failure requires a different approach and analysis paradigm than risk analysis for data-poor systems does. Statistical learning theory, a diverse set of methods designed to draw inferences from large, complex data sets, can provide a basis for risk analysis for data-rich systems. This paper provides an overview of statistical learning theory methods and discusses their potential for greater use in risk analysis

Infrastructure system restoration planning using evolutionary algorithms

Science.gov (United States)

Corns, Steven; Long, Suzanna K.; Shoberg, Thomas G.

2016-01-01

This paper presents an evolutionary algorithm to address restoration issues for supply chain interdependent critical infrastructure. Rapid restoration of infrastructure after a large-scale disaster is necessary to sustaining a nation's economy and security, but such long-term restoration has not been investigated as thoroughly as initial rescue and recovery efforts. A model of the Greater Saint Louis Missouri area was created and a disaster scenario simulated. An evolutionary algorithm is used to determine the order in which the bridges should be repaired based on indirect costs. Solutions were evaluated based on the reduction of indirect costs and the restoration of transportation capacity. When compared to a greedy algorithm, the evolutionary algorithm solution reduced indirect costs by approximately 12.4% by restoring automotive travel routes for workers and re-establishing the flow of commodities across the three rivers in the Saint Louis area.

77 FR 37060 - Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources (CIKR) Asset Protection Technical Assistance Program...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-06-20

.../IP/IICD, 245 Murray Lane SW., Mailstop 0602, Arlington, VA 20598-0602. Email requests should go to...), National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), Office of Infrastructure Protection (IP... the following methods: Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov . Email: Include the...

Investing in soils as an infrastructure to maintain and enhance food water and carbon services

Science.gov (United States)

Davies, Jessica

2017-04-01

Soils are a life support system for global society and our planet. In addition to providing the vast majority of our food; soils regulate water quality and quantity reducing the risk of floods, droughts and pollution; and as the largest store of carbon in the earth system they are critical to climate change. By providing these multiple essential services, soils act a natural form of infrastructure that is critical to supporting both rural and urban communities and economies. Can natural infrastructure and natural capital concepts be used to motivate and enable investment and regulation of soils for purposes such as soil carbon sequestration? What scientific knowledge and tools would we need to support soil infrastructure decision making - in policy arenas and elsewhere? This poster will present progress from a new research project supported by the UK research council (EP/N030532/1) that addresses these questions.

Designing Cloud Infrastructure for Big Data in E-government

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jelena Šuh

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The development of new information services and technologies, especially in domains of mobile communications, Internet of things, and social media, has led to appearance of the large quantities of unstructured data. The pervasive computing also affects the e-government systems, where big data emerges and cannot be processed and analyzed in a traditional manner due to its complexity, heterogeneity and size. The subject of this paper is the design of the cloud infrastructure for big data storage and processing in e-government. The goal is to analyze the potential of cloud computing for big data infrastructure, and propose a model for effective storing, processing and analyzing big data in e-government. The paper provides an overview of current relevant concepts related to cloud infrastructure design that should provide support for big data. The second part of the paper gives a model of the cloud infrastructure based on the concepts of software defined networks and multi-tenancy. The final goal is to support projects in the field of big data in e-government

Helix Nebula: Enabling federation of existing data infrastructures and data services to an overarching cross-domain e-infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Lengert, Wolfgang; Farres, Jordi; Lanari, Riccardo; Casu, Francesco; Manunta, Michele; Lassalle-Balier, Gerard

2014-05-01

Helix Nebula has established a growing public private partnership of more than 30 commercial cloud providers, SMEs, and publicly funded research organisations and e-infrastructures. The Helix Nebula strategy is to establish a federated cloud service across Europe. Three high-profile flagships, sponsored by CERN (high energy physics), EMBL (life sciences) and ESA/DLR/CNES/CNR (earth science), have been deployed and extensively tested within this federated environment. The commitments behind these initial flagships have created a critical mass that attracts suppliers and users to the initiative, to work together towards an "Information as a Service" market place. Significant progress in implementing the following 4 programmatic goals (as outlined in the strategic Plan Ref.1) has been achieved: × Goal #1 Establish a Cloud Computing Infrastructure for the European Research Area (ERA) serving as a platform for innovation and evolution of the overall infrastructure. × Goal #2 Identify and adopt suitable policies for trust, security and privacy on a European-level can be provided by the European Cloud Computing framework and infrastructure. × Goal #3 Create a light-weight governance structure for the future European Cloud Computing Infrastructure that involves all the stakeholders and can evolve over time as the infrastructure, services and user-base grows. × Goal #4 Define a funding scheme involving the three stake-holder groups (service suppliers, users, EC and national funding agencies) into a Public-Private-Partnership model to implement a Cloud Computing Infrastructure that delivers a sustainable business environment adhering to European level policies. Now in 2014 a first version of this generic cross-domain e-infrastructure is ready to go into operations building on federation of European industry and contributors (data, tools, knowledge, ...). This presentation describes how Helix Nebula is being used in the domain of earth science focusing on geohazards. The

Public-Private Partnerships for the Provision of Port Infrastructure: An Explorative Multi-Actor Perspective on Critical Success Factors1

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Geoffrey Aerts

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Public-private cooperation on the level of project finance, and provision of large-scale infrastructure projects, is increasing on the global level. This paper uses a multi-actor analysis, in order to explore the critical success factors (CSFs for sound implementation of public-private partnerships (PPPs in the port context, and to determine the diverging opinions of stakeholders with regard to the importance of these CSFs. The results indicate that eight CSFs are of superior importance in port PPPs: the concreteness and preciseness of the concession agreement, the ability to appropriately allocate and share risk, the technical feasibility of the project, the commitment made by partners, the attractiveness of the financial package, a clear definition of responsibilities, the presence of a strong private consortium and a realistic cost/benefit assessment. The reason for their importance is their deal-breaking character, which can lead to a total failure of PPP projects during the early stages of project conception.

Chapter 2. Surge capacity and infrastructure considerations for mass critical care. Recommendations and standard operating procedures for intensive care unit and hospital preparations for an influenza epidemic or mass disaster.

Science.gov (United States)

Hick, John L; Christian, Michael D; Sprung, Charles L

2010-04-01

To provide recommendations and standard operating procedures for intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital preparations for a mass disaster or influenza epidemic with a specific focus on surge capacity and infrastructure considerations. Based on a literature review and expert opinion, a Delphi process was used to define the essential topics including surge capacity and infrastructure considerations. Key recommendations include: (1) hospitals should increase their ICU beds to the maximal extent by expanding ICU capacity and expanding ICUs into other areas; (2) hospitals should have appropriate beds and monitors for these expansion areas; hospitals should develop contingency plans at the facility and government (local, state, provincial, national) levels to provide additional ventilators; (3) hospitals should develop a phased staffing plan (nursing and physician) for ICUs that provides sufficient patient care supervision during contingency and crisis situations; (4) hospitals should provide expert input to the emergency management personnel at the hospital both during planning for surge capacity as well as during response; (5) hospitals should assure that adequate infrastructure support is present to support critical care activities; (6) hospitals should prioritize locations for expansion by expanding existing ICUs, using postanesthesia care units and emergency departments to capacity, then step-down units, large procedure suites, telemetry units and finally hospital wards. Judicious planning and adoption of protocols for surge capacity and infrastructure considerations are necessary to optimize outcomes during a pandemic.

One-sided muon tomography - A portable method for imaging critical infrastructure with a single muon detector

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Boniface, K., E-mail: bonifak@mcmaster.ca [McMaster Univ., Hamilton, Ontario (Canada); Jonkmans, G. [Defence R& D Canada, Centre for Security Science, Ottawa, Ontario (Canada); Anghel, V.; Erlandson, A.; Thompson, M.; Livingstone, S. [Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Chalk River, Ontario (Canada)

2014-07-01

High-energy muons generated from cosmic-ray particle showers have been shown to exhibit properties ideal for imaging the interior of large structures. This paper explores the possibility of using a single portable muon detector in conjunction with image reconstruction methods used in nuclear medicine to reconstruct a 3D image of the interior of man-made large structures such as the Zero Energy Deuterium (ZED-2) research reactor at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL) Chalk River Laboratories (CRL). The ZED-2 reactor core and muon detector arrangement are modeled in GEANT4 and measurements of the resultant muon throughput and angular distribution at several angles of rotation around the reactor are generated. Statistical analysis is then performed on these measurements based on the well-defined flux and angular distribution of muons expected near the surface of the earth. The results of this analysis are shown to produce reconstructed images of the spatial distribution of nuclear fuel within the core for multiple fuel configurations. This “one-sided tomography” concept is a possible candidate for examining the internal structure of larger critical facilities, for example the Fukushima Daiichi power plant where the integrity of the containment infrastructure and the location of the reactor fuel is unknown. (author)

Building climate change into infrastructure codes and standards

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Auld, H.; Klaasen, J.; Morris, R.; Fernandez, S.; MacIver, D.; Bernstein, D.

2009-01-01

'Full text:' Building codes and standards and the climatic design values embedded within these legal to semi-legal documents have profound safety, health and economic implications for Canada's infrastructure systems. The climatic design values that have been used for the design of almost all of today's more than $5.5 Trillion in infrastructure are based on historical climate data and assume that the extremes of the past will represent future conditions. Since new infrastructure based on codes and standards will be built to survive for decades to come, it is critically important that existing climatic design information be as accurate and up-to-date as possible, that the changing climate be monitored to detect and highlight vulnerabilities of existing infrastructure, that forensic studies of climate-related failures be undertaken and that codes and standards processes incorporate future climates and extremes as much as possible. Uncertainties in the current climate change models and their scenarios currently challenge our ability to project future extremes regionally and locally. Improvements to the spatial and temporal resolution of these climate change scenarios, along with improved methodologies to treat model biases and localize results, will allow future codes and standards to better reflect the extremes and weathering conditions expected over the lifespan of structures. In the meantime, other information and code processes can be used to incorporate changing climate conditions into upcoming infrastructure codes and standards, to “bridge” the model uncertainty gap and to complement the state of existing projections. This presentation will outline some of the varied information and processes that will be used to incorporate climate change adaptation into the next development cycle of the National Building Code of Canada and numerous other national CSA infrastructure standards. (author)

Green(ing) infrastructure

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Van Wyk, Llewellyn V

2014-03-01

Full Text Available the generation of electricity from renewable sources such as wind, water and solar. Grey infrastructure – In the context of storm water management, grey infrastructure can be thought of as the hard, engineered systems to capture and convey runoff..., pumps, and treatment plants.  Green infrastructure reduces energy demand by reducing the need to collect and transport storm water to a suitable discharge location. In addition, green infrastructure such as green roofs, street trees and increased...

Intelligent Learning Infrastructure for Knowledge Intensive Organizations: A Semantic Web Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Lytras, Miltiadis, Ed.; Naeve, Ambjorn, Ed.

2005-01-01

In the context of Knowledge Society, the convergence of knowledge and learning management is a critical milestone. "Intelligent Learning Infrastructure for Knowledge Intensive Organizations: A Semantic Web Perspective" provides state-of-the art knowledge through a balanced theoretical and technological discussion. The semantic web perspective…

Financing University Education in Nigeria : a Proposal for Infrastructure Replenishment in Universities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Virtue U. Ekhosuehi

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The subject of replenishment of infrastructure in Nigerian public universities has been of great concern to stakeholders in the educational system. How to obtain an appropriate replenishment plan that would give the desired infrastructure for a university after a certain period of time is a long-standing problem. We attempt to find a solution to this problem from an engineering perspective based on optimal control theory. The revenue generated through the payment of school fees and the costs of investment in infrastructure are used to construct the objective function. The state variables are the amount budgeted for such an investment and the stock of infrastructure, while the rate of replenishment is used as the control variable. The problem is solved by utilising Pontryagin's principle. The dynamics of the replenishment plan is illustrated with an example. The results show that there should be a steady in-crease in the amount budgeted, in order to attain the desired infrastructure. (original abstract

Seismic Barrier Protection of Critical Infrastructure from Earthquakes

Science.gov (United States)

2017-05-01

We observe that such barrier structures reduce seismic wave powers by 10 – 40 dB that would otherwise reach the foundation location. Moreover, the... structure composed of opposing boreholes or trenches to mitigate seismic waves from diffracting and traveling in the vertical plane. Computational...seismic wave propagation models suggest that air or fluid filled subsurface V- shaped muffler structures are critical to the redirection and self

Psychometric analysis of subjective sedation scales used for critically ill paediatric patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Ge, Xiaohua; Zhang, Tingting; Zhou, Lingling

2018-01-01

This study evaluated the psychometric properties of subjective sedation scales using one psychometric scoring system to identify the appropriate scale that is most suitable for clinical care practice. A number of published sedation assessment scales for paediatric patients are currently used to attempt to achieve a moderate depth of sedation to avoid the undesirable effects caused by over- or undersedation. However, there has been no systematic review of these scales. We searched the Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, etc., to obtain relevant articles. The quality of the selected studies was evaluated according to the Consensus-based Standards for the Selection of Health Measurement Instruments checklist. Articles that had been published or were in press and discussed the psychometric properties of sedation scales were included. The population comprised critically ill infants and non-verbal children ranging in age from 0 to 18 years who underwent sedation in an intensive care unit. Data were independently extracted by two investigators using a standard data extraction checklist: 43 articles were included in this review, and 13 sedation scales were examined. The quality of the psychometric evidence for the Comfort Scale and Comfort Behaviour Scale was 'very good', with the Comfort Scale having a higher quality (total weighted scores, Comfort Scale = 17·3 and Comfort Behaviour Scale = 15·5). We suggest that the scales be systematically and comprehensively tested in terms of development method, reliability, validation, feasibility and correlation with clinical outcome. The Comfort Scale and Comfort Behaviour Scale are useful tools for measuring sedation in paediatric patients. Nursing staff should choose one subjective sedation scale that is suitable for assessing paediatric patients' depth of sedation. We recommend the Comfort Scale and Comfort Behaviour Scale as optimal choices if the clinical

Interconnectedness and interdependencies of critical infrastructures in the US economy: Implications for resilience

Science.gov (United States)

Chopra, Shauhrat S.; Khanna, Vikas

2015-10-01

Natural disasters in 2011 yielded close to 55 billion in economic damages alone in the United States (US), which highlights the need to reduce impacts of such disasters or other deliberate attacks. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) identifies a list of 16 Critical Infrastructure Sectors (CIS) whose incapacity due to disruptions would have a debilitating impact on the nation's economy. The goal of this work is to understand the implications of interdependencies among CIS on the resilience of the US economic system as a whole. We develop a framework that combines the empirical economic input-output (EIO) model with graph theory based techniques for understanding interdependencies, interconnectedness and resilience in the US economic system. By representing the US economy as a network, we are able to analyze its topology by separately looking at its unweighted and weighted forms. Topological analysis of the US EIO network suggests that it exhibits small world properties for the unweighted case, and in the weighted case, the throughput of industry sectors follows a power-law with an exponential cutoff. Implications of these topological properties are discussed in the paper. We also simulate hypothetical disruptions on CIS in order to identify industrial sectors that experience the largest economic impacts, and to quantify systemic vulnerability in economic terms. In addition, insights from community detection and hypothetical disruption scenarios help assess vulnerability of individual industrial communities to disruptions on individual CIS. These methodologies also provide insights regarding the extent of coupling between each CIS in the US EIO network. Based on our analysis, we observe that excessive interconnectedness and interdependencies of CIS results in high systemic vulnerability. This information can guide policymakers to design policies that improve resilience of economic networks, and evaluate policies that might indirectly increase coupling

Increasing the resilience and security of the United States' power infrastructure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Happenny, Sean F. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

2015-08-01

The United States' power infrastructure is aging, underfunded, and vulnerable to cyber attack. Emerging smart grid technologies may take some of the burden off of existing systems and make the grid as a whole more efficient, reliable, and secure. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is funding research into several aspects of smart grid technology and grid security, creating a software simulation tool that will allow researchers to test power infrastructure control and distribution paradigms by utilizing different smart grid technologies to determine how the grid and these technologies react under different circumstances. Understanding how these systems behave in real-world conditions will lead to new ways to make our power infrastructure more resilient and secure. Demonstrating security in embedded systems is another research area PNNL is tackling. Many of the systems controlling the U.S. critical infrastructure, such as the power grid, lack integrated security and the aging networks protecting them are becoming easier to attack.

Defense strategies for cloud computing multi-site server infrastructures

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rao, Nageswara S. [ORNL; Ma, Chris Y. T. [Hang Seng Management College, Hon Kong; He, Fei [Texas A& M University, Kingsville, TX, USA

2018-01-01

We consider cloud computing server infrastructures for big data applications, which consist of multiple server sites connected over a wide-area network. The sites house a number of servers, network elements and local-area connections, and the wide-area network plays a critical, asymmetric role of providing vital connectivity between them. We model this infrastructure as a system of systems, wherein the sites and wide-area network are represented by their cyber and physical components. These components can be disabled by cyber and physical attacks, and also can be protected against them using component reinforcements. The effects of attacks propagate within the systems, and also beyond them via the wide-area network.We characterize these effects using correlations at two levels using: (a) aggregate failure correlation function that specifies the infrastructure failure probability given the failure of an individual site or network, and (b) first-order differential conditions on system survival probabilities that characterize the component-level correlations within individual systems. We formulate a game between an attacker and a provider using utility functions composed of survival probability and cost terms. At Nash Equilibrium, we derive expressions for the expected capacity of the infrastructure given by the number of operational servers connected to the network for sum-form, product-form and composite utility functions.

THE INFLUENCE OF TOURIST INFRASTRUCTURE ON THE TOURIST SATISFACTION IN OHRID

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daliborka Blazeska

2018-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the paper is to stress the importance of permanent improvement of tourism infrastructure in advancing tourism satisfaction on destination. It is empirical research of influence of tourism infrastructure on destination on tourist satisfaction in Ohrid city in R of Macedonia. Tourism infrastructure is a range of devices and institutions constituting material and organizational basis for tourism development. It comprises four basic elements: accommodation facilities, gastronomy facilities, accompanying facilities and communication facilities. Policies are needed to improve infrastructure, promote the integration of tourist services, maintain visitor numbers and encourage guests to stay longer, visit additional locations and increase their spending. Ohrid city is famous tourist destination in Republic of Macedonia. Despite historical and cultural treasures located in Ohrid, it is most famous for the Ohrid Lake. Thе city has strong attractive factors – natural and cultural monuments that attract tourist. The subject of this paper is the tourism infrastructure in Ohrid city, the current status and perspectives in order to attract more foreign and domestic tourists. Ohrid city in cooperation with government of R. Macedonia should improve permanently tourism infrastructure in destination. This paper presents an action research conducted on a sample of 200 foreign visitors in Ohrid city period of 01 July till 01 august. 2017. Tourist infrastructure has huge influence of tourist satisfaction from destination. Local municipality of Ohrid city with join efforts with the government of Republic of Macedonia should permanently develop tourist infrastructure

Greening infrastructure

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Van Wyk, Llewellyn V

2014-10-01

Full Text Available The development and maintenance of infrastructure is crucial to improving economic growth and quality of life (WEF 2013). Urban infrastructure typically includes bulk services such as water, sanitation and energy (typically electricity and gas...

Sustainability considerations for health research and analytic data infrastructures.

Science.gov (United States)

Wilcox, Adam; Randhawa, Gurvaneet; Embi, Peter; Cao, Hui; Kuperman, Gilad J

2014-01-01

The United States has made recent large investments in creating data infrastructures to support the important goals of patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) and comparative effectiveness research (CER), with still more investment planned. These initial investments, while critical to the creation of the infrastructures, are not expected to sustain them much beyond the initial development. To provide the maximum benefit, the infrastructures need to be sustained through innovative financing models while providing value to PCOR and CER researchers. Based on our experience with creating flexible sustainability strategies (i.e., strategies that are adaptive to the different characteristics and opportunities of a resource or infrastructure), we define specific factors that are important considerations in developing a sustainability strategy. These factors include assets, expansion, complexity, and stakeholders. Each factor is described, with examples of how it is applied. These factors are dimensions of variation in different resources, to which a sustainability strategy should adapt. We also identify specific important considerations for maintaining an infrastructure, so that the long-term intended benefits can be realized. These observations are presented as lessons learned, to be applied to other sustainability efforts. We define the lessons learned, relating them to the defined sustainability factors as interactions between factors. Using perspectives and experiences from a diverse group of experts, we define broad characteristics of sustainability strategies and important observations, which can vary for different projects. Other descriptions of adaptive, flexible, and successful models of collaboration between stakeholders and data infrastructures can expand this framework by identifying other factors for sustainability, and give more concrete directions on how sustainability can be best achieved.

Transportation Infrastructure and the Asia-Pacific Food System

OpenAIRE

Armbruster, Walter J.; Coyle, William T.

2005-01-01

Adequate, well maintained transportation infrastructure is a critical element of the Pacific food system in addressing challenges of rapid urbanization. Policymakers must invest either in streamlining domestic supply chains and/or in facilitating food imports through market opening measures. Economic incentives, competitive transportation and logistic services, and policy reforms, both within the borders of individual economies as well as across the Asia-Pacific region, are also necessary. Im...

Flowscapes : Infrastructure as landscape, landscape as infrastructure. Graduation Lab Landscape Architecture 2012/2013

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nijhuis, S.; Jauslin, D.; De Vries, C.

2012-01-01

Flowscapes explores infrastructure as a type of landscape and landscape as a type of infrastructure, and is focused on landscape architectonic design of transportation-, green- and water infrastructures. These landscape infrastructures are considered armatures for urban and rural development. With

Synthesis centers as critical research infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Baron, Jill S.; Specht, Alison; Garnier, Eric; Bishop, Pamela; Campbell, C. Andrew; Davis, Frank W.; Fady, Bruno; Field, Dawn; Gross, Louis J.; Guru, Siddeswara M.; Halpern, Benjamin S; Hampton, Stephanie E.; Leavitt, Peter R.; Meagher, Thomas R.; Ometto, Jean; Parker, John N.; Price, Richard; Rawson, Casey H.; Rodrigo, Allen; Sheble, Laura A.; Winter, Marten

2017-01-01

investment to maximize benefits to science and society is justified. In particular, we argue that synthesis centers represent community infrastructure more akin to research vessels than to term-funded centers of science and technology (e.g., NSF Science and Technology Centers). Through our experience running synthesis centers and, in some cases, developing postfederal funding models, we offer our perspective on the purpose and value of synthesis centers. We present case studies of different outcomes of transition plans and argue for a fundamental shift in the conception of synthesis science and the strategic funding of these centers by government funding agencies.

Empirical Phenomenon, Subjective Construction And Ontological Trught: (An Analysis of Problems of Scientific Explanation and Critical Realism Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Faramarz Taghilou

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Both the positivist and negativist frameworks of explanation are common in this naturalist proposition that unlike the metaphysical philosophy, reality is embedded only in experimental level. Therefore, the scientific explanation of natural and social phenomenon should refer to this experimental level in order to be called meaningful, verifiable and scientific. But, the problem was always that the principle of causality as a necessary condition for every kind of scientific explanation is not logically deductible from induction in experimental level and remains as a metaphysical principle. The principle of experimental objectivity as a condition for the verifiability clause of scientific explanations could not be defended, because the experimentation was always embedded in subjectivity and theory. The Kantian idealists, in contrast, considering the scientific explanation as a mere representation of reality in subjective categories, could not justify the experimental knowledge of reality and the rationality for comparison among theories and paradigms. Critical Realism as an important approach in philosophy of science that relates to the works and thoughts of Roy Bhaskar tries to solve these problems by resorting to its principles of ontological realism, epistemological relativism, and judgmental rationality. Considering and analyzing the scientific explanation’s issues, we have focused here on the answers of the Critical Realism in this case. We will argue that how the Critical Realist interpretation of scientific explanation, the experimental phenomenon, and the subjective construction and ontological reality all reach to a logical coherence with each other.

Critical shear stress for erosion of cohesive soils subjected to temperatures typical of wildfires

Science.gov (United States)

Moody, J.A.; Dungan, Smith J.; Ragan, B.W.

2005-01-01

[1] Increased erosion is a well-known response after wildfire. To predict and to model erosion on a landscape scale requires knowledge of the critical shear stress for the initiation of motion of soil particles. As this soil property is temperature-dependent, a quantitative relation between critical shear stress and the temperatures to which the soils have been subjected during a wildfire is required. In this study the critical shear stress was measured in a recirculating flume using samples of forest soil exposed to different temperatures (40??-550??C) for 1 hour. Results were obtained for four replicates of soils derived from three different types of parent material (granitic bedrock, sandstone, and volcanic tuffs). In general, the relation between critical shear stress and temperature can be separated into three different temperature ranges (275??C), which are similar to those for water repellency and temperature. The critical shear stress was most variable (1.0-2.0 N m-2) for temperatures 2.0 N m-2) between 175?? and 275??C, and was essentially constant (0.5-0.8 N m-2) for temperatures >275??C. The changes in critical shear stress with temperature were found to be essentially independent of soil type and suggest that erosion processes in burned watersheds can be modeled more simply than erosion processes in unburned watersheds. Wildfire reduces the spatial variability of soil erodibility associated with unburned watersheds by eliminating the complex effects of vegetation in protecting soils and by reducing the range of cohesion associated with different types of unburned soils. Our results indicate that modeling the erosional response after a wildfire depends primarily on determining the spatial distribution of the maximum soil temperatures that were reached during the wildfire. Copyright 2005 by the American Geophysical Union.

Surety of the nation`s critical infrastructures: The challenge restructuring poses to the telecommunications sector

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cox, R.; Drennen, T.E.; Gilliom, L.; Harris, D.L.; Kunsman, D.M.; Skroch, M.J.

1998-04-01

The telecommunications sector plays a pivotal role in the system of increasingly connected and interdependent networks that make up national infrastructure. An assessment of the probable structure and function of the bit-moving industry in the twenty-first century must include issues associated with the surety of telecommunications. The term surety, as used here, means confidence in the acceptable behavior of a system in both intended and unintended circumstances. This paper outlines various engineering approaches to surety in systems, generally, and in the telecommunications infrastructure, specifically. It uses the experience and expectations of the telecommunications system of the US as an example of the global challenges. The paper examines the principal factors underlying the change to more distributed systems in this sector, assesses surety issues associated with these changes, and suggests several possible strategies for mitigation. It also studies the ramifications of what could happen if this sector became a target for those seeking to compromise a nation`s security and economic well being. Experts in this area generally agree that the U. S. telecommunications sector will eventually respond in a way that meets market demands for surety. Questions remain open, however, about confidence in the telecommunications sector and the nation`s infrastructure during unintended circumstances--such as those posed by information warfare or by cascading software failures. Resolution of these questions is complicated by the lack of clear accountability of the private and the public sectors for the surety of telecommunications.

Assessing the risk posed by natural hazards to infrastructures

Science.gov (United States)

Eidsvig, Unni Marie K.; Kristensen, Krister; Vidar Vangelsten, Bjørn

2017-03-01

This paper proposes a model for assessing the risk posed by natural hazards to infrastructures, with a focus on the indirect losses and loss of stability for the population relying on the infrastructure. The model prescribes a three-level analysis with increasing level of detail, moving from qualitative to quantitative analysis. The focus is on a methodology for semi-quantitative analyses to be performed at the second level. The purpose of this type of analysis is to perform a screening of the scenarios of natural hazards threatening the infrastructures, identifying the most critical scenarios and investigating the need for further analyses (third level). The proposed semi-quantitative methodology considers the frequency of the natural hazard, different aspects of vulnerability, including the physical vulnerability of the infrastructure itself, and the societal dependency on the infrastructure. An indicator-based approach is applied, ranking the indicators on a relative scale according to pre-defined ranking criteria. The proposed indicators, which characterise conditions that influence the probability of an infrastructure malfunctioning caused by a natural event, are defined as (1) robustness and buffer capacity, (2) level of protection, (3) quality/level of maintenance and renewal, (4) adaptability and quality of operational procedures and (5) transparency/complexity/degree of coupling. Further indicators describe conditions influencing the socio-economic consequences of the infrastructure malfunctioning, such as (1) redundancy and/or substitution, (2) cascading effects and dependencies, (3) preparedness and (4) early warning, emergency response and measures. The aggregated risk estimate is a combination of the semi-quantitative vulnerability indicators, as well as quantitative estimates of the frequency of the natural hazard, the potential duration of the infrastructure malfunctioning (e.g. depending on the required restoration effort) and the number of users of

Landslides affecting critical infrastructures: the use of a GB-InSAR based warning system in Calatabiano (Southern Italy).

Science.gov (United States)

Nolesini, Teresa; Frodella, William; Bardi, Federica; Intrieri, Emanuele; Carlà, Tommaso; Solari, Lorenzo; Dotta, Giulia; Ferrigno, Federica; Casagli, Nicola

2017-04-01

Landslides represent one of the most frequent geo-hazard, not only causing a serious threat to human lives, but also determining socio-economic losses, countable in billions of Euros and expressed in terms of damage to property, infrastructures and environmental degradation. Recent events show a significant increase in the number of disasters with natural and/or technological causes, which could have potentially serious consequences for Critical Infrastructures (CI). Where these infrastructures tend to fail or to be destroyed, the resulting cascade effect (chain of accidents) could lead to catastrophic damage and affect people, the environment and the economy. In the field of landslide detection, mapping, monitoring and management, the availability of advanced remote sensing technologies, which allow systematic and easily updatable acquisitions of data, may enhance the implementation of near real time monitoring activity and the production of landslide maps, optimizing field work. This work aims at presenting an example of the advantages given by the combined use of advanced remote sensing techniques, such as Ground-Based Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (GB-InSAR), Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) and Infrared Thermography (IRT), in order to monitor and map the Calatabiano landslide, located in the Catania Province (Sicily Island, Southern Italy). The landslide occurred on October 24th 2015, after a period of heavy rainfall, causing the rupture of a water pipeline transect of the aqueduct supplying water to the city of Messina. As a consequence of this event a considerable lack in water resources occurred for a large number of the city inhabitants. A provisional by-pass, consisting of three 350 m long pipes passing through the landslide area, was implemented in order to restore the city water supplies during the emergency management phase. In this framework an integrated monitoring network was implemented, in order to assess the residual risk by analyzing

A scalable infrastructure model for carbon capture and storage: SimCCS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Middleton, Richard S.; Bielicki, Jeffrey M.

2009-01-01

In the carbon capture and storage (CCS) process, CO 2 sources and geologic reservoirs may be widely spatially dispersed and need to be connected through a dedicated CO 2 pipeline network. We introduce a scalable infrastructure model for CCS (simCCS) that generates a fully integrated, cost-minimizing CCS system. SimCCS determines where and how much CO 2 to capture and store, and where to build and connect pipelines of different sizes, in order to minimize the combined annualized costs of sequestering a given amount of CO 2 . SimCCS is able to aggregate CO 2 flows between sources and reservoirs into trunk pipelines that take advantage of economies of scale. Pipeline construction costs take into account factors including topography and social impacts. SimCCS can be used to calculate the scale of CCS deployment (local, regional, national). SimCCS' deployment of a realistic, capacitated pipeline network is a major advancement for planning CCS infrastructure. We demonstrate simCCS using a set of 37 CO 2 sources and 14 reservoirs for California. The results highlight the importance of systematic planning for CCS infrastructure by examining the sensitivity of CCS infrastructure, as optimized by simCCS, to varying CO 2 targets. We finish by identifying critical future research areas for CCS infrastructure

Geriatric infrastructure, BRAC, and ecosystem service markets? End-of-life decisions for dams, roads, and offshore platforms (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Doyle, M. W.

2010-12-01

US infrastructure expanded dramatically in the mid-20th century, and now includes more than 79,000 dams, 15,000 miles of levees, 3.7 million miles of roads, 600,000 miles of sewer pipe, 500,000 onshore oil wells, and over 4,000 offshore oil platforms. Many structures have been in place for 50 years or more, and an increasing portion of national infrastructure is approaching or exceeding its originally intended design life. Bringing national infrastructure to acceptable levels would cost nearly 10% of the US annual GDP. Decommissioning infrastructure can decrease public spending and increase public safety while facilitating economic expansion and ecological restoration. While most infrastructure remains critical to the national economy, a substantial amount is obsolete or declining in importance. Over 11,000 dams are abandoned, and of nearly 400,000 miles of road on its lands, the U.S. Forest Service considers one-fourth non-essential and often non-functional. Removing obsolete infrastructure allows greater focus and funding on maintaining or improving infrastructure most critical to society. Moreover, a concerted program of infrastructure decommissioning promises significant long-term cost savings, and is a necessary step before more substantial, systematic changes are possible, like those needed to address the new energy sources and shifting climate. One key challenge for infrastructure reform is how to prioritize and implement such a widespread and politically-charged series of decisions. Two approaches are proposed for different scales. For small, private infrastructure, emerging state and federal ecosystem service markets can provide an economic impetus to push infrastructure removal. Ecosystem market mechanisms may also be most effective at identifying those projects with the greatest ecological bang for the buck. Examples where this approach has proved successful include dam removal for stream mitigation under the Clean Water Act, and levee decommissioning on

An experience of knowledge co-production for setting up landslide risk management processes in a critical infrastructure: the case of Campania Region (Southern Italy)

Science.gov (United States)

Rianna, Guido; Roca Collell, Marta; Uzielli, Marco; Van Ruiten, Kees; Mercogliano, Paola; Ciervo, Fabio; Reder, Alfredo

2017-04-01

In Campania Region (Southern Italy), expected increases in heavy rainfall events under the effect of climate changes and demographic pressure could entail a growth of occurrence of weather induced landslides and associated damages. Indeed, already in recent years, pyroclastic covers mantling the slopes of a large part of the Region have been affected by numerous events often causing victims and damages to infrastructures serving the urban centers. Due to the strategic relevance of the area, landslide events affecting volcanic layers in Campania Region are one of the five case studies investigated in the FP7 European Project INTACT about the impacts of extreme weather on critical infrastructure. The main aim of INTACT project is to increase the resilience of critical infrastructures (CI) facing extreme weather events improving the awareness of stakeholders and asset managers about such phenomena and their potential variations due to Climate Changes and providing tools to support risk management strategies. A WIKI has been designed as a remote support for all stages of the risk process through brief theoretical explanations (in Wiki style) about tools and methods proposed and reports on the findings and hints returned by case studies investigations. In order to have a product tailored to the needs and background of CI owners, managers and policy makers, an intense effort of knowledge co-production between researchers and stakeholders have been carried out in different case studies through questionnaires, meetings, workshops and/or 1-to-1 interviews. This work presents the different tools and approaches adopted to facilitate the exchange with stakeholders in the Campanian case study such as the "Storytelling approach", aiming to stress the need for a comprehensive and overall approach to the issue between the different disaster management phases (mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery) and actors; the CIRCLE approach developed by Deltares, partner in INTACT

MONITORING MECHANISM FOR INVESTMENT DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONS’ INFRASTRUCTURE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Halyna Leshuk

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The subject of the research is the theoretical and methodological principles of the monitoring mechanism of investment development of regions’ infrastructure. The objectives of the research are the generalization of theoretical and methodological bases of monitoring mechanism of investment development of regions’ infrastructure, as well as analysis of the current trends of investment development of the infrastructure in the regions of Ukraine with the identification of positive and negative trends. Methodology. The article deals with theoretical and methodological approaches to the definition of conceptual foundations of the mechanism of monitoring the investment development of the regions’ infrastructure with the help of general scientific methods of analysis: systematization and generalization, induction, and deduction. Results. It is proposed to interpret a monitor of the investment development of the regional infrastructure (IDRI as a systematic and complex measurement of the indicators of regional infrastructure development, the number of implemented investment projects, monitoring compliance with the developed strategic regional programs and concepts, which will ultimately help to effectively and efficiently regulate the detected deviations and passing the appropriate decisions. The IDRI monitoring mechanism should also provide a possibility of creating a system for collecting and analysing data concerning the assessment of infrastructure objects by the territorial community, which will allow potential investors to focus not only on analytical data on monitoring of regional authorities but also to take into account the public interest in a particular region. The general principles of the monitoring mechanism of investment development of the regions infrastructure are proposed in the following directions: complex and system monitoring and data collection concerning the development of the regions’ infrastructure, while the aggregate

Safety issues in cultural heritage management and critical infrastructures management

Science.gov (United States)

Soldovieri, Francesco; Masini, Nicola; Alvarez de Buergo, Monica; Dumoulin, Jean

2013-12-01

This special issue is the fourth of its kind in Journal of Geophysics and Engineering , containing studies and applications of geophysical methodologies and sensing technologies for the knowledge, conservation and security of products of human activity ranging from civil infrastructures to built and cultural heritage. The first discussed the application of novel instrumentation, surface and airborne remote sensing techniques, as well as data processing oriented to both detection and characterization of archaeological buried remains and conservation of cultural heritage (Eppelbaum et al 2010). The second stressed the importance of an integrated and multiscale approach for the study and conservation of architectural, archaeological and artistic heritage, from SAR to GPR to imaging based diagnostic techniques (Masini and Soldovieri 2011). The third enlarged the field of analysis to civil engineering structures and infrastructures, providing an overview of the effectiveness and the limitations of single diagnostic techniques, which can be overcome through the integration of different methods and technologies and/or the use of robust and novel data processing techniques (Masini et al 2012). As a whole, the special issue put in evidence the factors that affect the choice of diagnostic strategy, such as the material, the spatial characteristics of the objects or sites, the value of the objects to be investigated (cultural or not), the aim of the investigation (knowledge, conservation, restoration) and the issues to be addressed (monitoring, decay assessment). In order to complete the overview of the application fields of sensing technologies this issue has been dedicated to monitoring of cultural heritage and critical infrastructures to address safety and security issues. Particular attention has been paid to the data processing methods of different sensing techniques, from infrared thermography through GPR to SAR. Cascini et al (2013) present the effectiveness of a

Sensibility and Subjectivity: Levinas’ Traumatic Subject

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rashmika Pandya

2011-02-01

Full Text Available The importance of Levinas’ notions of sensibility and subjectivity are evident in the revision of phenomenological method by current phenomenologists such as Jean-Luc Marion and Michel Henry. The criticisms of key tenants of classical phenomenology, intentionality and reduction, are of a particular note. However, there are problems with Levinas’ characterization of subjectivity as essentially sensible. In “Totality and Infinity” and “Otherwise than Being”, Levinas criticizes and recasts a traditional notion of subjectivity, particularly the notion of the subject as the first and foremost rational subject. The subject in Levinas’ works is characterized more by its sensibility and affectedness than by its capacity to reason or affect its world. Levinas ties rationality to economy and suggests an alternative notion of reason that leads to his analysis of the ethical relation as the face-to-face encounter. The ‘origin’ of the social relation is located not in our capacity to know but rather in a sensibility that is diametrically opposed to the reason understood as economy. I argue that the opposition in Levinas’ thought between reason and sensibility is problematic and essentially leads to a self-conflicted subject. In fact, it would seem that violence characterizes the subject’s self-relation and, thus, is also inscribed at the base of the social relation. Rather than overcoming a problematic tendency to dualistic thought in philosophy Levinas merely reverses traditional hierarchies of reason/emotion, subject/object and self/other. 

Handling Worldwide LHC Computing Grid Critical Service Incidents : The infrastructure and experience behind nearly 5 years of GGUS ALARMs

CERN Multimedia

Dimou, M; Dulov, O; Grein, G

2013-01-01

In the Wordwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) project the Tier centres are of paramount importance for storing and accessing experiment data and for running the batch jobs necessary for experiment production activities. Although Tier2 sites provide a significant fraction of the resources a non-availability of resources at the Tier0 or the Tier1s can seriously harm not only WLCG Operations but also the experiments' workflow and the storage of LHC data which are very expensive to reproduce. This is why availability requirements for these sites are high and committed in the WLCG Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). In this talk we describe the workflow of GGUS ALARMs, the only 24/7 mechanism available to LHC experiment experts for reporting to the Tier0 or the Tier1s problems with their Critical Services. Conclusions and experience gained from the detailed drills performed in each such ALARM for the last 4 years are explained and the shift with time of Type of Problems met. The physical infrastructure put in place to ...

Post-Disaster Supply Chain Interdependent Critical Infrastructure System Restoration: A Review of Data Necessary and Available for Modeling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Varun Ramachandran

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The majority of restoration strategies in the wake of large-scale disasters have focused on short-term emergency response solutions. Few consider medium- to long-term restoration strategies to reconnect urban areas to national 'supply chain interdependent critical infrastructure systems' (SCICI. These SCICI promote the effective flow of goods, services, and information vital to the economic vitality of an urban environment. To re-establish the connectivity that has been broken during a disaster between the different SCICI, relationships between these systems must be identified, formulated, and added to a common framework to form a system-level restoration plan. To accomplish this goal, a considerable collection of SCICI data is necessary. The aim of this paper is to review what data are required for model construction, the accessibility of these data, and their integration with each other. While a review of publically available data reveals a dearth of real-time data to assist modeling long-term recovery following an extreme event, a significant amount of static data does exist and these data can be used to model the complex interdependencies needed. For the sake of illustration, a particular SCICI (transportation is used to highlight the challenges of determining the interdependencies and creating models capable of describing the complexity of an urban environment with the data publically available. Integration of such data as is derived from public domain sources is readily achieved in a geospatial environment, after all geospatial infrastructure data are the most abundant data source and while significant quantities of data can be acquired through public sources, a significant effort is still required to gather, develop, and integrate these data from multiple sources to build a complete model. Therefore, while continued availability of high quality, public information is essential for modeling efforts in academic as well as government

Post-disaster supply chain interdependent critical infrastructure system restoration: A review of data necessary and available for modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Ramachandran, Varun; Long, Suzanna K.; Shoberg, Thomas G.; Corns, Steven; Carlo, Hector J.

2016-01-01

The majority of restoration strategies in the wake of large-scale disasters have focused on short-term emergency response solutions. Few consider medium- to long-term restoration strategies to reconnect urban areas to national supply chain interdependent critical infrastructure systems (SCICI). These SCICI promote the effective flow of goods, services, and information vital to the economic vitality of an urban environment. To re-establish the connectivity that has been broken during a disaster between the different SCICI, relationships between these systems must be identified, formulated, and added to a common framework to form a system-level restoration plan. To accomplish this goal, a considerable collection of SCICI data is necessary. The aim of this paper is to review what data are required for model construction, the accessibility of these data, and their integration with each other. While a review of publically available data reveals a dearth of real-time data to assist modeling long-term recovery following an extreme event, a significant amount of static data does exist and these data can be used to model the complex interdependencies needed. For the sake of illustration, a particular SCICI (transportation) is used to highlight the challenges of determining the interdependencies and creating models capable of describing the complexity of an urban environment with the data publically available. Integration of such data as is derived from public domain sources is readily achieved in a geospatial environment, after all geospatial infrastructure data are the most abundant data source and while significant quantities of data can be acquired through public sources, a significant effort is still required to gather, develop, and integrate these data from multiple sources to build a complete model. Therefore, while continued availability of high quality, public information is essential for modeling efforts in academic as well as government communities, a more

The Moral Dimensions of Infrastructure.

Science.gov (United States)

Epting, Shane

2016-04-01

Moral issues in urban planning involving technology, residents, marginalized groups, ecosystems, and future generations are complex cases, requiring solutions that go beyond the limits of contemporary moral theory. Aside from typical planning problems, there is incongruence between moral theory and some of the subjects that require moral assessment, such as urban infrastructure. Despite this incongruence, there is not a need to develop another moral theory. Instead, a supplemental measure that is compatible with existing moral positions will suffice. My primary goal in this paper is to explain the need for this supplemental measure, describe what one looks like, and show how it works with existing moral systems. The secondary goal is to show that creating a supplemental measure that provides congruency between moral systems that are designed to assess human action and non-human subjects advances the study of moral theory.

Dynamic contracting : An asset management tool in controlling infrastructure maintenance activities

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Demirel, H.C.; de Ridder, H.A.J.; Hertogh, M.J.C.M.

2013-01-01

Infrastructure road network is a complex system in a fast changing complicated environment and therefore subject to change. The changes refer to demands, requirements, regulations and financial possibilities as well as advanced technologies. Therefore outsourcing maintenance activities are rather

TRANSVAC research infrastructure - Results and lessons learned from the European network of vaccine research and development.

Science.gov (United States)

Geels, Mark J; Thøgersen, Regitze L; Guzman, Carlos A; Ho, Mei Mei; Verreck, Frank; Collin, Nicolas; Robertson, James S; McConkey, Samuel J; Kaufmann, Stefan H E; Leroy, Odile

2015-10-05

TRANSVAC was a collaborative infrastructure project aimed at enhancing European translational vaccine research and training. The objective of this four year project (2009-2013), funded under the European Commission's (EC) seventh framework programme (FP7), was to support European collaboration in the vaccine field, principally through the provision of transnational access (TNA) to critical vaccine research and development (R&D) infrastructures, as well as by improving and harmonising the services provided by these infrastructures through joint research activities (JRA). The project successfully provided all available services to advance 29 projects and, through engaging all vaccine stakeholders, successfully laid down the blueprint for the implementation of a permanent research infrastructure for early vaccine R&D in Europe. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Autonomic Management of Application Workflows on Hybrid Computing Infrastructure

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hyunjoo Kim

2011-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we present a programming and runtime framework that enables the autonomic management of complex application workflows on hybrid computing infrastructures. The framework is designed to address system and application heterogeneity and dynamics to ensure that application objectives and constraints are satisfied. The need for such autonomic system and application management is becoming critical as computing infrastructures become increasingly heterogeneous, integrating different classes of resources from high-end HPC systems to commodity clusters and clouds. For example, the framework presented in this paper can be used to provision the appropriate mix of resources based on application requirements and constraints. The framework also monitors the system/application state and adapts the application and/or resources to respond to changing requirements or environment. To demonstrate the operation of the framework and to evaluate its ability, we employ a workflow used to characterize an oil reservoir executing on a hybrid infrastructure composed of TeraGrid nodes and Amazon EC2 instances of various types. Specifically, we show how different applications objectives such as acceleration, conservation and resilience can be effectively achieved while satisfying deadline and budget constraints, using an appropriate mix of dynamically provisioned resources. Our evaluations also demonstrate that public clouds can be used to complement and reinforce the scheduling and usage of traditional high performance computing infrastructure.

Armenia - Irrigation Infrastructure

Data.gov (United States)

Millennium Challenge Corporation — This study evaluates irrigation infrastructure rehabilitation in Armenia. The study separately examines the impacts of tertiary canals and other large infrastructure...

Development of multi-functional streetscape green infrastructure using a performance index approach

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Tiwary, A.; Williams, L. D.; Heidrich, O.; Namdeo, A.; Bandaru, V.; Calfapietra, Carlo

2016-01-01

Roč. 208, jan (2016), s. 209-220 ISSN 0269-7491 Institutional support: RVO:67179843 Keywords : Green infrastructure * Multi-functional * Pollution * Performance index * Streetscape Subject RIV: EH - Ecology, Behaviour Impact factor: 5.099, year: 2016

A National Strategy to Develop Pragmatic Clinical Trials Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Guise, Jeanne‐Marie; Dolor, Rowena J.; Meissner, Paul; Tunis, Sean; Krishnan, Jerry A.; Pace, Wilson D.; Saltz, Joel; Hersh, William R.; Michener, Lloyd; Carey, Timothy S.

2014-01-01

Abstract An important challenge in comparative effectiveness research is the lack of infrastructure to support pragmatic clinical trials, which compare interventions in usual practice settings and subjects. These trials present challenges that differ from those of classical efficacy trials, which are conducted under ideal circumstances, in patients selected for their suitability, and with highly controlled protocols. In 2012, we launched a 1‐year learning network to identify high‐priority pragmatic clinical trials and to deploy research infrastructure through the NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards Consortium that could be used to launch and sustain them. The network and infrastructure were initiated as a learning ground and shared resource for investigators and communities interested in developing pragmatic clinical trials. We followed a three‐stage process of developing the network, prioritizing proposed trials, and implementing learning exercises that culminated in a 1‐day network meeting at the end of the year. The year‐long project resulted in five recommendations related to developing the network, enhancing community engagement, addressing regulatory challenges, advancing information technology, and developing research methods. The recommendations can be implemented within 24 months and are designed to lead toward a sustained national infrastructure for pragmatic trials. PMID:24472114

INNOVATION AND RESEARCH FOR WATER INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY RESEARCH PLAN

Science.gov (United States)

This plan has been developed to provide the Office of Research and Development (ORD) with a guide for implementing a research program that addresses high priority needs of the Nation relating to its drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. By identifying these critical need...

Transport Infrastructure Surveillance and Monitoring by Electromagnetic Sensing: The ISTIMES Project

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marie Bost

2010-11-01

Full Text Available The ISTIMES project, funded by the European Commission in the frame of a joint Call “ICT and Security” of the Seventh Framework Programme, is presented and preliminary research results are discussed. The main objective of the ISTIMES project is to design, assess and promote an Information and Communication Technologies (ICT-based system, exploiting distributed and local sensors, for non-destructive electromagnetic monitoring of critical transport infrastructures. The integration of electromagnetic technologies with new ICT information and telecommunications systems enables remotely controlled monitoring and surveillance and real time data imaging of the critical transport infrastructures. The project exploits different non-invasive imaging technologies based on electromagnetic sensing (optic fiber sensors, Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite platform based, hyperspectral spectroscopy, Infrared thermography, Ground Penetrating Radar-, low-frequency geophysical techniques, Ground based systems for displacement monitoring. In this paper, we show the preliminary results arising from the GPR and infrared thermographic measurements carried out on the Musmeci bridge in Potenza, located in a highly seismic area of the Apennine chain (Southern Italy and representing one of the test beds of the project.

Access control infrastructure for on-demand provisioned virtualised infrastructure services

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Demchenko, Y.; Ngo, C.; de Laat, C.; Smari, W.W.; Fox, G.C.

2011-01-01

Cloud technologies are emerging as a new way of provisioning virtualised computing and infrastructure services on-demand for collaborative projects and groups. Security in provisioning virtual infrastructure services should address two general aspects: supporting secure operation of the provisioning

Sustainable Water Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Resources for state and local environmental and public health officials, and water, infrastructure and utility professionals to learn about sustainable water infrastructure, sustainable water and energy practices, and their role.

Bike Infrastructures and Design Qualities: Enhancing Cycling

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Silva, Victor; Jensen, Ole B.; Harder, Henrik

2011-01-01

as well as to describe what specific design element primarily motivated them to travel by bike. The findings highlight the critical role of fast connectivity and fast bike lanes in motivating cyclists to ride their bikes more often. It also indicates that it is challenging to ensure the perception...... infrastructures. This article aims to present findings of the research project titled Bikeability – funded by the Danish Research Council. The overall purpose of the Bikeability project is to investigate and document relations between cycling motivation from different socio- demographic groups and distinct design...

Insurance and critical infrastructure protection : is there a connection in an environment of terrorism?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rowlands, D.; Devlin, R.A.

2006-01-01

This paper investigated the potential role of the insurance industry in enhancing the protection of critical energy infrastructure (CEI). This analysis was conducted in the context of increased concerns about deliberate acts of sabotage related to terrorist activities. A theoretical insurance market analysis was applied to a CEI scenario in order to examine the effects that insurance might have on the vulnerability of the system and subsequent remediation activities. Classical insurance market structures were examined, and problems associated with adverse selection, moral hazards and the role of government were identified. Issues concerning incentive effects induced by insurance were reviewed, as well as issues concerning the interdependence between different operators of the CEI system. An updated literature review was also provided. Results of the study suggested that corporate losses to CEI owners may be far less than the social cost of energy disruption, which in turn provides a reasonable rationale for government as opposed to private intervention. In terms of remediation, the immediate impact of a crippled CEI would overwhelm any private organization, and response would need to be coordinated through public structures. Terrorism insurance, while available, provides relatively large deductibles, as insurance companies are unwilling to accept the risks of moderate damage that may arise. There does not appear to be any evidence that private insurers will be able to provide significant relief from terrorist attacks, and it is unlikely that a private insurance market for terrorism will emerge. An absence of information regarding terrorist activities constrains both insurance purchasers from choosing the best mix of risk management tools, as well as insurance companies seeking to establish the appropriate pricing and conditions for different contracts. It was concluded that governments should support CEI firms in their own efforts to understand the threats; aid in

Growing the Blockchain information infrastructure

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jabbar, Karim; Bjørn, Pernille

2017-01-01

In this paper, we present ethnographic data that unpacks the everyday work of some of the many infrastructuring agents who contribute to creating, sustaining and growing the Blockchain information infrastructure. We argue that this infrastructuring work takes the form of entrepreneurial actions......, which are self-initiated and primarily directed at sustaining or increasing the initiator’s stake in the emerging information infrastructure. These entrepreneurial actions wrestle against the affordances of the installed base of the Blockchain infrastructure, and take the shape of engaging...... or circumventing activities. These activities purposefully aim at either influencing or working around the enablers and constraints afforded by the Blockchain information infrastructure, as its installed base is gaining inertia. This study contributes to our understanding of the purpose of infrastructuring, seen...

The impact of Knowledge Management Infrastructure on Performance Effectiveness in Jordanian Organizations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nasser Mohammad Soud Jaradat, Dr.

2014-06-01

Full Text Available This study aims to determine the impact of knowledge management infrastructure on the performance effectiveness of the Jordanian organizations that need knowledge to perform their work and tasks. The study sample includes some public and private organizations working in Jordan and dealing with the knowledge subjects. The findings indicated that there was a strong effect for knowledge management infrastructure on the performance effectiveness. Organizations should establish knowledge directorates to discover and transmit knowledge to workers with a view to improve the creativeness and distinctiveness of organizations.

INFRASTRUCTURE

CERN Multimedia

A. Gaddi and P. Tropea

2011-01-01

Most of the work relating to Infrastructure has been concentrated in the new CSC and RPC manufactory at building 904, on the Prevessin site. Brand new gas distribution, powering and HVAC infrastructures are being deployed and the production of the first CSC chambers has started. Other activities at the CMS site concern the installation of a new small crane bridge in the Cooling technical room in USC55, in order to facilitate the intervention of the maintenance team in case of major failures of the chilled water pumping units. The laser barrack in USC55 has been also the object of a study, requested by the ECAL community, for the new laser system that shall be delivered in few months. In addition, ordinary maintenance works have been performed during the short machine stops on all the main infrastructures at Point 5 and in preparation to the Year-End Technical Stop (YETS), when most of the systems will be carefully inspected in order to ensure a smooth running through the crucial year 2012. After the incide...

INFRASTRUCTURE

CERN Multimedia

A. Gaddi and P. Tropea

2012-01-01

The CMS Infrastructures teams are preparing for the LS1 activities. A long list of maintenance, consolidation and upgrade projects for CMS Infrastructures is on the table and is being discussed among Technical Coordination and sub-detector representatives. Apart from the activities concerning the cooling infrastructures (see below), two main projects have started: the refurbishment of the SX5 building, from storage area to RP storage and Muon stations laboratory; and the procurement of a new dry-gas (nitrogen and dry air) plant for inner detector flushing. We briefly present here the work done on the first item, leaving the second one for the next CMS Bulletin issue. The SX5 building is entering its third era, from main assembly building for CMS from 2000 to 2007, to storage building from 2008 to 2012, to RP storage and Muon laboratory during LS1 and beyond. A wall of concrete blocks has been erected to limit the RP zone, while the rest of the surface has been split between the ME1/1 and the CSC/DT laborat...

Building green infrastructure via citizen participation - a six-year study in the Shepherd Creek

Science.gov (United States)

Green infrastructure at the parcel scale provides critical ecosystem goods and services when these services (such as flood mitigation) must be provided locally. Here we report on an approach that encourages suburban landowners to mitigate impervious surfaces on their properties t...

Failure to adapt infrastructure: is legal liability lurking for infrastructure stakeholders

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gherbaz, S.

2009-01-01

'Full text:' Very little attention has been paid to potential legal liability for failing to adapt infrastructure to climate change-related risk. Amendments to laws, building codes and standards to take into account the potential impact of climate change on infrastructure assets are still at least some time away. Notwithstanding that amendments are still some time away, there is a real risk to infrastructure stakeholders for failing to adapt. The legal framework in Canada currently permits a court, in the right circumstances, to find certain infrastructure stakeholders legally liable for personal injury and property damage suffered by third parties as a result of climate change effects. This presentation will focus on legal liability of owners (governmental and private sector), engineers, architects and contractors for failing to adapt infrastructure assets to climate change risk. It will answer commonly asked questions such as: Can I avoid liability by complying with existing laws, codes and standards? Do engineers and architects have a duty to warn owners that existing laws, codes and standards do not, in certain circumstances, adequately take into account the impact of climate change-related risks on an infrastructure asset? And do professional liability insurance policies commonly maintained by architects, engineers and other design professionals provide coverage for a design professional's failure to take into account climate change-related risks?. (author)

Cyber Attacks and Energy Infrastructures: Anticipating Risks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Desarnaud, Gabrielle

2017-01-01

This study analyses the likelihood of cyber-attacks against European energy infrastructures and their potential consequences, particularly on the electricity grid. It also delivers a comparative analysis of measures taken by different European countries to protect their industries and collaborate within the European Union. The energy sector experiences an unprecedented digital transformation upsetting its activities and business models. Our energy infrastructures, sometimes more than a decade old and designed to remain functional for many years to come, now constantly interact with light digital components. The convergence of the global industrial system with the power of advanced computing and analytics reveals untapped opportunities at every step of the energy value chain. However, the introduction of digital elements in old and unprotected industrial equipment also exposes the energy industry to the cyber risk. One of the most compelling example of the type of threat the industry is facing, is the 2015 cyber-attack on the Ukraine power grid, which deprived about 200 000 people of electricity in the middle of the winter. The number and the level of technical expertise of cyber-attacks rose significantly after the discovery of the Stuxnet worm in the network of Natanz uranium enrichment site in 2010. Energy transition policies and the growing integration of renewable sources of energy will intensify this tendency, if cyber security measures are not part of the design of our future energy infrastructures. Regulators try to catch up and adapt, like in France where the authorities collaborate closely with the energy industry to set up a strict and efficient regulatory framework, and protect critical operators. This approach is adopted elsewhere in Europe, but common measures applicable to the whole European Union are essential to protect strongly interconnected energy infrastructures against a multiform threat that defies frontiers

Human initiated cascading failures in societal infrastructures.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chris Barrett

Full Text Available In this paper, we conduct a systematic study of human-initiated cascading failures in three critical inter-dependent societal infrastructures due to behavioral adaptations in response to a crisis. We focus on three closely coupled socio-technical networks here: (i cellular and mesh networks, (ii transportation networks and (iii mobile call networks. In crises, changes in individual behaviors lead to altered travel, activity and calling patterns, which influence the transport network and the loads on wireless networks. The interaction between these systems and their co-evolution poses significant technical challenges for representing and reasoning about these systems. In contrast to system dynamics models for studying these interacting infrastructures, we develop interaction-based models in which individuals and infrastructure elements are represented in detail and are placed in a common geographic coordinate system. Using the detailed representation, we study the impact of a chemical plume that has been released in a densely populated urban region. Authorities order evacuation of the affected area, and this leads to individual behavioral adaptation wherein individuals drop their scheduled activities and drive to home or pre-specified evacuation shelters as appropriate. They also revise their calling behavior to communicate and coordinate among family members. These two behavioral adaptations cause flash-congestion in the urban transport network and the wireless network. The problem is exacerbated with a few, already occurring, road closures. We analyze how extended periods of unanticipated road congestion can result in failure of infrastructures, starting with the servicing base stations in the congested area. A sensitivity analysis on the compliance rate of evacuees shows non-intuitive effect on the spatial distribution of people and on the loading of the base stations. For example, an evacuation compliance rate of 70% results in higher number

EU-INTACT-case studies: Impact of extreme weather on critical Infrastructure

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

van Ruiten Kees

2016-01-01

One of the case studies is located in the Netherlands and deals with the port of Rotterdam. The situation in Rotterdam is representative for many other main ports in Europe. These ports are all situated in a delta area, near the sea and rivers or canals. Also, these ports are close to urban areas and industrial complexes. Finally, these ports have a multimodal transport infrastructure to and from its hinterland, which is also vulnerable for extreme weather events. The case study is not only significant for the development of methods and tools, but also of direct interest for the region itself. The combination of the National Water safety policy and the best practices from the INTACT cases offer challenges to create better adaptation options and coping capacity to these relatively unforeseen and unexpected impacts based on climate change scenario’s and socio-economic megatrends.

Trauma Center Staffing, Infrastructure, and Patient Characteristics that Influence Trauma Center Need

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Faul, Mark

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Introduction: The most effective use of trauma center resources helps reduce morbidity and mortality, while saving costs. Identifying critical infrastructure characteristics, patient characteristics and staffing components of a trauma center associated with the proportion of patients needing major trauma care will help planners create better systems for patient care.   Methods: We used the 2009 National Trauma Data Bank-Research Dataset to determine the proportion of critically injured patients requiring the resources of a trauma center within each Level I-IV trauma center (n=443. The outcome variable was defined as the portion of treated patients who were critically injured. We defined the need for critical trauma resources and interventions (“trauma center need” as death prior to hospital discharge, admission to the intensive care unit, or admission to the operating room from the emergency department as a result of acute traumatic injury. Generalized Linear Modeling (GLM was used to determine how hospital infrastructure, staffing Levels, and patient characteristics contributed to trauma center need.     Results: Nonprofit Level I and II trauma centers were significantly associated with higher levels of trauma center need. Trauma centers that had a higher percentage of transferred patients or a lower percentage of insured patients were associated with a higher proportion of trauma center need.  Hospital infrastructure characteristics, such as bed capacity and intensive care unit capacity, were not associated with trauma center need. A GLM for Level III and IV trauma centers showed that the number of trauma surgeons on staff was associated with trauma center need. Conclusion: Because the proportion of trauma center need is predominantly influenced by hospital type, transfer frequency, and insurance status, it is important for administrators to consider patient population characteristics of the catchment area when planning the

Democracy and regulation: the effects of electoral competition on infrastructure investments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schram, A.; Ule, A.

2013-01-01

This paper investigates infrastructure investment in markets where regulation is subject to varying degrees of manipulation by elected politicians. Based on a model of price regulation in a market with increasing demand and long-term returns on investment we construct a multi-period game between a

The Role of Social Media in the Civic Co-Management of Urban Infrastructure Resilience

Science.gov (United States)

Turpin, E.; Holderness, T.; Wickramasuriya, R.

2014-12-01

As cities evolve to become increasingly complex systems of people and interconnected infrastructure the impacts of extreme events and long term climatological change are significantly heightened (Walsh et al. 2011). Understanding the resilience of urban systems and the impacts of infrastructure failure is therefore key to understanding the adaptability of cities to climate change (Rosenzweig 2011). Such information is particularly critical in developing nations which are predicted to bear the brunt of climate change (Douglas et al., 2008), but often lack the resources and data required to make informed decisions regarding infrastructure and societal resilience (e.g. Paar & Rekittke 2011). We propose that mobile social media in a people-as-sensors paradigm provides a means of monitoring the response of a city to cascading infrastructure failures induced by extreme weather events. Such an approach is welcomed in developing nations where crowd-sourced data are increasingly being used as an alternative to missing or incomplete formal data sources to help solve infrastructure challenges (Holderness 2014). In this paper we present PetaJakarta.org as a case study that harnesses the power of social media to gather, sort and display information about flooding for residents of Jakarta, Indonesia in real time, recuperating the failures of infrastructure and monitoring systems through a web of social media connections. Our GeoSocial Intelligence Framework enables the capture and comprehension of significant time-critical information to support decision-making, and as a means of transparent communication, while maintaining user privacy, to enable civic co-management processes to aid city-scale climate adaptation and resilience. PetaJakarta empowers community residents to collect and disseminate situational information about flooding, via the social media network Twitter, to provide city-scale decision support for Jakarta's Emergency Management Team, and a neighbourhood

The role of public communication in decision making for waste management infrastructure.

Science.gov (United States)

Kirkman, Richard; Voulvoulis, Nikolaos

2017-12-01

Modern waste management provision seeks to meet challenging objectives and strategies while reflecting community aspirations and ensuring cost-effective compliance with statutory obligations. Its social acceptability, which affects both what systems (infrastructure) can be put in place and to what extent their implementation will be successful, is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, often not well understood. In light of the growing evidence that decisions to build new infrastructure are often contested by the public, there is a clear need to understand the role of scientific evidence in public perception, particularly as environmental infrastructure delivery is often objected to by the public on environmental grounds. In this paper the need for waste management infrastructure is reviewed, and the way its delivery in the UK has evolved is used as an example of the role of public perception in the planning and delivery of waste facilities. Findings demonstrate the vital role of public communication in waste management infrastructure delivery. Public perception must be taken into account early in the decision making process, with the public informed and engaged from the start. There is a pressing need for people not simply to accept but to understand and appreciate the need for infrastructure, the nature of infrastructure investments and development, the costs and the benefits involved, and the technological aspects. Scientific evidence and literacy have a critical role to play, facilitating public engagement in a process that empowers people, allowing them to define and handle challenges and influence decisions that will impact their lives. Problem ownership, and an increased probability of any solutions proposed being selected and implemented successfully are potential benefits of such approach. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Importance of biometrics to addressing vulnerabilities of the U.S. infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Arndt, Craig M.; Hall, Nathaniel A.

2004-08-01

Human identification technologies are important threat countermeasures in minimizing select infrastructure vulnerabilities. Properly targeted countermeasures should be selected and integrated into an overall security solution based on disciplined analysis and modeling. Available data on infrastructure value, threat intelligence, and system vulnerabilities are carefully organized, analyzed and modeled. Prior to design and deployment of an effective countermeasure; the proper role and appropriateness of technology in addressing the overall set of vulnerabilities is established. Deployment of biometrics systems, as with other countermeasures, introduces potentially heightened vulnerabilities into the system. Heightened vulnerabilities may arise from both the newly introduced system complexities and an unfocused understanding of the set of vulnerabilities impacted by the new countermeasure. The countermeasure's own inherent vulnerabilities and those introduced by the system's integration with the existing system are analyzed and modeled to determine the overall vulnerability impact. The United States infrastructure is composed of government and private assets. The infrastructure is valued by their potential impact on several components: human physical safety, physical/information replacement/repair cost, potential contribution to future loss (criticality in weapons production), direct productivity output, national macro-economic output/productivity, and information integrity. These components must be considered in determining the overall impact of an infrastructure security breach. Cost/benefit analysis is then incorporated in the security technology deployment decision process. Overall security risks based on system vulnerabilities and threat intelligence determines areas of potential benefit. Biometric countermeasures are often considered when additional security at intended points of entry would minimize vulnerabilities.

Defense of Cyber Infrastructures Against Cyber-Physical Attacks Using Game-Theoretic Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Rao, Nageswara S V; Poole, Stephen W; Ma, Chris Y T; He, Fei; Zhuang, Jun; Yau, David K Y

2016-04-01

The operation of cyber infrastructures relies on both cyber and physical components, which are subject to incidental and intentional degradations of different kinds. Within the context of network and computing infrastructures, we study the strategic interactions between an attacker and a defender using game-theoretic models that take into account both cyber and physical components. The attacker and defender optimize their individual utilities, expressed as sums of cost and system terms. First, we consider a Boolean attack-defense model, wherein the cyber and physical subinfrastructures may be attacked and reinforced as individual units. Second, we consider a component attack-defense model wherein their components may be attacked and defended, and the infrastructure requires minimum numbers of both to function. We show that the Nash equilibrium under uniform costs in both cases is computable in polynomial time, and it provides high-level deterministic conditions for the infrastructure survival. When probabilities of successful attack and defense, and of incidental failures, are incorporated into the models, the results favor the attacker but otherwise remain qualitatively similar. This approach has been motivated and validated by our experiences with UltraScience Net infrastructure, which was built to support high-performance network experiments. The analytical results, however, are more general, and we apply them to simplified models of cloud and high-performance computing infrastructures. © 2015 Society for Risk Analysis.

Improving Agent Based Modeling of Critical Incidents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Robert Till

2010-04-01

Full Text Available Agent Based Modeling (ABM is a powerful method that has been used to simulate potential critical incidents in the infrastructure and built environments. This paper will discuss the modeling of some critical incidents currently simulated using ABM and how they may be expanded and improved by using better physiological modeling, psychological modeling, modeling the actions of interveners, introducing Geographic Information Systems (GIS and open source models.

Infrastructure: concept, types and value

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexander E. Lantsov

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Researches of influence of infrastructure on the economic growth and development of the countries gained currency. However the majority of authors drop the problem of definition of accurate concept of studied object and its criteria out. In the given article various approaches in the definition of «infrastructure» concept, criterion and the characteristics of infrastructure distinguishing it from other capital assets are presented. Such types of infrastructure, as personal, institutional, material, production, social, etc. are considered. Author’s definition of infrastructure is given.

Analyzing water/wastewater infrastructure interdependencies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gillette, J. L.; Fisher, R. E.; Peerenboom, J. P.; Whitfield, R. G.

2002-01-01

This paper describes four general categories of infrastructure interdependencies (physical, cyber, geographic, and logical) as they apply to the water/wastewater infrastructure, and provides an overview of one of the analytic approaches and tools used by Argonne National Laboratory to evaluate interdependencies. Also discussed are the dimensions of infrastructure interdependency that create spatial, temporal, and system representation complexities that make analyzing the water/wastewater infrastructure particularly challenging. An analytical model developed to incorporate the impacts of interdependencies on infrastructure repair times is briefly addressed

Regulation of gas infrastructure expansion

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

De Joode, J.

2012-01-01

The topic of this dissertation is the regulation of gas infrastructure expansion in the European Union (EU). While the gas market has been liberalised, the gas infrastructure has largely remained in the regulated domain. However, not necessarily all gas infrastructure facilities - such as gas storage facilities, LNG import terminals and certain gas transmission pipelines - need to be regulated, as there may be scope for competition. In practice, the choice of regulation of gas infrastructure expansion varies among different types of gas infrastructure facilities and across EU Member States. Based on a review of economic literature and on a series of in-depth case studies, this study explains these differences in choices of regulation from differences in policy objectives, differences in local circumstances and differences in the intrinsic characteristics of the infrastructure projects. An important conclusion is that there is potential for a larger role for competition in gas infrastructure expansion.

Nitrogen dioxide sequestration using demolished concrete and its potential application in transportation infrastructure development : final report.

Science.gov (United States)

2016-04-01

Achieving environmental sustainability of the US transportation infrastructure via more environmentally sound construction is not a trivial task. Our : proposal, which addresses this critical area, is aiming at transforming concrete, the material of ...

Development of a two-stage inspection process for the assessment of deteriorating infrastructure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sheils, Emma; O'Connor, Alan; Breysse, Denys; Schoefs, Franck; Yotte, Sylvie

2010-01-01

Inspection-based maintenance strategies can provide an efficient tool for the management of ageing infrastructure subjected to deterioration. Many of these methods rely on quantitative data from inspections, rather than qualitative and subjective data. The focus of this paper is on the development of an inspection-based decision scheme, incorporating analysis on the effect of the cost and quality of NDT tools to assess the condition of infrastructure elements/networks during their lifetime. For the first time the two aspects of an inspection are considered, i.e. detection and sizing. Since each stage of an inspection is carried out for a distinct purpose, different parameters are used to represent each procedure and both have been incorporated into a maintenance management model. The separation of these procedures allows the interaction between the two inspection techniques to be studied. The inspection for detection process acts as a screening exercise to determine which defects require further inspection for sizing. A decision tool is developed that allows the owner/manager of the infrastructural element/network to choose the most cost-efficient maintenance management plan based on his/her specific requirements.

VM-based infrastructure for simulating different cluster and storage solutions in ATLAS

CERN Document Server

KUTOUSKI, M; The ATLAS collaboration; PETROSYAN, A; KADOCHNIKOV, I; BELOV, S; KORENKOV, V

2012-01-01

The current ATLAS Tier3 infrastructure consists of a variety of sites of different sizes and with a mix of local resource management systems (LRMS) and mass storage system (MSS) implementations. The Tier3 monitoring suite, having been developed in order to satisfy the needs of Tier3 site administrators and to aggregate Tier3 monitoring information on the global VO level, needs to be validated for various combinations of LRMS and MSS solutions along with the corresponding Ganglia and/or Nagios plugins. For this purpose the Testbed infrastructure, which allows simulation of various computational cluster and storage solutions, had been set up at JINR (Dubna). This infrastructure provides the ability to run testbeds with various LRMS and MSS implementations, and with the capability to quickly redeploy particular testbeds or their components. Performance of specific components is not a critical issue for development and validation, whereas easy management and deployment are crucial. Therefore virtual machines were...

Open-Source Telephony Infrastructure

CERN Document Server

CERN. Geneva

2018-01-01

TONE (Telephony Open-source Network Evolution) is CERN’s future-proof telephony network. Over the past few years, TONE has evolved from its initial design to a solid reality that accommodates some of CERN’s most critical communication services.   TONE’s architecture was designed to: -          Use VoIP (Voice over IP) standard protocols. -          Avoid vendor lock-in by using open-source components. -          Reduce operational costs. -          Be built on top on the IT department’s Agile Infrastructure, combining Virtual Machines and redundant physical servers.   In this presentation we will review the project’s past and future milestones, main use cases and detailed network architecture.

Impacts of Permafrost on Infrastructure and Ecosystem Services

Science.gov (United States)

Trochim, E.; Schuur, E.; Schaedel, C.; Kelly, B. P.

2017-12-01

The Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) program developed knowledge pyramids as a tool for advancing scientific understanding and making this information accessible for decision makers. Knowledge pyramids are being used to synthesize, curate and disseminate knowledge of changing land ice, sea ice, and permafrost in the Arctic. Each pyramid consists of a one-two page summary brief in broadly accessible language and literature organized by levels of detail including synthesizes and scientific building blocks. Three knowledge pyramids have been produced related to permafrost on carbon, infrastructure, and ecosystem services. Each brief answers key questions with high societal relevance framed in policy-relevant terms. The knowledge pyramids concerning infrastructure and ecosystem services were developed in collaboration with researchers specializing in the specific topic areas in order to identify the most pertinent issues and accurately communicate information for integration into policy and planning. For infrastructure, the main issue was the need to build consensus in the engineering and science communities for developing improved methods for incorporating data applicable to building infrastructure on permafrost. In ecosystem services, permafrost provides critical landscape properties which affect basic human needs including fuel and drinking water availability, access to hunting and harvest, and fish and wildlife habitat. Translating these broad and complex topics necessitated a systematic and iterative approach to identifying key issues and relating them succinctly to the best state of the art research. The development of the knowledge pyramids provoked collaboration and synthesis across distinct research and engineering communities. The knowledge pyramids also provide a solid basis for policy development and the format allows the content to be regularly updated as the research community advances.

Building safeguards infrastructure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stevens, Rebecca S.; McClelland-Kerr, John

2009-01-01

Much has been written in recent years about the nuclear renaissance - the rebirth of nuclear power as a clean and safe source of electricity around the world. Those who question the nuclear renaissance often cite the risk of proliferation, accidents or an attack on a facility as concerns, all of which merit serious consideration. The integration of these three areas - sometimes referred to as 3S, for safety, security and safeguards - is essential to supporting the growth of nuclear power, and the infrastructure that supports them should be strengthened. The focus of this paper will be on the role safeguards plays in the 3S concept and how to support the development of the infrastructure necessary to support safeguards. The objective of this paper has been to provide a working definition of safeguards infrastructure, and to discuss xamples of how building safeguards infrastructure is presented in several models. The guidelines outlined in the milestones document provide a clear path for establishing both the safeguards and the related infrastructures needed to support the development of nuclear power. The model employed by the INSEP program of engaging with partner states on safeguards-related topics that are of current interest to the level of nuclear development in that state provides another way of approaching the concept of building safeguards infrastructure. The Next Generation Safeguards Initiative is yet another approach that underscored five principal areas for growth, and the United States commitment to working with partners to promote this growth both at home and abroad.

Infrastructure needs for waste management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Takahashi, M.

2001-01-01

National infrastructures are needed to safely and economically manage radioactive wastes. Considerable experience has been accumulated in industrialized countries for predisposal management of radioactive wastes, and legal, regulatory and technical infrastructures are in place. Drawing on this experience, international organizations can assist in transferring this knowledge to developing countries to build their waste management infrastructures. Infrastructure needs for disposal of long lived radioactive waste are more complex, due to the long time scale that must be considered. Challenges and infrastructure needs, particularly for countries developing geologic repositories for disposal of high level wastes, are discussed in this paper. (author)

Structure to self-structuring: infrastructures and processes in neurobehavioural rehabilitation.

Science.gov (United States)

Jackson, Howard F; Hague, Gemma; Daniels, Leanne; Aguilar, Ralph; Carr, Darren; Kenyon, William

2014-01-01

The importance of structure in post-acute brain injury rehabilitation is repeatedly mentioned in clinical practice. However, there has been little exploration of the key elements of structure that promote greater levels of functioning and emotional/behavioural stability and how these elements are optimally integrated within the infrastructure of a rehabilitation service. The nature of structure and why it is helpful is explored initially. Thereafter, the processes involved in transition from externally supported structure to the client 'self-structuring' are described. The infrastructure for facilitating these transitional processes are considered in terms of the design of services for systemic neurorehabilitation encompassing environmental factors (e.g. living environments, vocational and recreational options, step-up services and social milieus), therapeutic alliances (rehabilitation professionals, family, friends), organisational structures (service delivery, rehabilitation coaching, transdisciplinary teams) and rehabilitation philosophies and practice. It is concluded that the process of supporting individuals to transition from the 'structure' of the environment and other people towards self-structuring skills is a critical process in rehabilitation. This is reliant upon a comprehensive and robust organisational infrastructure that can successfully and flexibly integrate the core elements of structure across a transitional pathway towards increased independence and self-structuring.

77 FR 72673 - Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience Month, 2012

Science.gov (United States)

2012-12-05

... why my Administration continues to make cybersecurity a national security priority. As we continue to... secure. This month, we rededicate ourselves to raising awareness of the importance of critical... of the United States to recognize the importance of protecting our Nation's resources and to observe...

6. The Global Infrastructure Development Sector

OpenAIRE

2017-01-01

Studies of global infrastructure development often omit a perspective on the infrastructure development industry itself. Infrastructure development is the industry that turns infrastructure ideas into physical reality — contractors, engineering firms, hardware suppliers, and so on. Consequently, market penetration, cost functions, scale and scope economies, and other competitive variables that characterize infrastructure development have a direct effect on its economics. Vibrant competition a...

E-Infrastructure Concertation Meeting

CERN Multimedia

Katarina Anthony

2010-01-01

The 8th e-Infrastructure Concertation Meeting was held in the Globe from 4 to 5 November to discuss the development of Europe’s distributed computing and storage resources.   Project leaders attend the E-Concertation Meeting at the Globe on 5 November 2010. © Corentin Chevalier E-Infrastructures have become an indispensable tool for scientific research, linking researchers to virtually unlimited e-resources like the grid. The recent e-Infrastructure Concertation Meeting brought together e-Science project leaders to discuss the development of this tool in the European context. The meeting was part of an ongoing initiative to develop a world-class e-infrastructure resource that would establish European leadership in e-Science. The e-Infrastructure Concertation Meeting was organised by the Commission Services (EC) with the support of e-ScienceTalk. “The Concertation meeting at CERN has been a great opportunity for e-ScienceTalk to meet many of the 38 new proje...

The future of infrastructure security :

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Garcia, Pablo; Turnley, Jessica Glicken; Parrott, Lori K.

2013-05-01

Sandia National Laboratories hosted a workshop on the future of infrastructure security on February 27-28, 2013, in Albuquerque, NM. The 17 participants came from backgrounds as diverse as federal policy, the insurance industry, infrastructure management, and technology development. The purpose of the workshop was to surface key issues, identify directions forward, and lay groundwork for cross-sectoral and cross-disciplinary collaborations. The workshop addressed issues such as the problem space (what is included in infrastructure problems?), the general types of threats to infrastructure (such as acute or chronic, system-inherent or exogenously imposed) and definitions of secure and resilient infrastructures. The workshop concluded with a consideration of stakeholders and players in the infrastructure world, and identification of specific activities that could be undertaken by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other players.

76 FR 58730 - Version 4 Critical Infrastructure Protection Reliability Standards

Science.gov (United States)

2011-09-22

... Critical Cyber Assets; (3) internal, management, approval of the risk-based assessment; (4) external review... consider applicable features of the NIST Risk Management Framework to ensure protection of all cyber... activities in the Risk Management Framework has an associated NIST security standard and/or guidance document...

Central Region Green Infrastructure

Data.gov (United States)

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources — This Green Infrastructure data is comprised of 3 similar ecological corridor data layers ? Metro Conservation Corridors, green infrastructure analysis in counties...

SYNER-G buildings, lifelines, transportation networks and critical facilities

CERN Document Server

Pitilakis, K; Kaynia, AM

2014-01-01

This volume collates serviceable fragility functions from an international selection of seismic risk probability research, developing and adapting them to a European context to improve damage forecasts for buildings, infrastructure, and critical facilities.

75 FR 67989 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Office of Infrastructure Protection; Infrastructure...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-11-04

... DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY [Docket No. DHS-2010-0084] Agency Information Collection Activities: Office of Infrastructure Protection; Infrastructure Protection Stakeholder Input Project--Generic... comments; New Information Collection Request: 1670-NEW. SUMMARY: The Department of Homeland Security...

OOI CyberInfrastructure - Next Generation Oceanographic Research

Science.gov (United States)

Farcas, C.; Fox, P.; Arrott, M.; Farcas, E.; Klacansky, I.; Krueger, I.; Meisinger, M.; Orcutt, J.

2008-12-01

Software has become a key enabling technology for scientific discovery, observation, modeling, and exploitation of natural phenomena. New value emerges from the integration of individual subsystems into networked federations of capabilities exposed to the scientific community. Such data-intensive interoperability networks are crucial for future scientific collaborative research, as they open up new ways of fusing data from different sources and across various domains, and analysis on wide geographic areas. The recently established NSF OOI program, through its CyberInfrastructure component addresses this challenge by providing broad access from sensor networks for data acquisition up to computational grids for massive computations and binding infrastructure facilitating policy management and governance of the emerging system-of-scientific-systems. We provide insight into the integration core of this effort, namely, a hierarchic service-oriented architecture for a robust, performant, and maintainable implementation. We first discuss the relationship between data management and CI crosscutting concerns such as identity management, policy and governance, which define the organizational contexts for data access and usage. Next, we detail critical services including data ingestion, transformation, preservation, inventory, and presentation. To address interoperability issues between data represented in various formats we employ a semantic framework derived from the Earth System Grid technology, a canonical representation for scientific data based on DAP/OPeNDAP, and related data publishers such as ERDDAP. Finally, we briefly present the underlying transport based on a messaging infrastructure over the AMQP protocol, and the preservation based on a distributed file system through SDSC iRODS.

INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT WITH VIRTUAL MACHINE TECHNOLOGY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Artem D. Beresnev

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Subject of research. Information infrastructure for the training environment with application of technology of virtual computers for small pedagogical systems (separate classes, author's courses is created and investigated. Research technique. The life cycle model of information infrastructure for small pedagogical systems with usage of virtual computers in ARIS methodology is constructed. The technique of information infrastructure formation with virtual computers on the basis of process approach is offered. The model of an event chain in combination with the environment chart is used as the basic model. For each function of the event chain the necessary set of means of information and program support is defined. Technique application is illustrated on the example of information infrastructure design for the educational environment taking into account specific character of small pedagogical systems. Advantages of the designed information infrastructure are: the maximum usage of open or free components; the usage of standard protocols (mainly, HTTP and HTTPS; the maximum portability (application servers can be started up on any of widespread operating systems; uniform interface to management of various virtualization platforms, possibility of inventory of contents of the virtual computer without its start, flexible inventory management of the virtual computer by means of adjusted chains of rules. Approbation. Approbation of obtained results was carried out on the basis of training center "Institute of Informatics and Computer Facilities" (Tallinn, Estonia. Technique application within the course "Computer and Software Usage" gave the possibility to get half as much the number of refusals for components of the information infrastructure demanding intervention of the technical specialist, and also the time for elimination of such malfunctions. Besides, the pupils who have got broader experience with computer and software, showed better results

Risk assessment framework on time impact: Infrastructure projects in soft soil during construction stage

Science.gov (United States)

Low, W. W.; Wong, K. S.; Lee, J. L.

2018-04-01

With the growth of economy and population, there is an increase in infrastructure construction projects. As such, it is unavoidable to have construction projects on soft soil. Without proper risk management plan, construction projects are vulnerable to different types of risks which will have negative impact on project’s time, cost and quality. Literature review showed that little or none of the research is focused on the risk assessment on the infrastructure project in soft soil. Hence, the aim of this research is to propose a risk assessment framework in infrastructure projects in soft soil during the construction stage. This research was focused on the impact of risks on project time and internal risk factors. The research method was Analytical Hierarchy Process and the sample population was experienced industry experts who have experience in infrastructure projects. Analysis was completed and result showed that for internal factors, the five most significant risks on time element are lack of special equipment, potential contractual disputes and claims, shortage of skilled workers, delay/lack of materials supply, and insolvency of contractor/sub-contractor. Results indicated that resources risk factor play a critical role on project time frame in infrastructure projects in soft soil during the construction stage.

Using a CRIS for e-Infrastructure: e-Infrastructure for Scholarly Publications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E Dijk

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Scholarly publications are a major part of the research infrastructure. One way to make output available is to store the publications in Open Access Repositories (OAR. A Current Research Information System (CRIS that conforms to the standard CERIF (Common European Research Information Format could be a key component in the e-infrastructure. A CRIS provides the structure and makes it possible to interoperate the CRIS metadata at every stage of the research cycle. The international DRIVER projects are creating a European repository infrastructure. Knowledge Exchange has launched a project to develop a metadata exchange format for publications between CRIS and OAR systems.

Civilian Skills for African Military Officers to Resolve the Infrastructure, Economic Development, and Stability Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-01

Africa, without resorting to welfare state dependency resulting from aid- addicted budgets and corrupt re- gimes. The Importance of Infrastructure to...since the 1950s. However, the government has succumbed to the “ Dutch Disease,” that is, failing to develop the industry as a national asset for...preferential treatment of some tribes over others in developing the human capital needed to build critical infrastructure across the region, we should

URBAN-NET: A Network-based Infrastructure Monitoring and Analysis System for Emergency Management and Public Safety

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Sangkeun (Matt) [ORNL; Chen, Liangzhe [ORNL; Duan, Sisi [ORNL; Chinthavali, Supriya [ORNL; Shankar, Mallikarjun (Arjun) [ORNL; Prakash, B. Aditya [Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA

2016-01-01

Abstract Critical Infrastructures (CIs) such as energy, water, and transportation are complex networks that are crucial for sustaining day-to-day commodity flows vital to national security, economic stability, and public safety. The nature of these CIs is such that failures caused by an extreme weather event or a man-made incident can trigger widespread cascading failures, sending ripple effects at regional or even national scales. To minimize such effects, it is critical for emergency responders to identify existing or potential vulnerabilities within CIs during such stressor events in a systematic and quantifiable manner and take appropriate mitigating actions. We present here a novel critical infrastructure monitoring and analysis system named URBAN-NET. The system includes a software stack and tools for monitoring CIs, pre-processing data, interconnecting multiple CI datasets as a heterogeneous network, identifying vulnerabilities through graph-based topological analysis, and predicting consequences based on what-if simulations along with visualization. As a proof-of-concept, we present several case studies to show the capabilities of our system. We also discuss remaining challenges and future work.

The role of hosting providers in fighting command and control infrastructure of financial malware

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tajalizadehkhoob, S.; Hernandez Ganan, C.; Noroozian, A.; van Eeten, M.J.G.

2017-01-01

A variety of botnets are used in attacks on financial services. Banks and security firms invest a lot of effort in detecting and combating malware-assisted takeover of customer accounts. A critical resource of these botnets is their command-and-control (C&C) infrastructure. Attackers rent or

Adapting the social-ecological system framework for urban stormwater management: the case of green infrastructure adoption

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carli D. Flynn

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Stormwater management has long been a critical societal and environmental challenge for communities. An increasing number of municipalities are turning to novel approaches such as green infrastructure to develop more sustainable stormwater management systems. However, there is a need to better understand the technological decision-making processes that lead to specific outcomes within urban stormwater governance systems. We used the social-ecological system (SES framework to build a classification system for identifying significant variables that influence urban stormwater governance decisions related to green infrastructure adoption. To adapt the framework, we relied on findings from observations at national stormwater meetings in combination with a systematic literature review on influential factors related to green infrastructure adoption. We discuss our revisions to the framework that helped us understand the decision by municipal governments to adopt green infrastructure. Remaining research needs and challenges are discussed regarding the development of an urban stormwater SES framework as a classification tool for knowledge accumulation and synthesis.

Telecom infrastructure leasing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Henley, R.

1995-01-01

Slides to accompany a discussion about leasing telecommunications infrastructure, including radio/microwave tower space, radio control buildings, paging systems and communications circuits, were presented. The structure of Alberta Power Limited was described within the ATCO group of companies. Corporate goals and management practices and priorities were summarized. Lessons and experiences in the infrastructure leasing business were reviewed

Detection and Identification of People at a Critical Infrastructure Facilities of Trafic Buildings

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rastislav PIRNÍK

2014-12-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on identification of persons entering objects of crucial infrastructure and subsequent detection of movement in parts of objects. It explains some of the technologies and approaches to processing specific image information within existing building apparatus. The article describes the proposed algorithm for detection of persons. It brings a fresh approach to detection of moving objects (groups of persons involved in enclosed areas focusing on securing freely accessible places in buildings. Based on the designed algorithm of identification with presupposed utilisation of 3D application, motion trajectory of persons in delimited space can be automatically identified. The application was created in opensource software tool using the OpenCV library.

Transport Infrastructure and Economic Growth: Spatial Effects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Artyom Gennadyevich Isaev

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The author specifies an empirical framework of neoclassical growth model in order to examine impact of transport infrastructure on economic growth in Russian regions during period of 2000-2013. Two different effects of infrastructure are considered. First, infrastructure is viewed as part of region’s own production function. Second, infrastructure generates spillover effect on adjacent regions’ economic performance which can be negative or positive. Results imply that road infrastructure has a positive influence on regional growth, but sign of railroad infrastructure coefficient depends on whether or not congestion effect is considered. Negative spillover effect is shown to exist in the case of road infrastructure. This apparently means that rapid road infrastructure development in some regions moves mobile factors of production away from adjacent regions retarding their economic development. The spillover effect of railroad infrastructure is significant and negative again only if congestion effect is considered. The results of estimation for the Far East and Baikal Regions separately demonstrate no significant effect of both types of infrastructure for economic performance and negative spillover effect of road infrastructure

Infrastructures for healthcare

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Langhoff, Tue Odd; Amstrup, Mikkel Hvid; Mørck, Peter

2018-01-01

The Danish General Practitioners Database has over more than a decade developed into a large-scale successful information infrastructure supporting medical research in Denmark. Danish general practitioners produce the data, by coding all patient consultations according to a certain set of classif...... synergy into account, if not to risk breaking down the fragile nature of otherwise successful information infrastructures supporting research on healthcare....

A Systematic Review of Quantitative Resilience Measures for Water Infrastructure Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sangmin Shin

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Over the past few decades, the concept of resilience has emerged as an important consideration in the planning and management of water infrastructure systems. Accordingly, various resilience measures have been developed for the quantitative evaluation and decision-making of systems. There are, however, numerous considerations and no clear choice of which measure, if any, provides the most appropriate representation of resilience for a given application. This study provides a critical review of quantitative approaches to measure the resilience of water infrastructure systems, with a focus on water resources and distribution systems. A compilation of 11 criteria evaluating 21 selected resilience measures addressing major features of resilience is developed using the Axiomatic Design process. Existing gaps of resilience measures are identified based on the review criteria. The results show that resilience measures have generally paid less attention to cascading damage to interrelated systems, rapid identification of failure, physical damage of system components, and time variation of resilience. Concluding the paper, improvements to resilience measures are recommended. The findings contribute to our understanding of gaps and provide information to help further improve resilience measures of water infrastructure systems.

Site development and demands on infrastructure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nieke, K.F.

1976-01-01

All sub-fields are examined which form the infrastructure, the infrastructure being indispensable for the site development of a nuclear power plant. The main emphasis is put on the technical infrastructure, but the social infrastructure is dealt with, too. The most important sub-fields are: traffic connections, energy supply, external communications, foundation, building mearures. (UA) [de

How Critical Is Critical Infrastructure?

Science.gov (United States)

2015-09-01

manager conducting a risk self-assessment will likely be subconsciously biased to assess greater risks than actually exist. This problem can be... bias .” The optimism bias extends beyond MBA students. People under estimate their risk for car accidents, think the chances of divorce are low, and...Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 20. 29 others.80 Optimism bias is evident in compulsive

Controlling Infrastructure Costs: Right-Sizing the Mission Control Facility

Science.gov (United States)

Martin, Keith; Sen-Roy, Michael; Heiman, Jennifer

2009-01-01

Johnson Space Center's Mission Control Center is a space vehicle, space program agnostic facility. The current operational design is essentially identical to the original facility architecture that was developed and deployed in the mid-90's. In an effort to streamline the support costs of the mission critical facility, the Mission Operations Division (MOD) of Johnson Space Center (JSC) has sponsored an exploratory project to evaluate and inject current state-of-the-practice Information Technology (IT) tools, processes and technology into legacy operations. The general push in the IT industry has been trending towards a data-centric computer infrastructure for the past several years. Organizations facing challenges with facility operations costs are turning to creative solutions combining hardware consolidation, virtualization and remote access to meet and exceed performance, security, and availability requirements. The Operations Technology Facility (OTF) organization at the Johnson Space Center has been chartered to build and evaluate a parallel Mission Control infrastructure, replacing the existing, thick-client distributed computing model and network architecture with a data center model utilizing virtualization to provide the MCC Infrastructure as a Service. The OTF will design a replacement architecture for the Mission Control Facility, leveraging hardware consolidation through the use of blade servers, increasing utilization rates for compute platforms through virtualization while expanding connectivity options through the deployment of secure remote access. The architecture demonstrates the maturity of the technologies generally available in industry today and the ability to successfully abstract the tightly coupled relationship between thick-client software and legacy hardware into a hardware agnostic "Infrastructure as a Service" capability that can scale to meet future requirements of new space programs and spacecraft. This paper discusses the benefits

New infrastructures, new landscapes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chiara Nifosì

2014-06-01

Full Text Available New infrastructures, new landscapes AbstractThe paper will discuss one recent Italian project that share a common background: the relevance of the existing maritime landscape as a non negotiable value. The studies will be discussed in details a feasibility study for the new port in Monfalcone. National infrastructural policies emphasize competitiveness and connection as a central issue incultural, economic and political development of communities . Based on networks and system development along passageways that make up the European infrastructural armor; the two are considered at the meantime as cause and effect of "territorialisation”. These two views are obviously mutually dependent. It's hard to think about a strong attractiveness out of the network, and to be part of the latter encourages competitiveness. Nonetheless this has proved to be conflictual when landscape values and the related attractiveness are considered.The presented case study project, is pursuing the ambition to promote a new approach in realizing large infrastructures; its double role is to improve connectivity and to generate lasting and positive impact on the local regions. It deal with issues of inter-modality and the construction of nodes and lines which connects Europe, and its markets.Reverting the usual approach which consider landscape project as as a way to mitigate or to compensate for the infrastructure, the goal is to succeed in realizing large infrastructural works by conceiving them as an occasion to reinterpret a region or, as extraordinary opportunities, to build new landscapes.The strategy proposed consists in achieving structural images based on the reinforcement of the environmental and historical-landscape systems. Starting from the reinterpretation of local maritime context and resources it is possible not just to preserve the attractiveness of a specific landscape but also to conceive infrastructure in a more efficient way. 

CERN printing infrastructure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Otto, R; Sucik, J

2008-01-01

For many years CERN had a very sophisticated print server infrastructure [13] which supported several different protocols (AppleTalk, IPX and TCP/IP) and many different printing standards. Today's situation differs a lot: we have a much more homogenous network infrastructure, where TCP/IP is used everywhere and we have less printer models, which almost all work using current standards (i.e. they all provide PostScript drivers). This change gave us the possibility to review the printing architecture aiming at simplifying the infrastructure in order to achieve full automation of the service. The new infrastructure offers both: LPD service exposing print queues to Linux and Mac OS X computers and native printing for Windows based clients. The printer driver distribution is automatic and native on Windows and automated by custom mechanisms on Linux, where the appropriate Foomatic drivers are configured. Also the process of printer registration and queue creation is completely automated following the printer registration in the network database. At the end of 2006 we have moved all (∼1200) CERN printers and all users' connections at CERN to the new service. This paper will describe the new architecture and summarize the process of migration

Urban Planning Dealing with Change and Infrastructure

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sonja Deppisch

2015-07-01

Full Text Available This paper deals with urban planning and change processes potentially impacting local infrastructure. The overarching theoretical frame is social-ecological resilience thinking and its potential application to as well as implications for urban land-use development. The paper draws its main attention on if this concept can be of use for urban planners dealing with change and urban infrastructure and if a readiness towards its application can be identified. This endeavor is informed by two explorative studies in Germany. One study gains its material from a scenario process with planning practitioners and further urban stakeholders of a medium-sized city. Main topic was how to deal with the challenges of climate change impacts in urban planning and development. The second explorative study reflects research results on the readiness to apply the resilience concept to urban planning dealing with change and local infrastructure in a small community. The scenario process showed that applying social-ecological resilience thinking to urban planning helps to critically reflect so far taken paths in local built infrastructure, to take on an integrated perspective and to develop new and innovative strategies for further land-use development. Nevertheless, such a process requires additional financial as well as human resources and translation exercises. Also, the given path dependency as well as financial constrains are hindering to perceive any leeway in infrastructure development at the political level, so that any real implementation at the moment seems to be out of sight, which is also caused by multi-level dependencies.  Normal 0 21 false false false DE X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Normale Tabelle"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm

EV Charging Infrastructure Roadmap

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Karner, Donald; Garetson, Thomas; Francfort, Jim

2016-01-01

As highlighted in the U.S. Department of Energy's EV Everywhere Grand Challenge, vehicle technology is advancing toward an objective to ''... produce plug-in electric vehicles that are as affordable and convenient for the average American family as today's gasoline-powered vehicles ...'' [1] by developing more efficient drivetrains, greater battery energy storage per dollar, and lighter-weight vehicle components and construction. With this technology advancement and improved vehicle performance, the objective for charging infrastructure is to promote vehicle adoption and maximize the number of electric miles driven. The EV Everywhere Charging Infrastructure Roadmap (hereafter referred to as Roadmap) looks forward and assumes that the technical challenges and vehicle performance improvements set forth in the EV Everywhere Grand Challenge will be met. The Roadmap identifies and prioritizes deployment of charging infrastructure in support of this charging infrastructure objective for the EV Everywhere Grand Challenge

EURATOM achievements and challenges in facilitating Pan-European infrastructure collaborative efforts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Garbil, Roger

2017-01-01

The European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) Research and Training framework programmes are benefiting from a consistent success in pursuing excellence in research and facilitating Pan European collaborative efforts across a broad range of nuclear science and technologies, nuclear fission and radiation protection. To fulfil Euratom R and D programmes keys objectives of maintaining high levels of nuclear knowledge and building a more dynamic and competitive European industry, promotion of Pan-European mobility of researchers are implemented by co-financing transnational access to research infrastructures (RIs) and joint research activities. 'Euratom Achievements and Challenges' show the benefits of research efforts in key fields, of building an effective 'critical mass', of promoting the creation of 'centres of excellence' with an increased support for 'open access to key research infrastructures', exploitation of research results, management of knowledge, dissemination and sharing of learning outcomes.

Infrastructure Gap in South Asia: Inequality of Access to Infrastructure Services

OpenAIRE

Biller, Dan; Andrés, Luis; Herrera Dappe, Matías

2014-01-01

The South Asia region is home to the largest pool of individuals living under the poverty line, coupled with a fast-growing population. The importance of access to basic infrastructure services on welfare and the quality of life is clear. Yet the South Asia region's rates of access to infrastructure (sanitation, electricity, telecom, and transport) are closer to those of Sub-Saharan Africa...

Transport Infrastructure Slot Allocation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koolstra, K.

2005-01-01

In this thesis, transport infrastructure slot allocation has been studied, focusing on selection slot allocation, i.e. on longer-term slot allocation decisions determining the traffic patterns served by infrastructure bottlenecks, rather than timetable-related slot allocation problems. The

Physical resources and infrastructure

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Foeken, D.W.J.; Hoorweg, J.; Foeken, D.W.J.; Obudho, R.A.

2000-01-01

This chapter describes the main physical characteristics as well as the main physical and social infrastructure features of Kenya's coastal region. Physical resources include relief, soils, rainfall, agro-ecological zones and natural resources. Aspects of the physical infrastructure discussed are

Carbon emissions of infrastructure development.

Science.gov (United States)

Müller, Daniel B; Liu, Gang; Løvik, Amund N; Modaresi, Roja; Pauliuk, Stefan; Steinhoff, Franciska S; Brattebø, Helge

2013-10-15

Identifying strategies for reconciling human development and climate change mitigation requires an adequate understanding of how infrastructures contribute to well-being and greenhouse gas emissions. While direct emissions from infrastructure use are well-known, information about indirect emissions from their construction is highly fragmented. Here, we estimated the carbon footprint of the existing global infrastructure stock in 2008, assuming current technologies, to be 122 (-20/+15) Gt CO2. The average per-capita carbon footprint of infrastructures in industrialized countries (53 (± 6) t CO2) was approximately 5 times larger that that of developing countries (10 (± 1) t CO2). A globalization of Western infrastructure stocks using current technologies would cause approximately 350 Gt CO2 from materials production, which corresponds to about 35-60% of the remaining carbon budget available until 2050 if the average temperature increase is to be limited to 2 °C, and could thus compromise the 2 °C target. A promising but poorly explored mitigation option is to build new settlements using less emissions-intensive materials, for example by urban design; however, this strategy is constrained by a lack of bottom-up data on material stocks in infrastructures. Infrastructure development must be considered in post-Kyoto climate change agreements if developing countries are to participate on a fair basis.

The home hemodialysis hub: physical infrastructure and integrated governance structure.

Science.gov (United States)

Marshall, Mark R; Young, Bessie A; Fox, Sally J; Cleland, Calli J; Walker, Robert J; Masakane, Ikuto; Herold, Aaron M

2015-04-01

An effective home hemodialysis program critically depends on adequate hub facilities and support functions and on transparent and accountable organizational processes. The likelihood of optimal service delivery and patient care will be enhanced by fit-for-purpose facilities and implementation of a well-considered governance structure. In this article, we describe the required accommodation and infrastructure for a home hemodialysis program and a generic organizational structure that will support both patient-facing clinical activities and business processes. © 2015 International Society for Hemodialysis.

Public Private Partnerships: A possible alternative for delivery of infrastructure projects in Africa

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Salim Bwanali

2017-12-01

Full Text Available It is estimated that Africa needs $93 billion annually until 2020 in order to bridge its infrastructure deficit. It is through significant investment in infrastructure development that economic growth and poverty alleviation can be enhanced. However central to all construction projects is an effective and sustainable procurement system. There is a notable shift by some African governments to turn to the private sector to design, build, finance and operate infrastructure facilities previously provided by the public sector in the form of Public Private Partnerships (PPP’s. As an innovative financing model, PPPs present an opportunity to governments to improve service delivery. Accordingly, this paper focuses on assessing international best practices as to how some developing nations tap into the resources of the private sector in implementing their infrastructure projects. The study is a result of critical review, synthesis and contextualization of relevant academic literature, conference and journal publications. A thorough document review method was employed to assess how some developing countries have institutionalized PPP as part of their development strategy. The paper will be of significant value to senior government officials as understanding the concept and dynamics of PPP will result in accelerated and effective service delivery.

EV Charging Infrastructure Roadmap

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Karner, Donald [Electric Transportation Inc., Rogers, AR (United States); Garetson, Thomas [Electric Transportation Inc., Rogers, AR (United States); Francfort, Jim [Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)

2016-08-01

As highlighted in the U.S. Department of Energy’s EV Everywhere Grand Challenge, vehicle technology is advancing toward an objective to “… produce plug-in electric vehicles that are as affordable and convenient for the average American family as today’s gasoline-powered vehicles …” [1] by developing more efficient drivetrains, greater battery energy storage per dollar, and lighter-weight vehicle components and construction. With this technology advancement and improved vehicle performance, the objective for charging infrastructure is to promote vehicle adoption and maximize the number of electric miles driven. The EV Everywhere Charging Infrastructure Roadmap (hereafter referred to as Roadmap) looks forward and assumes that the technical challenges and vehicle performance improvements set forth in the EV Everywhere Grand Challenge will be met. The Roadmap identifies and prioritizes deployment of charging infrastructure in support of this charging infrastructure objective for the EV Everywhere Grand Challenge

Clinical examination, critical care ultrasonography and outcomes in the critically ill

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hiemstra, Bart; Eck, Ruben J; Koster, Geert

2017-01-01

PURPOSE: In the Simple Intensive Care Studies-I (SICS-I), we aim to unravel the value of clinical and haemodynamic variables obtained by physical examination and critical care ultrasound (CCUS) that currently guide daily practice in critically ill patients. We intend to (1) measure all available...... patient used for guiding diagnostics, prognosis and interventions. Repeated evaluations of these sets of variables are needed for continuous improvement of the diagnostic and prognostic models. Future plans include: (1) more advanced imaging; (2) repeated clinical and haemodynamic measurements; (3...... clinical and haemodynamic variables, (2) train novices in obtaining values for advanced variables based on CCUS in the intensive care unit (ICU) and (3) create an infrastructure for a registry with the flexibility of temporarily incorporating specific (haemodynamic) research questions and variables...

Developing an infrastructure index : phase I.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

Over the past decade the American Society of Civil Engineers has used the Infrastructure Report : Card to raise awareness of infrastructure issues. Aging and deteriorating infrastructure has : recently been highlighted in the popular media. However, ...

Infrastructure Engineering and Deployment Division

Data.gov (United States)

Federal Laboratory Consortium — Volpe's Infrastructure Engineering and Deployment Division advances transportation innovation by being leaders in infrastructure technology, including vehicles and...

Cloud Infrastructure & Applications - CloudIA

Science.gov (United States)

Sulistio, Anthony; Reich, Christoph; Doelitzscher, Frank

The idea behind Cloud Computing is to deliver Infrastructure-as-a-Services and Software-as-a-Service over the Internet on an easy pay-per-use business model. To harness the potentials of Cloud Computing for e-Learning and research purposes, and to small- and medium-sized enterprises, the Hochschule Furtwangen University establishes a new project, called Cloud Infrastructure & Applications (CloudIA). The CloudIA project is a market-oriented cloud infrastructure that leverages different virtualization technologies, by supporting Service-Level Agreements for various service offerings. This paper describes the CloudIA project in details and mentions our early experiences in building a private cloud using an existing infrastructure.

Contextual-Analysis for Infrastructure Awareness Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ramos, Juan David Hincapie; Tabard, Aurelien; Alt, Florian

Infrastructures are persistent socio-technical systems used to deliver different kinds of services. Researchers have looked into how awareness of infrastructures in the areas of sustainability [6, 10] and software appropriation [11] can be provided. However, designing infrastructure-aware systems...... has specific requirements, which are often ignored. In this paper we explore the challenges when developing infrastructure awareness systems based on contextual analysis, and propose guidelines for enhancing the design process....

No Dark Corners: Defending Against Insider Threats to Critical Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

2009-09-01

latter do not unfairly affect an applicant’s livelihood by making adverse hiring decisions before the legal system has decided actual guilt (Pre...object that changing demographics may also account for crime, thus bringing into question Broken Windows as a panacea . One criticism even went so... panacea or as the sole explanation for decreases in crime, himself taking account of other factors, including Newman’s work, it is more accurate to

Anticipating Interruptions. Security and risk in a liberalized electricity infrastructure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Silvast, A.

2013-11-01

During the past ten years, a number of social scientists have emphasized the importance of material infrastructures like electricity supply as a research topic for the social sciences. The developing of such new perspectives concerning infrastructures also includes uncertainties and risks. This research analyzes the management of uncertainties in the Finnish electricity infrastructure by posing the following research question: how are electricity interruptions, or blackouts, anticipated in Finland and how are these interruptions managed as risks? The main research methodology of the work is multi-sited field work. The empirical materials include interviews with experts and lay people (33 interviews); participant observation in two electricity control rooms; an electricity consumer survey (115 respondents); and also a number of infrastructure and security policy documents and observations from electricity security seminars. The materials were primarily gathered between 2004 and 2008. Social science research often links risks with major current social changes or socio-cultural risk perceptions. In recent international social science discussions, however, a new research topic has emerged - those styles of reasoning and techniques of governance that are deployed to manage risk as a practical matter. My study explores these themes empirically by focusing on the specific habitual practices of risk management in the Finnish electricity infrastructure. The work develops various also semi-ethnographic inquiries into infrastructure risk techniques like monitor screening of real-time risks in electricity control rooms; the management of risks in a liberalized electricity market; the emergence of Finnish reasoning about blackouts from a specific historical background; and the ways in which electricity consumers respond to blackouts in their homes. In addition, the work reflects upon the position of a risk researcher in those situations when the research subjects do not define

Building an evaluation infrastructure

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brandrup, Morten; Østergaard, Kija Lin

Infrastructuring does not happen by itself; it must be supported. In this paper, we present a feedback mechanism implemented as a smartphone-based application, inspired by the concept of infrastructure probes, which supports the in situ elicitation of feedback. This is incorporated within an eval...

Flowscapes: Designing infrastructure as landscape

OpenAIRE

Nijhuis, S.; Jauslin, D.T.; Van der Hoeven, F.D.

2015-01-01

Social, cultural and technological developments of our society are demanding a fundamental review of the planning and design of its landscapes and infrastructures, in particular in relation to environmental issues and sustainability. Transportation, green and water infrastructures are important agents that facilitate processes that shape the built environment and its contemporary landscapes. With movement and flows at the core, these landscape infrastructures facilitate aesthetic, functional,...

Chef infrastructure automation cookbook

CERN Document Server

Marschall, Matthias

2013-01-01

Chef Infrastructure Automation Cookbook contains practical recipes on everything you will need to automate your infrastructure using Chef. The book is packed with illustrated code examples to automate your server and cloud infrastructure.The book first shows you the simplest way to achieve a certain task. Then it explains every step in detail, so that you can build your knowledge about how things work. Eventually, the book shows you additional things to consider for each approach. That way, you can learn step-by-step and build profound knowledge on how to go about your configuration management

Effective Utilization of Resources and Infrastructure for a Spaceport Network Architecture

Science.gov (United States)

Gill, Tracy; Larson, Wiley; Mueller, Robert; Roberson, Luke

2012-01-01

Providing routine, affordable access to a variety of orbital and deep space destinations requires an intricate network of ground, planetary surface, and space-based spaceports like those on Earth (land and sea), in various Earth orbits, and on other extraterrestrial surfaces. Advancements in technology and international collaboration are critical to establish a spaceport network that satisfies the requirements for private and government research, exploration, and commercial objectives. Technologies, interfaces, assembly techniques, and protocols must be adapted to enable mission critical capabilities and interoperability throughout the spaceport network. The conceptual space mission architecture must address the full range of required spaceport services, from managing propellants for a variety of spacecraft to governance structure. In order to accomplish affordability and sustainability goals, the network architecture must consider deriving propellants from in situ planetary resources to the maximum extent possible. Water on the Moon and Mars, Mars' atmospheric CO2, and O2 extracted from lunar regolith are examples of in situ resources that could be used to generate propellants for various spacecraft, orbital stages and trajectories, and the commodities to support habitation and human operations at these destinations. The ability to use in-space fuel depots containing in situ derived propellants would drastically reduce the mass required to launch long-duration or deep space missions from Earth's gravity well. Advances in transformative technologies and common capabilities, interfaces, umbilicals, commodities, protocols, and agreements will facilitate a cost-effective, safe, reliable infrastructure for a versatile network of Earth- and extraterrestrial spaceports. Defining a common infrastructure on Earth, planetary surfaces, and in space, as well as deriving propellants from in situ planetary resources to construct in-space propellant depots to serve the spaceport

Critical Data Source; Tool or Even Infrastructure? Challenges of Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing for Disaster Risk Governance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexander Fekete

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Disaster risk information is spatial in nature and Geographic Information Systems (GIS and Remote Sensing (RS play an important key role by the services they provide to society. In this context, to risk management and governance, in general, and to civil protection, specifically (termed differently in many countries, and includes, for instance: civil contingencies in the UK, homeland security in the USA, disaster risk reduction at the UN level. The main impetus of this article is to summarize key contributions and challenges in utilizing and accepting GIS and RS methods and data for disaster risk governance, which includes public bodies, but also risk managers in industry and practitioners in search and rescue organizations. The article analyzes certain method developments, such as vulnerability indicators, crowdsourcing, and emerging concepts, such as Volunteered Geographic Information, but also investigates the potential of the topic Critical Infrastructure as it could be applied on spatial assets and GIS and RS itself. Intended to stimulate research on new and emerging fields, this article’s main contribution is to move spatial research toward a more reflective stance where opportunities and challenges are equally and transparently addressed in order to gain more scientific quality. As a conclusion, GIS and RS can play a pivotal role not just in delivering data but also in connecting and analyzing data in a more integrative, holistic way.

CERN printing infrastructure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Otto, R; Sucik, J [CERN, Geneva (Switzerland)], E-mail: Rafal.Otto@cern.ch, E-mail: Juraj.Sucik@cern.ch

2008-07-15

For many years CERN had a very sophisticated print server infrastructure [13] which supported several different protocols (AppleTalk, IPX and TCP/IP) and many different printing standards. Today's situation differs a lot: we have a much more homogenous network infrastructure, where TCP/IP is used everywhere and we have less printer models, which almost all work using current standards (i.e. they all provide PostScript drivers). This change gave us the possibility to review the printing architecture aiming at simplifying the infrastructure in order to achieve full automation of the service. The new infrastructure offers both: LPD service exposing print queues to Linux and Mac OS X computers and native printing for Windows based clients. The printer driver distribution is automatic and native on Windows and automated by custom mechanisms on Linux, where the appropriate Foomatic drivers are configured. Also the process of printer registration and queue creation is completely automated following the printer registration in the network database. At the end of 2006 we have moved all ({approx}1200) CERN printers and all users' connections at CERN to the new service. This paper will describe the new architecture and summarize the process of migration.

Model for Railway Infrastructure Management Organization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gordan Stojić

2012-03-01

Full Text Available The provision of appropriate quality rail services has an important role in terms of railway infrastructure: quality of infrastructure maintenance, regulation of railway traffic, line capacity, speed, safety, train station organization, the allowable lines load and other infrastructure parameters.The analysis of experiences in transforming the railway systems points to the conclusion that there is no unique solution in terms of choice for institutional rail infrastructure management modes, although more than nineteen years have passed from the beginning of the implementation of the Directive 91/440/EEC. Depending on the approach to the process of restructuring the national railway company, adopted regulations and caution in its implementation, the existence or absence of a clearly defined transport strategy, the willingness to liberalize the transport market, there are several different ways for institutional management of railway infrastructure.A hybrid model for selection of modes of institutional rail infrastructure management was developed based on the theory of artificial intelligence, theory of fuzzy sets and theory of multicriteria optimization.KEY WORDSmanagement, railway infrastructure, organizational structure, hybrid model

Data Centre Infrastructure & Data Storage @ Facebook

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva; Garson, Matt; Kauffman, Mike

2018-01-01

Several speakers from the Facebook company will present their take on the infrastructure of their Data Center and Storage facilities, as follows: 10:00 - Facebook Data Center Infrastructure, by Delfina Eberly, Mike Kauffman and Veerendra Mulay Insight into how Facebook thinks about data center design, including electrical and cooling systems, and the technology and tooling used to manage data centers. 11:00 - Storage at Facebook, by Matt Garson An overview of Facebook infrastructure, focusing on different storage systems, in particular photo/video storage and storage for data analytics. About the speakers Mike Kauffman, Director, Data Center Site Engineering Delfina Eberly, Infrastructure, Site Services Matt Garson, Storage at Facebook Veerendra Mulay, Infrastructure

Is there a need for government interventions to adapt energy infrastructures to climate change? A German case study

Science.gov (United States)

Groth, Markus; Cortekar, Jörg

2015-04-01

The option of adapting to climate change is becoming more and more important in climate change policy. Hence, responding to climate change now involves both mitigation to address the cause and adaptation as a response to already ongoing and expected changes. These changes also have relevance for the current and future energy sector in Germany. An energy sector that in the course of the German Energiewende also has to deal with a fundamental shift in energy supply from fossil fuel to renewable energies in the next decades. Thereby it needs to be considered that the energy sector is one critical infrastructure in the European Union that needs to be protected. Critical infrastructures can be defined as organisations or facilities of special importance for the country and its people where failure or functional impairment would lead to severe supply bottlenecks, significant disturbance of public order or other dramatic consequences. Regarding the adaptation to climate change, the main question is, whether adaptation options will be implemented voluntarily by companies or not. This will be the case, when the measure is considered a private good and is economically beneficial. If, on the contrary, the measure is considered a public good, additional incentives are needed. Based on a synthesis of the current knowledge regarding the possible impacts of climate change on the German energy sector along its value-added chain, the paper points out, that the power distribution and the grid infrastructure is consistently attributed the highest vulnerability. Direct physical impacts and damages to the transmission and distribution grids, utility poles, power transformers, and relay stations are expected due to more intense extreme weather events like storms, floods or thunderstorms. Furthermore fundaments of utility poles can be eroded and relay stations or power transformers can be flooded, which might cause short circuits etc. Besides these impacts causing damage to the physical

Air pollution abatement performances of green infrastructure in open road and built-up street canyon environments - A review

Science.gov (United States)

Abhijith, K. V.; Kumar, Prashant; Gallagher, John; McNabola, Aonghus; Baldauf, Richard; Pilla, Francesco; Broderick, Brian; Di Sabatino, Silvana; Pulvirenti, Beatrice

2017-08-01

Intensifying the proportion of urban green infrastructure has been considered as one of the remedies for air pollution levels in cities, yet the impact of numerous vegetation types deployed in different built environments has to be fully synthesised and quantified. This review examined published literature on neighbourhood air quality modifications by green interventions. Studies were evaluated that discussed personal exposure to local sources of air pollution under the presence of vegetation in open road and built-up street canyon environments. Further, we critically evaluated the available literature to provide a better understanding of the interactions between vegetation and surrounding built-up environments and ascertain means of reducing local air pollution exposure using green infrastructure. The net effects of vegetation in each built-up environment are also summarised and possible recommendations for the future design of green infrastructure are proposed. In a street canyon environment, high-level vegetation canopies (trees) led to a deterioration in air quality, while low-level green infrastructure (hedges) improved air quality conditions. For open road conditions, wide, low porosity and tall vegetation leads to downwind pollutant reductions while gaps and high porosity vegetation could lead to no improvement or even deteriorated air quality. The review considers that generic recommendations can be provided for vegetation barriers in open road conditions. Green walls and roofs on building envelopes can also be used as effective air pollution abatement measures. The critical evaluation of the fundamental concepts and the amalgamation of key technical features of past studies by this review could assist urban planners to design and implement green infrastructures in the built environment.

Deconstructing the Assessment of Anomaly-based Intrusion Detectors for Critical Applications

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Viswanathan, Arun; Tan, Kymie; Neuman, Clifford

2013-10-01

Anomaly detection is a key strategy for cyber intrusion detection because it is conceptually capable of detecting novel attacks. This makes it an appealing defensive technique for environments such as the nation's critical infrastructures that is currently facing increased cyber adversarial activity. When considering deployment within the purview of such critical infrastructures it is imperative that the technology is well understood and reliable, where its performance is benchmarked on the results of principled assessments. This paper works towards such an imperative by analyzing the current state of anomaly detector assessments with a view toward mission critical deployments. We compile a framework of key evaluation constructs that identify how and where current assessment methods may fall short in providing sufficient insight into detector performance characteristics. Within the context of three case studies from literature, we show how error factors that influence the performance of detectors interact with different phases of a canonical evaluation strategy to compromise the integrity of the final results.

Progress and Challenges in Developing Reference Data Layers for Human Population Distribution and Built Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, R. S.; Yetman, G.; de Sherbinin, A. M.

2015-12-01

Understanding the interactions between environmental and human systems, and in particular supporting the applications of Earth science data and knowledge in place-based decision making, requires systematic assessment of the distribution and dynamics of human population and the built human infrastructure in conjunction with environmental variability and change. The NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University has had a long track record in developing reference data layers for human population and settlements and is expanding its efforts on topics such as intercity roads, reservoirs and dams, and energy infrastructure. SEDAC has set as a strategic priority the acquisition, development, and dissemination of data resources derived from remote sensing and socioeconomic data on urban land use change, including temporally and spatially disaggregated data on urban change and rates of change, the built infrastructure, and critical facilities. We report here on a range of past and ongoing activities, including the Global Human Settlements Layer effort led by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), the Global Exposure Database for the Global Earthquake Model (GED4GEM) project, the Global Roads Open Access Data Working Group (gROADS) of the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), and recent work with ImageCat, Inc. to improve estimates of the exposure and fragility of buildings, road and rail infrastructure, and other facilities with respect to selected natural hazards. New efforts such as the proposed Global Human Settlement indicators initiative of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) could help fill critical gaps and link potential reference data layers with user needs. We highlight key sectors and themes that require further attention, and the many significant challenges that remain in developing comprehensive, high quality

Optimally Reorganizing Navy Shore Infrastructure

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Kerman, Mitchell

1997-01-01

...), but infrastructure reductions continue to lag force structure reductions. The United States Navy's recent initiatives to reduce its shore infrastructure costs include "regionalization", "outsourcing," and "homebasing...

Black-Box Optimization for Buildings and Its Enhancement by Advanced Communication Infrastructure

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Macek, Karel; Rojíček, J.; Kontes, G.; Rovas, D. V.

2013-01-01

Roč. 1, č. 5 (2013), s. 53-64 ISSN 2255-2863 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA13-13502S Institutional support: RVO:67985556 Keywords : Evolutionary algorithms * Black box modeling * Simplification * Refining * HVAC * Load shedding * Communication infrastructure Subject RIV: BC - Control Systems Theory http://library.utia.cas.cz/separaty/2014/AS/macek-0423196.pdf

Mathematical modelling of tsunami impacts on critical infrastructures: exposure and severity associated with debris transport at Sines port, Portugal.

Science.gov (United States)

Conde, Daniel; Baptista, Maria Ana; Sousa Oliveira, Carlos; Ferreira, Rui M. L.

2015-04-01

a flux-splitting technique with a reviewed Roe-Riemann solver and appropriate source-term formulations to ensure full conservativeness. Additionally, STAV-2D features Lagrangian-Eulerian coupling enabling solid transport simulation under both continuum and discrete approaches, and has been validated with both laboratory data and paleo-tsunami evidence (Conde, 2013a; Conde, 2013b). The interactions between the inundating flow and coal stockpiles or natural mobile bed reaches were simulated using a continuum debris-flow approach, featuring fractional solid transport, while the containers at the new terminal were advected with an explicit Lagrangian method. The meshwork employed at the port models the existing geometry and structures in great detail, enabling explicitly resolved interactions between the current infrastructure and the overland propagating tsunami. The obtained preliminary results suggest that several structures, some of them critical in a nationwide context, are exposed to tsunami actions. The coal deposition pattern and the final location of monitored containers were determined for two magnitude scenarios (8.5 Mw and 9.5 Mw) in the case of a tsunami generated at the Horseshoe fault and one magnitude scenario (9.5 Mw) for a tsunami generated at the Gorringe bank. The inland washing of the coal stockpiles may impose great loss of both economical and environmental value, while the impact of large mobile debris, such as the containers in the terminal area, significantly increases the severity of infrastructural damage. Acknowledgements This work was partially funded by FEDER, program COMPETE, and by national funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) with project RECI/ECM-HID/0371/2012. References Baptista M.A. & Miranda, J.M. (2009), Revision of the Portuguese catalog of tsunamis. Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 9, 25-42. Canelas, R.; Murillo, J. & Ferreira, R.M.L. (2013), Two-dimensional depth-averaged modelling of dam

Dynamic Collaboration Infrastructure for Hydrologic Science

Science.gov (United States)

Tarboton, D. G.; Idaszak, R.; Castillo, C.; Yi, H.; Jiang, F.; Jones, N.; Goodall, J. L.

2016-12-01

Data and modeling infrastructure is becoming increasingly accessible to water scientists. HydroShare is a collaborative environment that currently offers water scientists the ability to access modeling and data infrastructure in support of data intensive modeling and analysis. It supports the sharing of and collaboration around "resources" which are social objects defined to include both data and models in a structured standardized format. Users collaborate around these objects via comments, ratings, and groups. HydroShare also supports web services and cloud based computation for the execution of hydrologic models and analysis and visualization of hydrologic data. However, the quantity and variety of data and modeling infrastructure available that can be accessed from environments like HydroShare is increasing. Storage infrastructure can range from one's local PC to campus or organizational storage to storage in the cloud. Modeling or computing infrastructure can range from one's desktop to departmental clusters to national HPC resources to grid and cloud computing resources. How does one orchestrate this vast number of data and computing infrastructure without needing to correspondingly learn each new system? A common limitation across these systems is the lack of efficient integration between data transport mechanisms and the corresponding high-level services to support large distributed data and compute operations. A scientist running a hydrology model from their desktop may require processing a large collection of files across the aforementioned storage and compute resources and various national databases. To address these community challenges a proof-of-concept prototype was created integrating HydroShare with RADII (Resource Aware Data-centric collaboration Infrastructure) to provide software infrastructure to enable the comprehensive and rapid dynamic deployment of what we refer to as "collaborative infrastructure." In this presentation we discuss the

EURATOM achievements and challenges in facilitating Pan-European infrastructure collaborative efforts

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Garbil, Roger [European Commission, Brussels (Belgium). DG Research and Innovation, Euratom Fission

2017-10-15

The European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) Research and Training framework programmes are benefiting from a consistent success in pursuing excellence in research and facilitating Pan European collaborative efforts across a broad range of nuclear science and technologies, nuclear fission and radiation protection. To fulfil Euratom R and D programmes keys objectives of maintaining high levels of nuclear knowledge and building a more dynamic and competitive European industry, promotion of Pan-European mobility of researchers are implemented by co-financing transnational access to research infrastructures (RIs) and joint research activities. 'Euratom Achievements and Challenges' show the benefits of research efforts in key fields, of building an effective 'critical mass', of promoting the creation of 'centres of excellence' with an increased support for 'open access to key research infrastructures', exploitation of research results, management of knowledge, dissemination and sharing of learning outcomes.

FOREWORD: Structural Health Monitoring and Intelligent Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Zhishen; Fujino, Yozo

2005-06-01

This special issue collects together 19 papers that were originally presented at the First International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring and Intelligent Infrastructure (SHMII-1'2003), held in Tokyo, Japan, on 13-15 November 2003. This conference was organized by the Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE) with partial financial support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology, Japan. Many related organizations supported the conference. A total of 16 keynote papers including six state-of-the-art reports from different counties, six invited papers and 154 contributed papers were presented at the conference. The conference was attended by a diverse group of about 300 people from a variety of disciplines in academia, industry and government from all over the world. Structural health monitoring (SHM) and intelligent materials, structures and systems have been the subject of intense research and development in the last two decades and, in recent years, an increasing range of applications in infrastructure have been discovered both for existing structures and for new constructions. SHMII-1'2003 addressed progress in the development of building, transportation, marine, underground and energy-generating structures, and other civilian infrastructures that are periodically, continuously and/or actively monitored where there is a need to optimize their performance. In order to focus the current needs on SHM and intelligent technologies, the conference theme was set as 'Structures/Infrastructures Sustainability'. We are pleased to have the privilege to edit this special issue on SHM and intelligent infrastructure based on SHMII-1'2003. We invited some of the presenters to submit a revised/extended version of their paper that was included in the SHMII-1'2003 proceedings for possible publication in the special issue. Each paper included in this special issue was edited with the same

Developing Sustainable Urban Water-Energy Infrastructures: Applying a Multi-Sectoral Social-Ecological-Infrastructural Systems (SEIS) Framework

Science.gov (United States)

Ramaswami, A.

2016-12-01

Urban infrastructure - broadly defined to include the systems that provide water, energy, food, shelter, transportation-communication, sanitation and green/public spaces in cities - have tremendous impact on the environment and on human well-being (Ramaswami et al., 2016; Ramaswami et al., 2012). Aggregated globally, these sectors contribute 90% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and 96% of global water withdrawals. Urban infrastructure contributions to such impacts are beginning to dominate. Cities are therefore becoming the action arena for infrastructure transformations that can achieve high levels of service delivery while reducing environmental impacts and enhancing human well-being. Achieving sustainable urban infrastructure transitions requires: information about the engineered infrastructure, and its interaction with the natural (ecological-environmental) and the social sub-systems In this paper, we apply a multi-sector, multi-scalar Social-Ecological-Infrastructural Systems framework that describes the interactions among biophysical engineered infrastructures, the natural environment and the social system in a systems-approach to inform urban infrastructure transformations. We apply the SEIS framework to inform water and energy sector transformations in cities to achieve environmental and human health benefits realized at multiple scales - local, regional and global. Local scales address pollution, health, wellbeing and inequity within the city; regional scales address regional pollution, scarcity, as well as supply risks in the water-energy sectors; global impacts include greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts. Different actors shape infrastructure transitions including households, businesses, and policy actors. We describe the development of novel cross-sectoral strategies at the water-energy nexus in cities, focusing on water, waste and energy sectors, in a case study of Delhi, India. Ramaswami, A.; Russell, A.G.; Culligan, P.J.; Sharma, K

Open geospatial infrastructure for data management and analytics in interdisciplinary research

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jeppesen, Jacob Høxbroe; Ebeid, Emad Samuel Malki; Jacobsen, Rune Hylsberg

2018-01-01

, and information and communications technology needed to promote the implementation of precision agriculture is limited by proprietary integrations and non-standardized data formats and connections. In this paper, an open geospatial data infrastructure is presented, based on standards defined by the Open...... software, and was complemented by open data from governmental offices along with ESA satellite imagery. Four use cases are presented, covering analysis of nearly 50 000 crop fields and providing seamless interaction with an emulated machine terminal. They act to showcase both for how the infrastructure......The terms Internet of Things and Big Data are currently subject to much attention, though the specific impact of these terms in our practical lives are difficult to apprehend. Data-driven approaches do lead to new possibilities, and significant improvements within a broad range of domains can...

Site Support Program Plan Infrastructure Program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1995-01-01

The Fiscal Year 1996 Infrastructure Program Site Support Program Plan addresses the mission objectives, workscope, work breakdown structures (WBS), management approach, and resource requirements for the Infrastructure Program. Attached to the plan are appendices that provide more detailed information associated with scope definition. The Hanford Site's infrastructure has served the Site for nearly 50 years during defense materials production. Now with the challenges of the new environmental cleanup mission, Hanford's infrastructure must meet current and future mission needs in a constrained budget environment, while complying with more stringent environmental, safety, and health regulations. The infrastructure requires upgrading, streamlining, and enhancement in order to successfully support the site mission of cleaning up the Site, research and development, and economic transition

Clarkesville Green Infrastructure Implementation Strategy

Science.gov (United States)

The report outlines the 2012 technical assistance for Clarkesville, GA to develop a Green Infrastructure Implementation Strategy, which provides the basic building blocks for a green infrastructure plan:

Network science, nonlinear science and infrastructure systems

CERN Document Server

2007-01-01

Network Science, Nonlinear Science and Infrastructure Systems has been written by leading scholars in these areas. Its express purpose is to develop common theoretical underpinnings to better solve modern infrastructural problems. It is felt by many who work in these fields that many modern communication problems, ranging from transportation networks to telecommunications, Internet, supply chains, etc., are fundamentally infrastructure problems. Moreover, these infrastructure problems would benefit greatly from a confluence of theoretical and methodological work done with the areas of Network Science, Dynamical Systems and Nonlinear Science. This book is dedicated to the formulation of infrastructural tools that will better solve these types of infrastructural problems. .

National Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wood, Eric W. [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Rames, Clement L. [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Muratori, Matteo [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Srinivasa Raghavan, Seshadri [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Melaina, Marc W. [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

2017-09-15

This document describes a study conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory quantifying the charging station infrastructure required to serve the growing U.S. fleet of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). PEV sales, which include plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs), have surged recently. Most PEV charging occurs at home, but widespread PEV adoption will require the development of a national network of non-residential charging stations. Installation of these stations strategically would maximize the economic viability of early stations while enabling efficient network growth as the PEV market matures. This document describes what effective co-evolution of the PEV fleet and charging infrastructure might look like under a range of scenarios. To develop the roadmap, NREL analyzed PEV charging requirements along interstate corridors and within urban and rural communities. The results suggest that a few hundred corridor fast-charging stations could enable long-distance BEV travel between U.S. cities. Compared to interstate corridors, urban and rural communities are expected to have significantly larger charging infrastructure requirements. About 8,000 fast-charging stations would be required to provide a minimum level of coverage nationwide. In an expanding PEV market, the total number of non-residential charging outlets or 'plugs' required to meet demand ranges from around 100,000 to more than 1.2 million. Understanding what drives this large range in capacity requirements is critical. For example, whether consumers prefer long-range or short-range PEVs has a larger effect on plug requirements than does the total number of PEVs on the road. The relative success of PHEVs versus BEVs also has a major impact, as does the number of PHEVs that charge away from home. This study shows how important it is to understand consumer preferences and driving behaviors when planning charging networks.

National Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Muratori, Matteo [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Rames, Clement L [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Srinivasa Raghavan, Sesha [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Melaina, Marc W [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Wood, Eric W [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

2018-02-07

This presentation describes a study conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory quantifying the charging station infrastructure required to serve the growing U.S. fleet of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). PEV sales, which include plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs), have surged recently. Most PEV charging occurs at home, but widespread PEV adoption will require the development of a national network of non-residential charging stations. Installation of these stations strategically would maximize the economic viability of early stations while enabling efficient network growth as the PEV market matures. This document describes what effective co-evolution of the PEV fleet and charging infrastructure might look like under a range of scenarios. To develop the roadmap, NREL analyzed PEV charging requirements along interstate corridors and within urban and rural communities. The results suggest that a few hundred corridor fast-charging stations could enable long-distance BEV travel between U.S. cities. Compared to interstate corridors, urban and rural communities are expected to have significantly larger charging infrastructure requirements. About 8,000 fast-charging stations would be required to provide a minimum level of coverage nationwide. In an expanding PEV market, the total number of non-residential charging outlets or 'plugs' required to meet demand ranges from around 100,000 to more than 1.2 million. Understanding what drives this large range in capacity requirements is critical. For example, whether consumers prefer long-range or short-range PEVs has a larger effect on plug requirements than does the total number of PEVs on the road. The relative success of PHEVs versus BEVs also has a major impact, as does the number of PHEVs that charge away from home. This study shows how important it is to understand consumer preferences and driving behaviors when planning charging networks.

Control of criticality; Kawalan kegentingan

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1988-12-31

The chapter briefly discussed the following subjects: basic and the principle of criticality, natural uranium, neutron utilization, criticality data for systems, criticality accidents, criticality control i.e. mass, volume and geometry control .

Towards sustainability: An interoperability outline for a Regional ARC based infrastructure in the WLCG and EGEE infrastructures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Field, L; Gronager, M; Johansson, D; Kleist, J

2010-01-01

Interoperability of grid infrastructures is becoming increasingly important in the emergence of large scale grid infrastructures based on national and regional initiatives. To achieve interoperability of grid infrastructures adaptions and bridging of many different systems and services needs to be tackled. A grid infrastructure offers services for authentication, authorization, accounting, monitoring, operation besides from the services for handling and data and computations. This paper presents an outline of the work done to integrate the Nordic Tier-1 and 2s, which for the compute part is based on the ARC middleware, into the WLCG grid infrastructure co-operated by the EGEE project. Especially, a throughout description of integration of the compute services is presented.

Development of a remote sensing network for time-sensitive detection of fine scale damage to transportation infrastructure : [final report].

Science.gov (United States)

2015-09-23

This research project aimed to develop a remote sensing system capable of rapidly identifying fine-scale damage to critical transportation infrastructure following hazard events. Such a system must be pre-planned for rapid deployment, automate proces...

Some approaches to the effective functioning of the system model social infrastructure company

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. S. Armashova-Telnik

2016-01-01

Full Text Available In today's economic conditions, characterized by a high degree of instability and uncertainty as the conditions for the functioning of economic entities, as well as political and economic conditions in general, in the management structure of the economy it is advisable to proceed from the position of the key concepts of management, optimally adapted to the real situation. In this context, it is necessary to use scientific innovation to improve the economic growth of economic entities through the effective functioning of the enterprise social infrastructure models. Lineup social infrastructure systems involves various models of a number of features of structure. In this regard, according to the strategic objectives of a business entity, on its socio-economic targets need to use all the resource capacity of the organization to achieve its objectives by means of integration in the social infrastructure system model that focuses on the efficient use of human resources in the process of increasing the economic performance of the company. So, guided by a number of basic principles of the successful implementation of social infrastructure mechanisms of enterprises, structure of the economy with a view to long-term effective operation, it is necessary to take into account the value of the vectors of the organizational culture of polarization in the motivation of personnel, which could be one of the levers of growth of efficiency of functioning of the enterprise, a powerful strategic tool to target all units and individual subjects for the organization, mobilize the initiative of employees and ensure productive interaction of subjects in the format “business-to-employee” rather than substantially predetermine the competitiveness and success of the organization in the long run.

Site Support Program Plan Infrastructure Program

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1995-09-26

The Fiscal Year 1996 Infrastructure Program Site Support Program Plan addresses the mission objectives, workscope, work breakdown structures (WBS), management approach, and resource requirements for the Infrastructure Program. Attached to the plan are appendices that provide more detailed information associated with scope definition. The Hanford Site`s infrastructure has served the Site for nearly 50 years during defense materials production. Now with the challenges of the new environmental cleanup mission, Hanford`s infrastructure must meet current and future mission needs in a constrained budget environment, while complying with more stringent environmental, safety, and health regulations. The infrastructure requires upgrading, streamlining, and enhancement in order to successfully support the site mission of cleaning up the Site, research and development, and economic transition.

Development of Bioinformatics Infrastructure for Genomics Research.

Science.gov (United States)

Mulder, Nicola J; Adebiyi, Ezekiel; Adebiyi, Marion; Adeyemi, Seun; Ahmed, Azza; Ahmed, Rehab; Akanle, Bola; Alibi, Mohamed; Armstrong, Don L; Aron, Shaun; Ashano, Efejiro; Baichoo, Shakuntala; Benkahla, Alia; Brown, David K; Chimusa, Emile R; Fadlelmola, Faisal M; Falola, Dare; Fatumo, Segun; Ghedira, Kais; Ghouila, Amel; Hazelhurst, Scott; Isewon, Itunuoluwa; Jung, Segun; Kassim, Samar Kamal; Kayondo, Jonathan K; Mbiyavanga, Mamana; Meintjes, Ayton; Mohammed, Somia; Mosaku, Abayomi; Moussa, Ahmed; Muhammd, Mustafa; Mungloo-Dilmohamud, Zahra; Nashiru, Oyekanmi; Odia, Trust; Okafor, Adaobi; Oladipo, Olaleye; Osamor, Victor; Oyelade, Jellili; Sadki, Khalid; Salifu, Samson Pandam; Soyemi, Jumoke; Panji, Sumir; Radouani, Fouzia; Souiai, Oussama; Tastan Bishop, Özlem

2017-06-01

Although pockets of bioinformatics excellence have developed in Africa, generally, large-scale genomic data analysis has been limited by the availability of expertise and infrastructure. H3ABioNet, a pan-African bioinformatics network, was established to build capacity specifically to enable H3Africa (Human Heredity and Health in Africa) researchers to analyze their data in Africa. Since the inception of the H3Africa initiative, H3ABioNet's role has evolved in response to changing needs from the consortium and the African bioinformatics community. H3ABioNet set out to develop core bioinformatics infrastructure and capacity for genomics research in various aspects of data collection, transfer, storage, and analysis. Various resources have been developed to address genomic data management and analysis needs of H3Africa researchers and other scientific communities on the continent. NetMap was developed and used to build an accurate picture of network performance within Africa and between Africa and the rest of the world, and Globus Online has been rolled out to facilitate data transfer. A participant recruitment database was developed to monitor participant enrollment, and data is being harmonized through the use of ontologies and controlled vocabularies. The standardized metadata will be integrated to provide a search facility for H3Africa data and biospecimens. Because H3Africa projects are generating large-scale genomic data, facilities for analysis and interpretation are critical. H3ABioNet is implementing several data analysis platforms that provide a large range of bioinformatics tools or workflows, such as Galaxy, the Job Management System, and eBiokits. A set of reproducible, portable, and cloud-scalable pipelines to support the multiple H3Africa data types are also being developed and dockerized to enable execution on multiple computing infrastructures. In addition, new tools have been developed for analysis of the uniquely divergent African data and for

A Schedulability Analysis Framework for Real-time Infrastructure Systems Managing Heterogeneous Resources

OpenAIRE

Kim, Jinhyun; Kang, Sungwon

2012-01-01

REACTION 2012. 1st International workshop on Real-time and distributed computing in emerging applications. December 4th, 2012, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Electricity generating systems, such as smart grid systems, and water management systems are infrastructure systems that manage resources critical to human life. In the systems, resources are produced and managed to supply them to various consumers, such as building, car, factory, and household, according to their needs and pri...

Critical Thinking Education and Debiasing (AILACT Essay Prize Winner 2013

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guillaume Beaulac

2014-12-01

Full Text Available There are empirical grounds to doubt the effectiveness of a common and intuitive approach to teaching debiasing strategies in critical thinking courses. We summarize some of the grounds before suggesting a broader taxonomy of debiasing strategies. This four-level taxonomy enables a useful diagnosis of biasing factors and situations, and illuminates more strategies for more effective bias mitigation located in the shaping of situational factors and reasoning infrastructure. The question, we contend, then becomes how best to teach the construction and use of such infrastructures.

Linear infrastructure impacts on landscape hydrology.

Science.gov (United States)

Raiter, Keren G; Prober, Suzanne M; Possingham, Hugh P; Westcott, Fiona; Hobbs, Richard J

2018-01-15

The extent of roads and other forms of linear infrastructure is burgeoning worldwide, but their impacts are inadequately understood and thus poorly mitigated. Previous studies have identified many potential impacts, including alterations to the hydrological functions and soil processes upon which ecosystems depend. However, these impacts have seldom been quantified at a regional level, particularly in arid and semi-arid systems where the gap in knowledge is the greatest, and impacts potentially the most severe. To explore the effects of extensive track, road, and rail networks on surface hydrology at a regional level we assessed over 1000 km of linear infrastructure, including approx. 300 locations where ephemeral streams crossed linear infrastructure, in the largely intact landscapes of Australia's Great Western Woodlands. We found a high level of association between linear infrastructure and altered surface hydrology, with erosion and pooling 5 and 6 times as likely to occur on-road than off-road on average (1.06 erosional and 0.69 pooling features km -1 on vehicle tracks, compared with 0.22 and 0.12 km -1 , off-road, respectively). Erosion severity was greater in the presence of tracks, and 98% of crossings of ephemeral streamlines showed some evidence of impact on water movement (flow impedance (62%); diversion of flows (73%); flow concentration (76%); and/or channel initiation (31%)). Infrastructure type, pastoral land use, culvert presence, soil clay content and erodibility, mean annual rainfall, rainfall erosivity, topography and bare soil cover influenced the frequency and severity of these impacts. We conclude that linear infrastructure frequently affects ephemeral stream flows and intercepts natural overland and near-surface flows, artificially changing site-scale moisture regimes, with some parts of the landscape becoming abnormally wet and other parts becoming water-starved. In addition, linear infrastructure frequently triggers or exacerbates erosion

Vulnerability assessment of critical infrastructure : activity 2 progress report : information of SCADA systems and other security monitoring systems used in oil and gas pipelines

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gu, G.P. [Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa, ON (Canada). CANMET Materials Technology Laboratory

2007-12-15

Many pipelines are located in remote regions and subjected to harsh environmental conditions. Damage to pipelines can have significant economic and environmental impacts. This paper discussed the use of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems to monitor and control oil and gas pipeline infrastructure. SCADA systems are a real time, distributed computerized system with an intelligent capability for condition identification and fault diagnosis. SCADA systems can be used to capture thousands of miles of pipeline system process data and distribute it to pipeline operators, whose work stations are networked with the SCADA central host computer. SCADA architectures include monolithic, distributed, and networked systems that can be distributed across wide area networks (WANs). SCADA security strategies must be implemented to ensure corporate network security. Case studies of SCADA systems currently used by oil and gas operators in Alberta were also presented. 15 refs., 1 fig.

Indonesian infrastructure development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Djojohadikusumo, H.S.

1991-01-01

It is with the achievement of a competitive advantage as a motivating factor that the Indonesian coal industry is engaged in infrastructure development including both small regionally trade-based terminals and high capacity capesize bulk terminals to support large scale coal exports. The unique characteristics of Indonesian coal quality, low production costs and the optimization of transport economics in accordance with vessel size provides great incentives for the European and U.S. market. This paper reports on the infrastructure development, Indonesian coal resources, and coal exports

VADMC: The Infrastructure

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Le Sidaner Pierre

2012-09-01

Full Text Available The Virtual Atomic and Molecular Data Centre (VAMDC; http://www.vamdc.eu is a European-Union-funded collaboration between several groups involved in the generation, evaluation, and use of atomic and molecular data. VAMDC aims at building a secure, documented, flexible and interoperable e-Science environment-based interface to existing atomic and molecular databases. The global infrastructure of this project uses technologies derived from the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA. The infrastructure, as well as the first database prototypes will be described.

Momentum in Transformation of Technical Infrastructure

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Susanne Balslev; Elle, Morten

1999-01-01

Current infrastructure holds a considerable momentum and this momentum is a barrier of transformation towards more sustainable technologies and more sustainable styles of network management. Using the sewage sector in Denmark as an example of a technical infrastructure system this paper argues...... that there are technical, economical and social aspects of the current infrastructures momentum....

Modelling Reliability of Supply and Infrastructural Dependency in Energy Distribution Systems

OpenAIRE

Helseth, Arild

2008-01-01

This thesis presents methods and models for assessing reliability of supply and infrastructural dependency in energy distribution systems with multiple energy carriers. The three energy carriers of electric power, natural gas and district heating are considered. Models and methods for assessing reliability of supply in electric power systems are well documented, frequently applied in the industry and continuously being subject to research and improvement. On the contrary, there are compar...