Ensuring Cyber-Security in Smart Railway Surveillance with SHIELD

Modern railways feature increasingly complex embedded computing systems for surveillance, that are moving towards fully wireless smart-sensors. Those systems are aimed at monitoring system status from a physical-security viewpoint, in order to detect intrusions and other environmental anomalies. However, the same systems used for physical-security surveillance are vulnerable to cyber-security threats, since they feature distributed hardware and software architectures often interconnected by ‘open networks’, like wireless channels and the Internet. In this paper, we show how the integrated approach to Security, Privacy and Dependability (SPD) in embedded systems provided by the SHIELD framework (developed within the EU funded pSHIELD and nSHIELD research projects) can be applied to railway surveillance systems in order to measure and improve their SPD level. SHIELD implements a layered architecture (node, network, middleware and overlay) and orchestrates SPD mechanisms based on ontology models, appropriate metrics and composability. The results of prototypical application to a real-world demonstrator show the effectiveness of SHIELD and justify its practical applicability in industrial settings

A framework for future training in marine and coastal protected area management

Training, Protected areas, Marine environment, Coastal zone management

From internet architecture research to standards

Many Internet architectural research initiatives have been undertaken over last twenty years. None of them actually reached their intended goal: the evolution of the Internet architecture is still driven by its protocols not by genuine architectural evolutions. As this approach becomes the main limiting factor of Internet growth and application deployment, this paper proposes an alternative research path starting from the root causes (the progressive depletion of the design principles of the Internet) and motivates the need for a common architectural foundation. For this purpose, it proposes a practical methodology to incubate architectural research results as part of the standardization process

Evaluation of the End of Life Care Train the Trainer (TTT) Education Model

Final Published versio

E-commerce Systems and E-shop Web Sites Security

Fruitfulnes of contemporary companies rests on new business model development, elimination of communication obstacles, simplification of industrial processes, possibilities of responding in real-time and above all meeting the floating custom needs. Quite a number of company activities and transactions are realized within the framework of e-business. Business transactions are supported by e-commerce systems. One of the e-commerce system part is web interface (web sites). Present trend is putting the accent on security. E-commerce system security and web sites security is the most overlooked aspect of securing data. E-commerce system security depends on technologies and its correct exploitation and proceedings. If we want e-commerce system and e-shops web sites with all services to be safety, it is necessary to know all possible risks, use up to date technologies, follow conventions of web sites development and have good security management system. The article deals with definition and description of risk areas refer to e-commerce systems and e-shop web sites and show fundamental principles of e-commerce systems and e-shop web sites security.E-commerce system, e-shop web sites, security, security proceedings, web technologies

Comparison of Approaches to Management of Large Marine Areas

In order to learn more about the different approaches to managing large-scale marine areas, their comparative merits, and the synergies and overlaps between them, Conservation International (CI) commissioned this independent analysis of several widely applied models. Since 2004, CI, together with a multitude of partners, has been developing the Seascapes model to manage large, multiple-use marine areas in which government authorities, private organizations, and other stakeholders cooperate to conserve the diversity and abundance of marine life and to promote human well-being. The definition of the Seascapes approach and the identification of the essential elements of a functioning Seascape were built from the ground up, informed by the extensive field experience of numerous marine management practitioners. Although the report was commissioned by CI, the views expressed in this report are those of the authors; they were charged with providing a critical examination of all the assessed approaches, including the Seascapes approach. This analysis provides a comprehensive understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. This will help us -- and, we hope, other readers -- to identify ways to work together to achieve even greater results through synergistic efforts

Designing a Thrifty Approach for SME Business Continuity: Practices for Transparency of the Design Process

Business continuity (BC) management is an organizational approach to preparing information systems (IS) for incidents, but such approaches are uncommon among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Past research has indicated a gap in approaches that are designed for SMEs since BC management approaches tend to originate from larger organizations and SMEs lack the resources to implement them. To fill this gap, and to respond to a practical need by an IT consultancy company, we employed design science research (DSR) to develop a BC approach for SMEs coined as the thrifty BC management approach. Jointly with the company’s practitioners, we developed a set of meta-requirements for BC approaches for SMEs anchored in prior BC literature, practitioners’ practical expertise, and the theories of collective mindfulness and sociotechnical systems. We evaluated our thrifty BC management approach with multiple SMEs. These evaluations suggest that the designed approach mostly meets the defined meta-requirements. Moreover, the evaluations offered ample opportunities for learning. The design process, unfolding in a real-world setting, was precarious, rife with contingencies and ad hoc decisions. To render the design process transparent, we adapted four writing conventions from the confessional research genre familiar to ethnographic research but novel to DSR. We offer a threefold contribution. First, we contribute to SMEs’ BC with meta-requirements and their instantiation in a new BC approach (artifact); second, we contribute with four practices of confessional writing for transparency of DSR research; and third, we contribute with reflections on our theoretical learning from throughout the design process