Dependability enhancing mechanisms for integrated clinical environments

In this article, we present a set of lightweight mechanisms to enhance the dependability of a safety-critical real-time distributed system referred to as an integrated clinical environment (ICE). In an ICE, medical devices are interconnected and work together with the help of a supervisory computer system to enhance patient safety during clinical operations. Inevitably, there are strong dependability requirements on the ICE. We introduce a set of mechanisms that essentially make the supervisor component a trusted computing base, which can withstand common hardware failures and malicious attacks. The mechanisms rely on the replication of the supervisor component and employ only one input-exchange phase into the critical path of the operation of the ICE. Our analysis shows that the runtime latency overhead is much lower than that of traditional approaches

A critical analysis of research potential, challenges and future directives in industrial wireless sensor networks

In recent years, Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs) have emerged as an important research theme with applications spanning a wide range of industries including automation, monitoring, process control, feedback systems and automotive. Wide scope of IWSNs applications ranging from small production units, large oil and gas industries to nuclear fission control, enables a fast-paced research in this field. Though IWSNs offer advantages of low cost, flexibility, scalability, self-healing, easy deployment and reformation, yet they pose certain limitations on available potential and introduce challenges on multiple fronts due to their susceptibility to highly complex and uncertain industrial environments. In this paper a detailed discussion on design objectives, challenges and solutions, for IWSNs, are presented. A careful evaluation of industrial systems, deadlines and possible hazards in industrial atmosphere are discussed. The paper also presents a thorough review of the existing standards and industrial protocols and gives a critical evaluation of potential of these standards and protocols along with a detailed discussion on available hardware platforms, specific industrial energy harvesting techniques and their capabilities. The paper lists main service providers for IWSNs solutions and gives insight of future trends and research gaps in the field of IWSNs

Low complexity system architecture design for medical Cyber-Physical-Human Systems (CPHS)

Cyber-Physical-Human Systems (CHPS) are safety-critical systems, where the interaction between cyber components and physical components can be influenced by the human operator. Guaranteeing correctness and safety in these highly interactive computations is challenging. In particular, the interaction between these three components needs to be coordinated collectively in order to conduct safe and effective operations. The interaction nevertheless increases by orders of magnitude the levels of complexity and prevents formal verification techniques, such as model checking, from thoroughly verifying the safety and correctness properties of systems. In addition, the interactions could also significantly increase human operators' cognitive load and lead to human errors. In this thesis, we focus on medical CPHS and examine the complexity from a safety angle. Medical CPHS are both safety-critical and highly complex, because medical staff need to coordinate with distributed medical devices and supervisory controllers to monitor and control multiple aspects of the patient's physiology. Our goal is to reduce and control the complexity by introducing novel architectural patterns, coordination protocols and user-centric guidance system. This thesis makes three major contributions for improving safety of medical CPHS. Reducing verification complexity: Formal verification is a promising technique to guarantee correctness and safety, but the high complexity significantly increases the verification cost, which is known as state space explosion problems. We propose two architectural patterns: Interruptible Remote Procedure Call (RPC) and Consistent View Generation and Coordination (CVGC) protocol to properly handle asynchronous communication and exceptions with low complexity. Reducing cyber-medical treatment complexity: Cyber medical treatment complexity is defined as the number of steps and time to perform a treatment and monitor the corresponding physiological responses. We propose treatment and workflow adaptation and validation protocols to semi-autonomously validate the preconditions and adapt the workflows to patient conditions, which reduces the complexity of performing treatments and following best practice workflows. Reducing human cognitive load complexity: Cognitive load (also called mental workload) complexity measures human memory and mental computation demand for performing tasks. We first model individual medical staff's responsibility and team interactions in cardiac arrest resuscitation and decomposed their overall task into a set of distinct cognitive tasks that must be specifically supported to achieve successful human-centered system design. We then prototype a medical Best Practice Guidance (BPG) system to reduce medical staff's cognitive load and foster adherence to best practice workflows. Our BPG system transforms the implementation of best practice medical workflow

Literature Based Study On Computational Healthcare Systems For Sustainable Solutions

Medical data released and shared through the cloud are very popular in practice, and information and knowledge bases can be enriched and shared through the cloud. The revolution presented by the cloud and big data can have a huge impact on the healthcare industry, and a new healthcare system is evolving. This is why we need to design a more appropriate health care system to meet the challenges presented by this revolution. Sustainability goals usually refer to money saved, energy conserved, waste diverted, water recycled, or any other easily understood metric. But a clear connection between sustainability and a hospital’s mission, in an understandable language and with a factual basis, rarely occurs. The connection between sustainability and mission must extend to effective management of the healthcare environment, social interaction between patient and healthcare provider, community-based healthcare approaches, and the utilization of current technology. The mission must have measurable goals and objectives that support sustainability, and the ability of the health system to thrive in its ecological, social, and economic environment. This paper gives literature based study on healthcare systems for sustainable solutions

CPS Attacks Mitigation Approaches on Power Electronic Systems with Security Challenges for Smart Grid Applications: A Review

This paper presents an inclusive review of the cyber-physical (CP) attacks, vulnerabilities, mitigation approaches on the power electronics and the security challenges for the smart grid applications. With the rapid evolution of the physical systems in the power electronics applications for interfacing renewable energy sources that incorporate with cyber frameworks, the cyber threats have a critical impact on the smart grid performance. Due to the existence of electronic devices in the smart grid applications, which are interconnected through communication networks, these networks may be subjected to severe cyber-attacks by hackers. If this occurs, the digital controllers can be physically isolated from the control loop. Therefore, the cyber-physical systems (CPSs) in the power electronic systems employed in the smart grid need special treatment and security. In this paper, an overview of the power electronics systems security on the networked smart grid from the CP perception, as well as then emphases on prominent CP attack patterns with substantial influence on the power electronics components operation along with analogous defense solutions. Furthermore, appraisal of the CPS threats attacks mitigation approaches, and encounters along the smart grid applications are discussed. Finally, the paper concludes with upcoming trends and challenges in CP security in the smart grid applications