Secure Cloud-Edge Deployments, with Trust

Assessing the security level of IoT applications to be deployed to heterogeneous Cloud-Edge infrastructures operated by different providers is a non-trivial task. In this article, we present a methodology that permits to express security requirements for IoT applications, as well as infrastructure security capabilities, in a simple and declarative manner, and to automatically obtain an explainable assessment of the security level of the possible application deployments. The methodology also considers the impact of trust relations among different stakeholders using or managing Cloud-Edge infrastructures. A lifelike example is used to showcase the prototyped implementation of the methodology

Assessing Importance and Satisfaction Judgments of Intermodal Work Commuters with Electronic Survey Methodology, MTI Report WP 12-01

Recent advances in multivariate methodology provide an opportunity to further the assessment of service offerings in public transportation for work commuting. We offer methodologies that are alternative to direct rating scale and have advantages in the quality and precision of measurement. The alternative of methodology for adaptive conjoint analysis for the measurement of the importance of attributes in service offering is implemented. Rasch scaling methodology is used for the measurement of satisfaction with these attributes. Advantages that these methodologies introduce for assessment of the respective constructs and use of the assessment are discussed. In a first study, the conjoint derived weights were shown to have predictive capabilities in applications to respondent distributions of a fixed total budget to improve overall service offerings. Results with the Rasch model indicate that the attribute measures are reliable and can adequately constitute a composite measure of satisfaction. The Rasch items were also shown to provide a basis to discriminate between privately owned vehicles (POVs) and public transport commuters. Dissatisfaction with uncertainty in travel time and income level of respondents were the best predictors of POV commuting

An Assessment of PIER Electric Grid Research 2003-2014 White Paper

This white paper describes the circumstances in California around the turn of the 21st century that led the California Energy Commission (CEC) to direct additional Public Interest Energy Research funds to address critical electric grid issues, especially those arising from integrating high penetrations of variable renewable generation with the electric grid. It contains an assessment of the beneficial science and technology advances of the resultant portfolio of electric grid research projects administered under the direction of the CEC by a competitively selected contractor, the University of California’s California Institute for Energy and the Environment, from 2003-2014

Advanced Cloud Privacy Threat Modeling

Privacy-preservation for sensitive data has become a challenging issue in cloud computing. Threat modeling as a part of requirements engineering in secure software development provides a structured approach for identifying attacks and proposing countermeasures against the exploitation of vulnerabilities in a system . This paper describes an extension of Cloud Privacy Threat Modeling (CPTM) methodology for privacy threat modeling in relation to processing sensitive data in cloud computing environments. It describes the modeling methodology that involved applying Method Engineering to specify characteristics of a cloud privacy threat modeling methodology, different steps in the proposed methodology and corresponding products. We believe that the extended methodology facilitates the application of a privacy-preserving cloud software development approach from requirements engineering to design

IWMI Strategic plan 2004-2008

Strategy planning / Research institutes / Assessment / Research priorities / Research projects / River basins / Water management / Irrigated farming / Land management / Environmental effects / Financial planning

Gender Aware Approaches in Agricultural Programmes: International Literature Review

This document presents gender aware approaches in agricultural programmes. In response to the persistent inequalities of women in farming despite decades of development assistance, Team Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security at Sida headquarters has initiated a thematic evaluation of how gender issues are tackled in Sida-supported agricultural programmes. The purpose is to increase understanding of how Sida's development assistance in agriculture should be designed, implemented and funded to ensure that female farmers are reached, that their needs as producers are met, and that they are able to benefit from the support to achieve a positive impact on their livelihoods. As part of this, the study also aims to understand the ways in which particular aid modalities impact upon the ability of programmes to reach women farmers effectively. The ILR aims to address the following questions: * Which methodologies and instruments have been used by donors to widen the scope of women's agency in agricultural development programmes? * To what extent has the work of programmes on involving female farmers impacted upon overall agricultural outcomes? * What are the most important lessons? What is working well and what is working not so well (effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability)? Below are recommendations to increase understanding of how Sida's development assistance in agriculture should be designed, implemented and funded to ensure that female farmers are reached, that their needs as producers are met, and that they are able to benefit from the support to achieve a positive impact on their livelihoods

Architecture-based Qualitative Risk Analysis for Availability of IT Infrastructures

An IT risk assessment must deliver the best possible quality of results in a time-effective way. Organisations are used to customise the general-purpose standard risk assessment methods in a way that can satisfy their requirements. In this paper we present the QualTD Model and method, which is meant to be employed together with standard risk assessment methods for the qualitative assessment of availability risks of IT architectures, or parts of them. The QualTD Model is based on our previous quantitative model, but geared to industrial practice since it does not require quantitative data which is often too costly to acquire. We validate the model and method in a real-world case by performing a risk assessment on the authentication and authorisation system of a large multinational company and by evaluating the results w.r.t. the goals of the stakeholders of the system. We also perform a review of the most popular standard risk assessment methods and an analysis of which one can be actually integrated with our QualTD Model