Age of Information for Actuation Update in Real-Time Wireless Control Systems

In this paper, we introduce a generalized definition of age of information (AoI) for actuation update in real-time wireless control systems. In such a system, a general queueing model, i.e., M/M/1/1 queueing model, is used to describe the actuation update, in which the sampling packets arrive at the remote controller following the Poisson process, the process from the controller to the actuator follows the exponential distribution, and the actuation intends to update at the actuator at the predictive time. Then, the initial time of the AoI for the new actuation update is the predictive time for the latest update, which is significantly different from the traditional calculation in status update. By the relationship between communication time from the controller to the actuator and predictive time, the AoI calculation falls into two cases, where the conventional AoI in status update is a specific case in this paper. Simulation results show the performance of our method

Towards an automated photogrammetry-based approach for monitoring and controlling construction site activities

The construction industry has a poor productivity record, which was predominantly ascribed to inadequate monitoring of how a project is progressing at any given time. Most available approaches do not offer key stakeholders a shared understanding of project performance in real-time, which as a result failed to identify any project slippage on the original schedule. This study reports on the development of a novel automated system for monitoring, updating and controlling construction site activities in real-time. The proposed system seeks to harness advances in close-range photogrammetry, BIM and computer vision to deliver an original approach that is capable of continuous monitoring of construction activities, with the progress status determinable, at any given time, throughout the construction stage.The research adopted a sequential mixed approach strategy pursuant to the design science standard processes in three stages. The first stage involved interviews within a focus group setting with seven carefully selected construction professionals. Their answers were analysed and provided "the informed-basis for the development of the automated system” for detecting and notifying delays in construction projects. The second stage involved development of ‘proof of the concept’ in a pilot project case study with nine potential users of the proposed automated system. Face-to-face interviews were conducted to evaluate and verify the effectiveness of the developed prototype, which as a result was continuously refined and improved according to the users’ comments and feedbacks. Within this stage the prototype to be tested and evaluated by a representative of construction professionals was developed. Subsequently a sub-stage of the system’s development sought to test and validate the final version of the system in the context of a real-life construction project in Dubai whereby an online survey is administered to 40 users, a representative sample of potential system users. The third stage addressed the conclusion, limitations and recommendations for further research studies for the proposed system.The findings of the study revealed that once the system installed and programmed, it does not require any expertise or manual intervention. This is mainly due to all the processes of the system being fully automated and the data collection, interpretations, analysis and notifications are automatically processed without any human intervention. Consequently, human errors and subjectivity are eliminated, and accordingly the system achieved a significantly high level of accuracy, automation and reliability. The system achieved a level of accuracy of 99.97% for horizontal construction elements and exceeded 99.70% for vertical elements. The findings also highlighted that this developed system is inexpensive, easy to operate and its accuracy excels that of current systems sought to automate monitoring and updating of progress status’ for construction projects. The distinctive features of the proposed system assisted the site team to complete the project 61 days ahead of its contractual completion date with a 9% time saving and 3% cost saving.The proposed system has the potential to identify any deviation from as-planned construction schedules, and prompt actions taken in response to the automatic notification system, which informs decision-makers via emails and SMS

Context-aware Security for Vehicles and Fleets: A Survey

Vehicles are becoming increasingly intelligent and connected. Interfaces for communication with the vehicle, such as WiFi and 5G, enable seamless integration into the user’s life, but also cyber attacks on the vehicle. Therefore, research is working on in-vehicle countermeasures such as authentication, access controls, or intrusion detection. Recently, legal regulations have also become effective that require automobile manufacturers to set up a monitoring system for fleet-wide security analysis. The growing amount of software, networking, and the automation of driving create new challenges for security. Context-awareness, situational understanding, adaptive security, and threat intelligence are necessary to cope with these ever-increasing risks. In-vehicle security should be adaptive to secure the car in an infinite number of (driving) situations. For fleet-wide analysis and alert triage, knowledge and understanding of the circumstances are required. Context-awareness, nonetheless, has been sparsely considered in the field of vehicle security. This work aims to be a precursor to context-aware, adaptive and intelligent security for vehicles and fleets. To this end, we provide a comprehensive literature review that analyzes the vehicular as well as related domains. Our survey is mainly characterized by the detailed analysis of the context information that is relevant for vehicle security in the future

An Integrated Social Actor and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Approach for Improved Electronic Health Record (EHR) Privacy and Confidentiality in the US National Healthcare Information Network (NHIN)

The emerging US National Healthcare Information Network (NHIN) will improve healthcare’s efficacy, efficiency, and safety. The first-generation NHIN being developed has numerous advantages and limitations. One of the most difficult aspects of today’s NHIN is ensuring privacy and confidentiality for personal health data, because family and caregivers have multiple complex legal relationships to a patient. A Social Actor framework is suggested to organize and manage these legal roles, but the Social Actor framework would be very difficult to implement in today’s NHIN. Social Actor Security Management could, however, be effectively implemented using Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs), which are rapidly becoming accepted for supporting complex information exchange across heterogeneous information systems fabrics. The Department of Defense is applying SOA to all of its enterprises. It is using customized simulation and modeling tools to achieve security and robustness goals and to reduce the intrinsic design and implementation risks for SOA’s complex Systems of Systems environment. This paper integrates all of these approaches into a next-generation NHIN-2 design based on a specific Air Force SOA named MCSOA. This NHIN-2 design uses MCSOA to create Security Management, Service Discovery, and Presence Management agents to implement Social Actor support for improved confidentiality and privacy

BlogForever D2.4: Weblog spider prototype and associated methodology

The purpose of this document is to present the evaluation of different solutions for capturing blogs, established methodology and to describe the developed blog spider prototype

Age of Information for Actuation Update in Real-Time Wireless Control Systems

In this paper, we introduce a generalized definition of age of information (AoI) for actuation update in real-time wireless control systems. In such a system, a general queueing model, i.e., M/M/1/1 queueing model, is used to describe the actuation update, in which the sampling packets arrive at the remote controller following the Poisson process, the process from the controller to the actuator follows the exponential distribution, and the actuation intends to update at the actuator at the predictive time. Then, the initial time of the AoI for the new actuation update is the predictive time for the latest update, which is significantly different from the traditional calculation in status update. By the relationship between communication time from the controller to the actuator and predictive time, the AoI calculation falls into two cases, where the conventional AoI in status update is a specific case in this paper. Simulation results show the performance of our method