Managing driver fatigue: education or motivation?

Fatigue has been recognised as the primary contributing factor in approximately 15% of all fatal road crashes in Australia. To develop effective countermeasures for managing fatigue, this study investigates why drivers continue to drive when sleepy, and driver perceptions and behaviours in regards to countermeasures. Based on responses from 305 Australian drivers, it was identified that the major reasons why these participants continued to drive when sleepy were: wanting to get to their destination; being close to home; and time factors. Participants’ perceptions and use of 18 fatigue countermeasures were investigated. It was found that participants perceived the safest strategies, including stopping and sleeping, swapping drivers and stopping for a quick nap, to be the most effective countermeasures. However, it appeared that their knowledge of safe countermeasures did not translate into their use of these strategies. For example, although the drivers perceived stopping for a quick nap to be an effective countermeasure, they reported more frequent use of less safe methods such as stopping to eat or drink and winding down the window. This finding suggests that, while practitioners should continue educating drivers, they may need a greater focus on motivating drivers to implement safe fatigue countermeasures

Toolbox of Countermeasures for Rural Two-Lane Curves, June 2012

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) estimates that 58 percent of roadway fatalities are lane departures, while 40 percent of fatalities are single-vehicle run-off-road (SVROR) crashes. Addressing lane-departure crashes is therefore a priority for national, state, and local roadway agencies. Horizontal curves are of particular interest because they have been correlated with increased crash occurrence. This toolbox was developed to assist agencies address crashes at rural curves. The main objective of this toolbox is to summarize the effectiveness of various known curve countermeasures. While education, enforcement, and policy countermeasures should also be considered, they were not included given the toolbox focuses on roadway-based countermeasures. Furthermore, the toolbox is geared toward rural two-lane curves. The research team identified countermeasures based on their own research, through a survey of the literature, and through discussions with other professionals. Coverage of curve countermeasures in this toolbox is not necessarily comprehensive. For each countermeasure covered, this toolbox includes the following information: description, application, effectiveness, advantages, and disadvantages

Risk and Business Goal Based Security Requirement and Countermeasure Prioritization

Companies are under pressure to be in control of their assets but at the same time they must operate as efficiently as possible. This means that they aim to implement “good-enough security” but need to be able to justify their security investment plans. Currently companies achieve this by means of checklist-based security assessments, but these methods are a way to achieve consensus without being able to provide justifications of countermeasures in terms of business goals. But such justifications are needed to operate securely and effectively in networked businesses. In this paper, we first compare a Risk-Based Requirements Prioritization method (RiskREP) with some requirements engineering and risk assessment methods based on their requirements elicitation and prioritization properties. RiskREP extends misuse case-based requirements engineering methods with IT architecture-based risk assessment and countermeasure definition and prioritization. Then, we present how RiskREP prioritizes countermeasures by linking business goals to countermeasure specification. Prioritizing countermeasures based on business goals is especially important to provide the stakeholders with structured arguments for choosing a set of countermeasures to implement. We illustrate RiskREP and how it prioritizes the countermeasures it elicits by an application to an action case

Efficient design and evaluation of countermeasures against fault attacks using formal verification

This paper presents a formal verification framework and tool that evaluates the robustness of software countermeasures against fault-injection attacks. By modeling reference assembly code and its protected variant as automata, the framework can generate a set of equations for an SMT solver, the solutions of which represent possible attack paths. Using the tool we developed, we evaluated the robustness of state-of-the-art countermeasures against fault injection attacks. Based on insights gathered from this evaluation, we analyze any remaining weaknesses and propose applications of these countermeasures that are more robust

On the Role of Primary and Secondary Assets in Adaptive Security: An Application in Smart Grids

peer-reviewedAdaptive security aims to protect valuable assets managed by a system, by applying a varying set of security controls. Engineering adaptive security is not an easy task. A set of effective security countermeasures should be identified. These countermeasures should not only be applied to (primary) assets that customers desire to protect, but also to other (secondary) assets that can be exploited by attackers to harm the primary assets. Another challenge arises when assets vary dynamically at runtime. To accommodate these variabilities, it is necessary to monitor changes in assets, and apply the most appropriate countermeasures at runtime. The paper provides three main contributions for engineering adaptive security. First, it proposes a modeling notation to represent primary and secondary assets, along with their variability. Second, it describes how to use the extended models in engineering security requirements and designing required monitoring functions. Third, the paper illustrates our approach through a set of adaptive security scenarios in the customer domain of a smart grid. We suggest that modeling secondary assets aids the deployment of countermeasures, and, in combination with a representation of assets variability, facilitates the design of monitoring function

Countermeasures to microgravity

Biological systems ranging from the most simple to the most complex generally survive exposure to microgravity. Changes in many characteristics of biological systems are well documented as a consequence of space flight. Attempts to devise countermeasures to microgravity may have direct pragmatic consequences for crew protection and may provide additional insights into the nature of microgravity influences on biological systems. Some of the most well documented changes occur in humans who have experienced space flight. Changes appear to be transient. Space adaption syndrome occurs relatively briefly whereas bone deterioration may require months of postflight time for restoration. It seems critical to recognize that these changes and others may derive from rather passive, active or even reactive changes in the biological systems that are hosts to them. For example, hydrostatic fluid redistributions may be quite passive occurrences that are realized through extensive fluid channels. Changes occur in cell metabolism because of fluid, nutrient and gas redistributions. Equally important are the misconstrued messages likely to be carried by fluid redistributions. These reactive events can trigger, for example, loss of fluids and electrolytes through altered kidney function. Each of these considerations must be evaluated in regard to the biological site affected. Countermeasures to the vast range of biological changes and sites are difficult to envision. The most obvious countermeasure is the restoration of gravity-like influences. Some options are discussed. Recent work has focussed on the use of magnetic fields. Pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF) are shown to alleviate bone deterioration produced in rodents exposed to tail suspension. Methods of PEMF exposure are consistent with human use in space. Related methods may provide muscular and neural benefits

Transportation and Distribution of Strategic National Stockpile Supplies in a Public Health Emergency

In the event of a public health emergency in the United States, it is important that public authorities are equipped to distribute medical supplies to every person in need as quickly as possible. Federal guidelines state that all persons in an area affected by a public health emergency should receive their medical countermeasures within 48 hours of the emergency’s declaration. While the CDC has determined a general dispensing plan for each state and county to follow, it is ultimately up to the state and county to formalize and implement detailed plans. A body of academic literature focuses on optimizing the placement and operation of Points of Dispensing (PODs), which are mass dispensing locations the public visits to receive countermeasures. However, very few papers have considered the logistics associated with moving countermeasures from state receiving areas to county-level PODs. This research addresses this gap through service network design and transportation modeling. Specifically, the feasibility of a multi-tiered distribution model is evaluated for a case study region representative of a US state comprised of a mix of urban and rural areas

An Approach to Select Cost-Effective Risk Countermeasures Exemplified in CORAS

Risk is unavoidable in business and risk management is needed amongst others to set up good security policies. Once the risks are evaluated, the next step is to decide how they should be treated. This involves managers making decisions on proper countermeasures to be implemented to mitigate the risks. The countermeasure expenditure, together with its ability to mitigate risks, is factors that affect the selection. While many approaches have been proposed to perform risk analysis, there has been less focus on delivering the prescriptive and specific information that managers require to select cost-effective countermeasures. This paper proposes a generic approach to integrate the cost assessment into risk analysis to aid such decision making. The approach makes use of a risk model which has been annotated with potential countermeasures, estimates for their cost and effect. A calculus is then employed to reason about this model in order to support decision in terms of decision diagrams. We exemplify the instantiation of the generic approach in the CORAS method for security risk analysis.Comment: 33 page