Criticality of infrastructure networks under consideration of resilience-based maintenance strategies using the example of inland waterways

Transportation infrastructures as backbone of modern, globalized, and networked societies ensure flows of people and goods and thus sustain social and economic prosperity. Concurrently, more and more infrastructure construction assets are facing the problem of systematic obsolescence due to deficient structural conditions, maintenance backlogs, and a lack of or misallocation of resources for the construction and maintenance of infrastructure buildings. This problem construct necessitates a resilience-based maintenance strategy for the asset portfolio. In particular, inland navigation as a mode of transport features large transport volumes and few redundancies. Combined with its increasing importance due to its comparatively high environmental friendliness, a predestined, yet in the literature underrepresented research subject results. This dissertation aims to investigate essential factors of infrastructure management and thereby identify the potential for improvement in the complex construct of maintenance management and related areas. The emphasis is on enhancing the resilience of inland waterways as a complex System-of-Systems with all its interdependencies. Thus, a holistic risk and resilience assessment is essential and is underlined with the aspects infrastructure availability and business decisions (Study A, B, C and D) and stakeholder communication and risk analysis (Study E, F, G) which are addressed by seven studies published as companion articles. Study A deals with assessing the reliability of transport infrastructure networks as part of supply chains, highlighting the importance of available and thus maintained infrastructure assets for functioning supply chains. Study B aims to identify critical warning times before closures of transport infrastructure networks and therefore suggests a mixed-methods approach, making it possible to derive and evaluate critical thresholds. Study C examines the corresponding company decisions, i.e., decisions as reaction towards neglected maintenance of public transport infrastructure, which comprises risk coping strategies, examined by empirical investigations. Study D extends this problem observation by showing that companies could see incentives for outsourcing if they face a lack of access to available transport infrastructure. Hence, the study analyzes facility relocation problems in dependence on infrastructure availability. Study E heads toward stakeholder communication and risk analysis and examines the processes across stakeholders, using an approach of collaborative serious gaming, which simultaneously enhances situation awareness and communication among stakeholders. Study F provides the implementation of a systemic approach and its visualization as a GIS-based risk dashboard, shedding light on interdependencies among critical infrastructures and cascading effects. Study G closes with an examination of the evaluation of the potential of infrastructure funds. For this purpose, the study conducts an online survey to determine investors’ willingness to pay for various fund mechanisms, integrating the option of private coverage. Despite the geographic focus of the case studies on Germany, valuable insights can be gained for infrastructure management that can also apply to other countries. In addition to the case study findings, general recommendations for infrastructure owners are derived. As a result, it can be stated that it is essential that maintenance strategies have to be more resilience-based than traditional strategies, which are mainly based on fixed time intervals for maintenance. Moreover, the application of both serious gaming and GIS visualization can help to enhance situation awareness and thus the resilience of infrastructure systems. An essential finding for which this dissertation provides methodological approaches is that considering the local area’s attractiveness for business locations should receive more attention regarding investment decisions. Thereby a focus should be set on the realistic threat of relocations as response to deteriorating infrastructure conditions. Eventually, public debates should strengthen the knowledge about infrastructure and its funding, while deficits in alongside mechanisms in infrastructure funding must be encountered. Consequently, this dissertation provides insights into the potential of infrastructure management. Mainly, it offers the potential to improve the resilience of the waterway transportation system and address stakeholders accordingly

Urban gaming simulation for enhancing disaster resilience: a social learning tool for modern disaster risk management

An emergence of the disaster resilience concept broadens the idea of urban risk management and, at the same time, enhances a theoretical aspect in a way in which we can develop our cities without making it more vulnerable to natural disasters. Nevertheless, this theoretical plausibility is hardly translated into a practical implication for urban planning, as the concept of resilience remain limited to some scholars’ debate. One of substantial factors that limit the understanding of people about disaster risk an resilience is a lack of risk awareness and risk preparedness, which can be solved by restructuring social learning process that enable a process of mutual learning between experts and the public. This study, therefore, focuses on providing insights into the difficulties of disaster risk communication we face, and how gaming simulation can be taken as a communication technique in enhancing social learning, which is regarded as a fundamental step of disaster risk management prior the mitigation process takes place. The study argues that the gaming simulation can facilitate planners in acquiring risk information from the community, conceiving the multitude of complex urban physical and socio-economic components, and conceptualizing innovative solutions to cope with disaster risks mutually with the public

Assessing the Presence of Mindfulness within Cyber and Non-Cybersecurity groups

Corporations and individuals continue to be under Phishing attack. Researchers categorizes methods corporations and individuals can employ to reduce the impact of being caught in a Phishing scheme. Corporation enable technical mechanisms such as automated filtering, URL blacklisting, and manipulation of browser warning messages to reduce phishing susceptibility costing billions of dollars annually. However, even with robust efforts to educate employees about phishing techniques through security awareness training the abundance of attacks continues to plague organizations. This study aims to identify whether a correlation exists between mindfulness and phishing susceptibility. The goal of this research is to determine if mindful individuals are less susceptible to phishing. By showing individuals with increased awareness are significantly able to identify areas that phishing attempts exploit. Based on a review of the literature a misconception exists between end-users, corporation and Internet Service Providers (ISP) regarding ownership of Phishing identification. Specifically, individuals blame ISPs and corporate information technology departments for failing to protect them from Phishing attacks. Still, the truth of the matter is that the end-user is ultimately the weakest link in the phishing identification chain. The methodology of this study polled participants through initial screening focusing on whether the individuals were mindful using the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) survey. Conclusions seen in this study in contrast with other studies saw no significant correlation between Mindfulness and phishing susceptibility, increase in cogitative ability or increase in Phishing identification. Thus, continued use of MAAS survey questionnaire is necessary to screen other groups for phishing awareness prior to focusing on other phishing cues

Effects of a Suggestion Based Intervention on Human Cooperation in the Stag Hunt Game

Cooperation has been one of the most foundational aspect of human society and is frequently studied via use of “The Stag Hunt” which has been used to tease out factors which may influence cooperation. The present study is the first study to attempt to influence human cooperation by means of positive imagery. Participants included 33 males and 72 females) who listened to either an a 7-minute audio designed to encourage them to trust others or an audio designed to encourage them to trust themselves. Participants played 40 rounds of the Stag Hunt game. The total number of times the participant played stag was recorded. An independent-samples t-test found a significant difference in the scores for the trust others (M= 21.47, SD=3.28) and the trust self (M=19.82, SD=3.92) conditions. This suggests guided imagery tasks may influence cooperation

The Use of STEM Gaming to Promote Hearing Health in Youth

Hearing loss prevention programs targeting youth have been implemented in many forms to teach younger populations about hearing health to prevent noise-induced hearing loss. Some hearing loss prevention programs, such as Dangerous Decibels®, are based on health communication science and aim to not only increase youth’s knowledge about noise-induced hearing loss, but positively change their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors towards safe listening practices. The purpose of this project was to investigate how an educational computer game called Song of the Starbird could potentially be used as an effective hearing health promotion tool for students with normal hearing and students with hearing loss. Exposure to this game could improve knowledge and change attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors in youth related to hearing health. It can also be a fun way for youth to learn about how we hear, the effects of damaging sound levels, and what they can do to reduce their risk of noise-induced hearing loss. In Chapter 1, an extensive literature review was performed to establish a rationale for using a video game as an appropriate hearing loss prevention resource targeting youth 9-12 years old. In Chapter 2, the game’s application within the field of audiology, methods, and examples of implementation opportunities are offered. Audiologists play a key role in disseminating the game within their practice settings. Finally, Chapter 3 reviews gaps in the research literature and future research needs

European White Book on Real-Time Power Hardware in the Loop Testing : DERlab Report No. R- 005.0

The European White Book on Real-Time-Powerhardware-in-the-Loop testing is intended to serve as a reference document on the future of testing of electrical power equipment, with specifi c focus on the emerging hardware-in-the-loop activities and application thereof within testing facilities and procedures. It will provide an outlook of how this powerful tool can be utilised to support the development, testing and validation of specifi cally DER equipment. It aims to report on international experience gained thus far and provides case studies on developments and specifi c technical issues, such as the hardware/software interface. This white book compliments the already existing series of DERlab European white books, covering topics such as grid-inverters and grid-connected storag

The Effects of Video Gaming on Work Group Performance

Organizational tasks are complex and time-sensitive, requiring group effort to achieve goals under pressure. To improve group performance, organizations often invest in a services designed to strengthen teams (e.g., ropes courses). However, such activities are time- and resource-expensive and have demonstrated mixed results. To proffer a more practical (shorter and less expensive) alternative, we explore the potential of video gaming as a team building activity. To this end, we employed a multi-experiment study in which we administered competitive and cooperative video games to newly formed work groups. To theoretically explain the effects of video gaming on group performance, we adapt the theoretical construct to flow to the group level. Our results reveal that all forms of video gaming had a positive effect on group performance. However, competitive versus cooperative gaming have different effects on the sub-constructs of group flow. Therefore, optimal results are obtained with cooperative-competitive video games

THE QUEST GAME-FRAME: BALANCING SERIOUS GAMES FOR INVESTIGATING PRIVACY DECISIONS

Digitalisation permeates all areas of social life. The use of digital games in research settings to analyse social phenomena is thereby no exception. However, games that can successfully achieve research ob- jectives and at the same time create an engaging experience require thoughtful balancing. When inves- tigating decision-making, for example, asking players directly about their reasoning in the game is breaking the game flow and prone to distorting influences from the game experience. This paper presents the design science (DS) process of a quest-based game-frame (QGF) oriented on the investigation of privacy decision-making. The design-empirical cycle of the QGF is outlined and applied to design two privacy decision scenarios for investigating reflection tendencies. The conducted binational experiment reflects the behaviour of 78 educators, university students and high-school students from Austria and Norway in online ordering security and fake news sharing while monitoring the game flow. Results demonstrate the potential of the QGF for unobtrusively investigating privacy decisions while maintaining high fluency of performance. Significant differences between educators and high-school students are found in time spent for reflection before making online security decisions. Additionally, Norwegian high-school students show a low awareness when deciding on real/fake news sharing

Security awareness of computer users: A game based learning approach

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The research reported in this thesis focuses on developing a framework for game design to protect computer users against phishing attacks. A comprehensive literature review was conducted to understand the research domain, support the proposed research work and identify the research gap to fulfil the contribution to knowledge. Two studies and one theoretical design were carried out to achieve the aim of this research reported in this thesis. A quantitative approach was used in the first study while engaging both quantitative and qualitative approaches in the second study. The first study reported in this thesis was focused to investigate the key elements that should be addressed in the game design framework to avoid phishing attacks. The proposed game design framework was aimed to enhance the user avoidance behaviour through motivation to thwart phishing attack. The results of this study revealed that perceived threat, safeguard effectiveness, safeguard cost, self-efficacy, perceived severity and perceived susceptibility elements should be incorporated into the game design framework for computer users to avoid phishing attacks through their motivation. The theoretical design approach was focused on designing a mobile game to educate computer users against phishing attacks. The elements of the framework were addressed in the mobile game design context. The main objective of the proposed mobile game design was to teach users how to identify phishing website addresses (URLs), which is one of many ways of identifying a phishing attack. The mobile game prototype was developed using MIT App inventor emulator. In the second study, the formulated game design framework was evaluated through the deployed mobile game prototype on a HTC One X touch screen smart phone. Then a discussion is reported in this thesis investigating the effectiveness of the developed mobile game prototype compared to traditional online learning to thwart phishing threats. Finally, the research reported in this thesis found that the mobile game is somewhat effective in enhancing the user’s phishing awareness. It also revealed that the participants who played the mobile game were better able to identify fraudulent websites compared to the participants who read the website without any training. Therefore, the research reported in this thesis determined that perceived threat, safeguard effectiveness, safeguard cost, self-efficacy, perceived threat and perceived susceptibility elements have a significant impact on avoidance behaviour through motivation to thwart phishing attacks as addressed in the game design framework

Investigating the correlation between the five major personality traits and a student’s online habits

The increasingly widespread use of e-learning and the internet, in general, has reached the point where it should become a cause of concern towards a student’s online habits. By having bad habits online, students could risk the occurrence of data lost or a data breach occurring. Hence, this study was done in order to further investigate this potential factor. The objective of this study is to be able to identify which personality traits could potentially cause an effect on a student’s online habits and what must be done in order to improve said student’s online habits. This study has deployed surveys within a primary and secondary education grade within Al-Noor International School. These surveys serve as a measuring tool to evaluate a student’s personality traits and online habits. The results of this survey are then used to observe the relationship between the two variables and draw a conclusion on the investigation. This study is done in hopes to bring more attention towards the personality traits of students and how moderation can be done to further help protect the students as well as the educational institutions as a whole in order to preserve such data