A novel approach to emergency management of wireless telecommunication system

The survivability concerns the service continuity when the components of a system are damaged. This concept is especially useful in the emergency management of the system, as often emergencies involve accidents or incident disasters which more or less damage the system. The overall objective of this thesis study is to develop a quantitative management approach to the emergency management of a wireless cellular telecommunication system in light of its service continuity in emergency situations – namely the survivability of the system. A particular wireless cellular telecommunication system, WCDMA, is taken as an example to ground this research.The thesis proposes an ontology-based paradigm for service management such that the management system contains three models: (1) the work domain model, (2) the dynamic model, and (3) the reconfiguration model. A powerful work domain modeling tool called Function-Behavior-Structure (FBS) is employed for developing the work domain model of the WCDMA system. Petri-Net theory, as well as its formalization, is applied to develop the dynamic model of the WCDMA system. A concept in engineering design called the general and specific function concept is applied to develop a new approach to system reconfiguration for the high survivability of the system. These models are implemented along with a user-interface which can be used by emergency management personnel. A demonstration of the effectiveness of this study approach is included.There are a couple of contributions with this thesis study. First, the proposed approach can be added to contemporary telecommunication management systems. Second, the Petri Net model of the WCDMA system is more comprehensive than any dynamic model of the telecommunication systems in literature. Furthermore, this model can be extended to any other telecommunication system. Third, the proposed system reconfiguration approach, based on the general and specific function concept, offers a unique way for the survivability of any service provider system.In conclusion, the ontology-based paradigm for a service system management provides a total solution to service continuity as well as its emergency management. This paradigm makes the complex mathematical modeling of the system transparent to the manager or managerial personnel and provides a feasible scenario of the human-in-the-loop management

Eighth Workshop and Tutorial on Practical Use of Coloured Petri Nets and the CPN Tools, Aarhus, Denmark, October 22-24, 2007

This booklet contains the proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on Practical Use of Coloured Petri Nets and the CPN Tools, October 22-24, 2007. The workshop is organised by the CPN group at the Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark. The papers are also available in electronic form via the web pages: http://www.daimi.au.dk/CPnets/workshop0

Smart Trust Management for Vehicular Networks

Spontaneous networks such as VANET are in general deployed in an open and thus easily accessible environment. Therefore, they are vulnerable to attacks. Trust management is one of a set of security solutions dedicated to this type of networks. Moreover, the strong mobility of the nodes (in the case of VANET) makes the establishment of a trust management system complex. In this paper, we present a concept of ‘Active Vehicle’ which means an autonomous vehicle that is able to make decision about trustworthiness of alert messages transmitted about road accidents. The behavior of an “Active Vehicle” is modeled using Petri Nets

A Precision Post-Operative Wellness Monitoring Solution

Multiple orthogonal challenges around escalating costs and providing quality care plague healthcare delivery, especially in OECD countries. This research in progress paper addresses the post-operative discharge phase of the patient journey and proffers a technology enabled model that both supports a quality care experience post discharge but also prudent management to minimize costly unplanned readmissions and thereby subscribe to a value-based care paradigm. The chosen context is stoma patients but the solution can be easily generalized to other contexts. Next steps include the conducting of clinical trials to establish proof of concept, validity and usability

A SysML profile for smart city applications

A smart city is an urban center that integrates a variety of solutions to enhance infrastructure performance and achieve sustainable urban development. Urban roads are a critical infrastructure highly demanded by citizens and organizations interested in their deployment, performance, and safety. Urban traffic signal control is a major and challenging problem in the real world, which aims to monitor and enhance traffic congestion. Therefore, the deployment of traffic signals for vehicles or pedestrians at a junction is a complex activity, as it is necessary to establish rules to control the flow of vehicles and pedestrians. Also, traffic flow at intersections changes constantly, depending on weather conditions, day of the week, and period of the year, as well as road works and accidents that further influence complexity and performance. This thesis first describes SmartCitySysML, a proposed profile that adapts SysML with special elements that are specific to smart cities. In addition, an extension of the SmartCitySysML profile to the design of the dimensions of smart cities is proposed. Finally, integration of models is performed, that is, the integration of the SmartCitySysML profile with Petri Net to separately model the basic architectural elements (sensor, controller, and actuator) of an urban traffic control system as sub-models to describe the behavior of each element, and the integration of the SmartCitySysML profile with Timed Coloured Petri Nets (TCPN) for modeling, simulation, and verification of properties of an urban traffic signal control system. CPN tools allow the evaluation of the model behavior through simulation and property verification and perform a simulation-based performance. Model simulation allows observing the behavior of the system under conditions that would be difficult to organize in a truly controlled environment. Consequently, a preliminary evaluation can be performed in the early stages of system development, significantly reducing costs of improvements and increasing quality of the final product.Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPESUma cidade inteligente é um centro urbano que integra uma variedade de soluções para melhorar o desempenho da infraestrutura e alcançar um desenvolvimento urbano sustentável. As estradas urbanas são uma infraestrutura crucial altamente exigida pelos cidadãos e organizações interessadas em sua implantação, desempenho e segurança. O controle de sinais de trânsito urbano é um problema importante e desafiador no mundo real, que visa monitorar e melhorar o congestionamento de trânsito. Portanto, a implantação de semáforos para veículos ou pedestres em um cruzamento é uma atividade complexa, pois é necessário estabelecer regras para controlar o fluxo de veículos e pedestres. O fluxo de tráfego no cruzamento muda constantemente, dependendo das condições climáticas, dia da semana e período do ano, assim como obras e acidentes rodoviários que influenciam ainda mais a complexidade e o desempenho. Esta dissertação descreve primeiro o SmartCitySysML, um perfil proposto que adapta a SysML com elementos especiais que são específicos para cidades inteligentes. Depois, é elaborada uma extensão do perfil SmartCitySysML para o design das dimensões das cidades inteligentes. Em seguida, é realizada a integração de modelos, ou seja, a integração do perfil SmartCitySysML com Redes de Petri para modelar separadamente os elementos arquiteturais básicos (sensor, controlador e atuador) de um sistema de controle de tráfego urbano como sub-modelos para demonstrar o comportamento de cada elemento, e a integração do perfil SmartCitySysML com Redes de Petri Colorida Temporizada (TCPN) para modelagem, simulação e verificação de propriedades do sistema de controle de sinais de trânsito urbano. As ferramentas CPN permitem avaliar o comportamento do modelo por meio de simulação e verificação de propriedades e realizar um desempenho baseado em simulação. A simulação de modelos permite observar o comportamento do sistema sob condições que seriam difíceis de organizar em um ambiente realmente controlado. Consequentemente, uma avaliação preliminar pode ser realizada nos estágios iniciais de desenvolvimento do sistema, reduzindo significativamente os custos de melhorias e aumentando a qualidade do produto final.São Cristóvão, S

Performance and Security Trade-offs in High-Speed Networks. An investigation into the performance and security modelling and evaluation of high-speed networks based on the quantitative analysis and experimentation of queueing networks and generalised stochastic Petri nets.

Most used security mechanisms in high-speed networks have been adopted without adequate quantification of their impact on performance degradation. Appropriate quantitative network models may be employed for the evaluation and prediction of ¿optimal¿ performance vs. security trade-offs. Several quantitative models introduced in the literature are based on queueing networks (QNs) and generalised stochastic Petri nets (GSPNs). However, these models do not take into consideration Performance Engineering Principles (PEPs) and the adverse impact of traffic burstiness and security protocols on performance. The contributions of this thesis are based on the development of an effective quantitative methodology for the analysis of arbitrary QN models and GSPNs through discrete-event simulation (DES) and extended applications into performance vs. security trade-offs involving infrastructure and infrastructure-less high-speed networks under bursty traffic conditions. Specifically, investigations are carried out focusing, for illustration purposes, on high-speed network routers subject to Access Control List (ACL) and also Robotic Ad Hoc Networks (RANETs) with Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and Selective Security (SS) protocols, respectively. The Generalised Exponential (GE) distribution is used to model inter-arrival and service times at each node in order to capture the traffic burstiness of the network and predict pessimistic ¿upper bounds¿ of network performance. In the context of a router with ACL mechanism representing an infrastructure network node, performance degradation is caused due to high-speed incoming traffic in conjunction with ACL security computations making the router a bottleneck in the network. To quantify and predict the trade-off of this degradation, the proposed quantitative methodology employs a suitable QN model consisting of two queues connected in a tandem configuration. These queues have single or quad-core CPUs with multiple-classes and correspond to a security processing node and a transmission forwarding node. First-Come-First-Served (FCFS) and Head-of-the-Line (HoL) are the adopted service disciplines together with Complete Buffer Sharing (CBS) and Partial Buffer Sharing (PBS) buffer management schemes. The mean response time and packet loss probability at each queue are employed as typical performance metrics. Numerical experiments are carried out, based on DES, in order to establish a balanced trade-off between security and performance towards the design and development of efficient router architectures under bursty traffic conditions. The proposed methodology is also applied into the evaluation of performance vs. security trade-offs of robotic ad hoc networks (RANETs) with mobility subject to Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and Selective Security (SS) protocols. WEP protocol is engaged to provide confidentiality and integrity to exchanged data amongst robotic nodes of a RANET and thus, to prevent data capturing by unauthorised users. WEP security mechanisms in RANETs, as infrastructure-less networks, are performed at each individual robotic node subject to traffic burstiness as well as nodal mobility. In this context, the proposed quantitative methodology is extended to incorporate an open QN model of a RANET with Gated queues (G-Queues), arbitrary topology and multiple classes of data packets with FCFS and HoL disciplines under bursty arrival traffic flows characterised by an Interrupted Compound Poisson Process (ICPP). SS is included in the Gated-QN (G-QN) model in order to establish an ¿optimal¿ performance vs. security trade-off. For this purpose, PEPs, such as the provision of multiple classes with HoL priorities and the availability of dual CPUs, are complemented by the inclusion of robot¿s mobility, enabling realistic decisions in mitigating the performance of mobile robotic nodes in the presence of security. The mean marginal end-to-end delay was adopted as the performance metric that gives indication on the security improvement. The proposed quantitative methodology is further enhanced by formulating an advanced hybrid framework for capturing ¿optimal¿ performance vs. security trade-offs for each node of a RANET by taking more explicitly into consideration security control and battery life. Specifically, each robotic node is represented by a hybrid Gated GSPN (G-GSPN) and a QN model. In this context, the G-GSPN incorporates bursty multiple class traffic flows, nodal mobility, security processing and control whilst the QN model has, generally, an arbitrary configuration with finite capacity channel queues reflecting ¿intra¿-robot (component-to-component) communication and ¿inter¿-robot transmissions. Two theoretical case studies from the literature are adapted to illustrate the utility of the QN towards modelling ¿intra¿ and ¿inter¿ robot communications. Extensions of the combined performance and security metrics (CPSMs) proposed in the literature are suggested to facilitate investigating and optimising RANET¿s performance vs. security trade-offs. This framework has a promising potential modelling more meaningfully and explicitly the behaviour of security processing and control mechanisms as well as capturing the robot¿s heterogeneity (in terms of the robot architecture and application/task context) in the near future (c.f. [1]. Moreover, this framework should enable testing robot¿s configurations during design and development stages of RANETs as well as modifying and tuning existing configurations of RANETs towards enhanced ¿optimal¿ performance and security trade-offs.Ministry of Higher Education in Libya and the Libyan Cultural Attaché bureau in Londo

Seventh Workshop and Tutorial on Practical Use of Coloured Petri Nets and the CPN Tools, Aarhus, Denmark, October 24-26, 2006

This booklet contains the proceedings of the Seventh Workshop on Practical Use of Coloured Petri Nets and the CPN Tools, October 24-26, 2006. The workshop is organised by the CPN group at the Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark. The papers are also available in electronic form via the web pages: http://www.daimi.au.dk/CPnets/workshop0