Algorithm Diversity for Resilient Systems

Diversity can significantly increase the resilience of systems, by reducing the prevalence of shared vulnerabilities and making vulnerabilities harder to exploit. Work on software diversity for security typically creates variants of a program using low-level code transformations. This paper is the first to study algorithm diversity for resilience. We first describe how a method based on high-level invariants and systematic incrementalization can be used to create algorithm variants. Executing multiple variants in parallel and comparing their outputs provides greater resilience than executing one variant. To prevent different parallel schedules from causing variants' behaviors to diverge, we present a synchronized execution algorithm for DistAlgo, an extension of Python for high-level, precise, executable specifications of distributed algorithms. We propose static and dynamic metrics for measuring diversity. An experimental evaluation of algorithm diversity combined with implementation-level diversity for several sequential algorithms and distributed algorithms shows the benefits of algorithm diversity

Research and development strategy 2012 in Organic farming and food "Growth, credibility and resilient systems"

This new overarching research and development strategy has been prepared by the programme committee at ICROFS in 2012. It describes the areas where a research effort would benefit the industry and also its importance to society. Research and development strategy 2012 is the result of a long hearing process, where stakeholders within and associated with the organic sector were given the opportunity to present their views on existing development potentials and barriers and where research and development activities will be able to make a difference. It has led to hoth new ideas and greater visions, which the sector believes are essential to ensure leaps in knowledge and development. The process has also uncovered very specific barriers and problems that require a solution to ensure the viability and credibility of the organic sector. It is ICROFS intention, that the strategy should form the starting point for forthcoming funding for research and development in organic food production

Constructing resilient systems in the historic south

The College of Charleston (C of C) is a South Carolina Liberal Arts College that prides itself on giving students a far-­‐reaching, multi-­‐disciplinary education. Developing a Restorative Agriculture Program in this environment has proven to fall within C of C’s stated appreciation for diverse learning. The Restorative Agriculture Program tackles issues of urban food production by practicing space-­‐intensive methods including companion planting, forest gardening, guilds, crop rotation, and intensive hot composting to utilize limited space for efficient production. This high intensity practice demands that resources are used in a strategic manner where nothing is wasted. With our gardens on campus, we demonstrate to the community and campus the many ways to alleviate waste while offering a location to do so, exemplified by the compost drop off we offer to campus. As a campus in a historic city, there are unique aesthetic and cultural guidelines we must adhere to. We have learned to use different protocols when educating others to create sustainable and creative communities. Similar to the plants we work with, we try to develop a network of support from different areas of the campus and community including various educational departments, the library, local horse stables, and surrounding stores and restaurants. Working with a variety of departments has built a synergistic arrangement where overlapping resources, knowledge bases, and support provide a larger opportunity to succeed. Currently the program is still in its beginning phases and the development to come will be fostered by current and future relationships in the Charleston community. As our knowledge widens with every experience, more opportunities develop to share this information to the larger community. Our program ultimately seeks to provide an alternative approach to learning about oneself, leadership, community, and active citizenry through restorative agriculture

Engineered Resilient Systems Model Applied to Network Design

Engineered Resilient Systems (ERS) is a Department of Defense (DoD) program focusing on the effective and efficient design and development of resilient complex engineered systems throughout their lifecycle. There is growing literature with qualitative definitions of resilience and quantitative models for systems, but these focus typically on systems with one performance measure. In application, many systems have multiple functions and multiple performance measures. This research uses a quantitative resilience framework for ERS that includes system design options, reliability, external threats, vulnerabilities, responses, and consequences assessed on multiple system performance measures. This paper applies the ERS framework to designing resilient networks

Using Value-Focused Thinking for Engineered Resilient Systems

The DoD needs their systems to be resilient in the face of an ever changing world. To increase resilience in future systems the DoD has created a program called Engineered Resilient Systems. Resilience can be broken down into two parts, mission and platform resilience. Mission resilience is the ability of a system to repel, resist, absorb, and recover from environments and threats that occur on planned missions. Platform resilience is the ability of a system platform to adapt to new missions and new threats. The University of Arkansas department of Industrial Engineering is working for the ERS program researching resilience. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the DoD decided their acquisition decisions need to focus on capability based planning instead of threat based planning. A value-focused thinking multiple objective decision analysis model has been a useful tool for capabilities based assessments. If all performance objectives can be categorized as mission or platform resilience, this extra value above the threshold of the minimum performance can provide mission and platform resilience. This information can be displayed in a value component chart, a floating value component chart, and as a reliance value and opportunity chart. These graphs allow decision makers to consider resilience in the acquisition decision making process

Graph-Based Controller Synthesis for Safety-Constrained, Resilient Systems

Resilience to damage, component degradation, and adversarial action is a critical consideration in design of autonomous systems. In addition to designing strategies that seek to prevent such negative events, it is vital that an autonomous system remains able to achieve its control objective even if the system partially loses control authority. While loss of authority limits the system's control capabilities, it may be possible to use the remaining authority in such a way that the system's control objectives remain achievable. In this paper, we consider the problem of optimal design for an autonomous system with discrete-time linear dynamics where the available control actions depend on adversarial input produced as a result of loss of authority. The central question is how to partition the set of control inputs that the system can apply in such a way that the system state remains within a safe set regardless of an adversarial input limiting the available control inputs to a single partition elements. We interpret such a problem first as a variant of a safety game, and then as a problem of existence of an appropriate edge labeling on a graph. We obtain conditions for existence and a computationally efficient algorithm for determining a system design and a control policy that preserve system safety. We illustrate our results on two examples: a damaged autonomous vehicle and a method of communication over a channel that ensures a minimal running digital sum.Comment: 56th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computin

Are Safe and Resilient Systems less Effective and Productive?

During the last 50 years, people have become considerably more physical and virtually connected due to a more modern and mobile world, and new technologies for collaboration and communication, such as mobile phones, satellites and internet. Next era will likely be the introduction of autonomy that is still in its start phase. By increased global mobility and transport, people and transport solutions expect to be more efficient and productive. At the same time, the development implies challenges due to continuous technological and context changes, resulting in potential new risks and accidents. However, are safety and effectiveness two poles at the same dimension, meaning that increasing one means decreasing the other? Or - Is it possible to increase productivity and effectivity and at the same time maintaining safety? The purpose of this paper is to increase the awareness of adequate planning in order to improve resilience/safety and effectivity. Planning is important to cope with opportunities and challenges, and theoretical perspectives on planning and management may be useful. The paper uses scenarios from autonomous shipping to illustrate increased system complexity and interrelations between components.publishedVersio

U.S. Attitudes toward Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Report to the Resilient Systems Division, Science and Technology Directorate, U.S Department of Homeland Security

Existing survey data do not provide comprehensive baseline information about U.S. beliefs and attitudes on terrorism and counterterrorism. Improved understanding of public attitudes can inform programs and tools related to managing public risk perception, increasing effectiveness of pre- and post-event communication by Federal, state, and local officials, and building and supporting more resilient social networks within and across communities.In this project, systematic survey data was collected from a sample of Americans in response to a range of newly developed survey questions. The survey was developed by two leading survey methodologists, following consultations with a research team of experts who study the dynamics of terrorism, counterterrorism, and community resilience, as well as with practitioners and officials from throughout the homeland security community. The questions were administered to members of a web panel by the on-line survey firm Knowledge Networks, and a second wave of the survey will be issued approximately six months after the first wave to allow for analysis of attitudes over time.The first wave of the questionnaire was completed, from September 28, 2012 to October 12, 2012, by 1,576 individuals 18 years of age and older. The first section of the questionnaire assessed the salience of terrorism by asking respondents whether they had thought about terrorism in the preceding week, how likely they thought a terrorist attack in the United States was in the next year, and whether they had done anything differently in the past year because of the possibility of such an attack. The second section of the questionnaire posed questions about how likely respondents would be to call the police in response to various actions potentially related to terrorism and how concerned respondents felt the government should be about these actions. Respondents who said they had thought about a terrorist attack in the last week were more likely than other respondents to say they were likely to call the police in response to the various situations described to them. The survey then assessed respondents' awareness and evaluation of government efforts related to terrorism in the United States. A large majority of the respondents said that the U.S. government has been very effective (33 percent) or somewhat effective (54 percent) at preventing terrorism; less than 13 percent characterized the government as not too effective or not effective at all.In a final section of the survey, we asked respondents about two specific programs focused on increasing communication between members of the public and the government on topics related to terrorism