ERIGrid Holistic Test Description for Validating Cyber-Physical Energy Systems

Smart energy solutions aim to modify and optimise the operation of existing energy infrastructure. Such cyber-physical technology must be mature before deployment to the actual infrastructure, and competitive solutions will have to be compliant to standards still under development. Achieving this technology readiness and harmonisation requires reproducible experiments and appropriately realistic testing environments. Such testbeds for multi-domain cyber-physical experiments are complex in and of themselves. This work addresses a method for the scoping and design of experiments where both testbed and solution each require detailed expertise. This empirical work first revisited present test description approaches, developed a newdescription method for cyber-physical energy systems testing, and matured it by means of user involvement. The new Holistic Test Description (HTD) method facilitates the conception, deconstruction and reproduction of complex experimental designs in the domains of cyber-physical energy systems. This work develops the background and motivation, offers a guideline and examples to the proposed approach, and summarises experience from three years of its application.This work received funding in the European Community’s Horizon 2020 Program (H2020/2014–2020) under project “ERIGrid” (Grant Agreement No. 654113)

Patterns of information security postures for socio-technical systems and systems-of-systems

This paper describes a proposal to develop patterns of security postures for computer based socio-technical systems and systems-of-systems. Such systems typically span many organisational boundaries, integrating multiple computer systems, infrastructures and organisational processes. The paper describes the motivation for the proposed work, and our approach to the development, specification, integration and validation of security patterns for socio-technical and system-of-system scale systems

Sibling violence: validating a two-factor model of severity in nonoffender populations

Objective: Despite a recent surge of academic and clinical interest in sibling violence (SV), valid measures of severity have not been psychometrically established using non-offender populations. This study examined the factor-structure of intentional SV severity in a non-forensic sample considered to be not at ‘high-risk’ for violence, using the only existing empirically-driven model of severe SV committed with intent (Khan & Cooke, 2013). The prior model was established in a high-risk for violence, young offender sample (N=111; mean age=14.53) and revealed two underlying factors: ‘SV with weapon use’ and ‘SV without weapon use’. Method: This study examined data from an older, mixed community and student sample (N=899; mean=22.53) to test the factor structure and reliability of the existing severity model. Results: Participants reported a wide range of violent acts against their sibling(s) with aim of injuring them, including weapon use. Using exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses, the prior 2-factor model was empirically supported using this non-correctional population. The new model comprised Factor 1 (potentially lethal SV) and Factor 2 (non-life threatening SV). Conclusion: The generalizability of the original 2-factor model, established using an offender sample, was demonstrated in this non-offender sample designated not at ‘high risk’ for violence

Building Blocks for Control System Software

Software implementation of control laws for industrial systems seem straightforward, but is not. The computer code stemming from the control laws is mostly not more than 10 to 30% of the total. A building-block approach for embedded control system development is advocated to enable a fast and efficient software design process.\ud We have developed the CTJ library, Communicating Threads for Java¿,\ud resulting in fundamental elements for creating building blocks to implement communication using channels. Due to the simulate-ability, our building block method is suitable for a concurrent engineering design approach. Furthermore, via a stepwise refinement process, using verification by simulation, the implementation trajectory can be done efficiently

TURTLE-P: a UML profile for the formal validation of critical and distributed systems

The timed UML and RT-LOTOS environment, or TURTLE for short, extends UML class and activity diagrams with composition and temporal operators. TURTLE is a real-time UML profile with a formal semantics expressed in RT-LOTOS. Further, it is supported by a formal validation toolkit. This paper introduces TURTLE-P, an extended profile no longer restricted to the abstract modeling of distributed systems. Indeed, TURTLE-P addresses the concrete descriptions of communication architectures, including quality of service parameters (delay, jitter, etc.). This new profile enables co-design of hardware and software components with extended UML component and deployment diagrams. Properties of these diagrams can be evaluated and/or validated thanks to the formal semantics given in RT-LOTOS. The application of TURTLE-P is illustrated with a telecommunication satellite system