Very Low Cost Entropy Source Based on Chaotic Dynamics Retrofittable on Networked Devices to Prevent RNG Attacks

Good quality entropy sources are indispensable in most modern cryptographic protocols. Unfortunately, many currently deployed networked devices do not include them and may be vulnerable to Random Number Generator (RNG) attacks. Since most of these systems allow firmware upgrades and have serial communication facilities, the potential for retrofitting them with secure hardware-based entropy sources exists. To this aim, very low-cost, robust, easy to deploy solutions are required. Here, a retrofittable, sub 10$ entropy source based on chaotic dynamics is illustrated, capable of a 32 kbit/s rate or more and offering multiple serial communication options including USB, I2C, SPI or USART. Operation is based on a loop built around the Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) hosted on a standard microcontroller.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures. Pre-print from conference proceedings; IEEE 21th International Conference on Electronics, Circuits, and Systems (ICECS 2014), pp. 175-178, Dec. 201

ARIPAR 5.0: Reference Manual: Software Tool for Area Risk Assessment and Management

ARIPAR is a quantitative area risk assessment tool used to evaluate the risk resulting from major accidents in industrial areas where hazardous substances are stored, proc-essed and transported. It is based on a geographical information system platform (GIS). This tool has already been applied to perform a quantitative area risk assess-ment in several industrial areas, and it has been demonstrated to be a very powerful tool also for managing industrial risk. ARIPAR 5.0 is the new release of the software, which embeds several new features and improvements, such as a completely new de-velopment platform based on ArcGIS and a much more powerful module for dealing with consequence assessment data. The present document represents the Reference Manual of ARIPAR 5.0, which describes all commands, dialogs, risk analysis equa-tions, input data format and reporting available in this software package.JRC.G.6-Security technology assessmen

On Software Interoperability for Accident Consequence Assessment

The present report describes the outcome of a feasibility study to explore the possibility to make consequence assessment software tools interoperable through the definition of a suitable Common Data Exchange Format (CDEF). In this way the input data used by the operators of Seveso type establishments for consequence assessment can be easily exported in a format compatible with the corresponding tools in use by the competent authority. As an outcome of this feasibility study, a first prototype of CDEF was developed in XML and applied for data exchange amongst different commercially available consequence-related tools. The software CEM to rapidly compare the results of two software packages for accident consequence assessment has been implemented to prove the usefulness of the CDEF. Another test consisted in importing into ARIPAR, a GIS-based tool for area risk analysis, the results of accident consequences obtained using the commercial software packages PHAST, EFFECTS, and ALHOA.JRC.G.7-Traceability and vulnerability assessmen

Concurrent Importance and Sensitivity Analysis Applied to Multiple Fault Trees

Complex industrial systems may present different potentially dangerous failure states (Top-events). The analysis of system failure states via Fault-tree technique allows determining the failure frequency of potential accidents and the importance measures of components' failure modes. The combination of Importance and Sensitivity Analysis (ISA) constitutes a very powerful tool to improve the design of critical systems or to prove that the design satisfies safety requirements. The present reports describes a novel approach to implement Importance and Sensitivity analysis applied to Fault-trees, which consists of the concurrent analysis of all relevant system's Fault-trees to identify the weakest parts of the system which require further design improvement. This approach aims at overcoming the limitations of the current methods in application for ISA in which Top-events are sequentially analysed. In addition the proposed method extends the ISA application also to 'over-reliable' system functions (if any) on which the reliability/maintainability characteristics of the involved components can be relaxed with consequent cost saving. The result is a uniformly protected system satisfying the predefined design goals.JRC.G.7-Traceability and vulnerability assessmen

Benchmark Exercise in Quantitative Area Risk Assessment in Central and Eastern European Countries (BEQUAR) Final Report

Abstract is not availableJRC.G.4-Maritime affair

Growing Strong and Healthy with Mister Bone: An Educational Program to Have Strong Bones Later in Life.

Optimal peak bone mass and bone health later in life are favored by a sufficient calcium intake in infancy, childhood and adolescence. The purpose of this study was to test a new educational program created to monitor and to improve calcium and vitamin D intake in children. Nutritional habits in children were evaluated through a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) to assess the intake of calcium, vitamin D, dairy products, and total caloric energy at baseline and after seven months of exposure to a unique educational program applied between November 2013 and May 2014 in 176 schoolchildren (48% male, 52% female) attending the fourth and fifth grades of two selected primary schools in Florence, Italy. A significant increase of calcium (from 870 ± 190 to 1100 ± 200 mg/day, p < 0.05), and vitamin D (from 3.6 ± 1.53 to 4.1 ± 2 µg/day) intake in children was documented after the educational program. The amount of specific foods important for bone health consumed, such as milk and vegetables, increased significantly, both in male and female children (p < 0.05). The proposed educational program appears to be effective in modifying calcium intake in children, with a significant increase in the consumption of dairy products and vegetables, but without a significant change in the total caloric intake

Aligned carbon nanotube based ultrasonic microtransducers for durability monitoring in civil engineering

International audienceStructural health monitoring of porous materials such as concrete is becoming a major component in our resource-limited economy, as it conditions durable exploitation of existing facilities. Durability in porous materials depends on nanoscale features which need to be monitored in situ with nanometric resolution. To address this problem, we put forward an approach based on the development of a new nanosensor, namely a capacitive micrometric ultrasonic transducer whose vibrating membrane is made of aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT). Such sensors are meant to be embedded in large numbers within a porous material in order to provide information on its durability by monitoring in situ neighboring individual micropores. In the present paper, we report on the feasibility of the key building block of the proposed sensor: we have fabricated well-aligned, ultra-thin, dense SWNT membranes that show above-nanometer amplitudes of vibration over a large range of frequencies spanning from 100 kHz to 5 MHz

Micro−transducteur ultrasonique capacitif à membrane de nanotubes de carbone : Perspectives pour le suivi immergé de la durabilité des matériaux cimentaires

Nous présentons des éléments de la conception, la réalisation et la caractérisation d'un micro−transducteur ultrasonique capacitif haute-fréquence dont la membrane vibrante est faite de nanotubes de carbone alignés. Le dispositif est conçu spécifiquement pour l'instrumentation immergée de la microporosité des matériaux cimentaires. La modélisation élasto−acoustique du dispositif valide préliminairement son intérêt applicatif pour la métrologie de la microporosité