Resilient Critical Infrastructure Management using Service Oriented Architecture

Abstract—The SERSCIS project aims to support the use of interconnected systems of services in Critical Infrastructure (CI) applications. The problem of system interconnectedness is aptly demonstrated by ‘Airport Collaborative Decision Making’ (ACDM). Failure or underperformance of any of the interlinked ICT systems may compromise the ability of airports to plan their use of resources to sustain high levels of air traffic, or to provide accurate aircraft movement forecasts to the wider European air traffic management systems. The proposed solution is to introduce further SERSCIS ICT components to manage dependability and interdependency. These use semantic models of the critical infrastructure, including its ICT services, to identify faults and potential risks and to increase human awareness of them. Semantics allows information and services to be described in such a way that makes them understandable to computers. Thus when a failure (or a threat of failure) is detected, SERSCIS components can take action to manage the consequences, including changing the interdependency relationships between services. In some cases, the components will be able to take action autonomously — e.g. to manage ‘local’ issues such as the allocation of CPU time to maintain service performance, or the selection of services where there are redundant sources available. In other cases the components will alert human operators so they can take action instead. The goal of this paper is to describe a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) that can be used to address the management of ICT components and interdependencies in critical infrastructure systems. Index Terms—resilience; QoS; SOA; critical infrastructure, SLA

Rational expectations and near rational alternatives: How best to form expectations

Learning rules are increasingly being used in macroeconomic models. However one criticism that has been levelled at this assumption is that the choice of variables for inclusion in the learning rule, and the actual specification of the learning rule itself, is arbitrary. In this paper we test how important the particular learning rule specification is by incorporating a battery of learning rules into a large-scale macro model. The model's dynamics are then compared to those from a version of the model simulated under rational expectations (RE). The results indicate that although there are large differences between the RE solution and each of the solutions under learning, differences amongst the learning rule solutions are minor JEL Classification: C53, E43, F33

Effective PSHE education: values, purposes and future directions

This article explores the perceived effectiveness of personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education in primary and secondary schools. It outlines the relationship between perceived effectiveness and a range of explanatory factors, linking these to the values and ethos of schools, differing views of the purposes of PSHE education, and long-standing policy agendas. We conclude by attempting to locate PSHE education in the new and rapidly evolving policy context and discuss some potential ways forward, as established means of support and challenge disappear. The data utilised in the paper come from a mapping and effectiveness study of PSHE education in both primary and secondary schools throughout England, which was conducted by Sheffield Hallam University on behalf of the Department for Education

Materials for Product Design

The realisation of any product depends on the manipulation of appropriate materials. Materials and manufacturing processes must be selected in relation to the required service performance, the available manufacturing resources and the acceptable cost. Designers need to understand the implications of these choices and be sensitive to the forms their products must take if they are to avoid unnecessary compromises between aesthetic requirements and efficient production. Traditionally it may have been acceptable for designers to hand over 'concept designs' to production engineers to modify as necessary, but a more holistic approach to design development is now expected. The educational experiences of undergraduates on the Design and Technology three year degree programme should enable them to participate fully in a modern integrated approach to product design

On the voltage and distance across the low latitude boundary layer

A pass of the AMPTE-UKS satellite through the low-latitude boundary layer (LLBL) at 8:30 MLT is studied in detail. The magnetosheath field is predominantly northward. It is shown that multiple transitions through part or all of the layer of antisunward flow lead to overestimation of both the voltage across this layer and its width. The voltage is estimated to be only about 3 kV and this implies that the full LLBL is about 1200 km thick, consistent with previous studies