Masterminding change by combining secure system design with security risk assessment

This track introduction presents the results of the Workshop on Security practices for Internet of Things, SPIoT held at ETAPS in Prague in April 2019. For this Special Issue of STTT, we have selected, invited and edited three distinguished papers. We briefly recall the aims, summarize the Workshop held in Prague and introduce the selected papers

PRM113 - Timed Automata Modeling of The Personalized Treatment Decisions In Metastatic Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer

Objectives\ud The Timed Automata modeling paradigm has emerged from Computer Science as a mature tool for the functional analysis and performance evaluation of timed distributed systems. This study is a first exploration of the suitability of Timed Automata for health economic modeling, using a case study on personalized treatment for metastatic Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer (mCRPC).\ud \ud Methods\ud The treatment process has been modeled by creating several independent timed automata, where an automaton represents a patient, a physician, a test, or a treatment/testing guideline schedule. These automata interact via message passing and are fully parameterized with quantitative information. Messages can be passed, asynchronously, from one automaton to one or more other automata, at any point in time, thereby triggering events and decisions in the treatment process. In the automata time is continuous, and both QALYs and costs can be incorporated using (assignable) local clocks. Uncertainty can be modeled using probabilities and timing intervals that can be uniformly or exponentially distributed. Software for building timed automata is freely available for academic use and includes procedures for statistical model checking (SMC) to validate the (internal) behavior and results of the model.\ud \ud Results\ud In several days a Timed Automata model has been produced that is compositional, easy to understand and easy to update. The behavior and results of the model have been assessed using the SMC tool. Actual results for the mCRPC case study obtained from the Timed Automata model are compared with results of a Discrete Event Simulation model in a separate study.\ud \ud Conclusions\ud The Timed Automata paradigm can be successfully applied to evaluate the potential benefits of a personalized treatment process of mCRPC. The compositional nature of the resulting model provides a good separation of all relevant components. This leads to models that are easy to formulate, validate, understand, maintain and update

The central role of Italy in the spatial spread of USUTU virus in Europe

USUTU virus (USUV) is an arbovirus maintained in the environment through a bird-mosquito enzootic cycle. Previous surveillance plans highlighted the endemicity of USUV in North-eastern Italy. In this work, we sequenced 138 new USUV full genomes from mosquito pools (Culex pipiens) and wild birds collected in North-eastern Italy and we investigated the evolutionary processes (phylogenetic analysis, selection pressure and evolutionary time-scale analysis) and spatial spread of USUV strains circulating in the European context and in Italy, with a particular focus on North-eastern Italy. Our results confirmed the circulation of viruses belonging to four different lineages in Italy (EU1, EU2, EU3 and EU4), with the newly sequenced viruses from the North-eastern regions, Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia, belonging to the EU2 lineage and clustering into two different sub-lineages, EU2-A and EU2-B. Specific mutations characterize each European lineage and geographic location seem to have shaped their phylogenetic structure. By investigating the spatial spread in Europe, we were able to show that Italy acted mainly as donor of USUV to neighbouring countries. At a national level, we identified two geographical clusters mainly circulating in Northern and North-western Italy, spreading both northward and southward. Our analyses provide important information on the spatial and evolutionary dynamics of USUTU virus that can help to improve surveillance plans and control strategies for this virus of increasing concern for human health