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

Cross-middleware Interoperability in Distributed Concurrent Engineering

Secure, distributed collaboration between different organizations is a key challenge in Grid computing today. The GDCD project has produced a Grid-based demonstrator Virtual Collaborative Facility (VCF) for the European Space Agency. The purpose of this work is to show the potential of Grid technology to support fully distributed concurrent design, while addressing practical considerations including network security, interoperability, and integration of legacy applications. The VCF allows domain engineers to use the concurrent design methodology in a distributed fashion to perform studies for future space missions. To demonstrate the interoperability and integration capabilities of Grid computing in concurrent design, we developed prototype VCF components based on ESA’s current Excel-based Concurrent Design Facility (a non-distributed environment), using a STEP-compliant database that stores design parameters. The database was exposed as a secure GRIA 5.1 Grid service, whilst a .NET/WSE3.0-based library was developed to enable secure communication between the Excel client and STEP database

Taming the interoperability challenges of complex IoT systems

of communication protocols and data formats; hence ensuring diverse devices can interoperate with one another remains a significant challenge. Model-driven development and testing solutions have been proposed as methods to aid software developers achieve interoperability compliance in the face of this increasing complexity. However, current approaches often involve complicated and domain specific models (e.g. web services described by WSDL). In this paper, we explore a lightweight, middleware independent, model-driven development framework to help developers tame the challenges of composing IoT services that interoperate with one another. The framework is based upon two key contributions: i) patterns of interoperability behaviour, and ii) a software framework to monitor and reason about interoperability success or failure. We show using a case-study from the FI-WARE Future Internet Service domain that this interoperability framework can support non-expert developers address interoperability challenges. We also deployed tools built atop the framework and made them available in the XIFI large-scale FI-PPP test environment

Run-time risk management in adaptive ICT systems

We will present results of the SERSCIS project related to risk management and mitigation strategies in adaptive multi-stakeholder ICT systems. The SERSCIS approach involves using semantic threat models to support automated design-time threat identification and mitigation analysis. The focus of this paper is the use of these models at run-time for automated threat detection and diagnosis. This is based on a combination of semantic reasoning and Bayesian inference applied to run-time system monitoring data. The resulting dynamic risk management approach is compared to a conventional ISO 27000 type approach, and validation test results presented from an Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) scenario involving data exchange between multiple airport service providers

Using sorbent waste materials to enhance treatment of micro-point source effluents by constructed wetlands

Sorbent materials are widely used in environmental settings as a means of = enhancing pollution remediation. A key area of environmental concern is that of water pollution, including the need to treat micro-point sources of wastewater pollution, such as from caravan sites or visitor centres. Constructed wetlands (CWs) represent one means for effective treatment of wastewater from small wastewater producers, in part because they are believed to be economically viable and environmentally sustainable. Constructed wetlands have the potential to remove a range of pollutants found in wastewater, including nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and carbon (C), whilst also reducing the total suspended solids (TSS) concentration in effluents. However, there remain particular challenges for P and N removal from wastewater in CWs, as well as the sometimes limited BOD removal within these treatment systems, particularly for micro-point sources of wastewater. It has been hypothesised that the amendment of CWs with sorbent materials can enhance their potential to treat wastewater, particularly through enhancing the removal of N and P. This paper focuses on data from batch and mesocosm studies that were conducted to identify and assess sorbent materials suitable for use within CWs. The aim in using sorbent material was to enhance the combined removal of phosphate (PO4-P) and ammonium (NH4-N). The key selection criteria for the sorbent materials were that they possess effective PO4-P, NH4-N or combined pollutant removal, come from low cost and sustainable sources, have potential for reuse, for example as a fertiliser or soil conditioner, and show limited potential for re-release of adsorbed nutrients. The sorbent materials selected for testing were alum sludge from water treatment works, ochre derived from minewater treatment, biochar derived from various feedstocks, plasterboard and zeolite. The performance of the individual sorbents was assessed through preliminary desorption studies, isotherm and kinetic adsorption studies, as well as through final desorption studies. Batch studies demonstrated that alum sludge and ochre effectively removed PO4-P from solution (maximum sorption capacity up to 45 mg/g), whilst biochar from both bamboo and rice feedstocks demonstrated effective removal of NH4-N from solution. The potential benefit of using combined reactive media in conjunction with wastewater recirculation to enhance N, P and C treatment was examined using mesocosm studies, and we report initial data from these mesocosm studies

National Crystallography Service (NCS) Grid Service

Conference poster about the NCS Grid Service.The EPSRC funded National Crystallography Service (NCS) is a facility available to the entire UK academic Chemistry community. The EPSRC funds a team of experts and 'state of the art' instrumentation, based in Southampton University School of Chemistry, to provide this service. This is an exceptionally important service as crystal structure determination is easily the most information rich method of characterisation of a compound and many research papers cannot be published without confirmation of identity by crystal structure analysis

Identifying privacy risks in distributed data services:A model-driven approach

Online services are becoming increasingly data-centric; they collect, process, analyze and anonymously disclose growing amounts of personal data. It is crucial that such systems are engineered in a privacy-aware manner in order to satisfy both the privacy requirements of the user, and the legal privacy regulations that the system operates under. How can system developers be better supported to create privacy-aware systems and help them to understand and identify privacy risks? Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) offers a principled approach to engineer systems software. The capture of shared domain knowledge in models and corresponding tool support can increase the developers' understanding. In this paper, we argue for the application of MDE approaches to engineer privacy-aware systems. We present a general purpose privacy model and methodology that can be used to analyse and identify privacy risks in systems that comprise both access control and data pseudonymization enforcement technologies. We evaluate this method using a case-study based approach and show how the model can be applied to engineer privacy-aware systems and privacy policies that reduce the risk of unintended disclosure

Model-driven interoperability: engineering heterogeneous IoT systems

Interoperability remains a significant burden to the developers of Internet of Things systems. This is because resources and APIs are dynamically composed; they are highly heterogeneous in terms of their underlying communication technologies, protocols and data formats, and interoperability tools remain limited to enforcing standards-based approaches. In this paper, we propose model-based engineering methods to reduce the development effort towards ensuring that complex software systems interoperate with one another. Lightweight interoperability models can be specified in order to monitor and test the execution of running software so that interoperability problems can be quickly identified, and solutions put in place. A graphical model editor and testing tool are also presented to highlight how a visual model improves upon textual specifications. We show using case-studies from the FIWARE Future Internet Service domain that the software framework can support non-expert developers to address interoperability challenges

New approaches to enhance pollutant removal in artificially aerated wastewater treatment systems

Freshwater ecosystems sustain human society through the provision of a range of services. However, the status of these ecosystems is threatened by a multitude of pressures, including point sources of wastewater. Future treatment of wastewater will increasingly require new forms of decentralised infrastructure. The research reported here sought to enhance pollutant removal within a novel wastewater treatment technology, based on un-planted, artificially aerated, horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands. The potential for these systems to treat de-icer contaminated runoff from airports, a source of wastewater that is likely to grow in importance alongside the expansion of air travel and under future climate scenarios, was evaluated. A new configuration for the delivery of air to aerated treatment systems was developed and tested, based on a phased-aeration approach. This new aeration approach significantly improved pollutant removal efficiency compared to alternative aeration configurations, achieving > 90 % removal of influent load for COD, BOD5 and TOC. Optimised operating conditions under phased aeration were also determined. Based on a hydraulic retention time of 1.5 d and a pollutant mass loading rate of 0.10 kg d⁻¹ m⁻² BOD₅, > 95 % BOD5 removal, alongside final effluent BOD5 concentrations 800 mg L-1. Key controls on oxygen transfer efficiency within the aerated treatment system were also determined, revealing that standard oxygen transfer efficiency was inversely related to aeration rate between 1 L and 3 L min-1 and positively related to bed media depth between 1,500 mm and 3,000 mm. The research reported here highlights the potential for optimisation and subsequent widespread application of the aerated wetland technology, in order to protect and restore freshwater ecosystems and the services that they provide to human society