Energy Sustainability of Turkey in the Case of LNG

Energy is both vital and strategic element for a nation to sustain its fundamental activities like security, logistics, heating, etc. Countries sustain their energy demands through internal or external sources. In the case of not being able to maintain energy demands from their internal sources, they would need to import their requirements. Whenever they need to buy raw materials, they have to build terminals to process the raw material into the required form. The dependency on the imports may cause the importing country to weaken its advantage in international conflicts, unemployment, and welfare. Therefore, countries aim to mitigate dependence to one country and seek for alternate countries. To keep the energy sustainable, they should not be dependent on a sole supplier country. A state chooses to increase its number of providers; it might cause economic advantages or disadvantages regarding the type of material. Besides, particular type of resources requires specific terminals, facilities, and technology to process the material to be ready to consume. Consequently, decision-makers should employ a holistic approach that should comprehend all of the aspects of the situation. We study the case of importing and building a terminal of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to define criteria in maintaining the energy sustainability and profitability of Turkey

Blockchain for a Resilient, Efficient, and Effective Supply Chain, Evidence from Cases

In the modern acquisition, it is unrealistic to consider single entities as producing and delivering a product independently. Acquisitions usually take place through supply networks. Resiliency, efficiency, and effectiveness of supply networks directly contribute to the acquisition system\u27s resiliency, efficiency, and effectiveness. All the involved firms form a part of a supply network essential to producing the product or service. The decision-makers have to look for new methodologies for supply chain management. Blockchain technology introduces new methods of decentralization and delegation of services, which can transform supply chains and result in a more resilient, efficient, and effective supply chain. This research aims to review and analyze the selected current blockchain technology adoptions to enhance the resiliency of supply network management by facilitating collaboration and communication among suppliers and support the decision-making process. In the first part of this study, we discuss the limitations and challenges of the supply chain system that can be addressed by integrating blockchain technology. In the final part, we analyze multiple blockchain-based supply chain use cases to identify how the main features of blockchain are suited best for supply network management

Cybersecurity Acquisition Framework Based on Risk Management: Economics Perspective

Acquisition Research Program Sponsored Report SeriesSponsored Acquisition Research & Technical ReportsCyber attacks continuously target organizations, however, the mitigation actions taken for defense are not sufficiently effective. Ability to compute the cost of attacks is crucial to assess the effectiveness of countermeasure investments. In this study, we developed a framework to have a well-informed decision-making process in cybersecurity acquisition by evaluating the business impact caused by the operability losses of assets. We tested the developed framework using various attack and mitigation scenarios. The findings suggest that using a simulation approach to calculate the business impact of cyber attacks provides the ability to support decision-making process.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Exploring Blockchain Adoption Supply Chains: Opportunities and Challenges

Acquisition Management / Grant technical reportAcquisition Research Program Sponsored Report SeriesSponsored Acquisition Research & Technical ReportsIn modern supply chains, acquisition often occurs with the involvement of a network of organizations. The resilience, efficiency, and effectiveness of supply networks are crucial for the viability of acquisition. Disruptions in the supply chain require adequate communication infrastructure to ensure resilience. However, supply networks do not have a shared information technology infrastructure that ensures effective communication. Therefore decision-makers seek new methodologies for supply chain management resilience. Blockchain technology offers new decentralization and service delegation methods that can transform supply chains and result in a more flexible, efficient, and effective supply chain. This report presents a framework for the application of Blockchain technology in supply chain management to improve resilience. In the first part of this study, we discuss the limitations and challenges of the supply chain system that can be addressed by integrating Blockchain technology. In the second part, the report provides a comprehensive Blockchain-based supply chain network management framework. The application of the proposed framework is demonstrated using modeling and simulation. The differences in the simulation scenarios can provide guidance for decision-makers who consider using the developed framework during the acquisition process.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Cyber Third-Party Risk Management: A Comparison of Non-Intrusive Risk Scoring Reports

Cybersecurity is a concern for organizations in this era. However, strengthening the security of an organization’s internal network may not be sufficient since modern organizations depend on third parties, and these dependencies may open new attack paths to cybercriminals. Cyber Third-Party Risk Management (C-TPRM) is a relatively new concept in the business world. All vendors or partners possess a potential security vulnerability and threat. Even if an organization has the best cybersecurity practice, its data, customers, and reputation may be at risk because of a third party. Organizations seek effective and efficient methods to assess their partners’ cybersecurity risks. In addition to intrusive methods to assess an organization’s cybersecurity risks, such as penetration testing, non-intrusive methods are emerging to conduct C-TPRM more easily by synthesizing the publicly available information without requiring any involvement of the subject organization. In this study, the existing methods for C-TPRM built by different companies are presented and compared to discover the commonly used indicators and criteria for the assessments. Additionally, the results of different methods assessing the cybersecurity risks of a specific organization were compared to examine reliability and consistency. The results showed that even if there is a similarity among the results, the provided security scores do not entirely converge

Integration of Blockchain Technology into Supply Network for Resilient and Efficient Acquisition [video]

In the modern acquisition, it is unrealistic to consider single entities as producing and delivering a product independently. Acquisitions usually take place through supply networks. Resiliency, efficiency, and effectiveness of supply networks directly contribute to the acquisition system\u27s resiliency, efficiency, and effectiveness. All the involved firms form a part of a supply network essential to producing the product or service. The decision-makers have to look for new methodologies for supply chain management. Blockchain technology introduces new methods of decentralization and delegation of services, which can transform supply chains and result in a more resilient, efficient, and effective supply chain. This research aims to review and analyze the selected current blockchain technology adoptions to enhance the resiliency of supply network management by facilitating collaboration and communication among suppliers and support the decision-making process. In the first part of this study, we discuss the limitations and challenges of the supply chain system that can be addressed by integrating blockchain technology. In the final part, we analyze multiple blockchain-based supply chain use cases to identify how the main features of blockchain are suited best for supply network management

The Impact of Human Assurance on Satellite Operations

Mission assurance is a method to guarantee mission success against a known set of risks; mission assurance is generally represented as a probability against a threshold of acceptable performance. Human assurance can be considered as the likelihood of acceptable operator performance given a set of conditions that include the operator, the system, and the environment. Standard mission assurance models tend to assume a qualified crew, but do not include other aspects of the internal or external environment that may impact the reliability of the human operator. A human assurance model can be created that allows the exploration of the variability in operator performance due to the likelihood of different risks. An example human assurance model has been created for the detection of adverse trending satellite data and the need to modify the existing mission schedule to address the satellite emergency. The model leverages the Human Viewpoint framework to capture the human-focused data within the mission context. From this data, sources of risk can be identified for the socio-technical system and a risk framework developed. The resulting risk model allows exploration of the characteristics of both the operator and the operating environment, as well as the impact of organizational mitigations, on the likelihood that the socio-technical system will meet mission assurance thresholds. The method provided can be used to identify the limitations of human system performance against the established criteria

Evaluation of the effect of mitral stenosis severity on the left ventricular systolic function using isovolumic myocardial acceleration

Background: Isovolumic acceleration (IVA) is a new tissue Doppler parameter in the as­sessment of systolic function of both left and right ventricles. It remains unaffected with the changes in pre- and after-load within the physiological range. The aim of our study was to assess the effect of mitral stenosis degree, which is determined by echocardiography, on the left ventricular (LV) function using IVA. Methods: A total number of 62 patients with mitral stenosis (MS) and 32 healthy controls were examined. The severity of MS (mild, moderate, and severe) was determined on the basis of mitral valve area (MVA) and the mean diastolic mitral gradient findings. The peak myocardial velocities during isovolumic contraction, systole, early diastole and late diastole were measured by using tissue Doppler imaging (TDI). Results: All TDI-derived global LV basal wall systolic (peak myocardial isovolumic contra­ction velocity, peak myocardial systolic velocity and IVA), and diastolic velocities (peak early and late diastolic velocities) were significantly decreased in the patients with MS, compared to the healthy patients (p < 0.001, for all). However, IVA was not different when the degree of MS was evaluated (p = 0.114). In addition, IVA was not correlated with the MVA (r = 0.185, p = 0.150). Conclusions: Left ventricular function is impaired in patients with MS regardless of the severity of the disease.

Splenic infarction as a complication of celiac artery thromboembolism: an unusual cause of abdominal pain

Splenic infarction is a relatively uncommon diagnosis and this clinical presentation can mimic other causes of acute abdominal pain. Cardiologic and hematologic disorders are common reasons for this entity. There have been a few series and single case reports of splenic infarction published in peer-reviewed medical journals. We report a 53-year-old patient who had splenic infarction caused by celiac artery thromboembolism. The importance of this case, without any etiological predisposing factors, is that this kind of clinical situation should be considered in the differential diagnosis of abdominal pain