Increasing the Resilience of Cyber Physical Systems in Smart Grid Environments using Dynamic Cells

Resilience is an important system property that relies on the ability of a system to automatically recover from a degraded state so as to continue providing its services. Resilient systems have the means of detecting faults and failures with the added capability of automatically restoring their normal operations. Mastering resilience in the domain of Cyber-Physical Systems is challenging due to the interdependence of hybrid hardware and software components, along with physical limitations, laws, regulations and standards, among others. In order to overcome these challenges, this paper presents a modeling approach, based on the concept of Dynamic Cells, tailored to the management of Smart Grids. Additionally, a heuristic algorithm that works on top of the proposed modeling approach, to find resilient configurations, has been defined and implemented. More specifically, the model supports a flexible representation of Smart Grids and the algorithm is able to manage, at different abstraction levels, the resource consumption of individual grid elements on the presence of failures and faults. Finally, the proposal is evaluated in a test scenario where the effectiveness of such approach, when dealing with complex scenarios where adequate solutions are difficult to find, is shown

An Algorithm for the Detection of Hidden Propaganda in Mixed-Code Text over the Internet

Internet-based communication systems have become an increasing tool for spreading misinformation and propaganda. Even though there exist mechanisms that are able to track unwarranted information and messages, users made up different ways to avoid their scrutiny and detection. An example is represented by the mixed-code language, that is text written in an unconventional form by combining different languages, symbols, scripts and shapes. It aims to make more difficult the detection of specific content, due to its custom and ever changing appearance, by using special characters to substitute for alphabet letters. Indeed, such substitute combinations of symbols, which tries to resemble the shape of the intended alphabet’s letter, makes it still intuitively readable to humans, however nonsensical to machines. In this context, the paper explores the possibility of identifying propaganda in such mixed-code texts over the Internet, centred on a machine learning based approach. In particular, an algorithm in combination with a deep learning models for character identification is proposed in order to detect and analyse whether an element contains propaganda related content. The overall approach is presented, the results gathered from its experimentation are discussed and the achieved performances are compared with the related works

A Feature-Based Model for the Identification of Electrical Devices in Smart Environments

Smart Homes (SHs) represent the human side of a Smart Grid (SG). Data mining and analysis of energy data of electrical devices in SHs, e.g., for the dynamic load management, is of fundamental importance for the decision-making process of energy management both from the consumer perspective by saving money and also in terms of energy redistribution and reduction of the carbon dioxide emission, by knowing how the energy demand of a building is composed in the SG. Advanced monitoring and control mechanisms are necessary to deal with the identification of appliances. In this paper, a model for their automatic identification is proposed. It is based on a set of 19 features that are extracted by analyzing energy consumption, time usage and location from a set of device profiles. Then, machine learning approaches are employed by experimenting different classifiers based on such model for the identification of appliances and, finally, an analysis on the feature importance is provided

Antibacterial, antioxidant and hypoglycaemic effects of Thymus capitatus (L.) Hoffmanns. et Link leaves' fractions.

The aim of this study was to examine the bioactivity of the methanol fraction (MF) and n-hexane fraction (HF) of Thymus capitatus leaves in relation to their constituents analysed by gas chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The effects of T. capitatus on the growth of pathogenic bacteria associated with respiratory diseases (13 gram-positive and 4 gram-negative) were determined using a microdilution method. The MF was particularly effective on Streptococcus pneumoniae and Moraxella catarrhalis. The antioxidant activity was evaluated by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl, 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid), ferric-reducing antioxidant power and β-carotene bleaching assays. A strong activity using β-carotene bleaching test was observed with the MF (IC50 of 0.7 μg/mL after 30 min of incubation). In the hypoglycaemic test, a selective α-amylase inhibitory activity was detected with the HF begging the most active (IC50 of 422.5 μg/mL). T. capitatus may represent a source of natural bioactive compounds

Combining TAPAS and SUMO towards crises management based on traffic data

Human-made crisis and natural disasters are major concerns for the society, as they can put in a risk the life of people. Especially in urban area, which are typically highly crowded, the occurrence of a situation of dangers the consequent change of behaviors due to panics can be difficult to imagine, which affects the ability to be able to define appropriate countermeasures to mitigate the crisis itself. That’s why the use of digital solutions can be beneficial to support the analysis of such scenario and improve the understanding of the behavior in case of crisis. In this context, our paper focuses on the transportation infrastructures and proposes an integrated solution based on the combination of two simulation tools called TAPAS and SUMO to support the modelling and simulation of mobility scenario. The integrated solution is experimented in the context of city of Darmstadt (Germany) by simulating normal and change of behavior in terms of mobility and showing the deriving benefits