The SIREN project (Secure, Interoperable, UAV-assisted, Rapid Emergency Deployment Communication and sensing Infrastructure) implements a secure, distributed, open, self-configured and emergency-aware network and service platform for automated, secure and dependable support of multiple mission critical applications in highly demanding and dynamic emergency environments

Askoxylakis, Ioannis

Karampelas, P.

Kastanis, D.

Papagrigoriou, P.

Spanoudakis, G.

Bournemouth University Research Online

ERCIM NEWS 100   January 2015 47SIREN – A NetworkInfrastructure for Emergenciesby Ioannis Askoxylakis, Paschalis Papagrigoriou,Diomedes Kastanis, Panos Karampelas, and GeorgeSpanoudakisThe SIREN project (Secure, Interoperable, UAV-assisted,Rapid Emergency Deployment Communication andsensing Infrastructure) implements a secure, distributed,open, self-configured and emergency-aware network andservice platform for automated, secure and dependablesupport of multiple mission critical applications in highlydemanding and dynamic emergency environments.In emergencies or disasters a key support factor for situationawareness, decision making and response is to provide asecure and dependable network infrastructure that aggregatesconnectivity over all available heterogeneous wireless broad-band access technologies, including those employed for com-mercial network access. The infrastructure must be able toadapt to mission critical application requirements and toenable immediate and robust communications among com-mand centres, rescue workers and the affected population. Existing civil protection and emergency response systems donot take advantage of commercial network infrastructures,since they are not typically designed to be relied upon in theevent of major extrinsic failures and are thus deemed poten-tially unfit to sustain the requirement of massive missioncritical operations [1].SIREN federates two existing platforms, REDComm andSecoCard, and develops a secure and dependable overlaynetwork and service infrastructure that hides the hetero-geneity of the underlying networks and supports the multi-plicity of communication needs across different types ofusers and user groups in emergencies.  REDComm, which stands for Rapid Emergency DeploymentCommunication, is a trailer based communication node thatutilizes several communication technologies in order to pro-vide multiple communication services in emergency andcrisis situations [2]. Such services include not only tradi-tional communications of emergency response authorities,but also modern services to these authorities such as livevideo streaming and multimedia content sharing as well aspublic addressing and victim communication. A REDCommnode includes a hybrid power source based on both renew-able and non-renewable energy generators and batteries toprovide electric autonomy. A pneumatic telescopic mast isinstalled to support communication antennas providingmobility and increased coverage range.One or more REDComm nodes can be easily and quicklydeployed anywhere to provide communication services. Theusage of mesh networking forms a redundant, seamless, self-healing, backbone network that is able to route communica-tion traffic dynamically over the most appropriate path andtechnology. Eight REDComm nodes have been designed andimplemented by FORTH-ICS and will be evaluated in drillsand real-life situations with the Hellenic emergency responseauthorities such as police, fire department, the national emer-gency aid center and the Region of Crete that participate inthe REDComm project [1].SecoCard is an intelligent - and at the same time highlysecure - external token with its own screen and capacitivetouch keypad, which communicates with a non-modifiedsmartphone or tablet over Bluetooth or WiFi and runs all thesecurity applications, while the smartphone or the tablet,respectively, just provides connectivity and their normalunshielded applications [3]. The dedicated hardware is notmuch larger than a few credit or key cards stacked on oneanother, and can operate with practically every new smart-phone and tablet model being sold today or unveiled in thefuture by the mobile industry. With the federation of REDComm and SecoCard, SIRENimplements an integrated comprehensive security architec-ture based on dedicated security mechanisms, taking intoFigure 1: The SIREN conceptResearch and InnovationERCIM NEWS 100   January 201548MYVISITPLANNER: Cloud-based Recommender for Personalized Tourismby  Ioannis Refanidis and Christos EmmanouilidisFollowing the masses is one way of being a tourist. Butthe modern creative tourist is eager to forge a personaltrail. Tailoring an itinerary to individual desires hasalways been the realm of highly specialized touroperators. Context-aware computing and recommendersystems make it possible to offer personalized servicesin tourism. MYVISITPLANNER is a cloud-based serviceemploying a recommender engine to offer personalizedsuggestions for tour activities and a planning tool tocreate appropriate tour itineraries. Recommendationsare offered on the basis of a hybrid approach that takesinto account both a taxonomy of possible activities, aswell as user preferences and past recommendations,thus offering recommendations tailored to the visitprofile [1].A creative tourist is a traveller who is not simply satisfiedwith visiting TOP10 attractions but seeks to enjoy a personalexperience when visiting a place. Whether the visit involvesoutdoors activities off the beaten track or certain culturalpreferences, an individual traveller is often a moredemanding tourist but also one that intends to better blendwith local culture and people when travelling. The personal-ization of the tourist product can now be achieved byadvanced computer-assisted tourism services. Visitors may obtain: (i) activity recommendations contextu-alized by the time, duration and area of a visit, as well as bypersonal preferences and visit profiling; and (ii) tour itiner-aries created by a world-class scheduler, on the basis of theoffered recommendations, while taking into account indi-vidual visitor calendar constraints and scheduling prefer-ences, as well as available time for the visit. Activityproviders can benefit from having their services enlisted andincluded in the itineraries recommendations (Figure 1). While many recommender systems base their recommenda-tions on either distance - based retrieval principles or collab-orative filtering performed over past evaluations, theMYVISITPLANNER cloud-service employs a hybrid rec-ommender engine the fuses both approaches and is thus ableto offer relevant recommendations even in the absence ofhistorical data and past user evaluations feedback (Figure 2). In the absence of past visit data, recommendations are basedon a dedicated activities ontology. Specifically, a new visitprofile is mapped on the activities ontology and based on adedicated distance function, relevant recommendations areretrieved. Past user evaluations are handled by hybrid clus-tering performed over the cloud employing the Mahoutcloud-oriented machine learning library. Specific care istaken so that privacy-preserving data management isinvolved: visit profiling is preferred instead of user profiling,avoiding handling sensitive private data. The user has theoption of editing the recommendations by removing activi-account cross-layer considerations and multi-operator emer-gency environments. In terms of cryptographic functions,SIREN implements a family of key agreement methods withparticular focus on password-based, weak to strong authenti-cation associated with several multiparty contributory keyagreement schemes. SIREN is also inspired by the opportunities and threats to thesecurity of individuals owing to the convergence of the cyberand physical world, especially in urban environments.Increasingly within such environments, the everyday life ofpeople takes place around cyber-physical objects that arebecoming smarter and more inter-connected. This creates thepossibility of continual acquisition, correlation and analysis ofinformation that can improve citizen security and safety. It is,for example, possible to combine surveillance camera infor-mation with human physiological data and incident alerts cre-ated by mobile phone users in order to establish the occurrenceof incidents and reacting to them on the spot and in a personal-ized manner. At the same time, the closer coupling of the phys-ical world with cyber systems creates new threats and risks forpeople. Access to the location of individual (or groups of)people may, for instance, trigger targeted actions against them,and mass surveillance can compromise the privacy of individ-uals. Risks and threats may also increase significantly if func-tions, critical for the security and safety of citizens, depend ona cyber-physical infrastructure and Smart City applicationsthat are not well protected against attacks (e.g., jamming com-munications between emergency responders).Enhancing these opportunities and managing the associatedrisks can be based on SIREN, which in the future will enablethe development and runtime operation and management ofdifferent Cyber-Physical and participatory sensing applica-tions, including aerial unmanned vehicles (drones), sup-porting the acquisition and sharing of security related infor-mation through the use of SIREN infrastructure. The SIRENplatform will enable the development and runtime operationand management of such applications by offering an openand extensible set of integrated basic capabilities, with par-ticular focus on emergency response and crisis management.Links: http://www.redcomm-project.euhttp://redcomm-project.eu/http://www.secocard.ch/References:[1] A. Miaoudakis et al.: “Communications in Emergency andCrisis Situations”, Distributed, Ambient, and Pervasive Inter-actions, Springer International Publishing, 555-565, 2014.[2] I. Askoxylakis et al.: “A Rapid Emergency DeploymentMobile Communication Node”, IEEE Computer-AidedModeling Analysis and Design of Communication Linksand Networks (CAMAD), 2014 [3] P. Papagrigoriou, et al.: “Discrete Hardware Apparatusand Method for Mobile Application and CommunicationSecurity”, Human Aspects of Information Security, Privacy,and Trust. Springer International Publishing, 102-112, 2014.Please contact: Ioannis Askoxylakis, FORTH-ICS, Greece E-mail: asko@ics.forth.gr

SIREN – A network infrastructure for emergencies.

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