Cyber risk management for autonomous passenger ships using threat-informed defense-in-depth

Recent innovations in the smart city domain have led to the proposition of a new mode of transportation utilizing Autonomous Passenger Ships (APS) or ferries in inland waterways. The novelty of the APS concept influenced the cyber risk paradigm and led to different considerations regarding attack objectives, techniques as well as risk management approaches. The main factor that has led to this is the autoremote operational mode, which refers to autonomous operations and remote supervision and control in case of emergency. The autoremote operational mode influences the risk of cyber attacks due to the increased connectivity and reliance on technology for automating navigational functions. On the other hand, the presence of passengers without crew members imposes a safety risk factor in cyber attacks. In this paper, we propose a new cyber risk management approach for managing the cyber risks against cyber physical systems in general and Autonomous Passenger Ships in particular. Our proposed approach aims to improve the Defense-in-Depth risk management strategy with additional components from the Threat-Informed Defense strategy allowing for more evolved cyber risk management capabilities. Moreover, we have utilized the proposed cyber risk management approach for the proposition of a cybersecurity architecture for managing the cyber risks against an APS use case named milliAmpere2. Additionally, we present our results after conducting a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) in cybersecurity evaluation in the maritime domain. Then, the findings of the SLR were utilized for a suitable evaluation of the proposed risk management approach. Our findings suggest that our proposed risk management approach named Threat-Informed Defense-in-Depth is capable of enriching several risk management activities across different stages in the system development life cycle. Additionally, a comprehensive evaluation of the cybersecurity posture of milliAmpere2 has been conducted using several approaches including risk evaluation, simulation, checklist, and adversary emulation. Our evaluation has uncovered several limitations in the current cybersecurity posture and proposed actions for improvement.

     

Capsule endoscopy image analysis using texture information from various colour models

Wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) is a novel imaging technique that is gradually gaining ground as it enables the non-invasive and efficacious visualization of the digestive track, and especially the entire small bowel including its middle part. However, the task of reviewing the vast amount of images produced by a WCE examination is a burden for the physicians. To tackle this major drawback, an innovative scheme for discriminating endoscopic images related to one of the most common intestinal diseases, ulceration, is presented here. This new approach focuses on colour-texture features in order to investigate how the structure information of healthy and abnormal tissue is distributed on RGB, HSV and CIE Lab colour spaces. The WCE images are pre-processed using bidimensional ensemble empirical mode decomposition so as to facilitate differential lacunarity analysis to extract the texture patterns of normal and ulcerous regions. Experimental results demonstrated promising classification performance (mean accuracy>95%), exhibiting a high potential towards automatic WCE image analysis.     

An analysis of the determining factors of fuel poverty among students living in the private-rented sector in Europe and its impact on their well-being

ABSTRACT

Existing research suggests that students are an under-reported and under-supported group of the population that frequently lives in fuel poverty. Furthermore, studies show that students do not realize that they live in fuel poor conditions and are rarely recognized as a group vulnerable to fuel poverty. The aim of the research presented in this paper is to understand, evaluate and consequently reveal the experiences of students living in the private-rentedd sector, quantify their possible exposure to fuel poverty, and to determine the impacts of this exposure on their well-being. Three thousand five hundred and twelve students from seven European countries participated in this research making it the largest study to date targeting this specific social group. Our results demonstrate that this group is vulnerable to fuel poverty and that their exposure to such conditions can have a detrimental effect on both their mental and physical health, as well as their social life.     

Comparative analysis of a twin-class M-QAM transmission system for wireless video applications

This paper presents a unique set of techniques to support reliable and efficient video transmission over mobile channels. The transmission system is comprised of an M level Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) technique. A twin class uniform and non-uniform partitioned M-QAM system is used to transport a compressed video bitstream which is partitioned to match the bit-error sensitivity of the transmitted symbol in terms of mapping in the constellation diagram and picture quality. Video partitioning based on a separation of the Variable Length Coded (VLC) Discrete Cosine Transforms (DCT) coefficients within each block is considered for constant bitrate transmission (CBR). Various scenarios for splitting the bitstream are investigated and their results are compared and analysed thoroughly. The performance of the transmission system is evaluated under Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) conditions. The simulation results showed that the video partition strategy results in a significantly higher quality of the reconstructed video data.     

Efficient web-based open and distance learning services

In this paper, we present data management issues faced during the design and development of an open distance learning system for the University of Patras, Greece. In order to handle data efficiently, as required in a web tele-training application, for each type of information maintained, different strategies must be deployed according to their behaviour and structure. The diversity and complexity of data, the network aspect of the application and web deficiencies impose an architecture design incorporating a plethora of technologies and tools that must be integrated in such a fashion that they efficiently organise these data preserving their relationships. This presents a software engineering challenge requiring coherence of solutions at all levels: structures, consistency, security, models, and protocols. The paper presents the data components of an open and distance learning (ODL) system that access the information stored in a database and the file system, their underlying technology, their interaction with the network services, and features regarding the ways they address issues faced in an open vendor-independent distance learning environment and outlines the system's overall architecture. In addition, this paper presents the architecture, the design and the services of a network-based information system that supports open and distance learning activities. The open and distance learning information system (ODLIS) offers synchronous and asynchronous distance learning and management of information system (MIS) services to support the educational procedure. The ODLIS is a web-based application, which runs over the Internet using real time protocols.     

Analysing Drought Severity and Areal Extent by 2D Archimedean Copulas

Droughts can be considered as multidimensional hazardous phenomena characterised by three attributes: severity, duration and areal extent. Conventionally, drought events are assessed for their severity, using drought indices such as SPI (Standardised Precipitation Index), RDI (Reconnaissance Drought Index), PDSI (Palmer Drought Severity Index) and many others. This approach may be extended to incorporate the modelling of an additional dimension, the duration or the areal extent. Since the marginal distributions describing these dimensions of drought are often different, no simple mixed probability distribution can be used for the bivariate frequency analysis. The copula approach seems to be sufficiently general and suitable for this type of analysis. It is the aim of this paper to analyse droughts as two-dimensional phenomena, including drought severity and areal extent. In this paper, the Gumbel-Hougaard copula from the Archimedean family is used for this two-dimensional frequency analysis. Annual data on historical droughts from Eastern Crete are analysed for their severity and areal extent, producing copula-based probability distributions, incorporating Gumbel marginal probability functions. Useful conclusions are derived for estimating the «OR» return period of drought events related to both severity and areal extent.     

Cooperative Hybrid Land Mobile Satellite–Terrestrial Broadcasting Systems: Outage Probability Evaluation and Accurate Simulation

Next generation communication networks incorporate Land Mobile Satellite (LMS) systems in order to provide greater areas of coverage and higher throughput for specific applications. Cooperation between satellite communication networks and terrestrial relays is or increasing the system’s performance and availability. In this paper, the outage performance of a cooperative hybrid satellite and terrestrial system configuration is analytically evaluated assuming that the satellite links suffer from shadowed Rician fading, while the terrestrial link suffers from the Nakagami-m fading. Two cooperative relaying strategies are examined and the final formulas for the calculation of the outage probability are given. Moreover, a block diagram for the generation of time series for the reliable simulations of the outage probability of the cooperative hybrid land mobile satellite systems is given. The theoretical results and the simulation results almost coincide. Moreover, extended numerical results investigate the impact, of different shadowing conditions and more generally of the satellite links elevation angles, on the overall cooperative LMS system performance.     

A circulatory system approach for wireless sensor networks

One of the challenges in a military wireless sensor network is the determination of an information collection infrastructure which minimizes battery power consumption. The problem of determining the right information collection infrastructure can be viewed as a variation of the network design problem, with the additional constraints related to battery power minimization and redundancy. The problem in its generality is NP-hard and various heuristics have been developed over time to address various issues associated with it. In this paper, we propose a heuristic based on the mammalian circulatory system, which results in a better solution to the design problem than the state of the art alternatives.     

Fast and effective characterization for classification and similarity searches of 2D and 3D spatial region data

We propose a method for characterizing spatial region data. The method efficiently constructs a k-dimensional feature vector using concentric spheres in 3D (circles in 2D) radiating out of a region's center of mass. These signatures capture structural and internal volume properties. We evaluate our approach by performing experiments on classification and similarity searches, using artificial and real datasets. To generate artificial regions we introduce a region growth model. Similarity searches on artificial data demonstrate that our technique, although straightforward, compares favorably to mathematical morphology, while being two orders of magnitude faster. Experiments with real datasets show its effectiveness and general applicability.