Process control in agile supply chain network.

The work comprises a new theoretical development applied to aid decision making in an increasingly important commercial sector. Agile supply, where small volumes of high margin, short life cycle innovative products are offered, is increasingly carried out through a complex global supply chain network. We outline an equilibrium solution in such a supply chain network, which works through limited cooperation and coordination along edges (links) in the network. The links constitute the stochastic modelling entities rather than the nodes of the network. We utilise newly developed phase plane analysis to identify, model and predict characteristic behaviour in supply chain networks. The phase plane charts profile the flow of inventory and identify out of control conditions. They maintain quality within the network, as well as intelligently track the way the network evolves in conditions of changing variability. The methodology is essentially distribution free, relying as it does on the study of forecasting errors, and can be used to examine contractual details as well as strategic and game theoretical concepts between decision-making components (agents) of a network. We illustrate with typical data drawn from supply chain agile fashion products.

Novel information sharing syntax for data sharing between police and community partners, using role-based security.

The exchange of information between the police and community partners forms a central aspect of effective community service provision. In the context of policing, a robust and timely communications mechanism is required between police agencies and community partner domains, including: Primary healthcare (such as a Family Physician or a General Practitioner); Secondary healthcare (such as hospitals); Social Services; Education; and Fire and Rescue services. Investigations into high-profile cases such as the Victoria Climbié murder in 2000, the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002, and, more recently, the death of baby Peter Connelly through child abuse in 2007, highlight the requirement for a robust information-sharing framework. This paper presents a novel syntax that supports information-sharing requests, within strict data-sharing policy definitions. Such requests may form the basis for any information-sharing agreement that can exist between the police and their community partners. It defines a role-based architecture, with partner domains, with a syntax for the effective and efficient information sharing, using SPoC (Single Point-of-Contact) agents to control in-formation exchange. The application of policy definitions using rules within these SPoCs is inspired by network firewall rules and thus define information exchange permissions. These rules can be imple-mented by software filtering agents that act as information gateways between partner domains. Roles are exposed from each domain to give the rights to exchange information as defined within the policy definition. This work involves collaboration with the Scottish Police, as part of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR), and aims to improve the safety of individuals by reducing risks to the community using enhanced information-sharing mechanisms.

A novel Information sharing model using binary decision diagrams for redundancy, shadowing, generalisation and correlation.

This paper outlines a novel information sharing method using Binary Decision Diagrams (BBDs). It is inspired by the work of Al-Shaer and Hamed, who applied BDDs into the modelling of network firewalls. This is applied into an information sharing policy system which optimizes the search of redundancy, shadowing, generalisation and correlation within information sharing rules.

Evaluation of binary decision diagrams for redundancy, shadowing, generalisation and correlation in an Information sharing model.

This paper defines a structured methodology which is based on the foundational work of Al-Shaer et al. in [1] and that of Hamed and Al-Shaer in [2]. It defines a methodology for the declaration of policy field elements, through to the syntax, ontology and functional verification stages. In their works of [1] and [2] the authors concentrated on developing formal definitions of possible anomalies between rules in a network firewall rule set. Their work is considered as the foundation for further works on anomaly detection, including those of Fitzgerald et al. [3], Chen et al. [4], Hu et al. [5], among others. This paper extends this work by applying the methods to information sharing policies, and outlines the evaluation related to these.