STPA-SafeSec: Safety and Security Analysis for Cyber-Physical Systems

Cyber-physical systems tightly integrate physical processes and information and communication technologies. As today’s critical infrastructures, e.g., the power grid or water distribution networks, are complex cyber-physical systems, ensuring their safety and security becomes of paramount importance. Traditional safety analysis methods, such as HAZOP, are ill-suited to assess these systems. Furthermore, cybersecurity vulnerabilities are often not considered critical, because their effects on the physical processes are not fully understood. In this work, we present STPA-SafeSec, a novel analysis methodology for both safety and security. Its results show the dependencies between cybersecurity vulnerabilities and system safety. Using this information, the most effective mitigation strategies to ensure safety and security of the system can be readily identified. We apply STPA-SafeSec to a use case in the power grid domain, and highlight its benefits.

Applying the security-development nexus on the ground: Land restitution in Colombia

The general consensus on the security-development nexus is that both are key to achieving sustainable peace in war-torn societies. However, this debate has largely taken place among international actors, with little empirical evidence about how security and development relate to each other or are even considered by local actors. The current paper applies the security-development nexus to the case of land restitution in Colombia. Following decades of internal armed conflict, in 2012 the national government passed sweeping land restitution legislation amid on-going violence. Through in-depth interviews and focus groups with multiple actors involved in this process, ranging from international organizations to national government units, from regional institutions to local communities, the paper analyses the objectives, impact, challenges and opportunities for land restitution related to security and development. Undermining peacebuilding, a lack of coherence in the integration of security and development priorities limits the extent to which either supports, or is promoted by, land restitution efforts in Colombia. The paper concludes with reflections on how the security-development nexus may promote peacebuilding amid on-going conflict.

Diversifying From Within: Community Policing and the Governance of Security in Northern Ireland

The subtle and complex nature of Northern Ireland's transitional landscape presents acute difficulties for the community policing concept. As the core to the police reforms in the country, its implementation has faltered in the face of institutional inertia within the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). This has been further exacerbated by a failure of the police to adequately increase the co-production of security through improved engagement and utilization of Northern Ireland's diverse community infrastructures. This paper will assess the delivery of community policing by the PSNI, while exploring their engagement with Northern Ireland's grass-roots community organizations, and specifically those involved with the governance of security at the local level. Thus, through a framework of adaptation, engagement and delivery of community policing by the PSNI within the unique context of Northern Ireland's security ‘otherness’, the paper will explore the key issues to police–community interaction associated with the broader vision of the Independent Commission on Policing (ICP) on community policing.

The effect of borders on the linguistic production and perception of regional identity in Louisville, Kentucky

A great deal of scholarly research has addressed the issue of dialect mapping in the United States. These studies, usually based on phonetic or lexical items, aim to present an overall picture of the dialect landscape. But what is often missing in these types of projects is an attention to the borders of a dialect region and to what kinds of identity alignments can be found in such areas. This lack of attention to regional and dialect border identities is surprising, given the salience of such borders for many Americans. This salience is also ignored among dialectologists, as nonlinguists‟ perceptions and attitudes have been generally assumed to be secondary to the analysis of “real” data, such as the phonetic and lexical variables used in traditional dialectology. Louisville, Kentucky is considered as a case study for examining how dialect and regional borders in the United States impact speakers‟ linguistic acts of identity, especially the production and perception of such identities. According to Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006), Louisville is one of the northernmost cities to be classified as part of the South. Its location on the Ohio River, on the political and geographic border between Kentucky and Indiana, places Louisville on the isogloss between Southern and Midland dialects. Through an examination of language attitude surveys, mental maps, focus group interviews, and production data, I show that identity alignments in borderlands are neither simple nor straightforward. Identity at the border is fluid, complex, and dynamic; speakers constantly negotiate and contest their identities. The analysis shows the ways in which Louisvillians shift between Southern and non-Southern identities, in the active and agentive expression of their amplified awareness of belonging brought about by their position on the border.

Gestão e desenvolvimento regional na ride/DF: corsap-DF/GO como modalidade de associativismo territorial

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Humanas, Departamento de Geografia, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Geografia, 2015.

Diseño e implementación de un sistema de soporte de decisiones para el Centro de Documentación Regional “Juan Bautista Vázquez”

El volumen de datos en bibliotecas ha aumentado enormemente en los últimos años, así como también la complejidad de sus fuentes y formatos de información, dificultando su gestión y acceso, especialmente como apoyo en la toma de decisiones. Sabiendo que una buena gestión de bibliotecas involucra la integración de indicadores estratégicos, la implementación de un Data Warehouse (DW), que gestione adecuadamente tal cantidad de información, así como su compleja mezcla de fuentes de datos, se convierte en una alternativa interesante a considerar. El artículo describe el diseño e implementación de un sistema de soporte de decisiones (DSS) basado en técnicas de DW para la biblioteca de la Universidad de Cuenca. Para esto, el estudio utiliza una metodología holística, propuesto por Siguenza-Guzman et al. (2014) para la evaluación integral de bibliotecas. Dicha metodología evalúa la colección y los servicios, incorporando importantes elementos para la gestión de bibliotecas, tales como: el desempeño de los servicios, el control de calidad, el uso de la colección y la interacción con el usuario. A partir de este análisis, se propone una arquitectura de DW que integra, procesa y almacena los datos. Finalmente, estos datos almacenados son analizados y visualizados a través de herramientas de procesamiento analítico en línea (OLAP). Las pruebas iniciales de implementación confirman la viabilidad y eficacia del enfoque propuesto, al integrar con éxito múltiples y heterogéneas fuentes y formatos de datos, facilitando que los directores de bibliotecas generen informes personalizados, e incluso permitiendo madurar los procesos transaccionales que diariamente se llevan a cabo.

Provable Security for Cryptocurrencies

The past several years have seen the surprising and rapid rise of Bitcoin and other “cryptocurrencies.” These are decentralized peer-to-peer networks that allow users to transmit money, tocompose financial instruments, and to enforce contracts between mutually distrusting peers, andthat show great promise as a foundation for financial infrastructure that is more robust, efficientand equitable than ours today. However, it is difficult to reason about the security of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is a complex system, comprising many intricate and subtly-interacting protocol layers. At each layer it features design innovations that (prior to our work) have not undergone any rigorous analysis. Compounding the challenge, Bitcoin is but one of hundreds of competing cryptocurrencies in an ecosystem that is constantly evolving. The goal of this thesis is to formally reason about the security of cryptocurrencies, reining in their complexity, and providing well-defined and justified statements of their guarantees. We provide a formal specification and construction for each layer of an abstract cryptocurrency protocol, and prove that our constructions satisfy their specifications. The contributions of this thesis are centered around two new abstractions: “scratch-off puzzles,” and the “blockchain functionality” model. Scratch-off puzzles are a generalization of the Bitcoin “mining” algorithm, its most iconic and novel design feature. We show how to provide secure upgrades to a cryptocurrency by instantiating the protocol with alternative puzzle schemes. We construct secure puzzles that address important and well-known challenges facing Bitcoin today, including wasted energy and dangerous coalitions. The blockchain functionality is a general-purpose model of a cryptocurrency rooted in the “Universal Composability” cryptography theory. We use this model to express a wide range of applications, including transparent “smart contracts” (like those featured in Bitcoin and Ethereum), and also privacy-preserving applications like sealed-bid auctions. We also construct a new protocol compiler, called Hawk, which translates user-provided specifications into privacy-preserving protocols based on zero-knowledge proofs.

Usability Requirements for Complex Cyber-Physical Systems in a Totally Networked World

Part 7: Cyber-Physical Systems

Legal Framework for Cross-Regional Networks: The Case of Services and Migration

Paper prepared by Marion Panizzon and Charlotte Sieber-Gasser for the International Conference on the Political Economy of Liberalising Trade in Services, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 14-15 June 2010 Recent literature has shed light on the economic potential of cross-border networks. These networks, consisting of expatriates and their acquaintances from abroad and at home, provide the basis for the creation of cross-border value added chains and therewith the means for turning brain drain into brain circulation. Both aspects are potentially valuable for economic growth in the developing world. Unilateral co-development policies operating through co-funding of expatriate business ventures, but also bilateral agreements liberalising circular migration for a limited set of per-sons testify to the increasing awareness of governments about the potential, which expatriate networks hold for economic growth in developing countries. Whereas such punctual efforts are valuable, viewed from a long term perspective, these top-down, government mandated Diaspora stimulation programs, will not replace, this paper argues, the market-driven liberalisation of infrastructure and other services in developing countries. Nor will they carry, in the case of circular labour migration, the political momentum to liberalise labour market admission for those non-nationals, who will eventually emerge as the future transnational entrepreneurs. It will take a combination of mode 4 and infrastructure services openings-cum regulation for countries at both sides of the spectrum to provide the basis and precondition for transnational business and entrepreneurial networks to emerge and translate into cross-border, value added production chains. Two key issues are of particular relevance in this context: (i) the services sector, especially in infrastructure, tends to suffer from inefficiencies, particularly in developing countries, and (ii) labour migration, a highly complex issue, still faces disproportionately rigid barriers despite well-documented global welfare gains. Both are hindrances for emerging markets to fully take advantage of the potential of these cross-border networks. Adapting the legal framework for enhancing the regulatory and institutional frameworks for services trade, especially in infrastructure services sectors (ISS) and labour migration could provide the incentives necessary for brain circulation and strengthen cross-border value added chains by lowering transaction costs. This paper analyses the shortfalls of the global legal framework – the shallow status quo of GATS commitments in ISS and mode 4 particular – in relation to stimulating brain circulation and the creation of cross-border value added chains in emerging markets. It highlights the necessity of adapting the legal framework, both on the global and the regional level, to stimulate broader and wider market access in the four key ISS sectors (telecommunications, transport, professional and financial services) in developing countries, as domestic supply capacity, global competitiveness and economic diversification in ISS sectors are necessary for mobilising expatriate re-turns, both physical and virtual. The paper argues that industrialised, labour receiving countries need to offer mode 4 market access to wider categories of persons, especially to students, graduate trainees and young professionals from abroad. Further-more, free trade in semi-finished products and mode 4 market access are crucial for the creation of cross-border value added chains across the developing world. Finally, the paper discusses on the basis of a case study on Jordan why the key features of trade agreements, which promote circular migration and the creation of cross-border value added chains, consist of trade liberalisation in services and liberal migration policies.

Identity, ideology, and cinema: Making sense of Japan's foreign and security policies in the 1950s and 2000s

Japan is an important ally of the United States–the world’s third biggest economy, and one of the regional great powers in Asia. Making sense of Japan’s foreign and security policies is crucial for the future of peace and stability in Northeast Asia, where the possible sources of conflict such as territorial disputes or the disputes over Japan’s war legacy issues are observed.^ This dissertation explored Japan’s foreign and security policies based on Japan’s identities and unconscious ideologies. It employed an analysis of selected Japanese films from the late 1940s to the late 1950s, as well as from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s. The analysis demonstrated that Japan’s foreign and security policies could be understood in terms of a broader social narrative that was visible in Japanese popular cultural products, including films and literatures. Narratives of Japanese families from the patriarch’s point of view, for example, had constantly shaped Japan’s foreign and security policies. As a result, the world was ordered hierarchically in the eyes of the Japan Self. In the 1950s, Japan tenaciously constructed close but asymmetrical security relations with the U.S. in which Japan willingly subjugated itself to the U.S. In the 2000s, Japan again constructed close relations with the U.S. by doing its best to support American responses to the 9/11 terrorist attacks by mobilizing Japan’s SDFs in the way Japan had never done in the past.^ The concepts of identity and unconscious ideology are helpful in understanding how Japan’s own understanding of self, of others, and of the world have shaped its own behaviors. These concepts also enable Japan to reevaluate its own behaviors reflexively, which departs from existing alternative approaches. This study provided a critical analytical explanation of the dynamics at work in Japan’s sense of identity, particularly with regard to its foreign and security policies.^

Reforming the Swedish employment-related social security system:activation, administrative modernization and strengthening local autonomy

The Swedish system of social security has often been regarded as comprehensive and comprehensive and inclusive. During major reforms in the 1990s and 2000s, it has maintained its essential character as a popular and well-endowed provider of social security and stability. Employment-related benefits are generous in financial terms, but come with the need for recipients to remain actively engaged in the economic or educational field. However, Sweden’s geographical and demographic diversity made it necessary to increase the role of local authorities in implementing active labour market policies. This article tracks these developments since the mid-1990s, both with regard to changing the benefits system and with regard to changing local government involvement. It argues that backed by broad political support, the Swedish system has achieved the necessary modernisation and adaptation to remain a viable alternative to more neo-liberal welfare retrenchment projects conducted in other European countries.

Regional variation and change in the history of English strong verbs

This thesis investigates how the strong verb system inherited from Old English evolved in the regional dialects of Middle English (ca. 1100-1500). Old English texts preserve a relatively complex system of strong verbs, in which traditionally seven different ablaut classes are distinguished. This system becomes seriously disrupted from the Late Old English and Early Middle English periods onwards. As a result, many strong verbs die out, or have their ablaut patterns affected by sound change and morphological analogy, or transfer to the weak conjugation. In my thesis, I study the beginnings of two of these developments in two strong verb classes to find out what the evidence from Middle English regional dialects can tell us about their origins and diffusion. Chapter 2 concentrates on the strong-to-weak shift in Class III verbs, and investigates to what extent strong, mixed and weak past tense and participle forms vary in Middle English dialects, and whether the variation is more pronounced in the paradigms of specific verbs or sub-classes. Chapter 3 analyses the regional distribution of ablaut levelling in strong Class IV verbs throughout the Middle English period. The Class III and IV data for the Early Middle English period are drawn from A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English, and the data for the Late Middle English period from a sub-corpus of files from The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English and The Middle English Grammar Corpus. Furthermore, The English Dialect Dictionary and Grammar are consulted as an additional reference point to find out to what extent the Middle English developments are reflected in Late Modern English dialects. Finally, referring to modern insights into language variation and change and linguistic interference, Chapter 4 discusses to what extent intra- and extra-linguistc factors, such as token and type frequency, stem structure and language contact, might correlate with the strong-to-weak shift and ablaut levelling in Class III and IV verbs in the Middle English period. The thesis is accompanied by six appendices that contain further information about my distinction of Middle English dialect areas (Appendix A), historical Class III and IV verbs (B and C) and the text samples and linguistic data from the Middle English text corpora (D, E and F).

Degradación ambiental y conflictos armados: las conexiones

"La seguridad ambiental es un concepto complejo que puede ser analizado desde varios enfoques. La conexión entre degradación ambiental, escasez de recursos, poco desarrollo económico e inestabilidad política puede generar rápidamente conflictos llamados ambientales, terrorismo ecológico y guerras verdes. Sin embargo, en la mayoría de las investigaciones sobre degradación ambiental y conflictos armados no se tienen en cuenta los factores desarrollo económico y régimen político, pues se considera que los problemas ambientales pueden, por sí solos, conducir a situaciones conflictivas nacionales, regionales e internacionales. En este contexto, los propósitos de este artículo son plantear las diferentes tendencias ideológicas de la seguridad ambiental, definir el contenido y las causas de los conflictos ambientales y proponer un marco analítico complementario que incluya las variables políticas y económicas como generadoras de conflictos ambientales y de conflictos armados de alta intensidad. Al final, se propone una agenda de investigación en materia de seguridad ambiental para Colombia."

La migración infantil indocumentada de Centroamérica, un desafío a la reformulación de la política migratoria de Estados Unidos. Estudio de caso de Honduras (2010-2014)

El siguiente estudio de caso analiza la influencia de la llegada de la migración infantil indocumentada centroamericana en la reformulación de la política migratoria de Estados Unidos en el período 2010-2014. Enfocándose en el caso de Honduras para dar a conocer y analizar las causas que crean las dinámicas migratorias por parte de los menores, este trabajo analiza como la llegada de estas poblaciones genera ciertos efectos en el proceso de toma de decisión de las políticas internas de los Estados Unidos. Por un lado, para resaltar las características del fenómeno migratorio, se utilizan las teorías de redes sociales y la teoría push and pull. Por otro, mediante los conceptos de Sensibilidad y Vulnerabilidad expuestos en la teoría de la Interdependencia Compleja de las Relaciones Internacionales, como también el concepto de Seguridad Societal propuesto por Barry Buzan se estudia el nivel de influencia del fenómeno infantil en el gobierno norteamericano.

África Austral: Los minerales como recurso estratégico para los intereses de Estados Unidos y China, período 2000-2010

La región de África Austral emerge como un nuevo escenario geopolítico complejo, en el que la lucha por la adquisición de los derechos de exploración, extracción y distribución de minerales estratégicos ha intensificado la presencia del número de actores estratégicos en esta zona. En este sentido, es interesante analizar el juego de poder que se desarrolla entre Estados Unidos y China con el fin de neutralizar la debilidad estratégica que representa la carencia de estos recursos naturales, esenciales para el desarrollo de sus industrias, así como también la oportunidad que representan como mecanismo para ampliar las esferas de influencia extra continental. Así pues, la presente investigación analiza a partir de la explotación de los minerales como recursos estratégicos, los efectos de la geoestrategia reciente de estos dos jugadores activos del sistema internacional contemporáneo en la relación con los Estados que conforman la región meridional del continente africano, durante el periodo 2000-2010.