Mobile devices have become increasingly ubiquitous as they serve many important functions in our daily lives. However, there is not much research on remote threats to the battery and power systems of these mobile devices. The consequences of a successful attack on the power system of a mobile device can range from being a general nuisance, financial harm, to loss of life if emergency communications were interrupted. Despite the relative abundance of work on implementing chemical and physical safety systems for battery cells and power systems, remote cyber threats against a mobile battery system have not been as well studied. This work created a framework aimed at auditing the power systems of mobile devices and validated the framework by implementing it in a case study on an Android device. The framework applied software auditing techniques to both the power system and operating system of a mobile device in a case study to discover possible vulnerabilities which could be used to exploit the power system. Lessons learned from the case study are then used to improve, revise, and discuss the limitations of the framework when put in practice. The effectiveness of the proposed framework was discovered to be limited by the availability of appropriate tools to conduct vulnerability assessments.<br>

The Priority Risk Index is increasingly used as a methodology for quantifying jurisdictional risk for hazard mitigation planning purposes, and it can evolve to meet specific community needs. The index incorporates probability, impact, spatial extent, warning time, and duration when assessing each hazard, but it does not explicitly integrate a vulnerability and consequence analysis into its final scoring. To address this gap, a new index was developed- the Enhanced Priority Risk Index (EPRI). The new index adds a sixth category, vulnerability, calculated from a vulnerability and consequence analysis of the impacts on seven sectors identified in Standard 4.1.2 of the Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP). To obtain a vulnerability score, impacts are ranked by sector from low (1) to very high (4), then a weighting factor is applied to each sector. The vulnerability score is added to the EPRI and provides risk levels based on the number of exploitable weaknesses and countermeasures identified within a specific jurisdiction. The vulnerability score and resulting EPRI are scalable and can be applied across jurisdictions, providing a transferable methodology that improves the hazard identification and risk assessment process and provides an approach for meeting EMAP accreditation standards.

No description available.

Modern societies are fully dependent on critical infrastructures networks to support the economy, security, and prosperity. Energy infrastructure network is of paramount importance to our societies. As a pillar of the economy, it is necessary that energy infrastructure networks continue to operate safely and be resilient to provide reliable power to other critical infrastructure networks. Nonetheless, frequent large-scale blackouts in recent years have highlighted the vulnerability in the power grids, where disruptions can trigger cascading failures causing a catastrophic regional-level blackout. Such catastrophic blackouts call for a systemic risk assessment approach whereby the entire network/system is assessed against such failures considering the dynamic power flow within. However, the lack of detailed data combining both topological and functional information, and the computational resources typically required for large-scale modelling, considering also operational corrective actions, have impeded large-scale resilience studies. In this respect, the research in the present dissertation focuses on investigating, analyzing, and evaluating the vulnerability of power grid infrastructure networks in an effort to enhance their resilience. Through a Complex Network Theory (CNT) lens, the power grid robustness has been evaluated against random and targeted attacks through evaluating a family of centrality measures. The results shows that CNT models provide a quick and potential indication to identify key network components, which support regulators and operators in making informed decisions to maintain and upgrade the network, constrained by the tolerable risk and allocated financial resources. Furthermore, a dynamic Cascade Failure Model (CFM) has been employed to develop a Physical Flow-Based Model (PFBM). The CFM considers the operational corrective actions in case of failure to rebalance the supply and demand (i.e., dispatch and load shedding). The CFM was subsequently utilized to construct a grid vulnerability map function of the Link Vulnerability Index (LVI), which can be used to rank the line maintenance priority. In addition, a Node Importance Index (NII) has been developed for power substations ranking according to the resulting cascade failure size. The results from CNT and CFM approaches were compared to address the impact of considering the physical behavior of the power grid. The comparison results indicate that relying solely on CNT topology-based model could result in erroneous conclusions pertaining to the grid behavior. Moving forward, a systemic risk mitigation strategy based on the Intentional Controlled Islanding (ICI) approach has been introduced to suppress the failure propagation. The proposed mitigation strategy integrated the operation- with structure-guided strategies has shown excellent capabilities in terms of enhancing the network robustness and minimizing the possibility of catastrophic large-scale blackouts. This research demonstrates the model application on a real large-scale network with data ranging from low to high voltage. In the future, the CFM model can be integrated with other critical infrastructure network systems to establish a network-of-networks interaction model for assessing the systemic risk throughout and between multiple network layers. Understanding the interdependence between different networks will provide stakeholders with insight on enhancing resilience and support policymakers in making informed decisions pertaining to the tolerable systemic risk level to take reliable actions under abnormal conditions. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Cisco 2014 Annual Security Report clearly outlines the evolution of the threat landscape and the increase of the number of attacks. The UK government in 2012 recognised the cyber threat as Tier-1 threat since about 50 government departments have been either subjected to an attack or a direct threat from an attack. The cyberspace has become the platform of choice for businesses, schools, universities, colleges, hospitals and other sectors for business activities. One of the major problems identified by the Department of Homeland Security is the lack of clear security metrics. The recent cyber security breach of the US retail giant TARGET is a typical example that demonstrates the weaknesses of qualitative security, also considered by some security experts as fuzzy security. High, medium or low as measures of security levels do not give a quantitative representation of the network security level of a company. In this thesis, a method is developed to quantify the security risk level of known and unknown attacks in an enterprise network in an effort to solve this problem. The identified vulnerabilities in a case study of a UK based company are classified according to their severity risk levels using common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) and open web application security project (OWASP). Probability theory is applied against known attacks to create the security metrics and, detection and prevention method is suggested for company network against unknown attacks. Our security metrics are clear and repeatable that can be verified scientifically

Att klimatet förändras är konstaterat, skulle utsläppen av växthusgaser kraftigt minskas kan de påbörjade klimatförändringarna ändå inte helt förhindras. Förändringarna innebär att extremväder kommer inträffa oftare men med geografiska skillnader. Till seklets slut väntas i Värmland exempelvis nuvarande tioårsregn istället inträffa var femte år. Vänern kommer i och med detta utgöra en av de största översvämningsriskerna. Hur dessa förändringar påverkar samhället varierar beroende på samhällets konstruktion och sårbarheter. Anpassning till de nya förutsättningarna är nödvändig, och ett stort ansvar vilar på våra kommuner i och med den ansvarsfördelning som finns i Sverige. Möjligheterna att genomföra anpassningsåtgärder varierar, liksom hur långt arbetet har kommit. Ett sätt att integrera klimatanpassning i riskhanteringen för att minska samhällets sårbarhet, är att kommunerna använder sig av sina risk-och sårbarhetsanalyser (RSA). Detta är dock förenat med en del barriärer. Intervju har genomförts med elva Värmländska kommuner. Därtill har genomgång gjorts av samtliga kommunala RSA 2015-2018 för att identifiera framgångsfaktorer och barriärer med integreringen. Dessutom utreds om kommunerna efterfrågar hjälpmedel för detta arbete.  Resultatet visade att sex kommuner i varierande omfattning inkluderat klimatanpassning i RSA, vilket är en tydlig ökning jämfört med tidigare års RSA. Dessutom kan både framgångsfaktorer, barriärer och önskemål för fortsatt utvecklande av detta arbetssätt påvisas. Denna undersökning kan visa på att ett samband finns mellan om klimatanpassning i RSA skett och om kommunen drabbats av naturolycka. Dessutom kan samverkan mellan kommunerna vid upprättande leda till att kommuner som inte tidigare drabbats, ändå klimatanpassar RSA genom att samverka med de som har det. Som hjälp vid det fortsatta arbetet med RSA önskas av samtliga intervjuade kommuner ett utökat regionalt samarbete samt någon form av guide eller riktlinjer från exempelvis länsstyrelsen. / The climate change is confirmed. Even if greenhouse gas emissions were greatly reduced, it would still not be sufficient to completely prevent the ongoing climate change. This change means that extreme weather will occur more frequently, but with geographical differences. Moving toward the end of the century, in Värmland it is expected that the current ten-year rain cycle will change to a cycle spanning five years. Vänern will be one of the largest flood risks. How these changes affect society varies according to social structure and vulnerabilities. Adapting to the new circumstances is necessary, and great responsibility rests on our municipalities following the distribution of responsibility that exists for municipalities in Sweden. The conditions for implementing adaptation measures vary, as well as how far the work has come. One way to integrate climate adaptation of risk management to reduce the vulnerability of society, is that municipalities make use of their risk and vulnerability analysis (RVA). This, however, is associated with some barriers. Interviews were conducted with eleven municipalities in Värmland and as well as a briefing of all municipal RVA from 2015 to 2018 to identify the success factors and barriers to integration. Also investigated is whether the municipalities are requesting tools for this work. The results showed that six municipalities, though in varying degrees, have included climate adaptation in RSA. A clear increase compared to the previous year's RSA. Additionally, success factors, barriers and requests for further development of this approach appear. This investigation may show that a relationship exists between climate adaptation in RVA occurred and if the municipality is affected by a natural disaster. Also shown is that cooperation between municipalities in the preparation can lead to municipalities that have not previously suffered from a hazard, choose to climate adapt RVA by interacting with those who have. To aid in further work with RSA, an extended regional cooperation is desired by all interviewed municipalities as well as any kind of guide or guidelines, for example, on a regional level.

Apesar de a violência não ser em si um problema de saúde típico, por ser um fenômeno determinado histórico e socialmente, afeta fortemente o setor pois provoca mortes, lesões e traumas físicos, emocionais e espirituais, diminui a qualidade de vida das pessoas. Isso traz novas questões a serem consideradas na assistência à saúde. Objetivo: foi analisar a vulnerabilidade das mulheres para violência doméstica em relação à subalternidade de gênero na família a partir da criação de um instrumento de avaliação, que foi testado e validado de modo que seu conteúdo constituísse uma relação direta entre a subalternidade de gênero e a violência doméstica. Metodologia: é um estudo metodológico composto das seguintes fases: criação da primeira versão do instrumento; avaliação desta versão por juízas, readequação do instrumento; aplicação da segunda versão em usuárias dos serviços de saúde; análise dos resultados e elaboração da versão final. A base para a formulação do instrumento foram os resultados obtidos por Okabe (2010). A coleta de dados aconteceu em São José dos Pinhais PR. Resultados: um retrato das 320 mulheres que compuseram a amostra poderia ser assim descrito: são adultas, tem, em média, 39 anos, migraram do interior do estado do Paraná para São José dos Pinhais ainda na infância e vivem no município, em média, há 20 anos, são casadas ou vivem em união estável, cristãs e tem dois filhos em média, cursaram apenas o ensino fundamental, trabalham em atividades relacionadas ao cuidado de casas ou estabelecimentos comerciais ou ligadas ao comércio, porém, boa parte delas não exerce atividade remunerada. A maioria delas (57,94%) reconhece que já sofreu algum tipo de violência física ou psicológica pelo menos uma vez na vida. A análise quantitativa, por meio da análise fatorial do instrumento, mostrou-se a forma mais adequada de analisar o conjunto das respostas. Conclusões: ao longo deste trabalho comprovou-se a relação direta entre a subalternidade de gênero e a vulnerabilidade para a violência doméstica contra a mulher. Ao final, as questões ficaram divididas em dois grupos: 1) as que reiteram a subalternidade e 2) as que superam a subalternidade de gênero, sendo que: quanto maior a média das respostas para as questões do grupo 1, maior a vulnerabilidade para a violência doméstica; quanto maior a média para as questões do grupo 2 maior o reconhecimento ou o interesse na superação da subalternidade de gênero. / Tough violence is not a typical health problem in itself, it is a historically and socially determined phenomena and strongly affects the health services because it result on deaths, wounds and traumatizes physically, emotional and spiritually, lower the life standards of people. That brings new questions, to consider on health assistance. The objective of this thesis is to analyze the vulnerability of women to domestic violence on relation to subalternity of gender on a family from the creation of an instrument of evaluation, which was tested and validated on a way that its content made a direct relation between subalternity of gender and domestic violence. It is a methodological study composed of the following steps: the creation of the first version of the instrument, evaluation of the object by the judges, reconstruction of the instrument, and application of the second version of the research on health services users, analysis of the results and the elaboration of the final version. The base for the instrument formulation were the results obtained for OKABE (2010). The data collection happened on São José dos Pinhais PR. A portrait of the 323 women that composed the sample could be described as: adults with ages around 39 years old, migrated from the countryside of the state of Parana to Sao Jose in their childhood and now live there for about 20 years, they are married or live with their spouses on stables relationships. Christians, with two children, they have about eight years of study, most of them are housewives, or work as maids, some work on stores to no salary. Most of those women admit being victims of violence, physically or psychologically, at least once on her life. The quantitative analysis was done through a factorial of the instrument showed as the most adequate way to analyze the answers. Through this process, it has been proved the relation between subalternity of gender and the vulnerability of those women to domestic violence. On the end the questions were divided on two groups : 1) those who live on subalternity and 2) those who surpass the subalternity of gender, that those who answered more question of group one were more vulnerable to domestic violence, the more question answered on group two, more the awareness or the interest on surpassing the subalternity of gender.

This dissertation is a collection of previously-published manuscript and conference papers. In this dissertation, we will deal with a stochastic unit commitment problem with cooling systems for gas generators, a robust unit commitment problem with demand response and uncertain wind generation, and a power grid vulnerability analysis with transmission line switching. The latter two problems correspond to our theoretical contributions in two-stage robust optimization, i.e., how to efficiently solve a two-stage robust optimization, and how to deal with mixed-integer recourse in robust optimization. Due to copyright issue, this dissertation does not include any methodology papers written by the author during his PhD study. Readers are referred to the author's website for a complete list of publications.

The occurrence of two recent major earthquakes, 17 August 1999 Mw = 7.4 Izmit and 12 November 1999 Mw = 7.1 D&uuml / zce, in Turkey prompted seismologists and geologists to conduct studies to predict magnitude and location of a potential earthquake that can cause substantial damage in Istanbul. Many scenarios are available about the extent and size of the earthquake. Moreover, studies have recommended rough estimates of risk areas throughout the city to trigger responsible authorities to take precautions to reduce the casualties and loss for the earthquake expected. Most of these studies, however, adopt available procedure by modifying them for the building stock peculiar to Turkey. The assumptions and modifications made are too crude and thus are believed to introduce significant deviations from the actual case. To minimize these errors and use specific damage functions and capacity curves that reflect the practice in Turkey, a study was undertaken to predict damage pattern and distribution in Istanbul for a scenario earthquake proposed by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The success of these studies strongly depends on the quality and validity of building inventory and site property data. Building damage functions and capacity curves developed from the studies conducted in Middle East Technical University are used. A number of proper attenuation relations are employed. The study focuses mainly on developing a software to carry out all computations and present results. The results of this study reveal a more reliable picture of the physical seismic damage distribution expected in Istanbul.

Apesar de a violência não ser em si um problema de saúde típico, por ser um fenômeno determinado histórico e socialmente, afeta fortemente o setor pois provoca mortes, lesões e traumas físicos, emocionais e espirituais, diminui a qualidade de vida das pessoas. Isso traz novas questões a serem consideradas na assistência à saúde. Objetivo: foi analisar a vulnerabilidade das mulheres para violência doméstica em relação à subalternidade de gênero na família a partir da criação de um instrumento de avaliação, que foi testado e validado de modo que seu conteúdo constituísse uma relação direta entre a subalternidade de gênero e a violência doméstica. Metodologia: é um estudo metodológico composto das seguintes fases: criação da primeira versão do instrumento; avaliação desta versão por juízas, readequação do instrumento; aplicação da segunda versão em usuárias dos serviços de saúde; análise dos resultados e elaboração da versão final. A base para a formulação do instrumento foram os resultados obtidos por Okabe (2010). A coleta de dados aconteceu em São José dos Pinhais PR. Resultados: um retrato das 320 mulheres que compuseram a amostra poderia ser assim descrito: são adultas, tem, em média, 39 anos, migraram do interior do estado do Paraná para São José dos Pinhais ainda na infância e vivem no município, em média, há 20 anos, são casadas ou vivem em união estável, cristãs e tem dois filhos em média, cursaram apenas o ensino fundamental, trabalham em atividades relacionadas ao cuidado de casas ou estabelecimentos comerciais ou ligadas ao comércio, porém, boa parte delas não exerce atividade remunerada. A maioria delas (57,94%) reconhece que já sofreu algum tipo de violência física ou psicológica pelo menos uma vez na vida. A análise quantitativa, por meio da análise fatorial do instrumento, mostrou-se a forma mais adequada de analisar o conjunto das respostas. Conclusões: ao longo deste trabalho comprovou-se a relação direta entre a subalternidade de gênero e a vulnerabilidade para a violência doméstica contra a mulher. Ao final, as questões ficaram divididas em dois grupos: 1) as que reiteram a subalternidade e 2) as que superam a subalternidade de gênero, sendo que: quanto maior a média das respostas para as questões do grupo 1, maior a vulnerabilidade para a violência doméstica; quanto maior a média para as questões do grupo 2 maior o reconhecimento ou o interesse na superação da subalternidade de gênero. / Tough violence is not a typical health problem in itself, it is a historically and socially determined phenomena and strongly affects the health services because it result on deaths, wounds and traumatizes physically, emotional and spiritually, lower the life standards of people. That brings new questions, to consider on health assistance. The objective of this thesis is to analyze the vulnerability of women to domestic violence on relation to subalternity of gender on a family from the creation of an instrument of evaluation, which was tested and validated on a way that its content made a direct relation between subalternity of gender and domestic violence. It is a methodological study composed of the following steps: the creation of the first version of the instrument, evaluation of the object by the judges, reconstruction of the instrument, and application of the second version of the research on health services users, analysis of the results and the elaboration of the final version. The base for the instrument formulation were the results obtained for OKABE (2010). The data collection happened on São José dos Pinhais PR. A portrait of the 323 women that composed the sample could be described as: adults with ages around 39 years old, migrated from the countryside of the state of Parana to Sao Jose in their childhood and now live there for about 20 years, they are married or live with their spouses on stables relationships. Christians, with two children, they have about eight years of study, most of them are housewives, or work as maids, some work on stores to no salary. Most of those women admit being victims of violence, physically or psychologically, at least once on her life. The quantitative analysis was done through a factorial of the instrument showed as the most adequate way to analyze the answers. Through this process, it has been proved the relation between subalternity of gender and the vulnerability of those women to domestic violence. On the end the questions were divided on two groups : 1) those who live on subalternity and 2) those who surpass the subalternity of gender, that those who answered more question of group one were more vulnerable to domestic violence, the more question answered on group two, more the awareness or the interest on surpassing the subalternity of gender.