Search Results (9)

The expansion of operation technology (OT) use and its tight integration with classical information and communication technologies have led not only to additional and improved possibilities in monitoring physical/manufacturing processes and the emergency of Industry 4.0 but also to a number of new threats, both related to the security of processed data and the safety of people, affected by physical processes and controlled by OT. Understanding potential threats has caused an increased demand for scientific research in the field, which is still relatively new and lacks established terminology. In this review paper, we aim to identify emerging trends and technologies in OT incident response, attack detection, applications of machine and deep learning for attack recognition, and security of OT protocols. An examination of research patterns from the Web of Science repository is performed to comprehend the panorama of publications and the present state of research in the area of OT security. The analysis shows a notable rise in publications concerning OT security, reflecting an increasing research interest. Proceeding articles and research articles were the predominant types of publications that were analyzed. The analysis further emphasizes the collaborative connections between researchers, academic institutions, and nations. Additionally, co-occurrence and citation analyses are carried out to offer an understanding of the associations between various keywords and/or research subjects. The study is finalized by suggesting future research directions on OT security. The uniqueness of this review lies in its focus on OT rather than the more commonly explored SCADA/ICS topics, attempting to cover a wider range of research topics instead of concentrating on a narrow area/method. Full article

Environmental challenges have intensified as a result of global warming and climate change, creating significant threats to environmental quality. The member nations of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) are especially impacted by these issues, primarily because of their reliance on fossil fuels, leading to elevated carbon emissions. This study examines the influence of natural resources, renewable energy, technological innovation, and globalization on environmental degradation in five OTS member countries—Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Türkiye, and Uzbekistan—covering the years 1996 to 2020. The ecological footprint and CO₂ emissions are employed as the main indicators of environmental harm. Through the application of the Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR), the findings reveal that natural resources significantly contribute to CO₂ emissions in the lower quantiles but show a lesser impact on the ecological footprint. Conversely, renewable energy consistently improves environmental quality across all quantiles, whereas technological innovation and globalization are both associated with increased environmental degradation. Additionally, the causality test reveals a bidirectional causality between renewable energy consumption and both CO₂ emissions and the ecological footprint (EF), as well as between technological innovation and EF. Moreover, a unidirectional causal relationship is observed from globalization to EF. Based on the findings, policy recommendations for OTS member states include promoting the adoption of renewable energy, fostering green technological innovations, and addressing the negative environmental effects of globalization. Such measures are vital for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and ensuring long-term environmental sustainability. Full article

The outdoor thermal environment (OTE) is closely related to sustainable urban development and human living, and related research has attracted widespread attention. The research hotspots and research frontiers were obtained using CiteSpace to analyze 4473 relevant studies published in English from the Web of Science (WOS) core database from 1998 to 2023. The results show that (1) Hong Kong Polytechnic University, National University of Singapore, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, and Harbin Institute of Technology are important in OTE research. China has the largest number of publications in the field of OTE, but the United States has the greatest centrality and significant influence. (2) The focus of OTE keyword clustering research is divided into four main categories: thermal environment perception, the thermal environment index, thermal environment quality, and thermal environment optimization. (3) The frontiers of OTE research have changed from focusing on environmental quality, thermal perception, numerical simulation, urban space, and thermal adaptation to thermal mitigation, energy conservation, energy consumption, and optimization strategies. Visualization research in the field of OTE helps to provide references for the direction of future research on improving climate change, human thermal comfort, urban planning, and pre-planning. Full article

Industrial control systems (ICS) are critical networks directly linked to the value of core national and societal assets, yet they are increasingly becoming primary targets for numerous cyberattacks today. The ICS network, a fusion of operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) networks, possesses a broad attack vector, and attacks targeting ICS often take the form of advanced persistent threats (APTs) exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities. However, most existing ICS security techniques have been adaptations of security technologies for IT networks, and security measures tailored to the characteristics of ICS data are currently insufficient. To mitigate cyber threats to ICS networks, this paper proposes an anomaly detection technique based on dynamic data abstraction. The proposed method abstracts ICS data collected in real time using a dynamic data abstraction technique based on noise reduction. The abstracted data are then used to optimize both the update rate and the detection accuracy of the anomaly detection model through model adaptation and incremental learning processes. The proposed approach updates the model by quickly reflecting data on new attack patterns and their distributions, effectively shortening the dwell time in response to APTs utilizing zero-day vulnerabilities. We demonstrate the attack response performance and detection accuracy of the proposed dynamic data abstraction-based anomaly detection technique through experiments using the SWaT dataset generated from a testbed of an actual ICS process. The experiments show that the proposed model achieves high accuracy with a small number of abstracted data while rapidly learning new attack pattern data in real-time without compromising accuracy. The proposed technique can effectively respond to cyberattacks targeting ICS by quickly learning and reflecting trends in attack patterns that exploit zero-day vulnerabilities. Full article

Cyber threats and vulnerabilities present an increasing risk to the safe and frictionless execution of business operations. Bad actors (“hackers”), including state actors, are increasingly targeting the operational technologies (OTs) and industrial control systems (ICSs) used to protect critical national infrastructure (CNI). Minimisations of cyber risk, attack surfaces, data immutability, and interoperability of IoT are some of the main challenges of today’s CNI. Cyber security risk assessment is one of the basic and most important activities to identify and quantify cyber security threats and vulnerabilities. This research presents a novel i-TRACE security-by-design CNI methodology that encompasses CNI key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to combat the growing vicarious nature of remote, well-planned, and well-executed cyber-attacks against CNI, as recently exemplified in the current Ukraine conflict (2014–present) on both sides. The proposed methodology offers a hybrid method that specifically identifies the steps required (typically undertaken by those responsible for detecting, deterring, and disrupting cyber attacks on CNI). Furthermore, we present a novel, advanced, and resilient approach that leverages digital twins and distributed ledger technologies for our chosen i-TRACE use cases of energy management and connected sites. The key steps required to achieve the desired level of interoperability and immutability of data are identified, thereby reducing the risk of CNI-specific cyber attacks and minimising the attack vectors and surfaces. Hence, this research aims to provide an extra level of safety for CNI and OT human operatives, i.e., those tasked with and responsible for detecting, deterring, disrupting, and mitigating these cyber-attacks. Our evaluations and comparisons clearly demonstrate that i-TRACE has significant intrinsic advantages compared to existing “state-of-the-art” mechanisms. Full article

Worldwide growth in electric vehicle use is prompting new installations of private and public electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE). EVSE devices support the electrification of the transportation industry but also represent a linchpin for power systems and transportation infrastructures. Cybersecurity researchers have recently identified several vulnerabilities that exist in EVSE devices, communications to electric vehicles (EVs), and upstream services, such as EVSE vendor cloud services, third party systems, and grid operators. The potential impact of attacks on these systems stretches from localized, relatively minor effects to long-term national disruptions. Fortunately, there is a strong and expanding collection of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) cybersecurity best practices that may be applied to the EVSE environment to secure this equipment. In this paper, we survey publicly disclosed EVSE vulnerabilities, the impact of EV charger cyberattacks, and proposed security protections for EV charging technologies. Full article

Biological diversity is declining globally. The current national environmental policies that many countries around the globe have adopted and are implementing have not halted biodiversity loss as expected. This is also happening in several European peripheral areas that constitute important “biodiversity hotspots” for the numerous species, habitats and ecosystems they host. Among these biodiversity hotspots, the Overseas Territories (OTs) of the United Kingdom (UK) represent important areas for academic investigation, particularly at this moment. The recent exit of the UK from the European Union will imply a net drop in financial contributions made available for the UK’s OTs. This adds to the limitations and constraints imposed upon those territories by their geographical isolation and small scale, as shown by the case of Saint Helena. The article provides insights on the role of policy resources in the analysis of public policies. It, then, focuses on biodiversity policy in St Helena under various angles: relations with the UK, organisational arrangements within the island, the legislative framework and its execution for the protection of biodiversity. Finally, the article discusses the major challenges faced in the development and implementation of Saint Helena’s biodiversity policy with an emphasis on the role of tangible and intangible resources. It concludes with a set of recommendations tailored around the specific case of Saint Helena but also applicable to other OTs. Full article

The purpose of this study was to test the responsiveness of the great recess framework-observational tool (GRF-OT) to detect changes in recess quality. GRF-OT data were collected at two time points (fall 2017 and spring 2018) in four geographically distinct regions of the United States. Following recommendations by Massey et al. (2018), a three-day average of recess observations was used for each data point. Data analysis was conducted on nine schools contracted to receive services from Playworks, a national non-profit organization specializing in recess implementation, for the first time; eight schools with returning Playworks services (i.e., multiple years of service) and five schools with no intervention services. Analysis of the change in GRF-OT scores from fall to spring revealed a large effect for first-year intervention schools (g = 1.19; 95% CI 0.13, 2.25) and multi-year intervention schools (g = 0.788; 95% CI −0.204, 1.78). GRF-OT scores decreased for schools not receiving an intervention (g = −0.562; 95% CI, −2.20, 1.07). New intervention schools (odds ratio= 21.59; 95% CI 4.27, 109.15) and multi-year intervention schools (odds ratio= 7.34; 95% CI 1.50, 35.97) were more likely to meet the threshold for meaningful positive change than non-intervention schools. The results of the current study suggest that GRF-OT is a responsive tool that researchers, practitioners, and policy makers can use to measure and assess changes in the quality of the recess environment. Full article

Cassava is becoming increasingly important as an industrial raw material in China. However, an insufficient supply of cassava raw materials and the expanding demand for cassava in downstream-processing industries restricts the development of the cassava industry in China. This paper studies how to increase the scale of cassava planting and promoting cassava production efficiency using output-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) modeling. Overall Technical Efficiency (OTE), Pure Technical Efficiency (PTE), and Scale Efficiencies (SE) of the cassava-production system in the major cassava production areas of China are calculated using Variable Returns to Scale (VRS). Results reveal that, in addition to the Guangdong province, the OTE of Guangxi, Hainan, Fujian, Yunnan, and Jiangxi is inefficient, with an OTE of less than 1. The largest cassava-planting province, Guangxi, has the lowest SE with 0.551. The PTE of Guangxi is close to the minimum with 0.344. The OTE of Guangxi is also the lowest among the five provinces with 0.190. This study also presents ways to improve production efficiency. Results reveal that Guangxi has a large ratio of transverse adjustment on average. In the Guangxi province, 1.70% of the service cost and 1.72% of the labor cost need to be eliminated to keep the current output scale. Meanwhile, service and labor costs need to be reduced by 3164.85 and 3209.92, respectively, to achieve the best production efficiency. Further industrialization and large-scale cassava cultivation, increased yield, and strengthened cooperation with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Africa are suggested as policy options to improve the cassava system in China. Full article