Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “IT security”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 271 records · Page 15

Leveraging artificial intelligence and advanced food processing techniques for enhanced food safety, quality, and security: a comprehensive review

Artificial intelligence is emerging as a transformative force in addressing the multifaceted challenges of food safety, food quality, and food security. This review synthesizes advancements in AI-driven technologies, such as machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, and computer vision, and their applications across the food supply chain, based on a comprehensive analysis of literature published from 1990 to 2024. AI enhances food safety through real-time contamination detection, predictive risk modeling, and compliance monitoring, reducing public health risks. It improves food quality by automating defect detection, optimizing shelf-life predictions, and ensuring consistency in taste, texture, and appearance. Furthermore, AI addresses food security by enabling resource-efficient agriculture, yield forecasting, and supply chain optimization to ensure the availability and accessibility of nutritious food resources. This review also highlights the integration of AI with advanced food processing techniques such as high-pressure processing, ultraviolet treatment, pulsed electric fields, cold plasma, and irradiation, which ensure microbial safety, extend shelf life, and enhance product quality. Additionally, the integration of AI with emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things, blockchain, and AI-powered sensors enables proactive risk management, predictive analytics, and automated quality control. By examining these innovations' potential to enhance transparency, efficiency, and decision-making within food systems, this review identifies current research gaps and proposes strategies to address barriers such as data limitations, model generalizability, and ethical concerns. These insights underscore the critical role of AI in advancing safer, higher-quality, and more secure food systems, guiding future research and fostering sustainable food systems that benefit public health and consumer trust.

AI↗

Identifying University Chemicals That Pose Security Risks: A Simple Qualitative Approach

Various laboratory-focused tools and methodologies for completing a safety risk assessment have been published, yet few similar resources to address chemical security exist. Herein, we describe a chemical security risk assessment case study at a university in a developing country. In this case study, we demonstrate a chemical security risk assessment for a university chemistry department, using an original inventory of 645 entries which was condensed to 295 chemicals after removing duplicates and erroneous entries. We then prioritized to highlight 83 chemicals of interest based on hazardous or dual-use properties that could lead to unacceptable consequences. We further refined to a list of 34 high-risk chemicals that required action, 48 chemicals that may need further justification and consideration for additional protection, and 1 chemical that did not need further consideration for additional protection.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Proceedings of the 2024 Advancing Chemical Safety and Security Education Symposium at the 27th IUPAC International Conference on Chemistry Education

The inaugural Advancing Chemical Safety and Security Education symposium was held at the 27th IUPAC International Conference on Chemistry Education (ICCE2024). Speakers showcased innovative strategies for seamlessly integrating security concepts into established safety programs, addressing specific needs of diverse academic institutions, and evaluating the effectiveness of different pedagogical approaches. Here, this proceedings publication encapsulates insights from 11 oral presentations, 12 poster presentations, and panel discussions including key recommendations for future advancements in educating chemical safety and security education for academic and industry audiences.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Biodiversity and Global Health: Intersection of Health, Security, and the Environment

One of the biggest consequences of large-scale environmental change is the loss of biodiversity. Recent studies predict a loss of 1 million species in the near future. Biodiversity loss and land use change through anthropogenic disturbance are known to affect disease exposure, disease severity, and disease impacts. It is becoming increasingly clear that biodiversity loss will lead to an increase in infectious diseases in certain regions. Changes in biodiversity may contain important signatures for prediction of infectious diseases and outbreaks. Here, we argue that areas of high or rapid biodiversity loss will be critical to monitor under the umbrella of global health security. Global Health Security consists of the actions and activities required to reduce the impact of public health events in populations living in different geographic regions and across international borders. Like infectious diseases, climate change and other causes of environmental changes do not respect international borders and are becoming more widespread in all parts of the world. Here, the relationships among biodiversity, climate and environmental changes, and pathogen prevalence are dynamic, context dependent, and complex. Accounting for this complexity requires the inclusion of the environment sector, presently missing, when evaluating the potential of global health security actions for mitigating disease risks.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

A Review of Visualization Methods for Cyber-Physical Security: Smart Grid Case Study

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are becoming increasingly complex and interconnected as they attempt to meet the demands of evolving society. As a result, monitoring and maintaining them becomes a more complex and demanding task for control system operators and cyber defenders. While the literature on visualization techniques in the context of cybersecurity is extensive, the same cannot be said for studies on visualization for the security of cyber-physical systems. This paper aims to fill that gap by: 1) defining the main features of a visualizations workflow for security visualizations in cyber-physical systems. The workflow includes the acquisition of cyber and physical data, processing of data, selection, and configuration of both visualization tools and end-user interactions. 2) Providing an overview of cyber-physical security visualization systems, with a focus on smart grids as a case study. Finally, we use the perspectives gained from this analysis to provide insights and directions for future research and design of cyber-physical visualization techniques.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Advances in Secure 5G Network for a Nationwide Drone Corridor

Recent research has validated the proposal to add a separate set of antennas for 5G coverage in the air, while the conventional set of antennas continues to provide coverage on the ground, for a nationwide drone corridor for 5G cellular drones. More importantly, this drone corridor can be made secure and reliable by adapting the drone trajectories to avoid interference and security attacks, and with advanced precoding and physical layer security. Energy efficiency can also be improved with low-resolution massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems that utilize low resolution digital to analog converters. This paper describes additional research findings to further support the creation of this nationwide drone corridor. We design optimal drone trajectory within the drone corridor to improve safety for pedestrians and vehicles on the ground. We derive the optimum antenna uptilt angle to minimize outage probability for a given drone corridor. We also study the placement of intelligent reflector surfaces in an urban drone corridor in order to improve the multi-path scattering and hence the spatial multiplexing gains for serving drones. We calculate trajectories to maximize data rate in the presence of smart interference when drones are used as relays and each drone may be deployed in the paths of data flows from multiple BSs to multiple UEs. Next we demonstrate how the use of the additional set of antennas along with the 3GPP standard based subframe blanking method can minimize the interference from ground reflection of the radio frequency (RF) radiation from the downtilted antennas. The paper concludes with plans to continue with experimental studies to advance this work further.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Data Security Defense: Modeling and Detection of Synchrophasor Data Spoofing Attack for Grid Edge

Data security and cyberattack have become critical issues in the distributed power system where adversaries can swap the source information of sensors or even spoof and alter measurements. However, the cyber security of the power system is challenged by the unpredictability and stealth of the spoofing attacks. Here, to protect the data security at the grid edge, this paper developed a synchrophasor data spoofing attack detection framework based on the time-frequency feature extraction techniques including the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) and object detection network for real-time synchrophasor data categorization and spoofing attack localization. The proposed approach outperforms earlier work in terms of spoofing attack detection and offers a vital localization function employing distributed synchrophasor sensors.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

A Secure and Adaptive Hierarchical Multi-Timescale Framework for Resilient Load Restoration Using a Community Microgrid

Distribution system integrated community microgrids (CMGs) can partake in restoring loads during extended duration outages. At such times, the CMGs are challenged with limited resource availability, absence of robust grid support, and heightened demand-supply uncertainty. Here, this paper proposes a secure and adaptive three-stage hierarchical multi-timescale framework for scheduling and real-time (RT) dispatch of CMGs with hybrid PV systems to address these challenges. The framework enables the CMG to dynamically expand its boundary to support the neighboring grid sections and is adaptive to the changing forecast error impacts. The first stage solves a stochastic extended duration scheduling (EDS) problem to obtain referral plans for optimal resource rationing. The intermediate near-real-time (NRT) scheduling stage updates the EDS schedule closer to the dispatch time using new obtained forecasts, followed by the RT dispatch stage. To make the decisions more secure and robust against forecast errors, a novel concept called delayed recourse is designed. The approach is evaluated via numerical simulations on a modified IEEE 123-bus system and validated using OpenDSS and hardware-in-loop simulations. The results show superior performance in maximizing load supply and continuous secure distribution network operation under different operating scenarios.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Development of a leading simulator/trailing simulator methodology as part of an integrated safety-security analysis for nuclear power plants

Nuclear power plant (NPP) risk assessment is broadly separated into disciplines of nuclear safety, security, and safeguards. Different analysis methods and computer models have been constructed to analyze each of these as separate disciplines. However, due to the complexity of NPP systems, there are risks that can span all these disciplines and require consideration of safety-security (2S) interactions which allows a more complete understanding of the relationship among these risks. In this work, a novel leading simulator/trailing simulator (LS/TS) method is introduced to integrate multiple generic safety and security computer models into a single, holistic 2S analysis. A case study is performed using this novel method to determine its effectiveness. The case study shows that the LS/TS method avoided introducing errors in simulation, compared to the same scenario performed without the LS/TS method. A second case study is then used to illustrate an integrated 2S analysis which shows that different levels of damage to vital equipment from sabotage at a NPP can affect accident evolution by several hours.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Cyber–Physical System Security of Distribution Systems

The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for control and monitoring of power systems is a layer on top of the physical power system infrastructure. The cyber system and physical power system components form a tightly coupled Cyber–Physical System (CPS). Sources of vulnerabilities arise from the computing and communication systems of the cyber–power grid. Cyber intrusions targeting the power grid are serious threats to the reliability of electricity supply that is critical to society and the economy. In a typical Information Technology environment, numerous attack scenarios have shown how unauthorized users can access and manipulate protected information from a network domain. The need for cyber security has led to industry standards that power grids must meet to ensure that the monitoring, operation, and control functions are not disrupted by cyber intrusions. Cyber security technologies such as encryption and authentication have been deployed on the CPS. Intrusion or anomaly detection and mitigation tools developed for power grids are emerging. Furthermore, this survey paper provides the basic concepts of cyber vulnerabilities of distribution systems and CPS security. The important ICT subjects for distribution systems covered in this paper include Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition, Distributed Energy Resources, including renewable energy and smart meters.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Strengthening the Security of Operational Technology: Understanding Contemporary Bill of Materials

The evolution of cyber-physical infrastructure has made its security more challenging. The last few years have witnessed a convergence of hardware and software segments in various domains, including operational technology (OT) which is responsible for carrying out critical tasks such as monitoring and controlling power grids, nuclear plants, transportation, and emergency services. Both hardware and software encapsulate numerous open source and proprietary subcomponents, making it crucial for end-users to understand the composition of the products they are using. For example, wind turbines incorporate thousands of lines of code (software) used for the turbine's design, planning, operation, and analytics in addition to the numerous hardware subcomponents that construct it. Due to the highly complex nature of software and hardware, knowledge of the components and subcomponents is required to mitigate cyber vulnerabilities and defend against cyberattacks. There has also been a transformation from a traditional linear supply chain into a global, dynamic, diverse, and interconnected system. The digitization of the supply chain makes it easier to find and exploit vulnerabilities. Critical infrastructures (e.g., power grids, oil, natural gas, water, and wastewater) rely on OT to function, and if the OT is compromised, equipment damage and potential interruption of services could result. A significant security measure to protect OT systems from disruption is to develop a supply chain bill of materials (BoM) corresponding to the software and hardware used in OT, along with attestations amongst vendors and asset owners. A supply chain BoM is a proactive way to understand the inherent vulnerabilities in the system and mitigate them in advance of being exploited. BoMs bolster the trust placed in the digital infrastructure and enhance software supply chain security by sustaining the management of component obsolescence and compliance, along with the seclusion of unsafe segments of a specific product. Adopting BoM tools is becoming increasingly important across various government sectors, as evidenced by the recent U.S. executive order on cybersecurity (NIST 2021). This paper aims to classify BoMs based on structure, functionality, component type, and architecture. The work also discusses case studies to further highlight the benefits of BoMs. In addition, it identifies missing pieces in existing BoM implementations so that future research may identify bounds on where it could expect to make improvements and directly enable researchers to identify promising areas for exploration. Further, the authors provide valuable recommendations to tool developers, researchers, and standardizing organizations (policymakers), additionally benefitting critical infrastructure owners and government executives. This aids in paving a path for future work, thereby, providing suggestions to determine a tool for consumers that best suit their needs.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A Historic Context and Mitigation Documentation for a Portion of the U12n Tunnel Ventilation and Containment Systems, Area 12, Nevada National Security Site, Nye County, Nevada

The National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Field Office (NNSA/NFO) has proposed repurposing the U12n Vent Hole #2 (SHPO Resource S2488) and the U12n.10 Vent Hole (S2489) for water sampling in the U12n Tunnel. The vent holes are part of the historic ventilation system for the tunnel and are contributing elements to the U12n Tunnel Historic District (D84). In consultation with the SHPO, NNSA/NFO determined the undertaking will have an adverse effect on the vent holes. The NNSA/NFO and the SHPO negotiated a memorandum of (MOA) with stipulations to mitigate adverse effects. This submission is to comply with the stipulations in the executed Memorandum of Agreement Between the National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Field Office, Environmental Management Nevada Program Office, and the Nevada State Historic Preservation Officer Regarding Repurposing of Portions of the Ventilation System of the U12n Tunnel Complex Located in Area 12 at the Nevada National Security Site. In accordance with the MOA, the manuscript provides a historic context that describes the development and functioning of the historic U12n Tunnel ventilation system for underground nuclear tests (Stipulation III.C). High resolution digital color images of the vent hole containment doors, nearby elements, and overviews were obtained and keyed to a map and a photo index (Stipulation III.A) (Appendix A). Lastly, Architectural Resource Assessment (ARA) forms were completed for each of the vent holes and Historic District D84 (Stipulation III.B) (Appendix B). The documentation including the historic context report, photographs, image files, and resource forms produced to fulfill the terms of the MOA will be archived with the Nuclear Testing Archive in Las Vegas (Stipulation III.D).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Treatment of uncertainties for security-related design aspects of advanced reactors when using a risk-informed licensing approach

Sabotage of nuclear plants and theft of special nuclear material are different from many other issues potentially affecting public health and safety, and some of those differences drive the content of the present report. A high-level indication of these differences is provided in the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Safety Goal Policy. Promulgated in the mid-1980’s, when it had become reasonably clear that risk analysis had improved to the point where it was possible to understand the risks associated with plant operation, the Safety Goal Policy articulates qualitative safety goals and quantitative health objectives that are meant to guide regulatory and risk management activities, with the following key exceptions noted in the original policy statement: The possible effects of sabotage or diversion of nuclear material are also not presently included in the safety goals. At present there is no basis on which to provide a measure of risk on these matters. It is the Commission’s intention that everything that is needed will be done to keep these types of risks at their present very low level; and it is the Commission’s expectation that efforts on this point will continue to be successful. With these exceptions, it is the Commission’s intent that the risks from all the various initiating mechanisms be considered to the best of the capability of current evaluation techniques. The present report discusses extensions of classical risk management to address some of the special issues that arise in the context of security. Although the present emphasis is on physical security, some attention will be paid to cyber security. A particular focus of the report is on quantitative framework to manage and address uncertainties. This framework is demonstrated via a couple of hypothetical examples.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗

An Architectural Survey of the REECo Maintenance Compound, Area 6, Nevada National Security Site, Nye County, Nevada

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Field Office (NNSA/NFO) plans to install a 26.45-mile-long 138-kilovolt (kV) transmission line on the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) in Nye County, Nevada. This new transmission line will upgrade the electrical transmission system and provide reliable power between Mercury Switching Station in Area 23 and the U1a Facility in Area 1. The proposed upgrade to the power transmission system constitutes an undertaking subject to review under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) (54 United States Code [USC] § 306101) and its implementing regulations, 36 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 800. A portion of this new transmission line will cross the western perimeter of the Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company (REECo) Maintenance Compound located in Area 6 of the NNSS. This compound with its trade shops, storage sheds, and yards served as a general construction facility that supported nuclear testing activities on the NNSS from 1967 to 1992. Although three architectural resources in the compound have previously been recorded and evaluated for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), other resources within it have not, nor has the compound been recorded and evaluated as a potential district. The State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) concurred with NNSA/NFO’s determination that the unevaluated REECo Maintenance Compound will be adversely affected by the proposed undertaking (Reed 2021). The NNSA/NFO, in consultation with the SHPO, then developed the Memorandum of Agreement DE-GM58-22NA25553 between the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nevada State Historic Preservation Officer Regarding Installation of a 138-kilovolt Transmission Line from the Mercury Switching Station to the U1a Facility and the Removal of the Historic 138-kilovolt Transmission Line from the Mercury Switching Station to the U1a Facility in Areas 1, 3, 5, 6, and 23 of the Nevada National Security Site, Nye County, hereafter referred to as the MOA. This architectural survey report was prepared in accordance with MOA Stipulation III.B. It describes the origins, history, layout, and functions of the REECo Maintenance Compound during the Cold War and identifies contributing and noncontributing resources. The report defines a district boundary based on archival research and the field survey and concludes with an appendix that presents digital color images of the compound with descriptions and a map key showing image viewpoints and directions. Although none of the architectural resources are recommended individually eligible, the district evaluation concludes the REECo Maintenance Compound is eligible as a historic district for listing in the NRHP under the Secretary of the Interior’s Significance Criteria A and C at the local level. The historic district retains all seven aspects of integrity and conveys its significance under the abovementioned criteria.

138 kV↗

Building a better framework for evaluating human well-being impacts in global change analysis: The example of energy security

Human well-being can be greatly impacted by the global environmental and socio-economic change captured in Integrated Models of Global Change (IMGCs). Though most IMGCs address some aspects of well-being, their underlying modeling approach and ‘philosophy’ differ widely, and some key elements – like energy security – are omitted. In this report, we describe a project in which we set out to a create a framework through which the well-being dimensions of the household are connected to key drivers of socio-economic and environmental change – and how the needed metrics, data and modeling methods can be brought to bear. We focus on the well-being dimensions of energy, and lay out the necessary elements to capturing household energy security – using household energy burden as the relevant metric. We begin by showing the conceptual linkage of energy burden to environmental drivers like temperature change, using a simple and straightforward conceptual framework. We then go further to use the example of GCAM-USA to show how some key analytical features of the model can provide insight into how energy security across different groups can change along alternative pathways to sustainability. We compare our preliminary assessment of household energy burden to existing data and suggest further steps to improve and refine this analysis in future research.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Fiscal Year 2020 Report for the Radiation Detection for Nuclear Security Summer School

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) planned to hold its 6th Radiation Detection for Nuclear Security Summer School 15-26 June 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic prevented an in-person school from happening, and PNNL staff did not have adequate time to prepare a virtual format school. So fiscal year 2020 was taken as an off year with the intention of hosting an in-person or online summer school in 2021. As with typical off years, some course materials and activities were refined to better achieve the key objectives of 1) exposing students to the range of nuclear security applications for which radiation detection is necessary, 2) articulating the relevance of student research into the broader context, and 3) growing student interest in careers in nuclear security.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

A Blockchain and PKI-Based Secure Vehicle-to-Vehicle Energy-Trading Protocol

With the increasing awareness for sustainable future and green energy, the demand for electric vehicles (EVs) is growing rapidly, thus placing immense pressure on the energy grid. To alleviate this, local trading between EVs should be encouraged. In this paper, we propose a blockchain and public key infrastructure (PKI)-based secure vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) energy-trading protocol. A permissioned blockchain utilizing the proof of authority (PoA) consensus and smart contracts is used to securely store data. Encrypted communication is ensured through transport layer security (TLS), with PKI managing the necessary digital certificates and keys. A multi-leader, multi-follower Stackelberg game-based trade algorithm is formulated to determine the optimal energy demands, supplies, and prices. Finally, we propose a detailed communication protocol that ties all the components together, enabling smooth interaction between them. Key findings, such as system behavior and performance, scalability of the trade algorithm and the blockchain, smart contract execution costs, etc., are presented through numerical results by implementing and simulating the protocol in various scenarios. This work not only enhances local energy trading among EVs, encouraging efficient energy usage and reducing burden on the power grid, but also paves a way for future research in sustainable energy management.

Stackelberg game↗

Use of Thermistor Temperature Sensors for Cyber-Physical System Security

The last few decades have seen a large proliferation in the prevalence of cyber-physical systems. This has been especially highlighted by the explosive growth in the number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Unfortunately, the increasing prevalence of these devices has begun to draw the attention of malicious entities which exploit them for their own gain. What makes these devices especially attractive is the various resource constraints present in these devices that make it difficult to add standard security features. Therefore, one intriguing research direction is creating security solutions out of already present components such as sensors. Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are one potential solution that use intrinsic variations of the device manufacturing process for provisioning security. In this work, we propose a novel weak PUF design using thermistor temperature sensors. Our design uses the differences in resistance variation between thermistors in response to temperature change. To generate a PUF that is reliable across a range of temperatures, we use a response-generation algorithm that helps mitigate the effects of temperature variation on the thermistors. We tested the performance of our proposed design across a range of environmental operating conditions. From this we were able to evaluate the reliability of the proposed PUF with respect to variations in temperature and humidity. We also evaluated the PUF’s uniqueness using Monte Carlo simulations.

Internet of Things (IoT)↗