Assessing adaptability of the water resource system to social-ecological systems in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region:Based on the DPSIR-TOPSIS framework

To optimize the overall layout of water resource allocation in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region,the adaptabil‐ity of the water resource system to the regional social-ecological systems has to be enhanced.Based on the driver-pressure-state-impact-response(DPSIR)framework,this study constructs an evaluation index system to analyze the adaptability mechanisms of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei’s water resource system according to the three major constituent social-ecological systems(i.e.,economic,social,and ecological systems).Moreover,it adopts the technique of order preference similarity to the ideal solution(TOPSIS)to comprehensively evaluate the adaptability of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei’s water resource system based on three constituent social-ecological systems(i.e.,economic,social,and ecological systems)and identifies the spatiotemporal differentiation char‐acteristics of the region.Our results showed that,①from 2000 to 2020,the adaptability of Beijing-Tianjin Hebei’s water resource system,as a whole,significantly improved.In terms of stages,from 2000 to 2007,the adaptability of the water resource social system was significantly higher than that of economic and ecological systems in the region.From 2008 to 2015,by accelerating the transformation and upgrading of industrial structures,improving the efficiency of economic water utilization,and strengthening the governance of the water ecosystem,the adaptability of water resource economic and ecological systems rapidly improved;how‐ever,that of the water resource ecological system was still the lowest.Additionally,the adaptability of the wa‐ter resource economic system exceeded that of the social system.From 2016 to 2020,the gap in adaptability of the water resource system to all three major constituent systems gradually narrowed.By 2020,the three sys‐tems entered a relatively balanced development stage,with the adaptability of the entire water resource system and the three major constituent systems maintaining a high level.②The economic system was significantly af‐fected by per capita GDP,per capita water resources,and the efficiency of economic water utilization.Addition‐ally,the social system was significantly affected by water consumption per unit of irrigation area.Meanwhile,the ecological system was significantly influenced by precipitation,water pollution discharge performance indi‐cators,and the structure optimization indicators of water supply.According to the evaluation results,we pro‐pose countermeasures and provide recommendations to optimize the overall layout of water resource alloca‐tion and promote the coordinated management of water resources in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Internet of Things Based Solutions for Transport Network Vulnerability Assessment in Intelligent Transportation Systems

Intelligent Transportation System(ITS)is essential for effective identification of vulnerable units in the transport network and its stable operation.Also,it is necessary to establish an urban transport network vulnerability assessment model with solutions based on Internet of Things(IoT).Previous research on vulnerability has no congestion effect on the peak time of urban road network.The cascading failure of links or nodes is presented by IoT monitoring system,which can collect data from a wireless sensor network in the transport environment.The IoT monitoring system collects wireless data via Vehicle-to-Infrastructure(V2I)channels to simulate key segments and their failure probability.Finally,the topological structure vulnerability index and the traffic function vulnerability index of road network are extracted from the vulnerability factors.The two indices are standardized by calculating the relative change rate,and the comprehensive index of the consequence after road network unit is in a failure state.Therefore,by calculating the failure probability of road network unit and comprehensive index of road network unit in failure state,the comprehensive vulnerability of road network can be evaluated by a risk calculation formula.In short,the IoT-based solutions to the new vulnerability assessment can help road network planning and traffic management departments to achieve the ITS goals.

Security Vulnerability Analyses of Large Language Models (LLMs) through Extension of the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Framework

Large Language Models (LLMs) have revolutionized Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tasks, becoming an integral part of various applications in society, including text generation, translation, summarization, and more. However, their widespread usage emphasizes the critical need to enhance their security posture to ensure the integrity and reliability of their outputs and minimize harmful effects. Prompt injections and training data poisoning attacks are two of the most prominent vulnerabilities in LLMs, which could potentially lead to unpredictable and undesirable behaviors, such as biased outputs, misinformation propagation, and even malicious content generation. The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) framework provides a standardized approach to capturing the principal characteristics of vulnerabilities, facilitating a deeper understanding of their severity within the security and AI communities. By extending the current CVSS framework, we generate scores for these vulnerabilities such that organizations can prioritize mitigation efforts, allocate resources effectively, and implement targeted security measures to defend against potential risks.

Agroforestry for Climate Change Adaptation,Resilience Enhancement and Vulnerability Attenuation in Smallholder Farming Systems in Cameroon

The adverse impacts of climate variability and change are felt mostly by smallholder farmers and smallholder farming systems where rain-fed agriculture is predominant.Continuous dependence on rain-fed agriculture has led to declining crop productivity and crop failure in most cases as weather patterns shift which is very problematic for crop growth.Agroforestry which is one of the climate-smart,environmentally benign and agroecological practices has been found to mitigate climate change adversities while fostering adaptation,enhancing resilience and attenuating vulnerability especially in smallholder farming systems.However,in Cameroon,limited empirical research has been done to ascertain the role played by agroforestry in climate change adaptation,resilience enhancement and vulnerability attenuation.This paper which is based on an in-depth review of literature was undertaken to uncover what has been done so far in terms of empirical studies tackling the role played by agroforestry in climate change adaptation,resilience and vulnerability attenuation in Cameroon.It was found that most of the empirical studies have been carried out in one agroecological zone-the western highlands of Cameroon,showing that smallholder farmers adopt different agroforestry practices in the face of climate change with the most common being home gardens with livestock,home gardens without livestock,scattered trees on croplands,improved fallows,live fences/hedges and windbreaks,coffee-based agroforestry,cocoa-based agroforestry,apiculture-based agroforestry,fodder banks,and plantation crop-based agroforestry practices.These agroforestry practices provide a plethora of ecosystem services categorized into provisioning,supporting,regulating and cultural which play an important role towards fostering climate change adaptation,enhancing resilience and attenuating vulnerability in smallholder farming systems.From the findings uncovered by this study,it is imperative for more empirical studies to be carried out in the other four agroecological zones of Cameroon where there is a paucity of information regarding the role played by agroforestry towards fostering climate change adaptation,enhancing resilience and attenuating vulnerability in smallholder farming systems.

The Application of "Risk=Value*Threat*Vulnerability" in Management Information Systems

With rapid development of the technology, many organizations depend more on the information than before and they will process mountains of information everyday. Hence, an information system is designed to facilitate managing information. Security is applied to insure data confidentiality, integrality and availability. In this process, risk can not be ignored. How can we analyze the degree of the risk we can accept to provide effective protection at reasonable costs with a great return on investment？ Now many methodologies are proposed. In the paper, one method ＂Risk = Value ＊ Threat ＊ Vulnerability＂ is analyzed so that more people can have a basic understanding about the risk.

Vulnerability and adaptation of an oasis social–ecological system affected by glacier change in an arid region of northwestern China

The Hexi Inland River Basin in an arid region of northwestern China was chosen as the study area for this research. The authors define the vulnerability of an oasis social-ecological system to glacier change; select 16 indicators from natural and socioeconomic systems according to exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity; and construct a vulnerability-assessment indicator system aimed at an inland river basin in the arid region of Northwestern China. Vulnerability of the oasis socialecological system affected by glacier change in the study area is evaluated by Spatial Principal Component Analysis(SPCA) under the circumstance of glacier change. The key factors affecting the vulnerability are analyzed. The vulnerability of the oasis social-ecological system in the Hexi Inland River Basin affected by glacier change is of more than medium grade, accounting for about 48.0% of the total number of counties in the study area. In terms of the spatial pattern of the vulnerability, the oasis economic belt is the most vulnerable. With the rapid development of the area's society and economy, the exposure of the system to glacial changes is significantly increased; and an increase in glacial meltwater is not enough to overcome the impact of increased exposure, which is the main reason for the high vulnerability. Based on the result of the vulnerability analysis and combined with the present industrial structure in the Hexi Inland River Basin, near-,medium-, and long-term adaptation initiatives are put forward in the article.

A Systemic Approach to Evaluate the Flood Vulnerability for an Urban Study Case in Southern Italy

Currently, the urban flooding is one of the most concerning problems in hydraulic protection, both for the enormous number of people and the different elements (buildings, roads, vehicles, and so on) potentially exposed to risk, as well as the complexity of the territory at issue. At the practical level, vulnerability indicators are often predictably too narrow in their coverage of aspects of vulnerability. An important need remains to produce more conceptually informed vulnerability indicators or parameters and more satisfactory operational tools to assess weaknesses and resilience in coping with natural risks. In this paper, we present an innovative methodology that adopts a systemic approach to evaluate the vulnerability due to a flood scenario. The operative efficiency of the proposed GIS tool is validated in pilot application site, i.e. an urban area in Puglia Region, Southern Italy, on the basis of, studies surveys and damages carried out from a recent flood event occurred in the area. The model evaluates the direct structural damages and explores the potential operating conditions of the road network in case of the flood event. The resulting vulnerability assessment tool can guide evaluators towards a comprehensive understanding of strengths and fragilities of a territory and community where a flood occurs embedding and integrating as much as possible the multifaceted and articulated nature of an urban system.

System Vulnerability Analysis Using Graph Pathfinding Strategies in Partitioned Networks

In this paper, a new method has been introduced to find the most vulnerable lines in the system dynamically in an interconnected power system to help with the security and load flow analysis in these networks. Using the localization of power networks, the power grid can be divided into several divisions of sub-networks in which, the connection of the elements is stronger than the elements outside of that division. By using our proposed method, the probable important lines in the network can be identified to do the placement of the protection apparatus and planning for the extra extensions in the system. In this paper, we have studied the pathfinding strategies in most vulnerable line detection in a partitioned network. The method has been tested on IEEE39-bus system which is partitioned using hierarchical spectral clustering to show the feasibility of the proposed method.

Cybersecurity: Identifying the Vulnerability Intensity Function (VIF) and Vulnerability Index Indicator (VII) of a Computer Operating System

The objective of the present study is to define two important aspects of the computer operating system concerning the number of its vulnerabilities behavior. We identify the Vulnerability Intensity Function (VIF), and the Vulnerability Index Indicator (VII) of a computer operating network. Both of these functions, VIF and VII are entities of the stochastic process that we have identified, which characterizes the probabilistic behavior of the number of vulnerabilities of a computer operating network. The VIF identifies the rate at which the number of vulnerabilities changes with respect to time. The VII is an important index indicator that conveys the following information about the number of vulnerabilities of Desktop Operating Systems: the numbers are increasing, decreasing, or remaining the same at a particular time of interest. This decision type of index indicator is crucial in every strategic planning and decision-making. The proposed VIF and VII illustrate their importance by using real data for Microsoft Windows Operating Systems 10, 8, 7, and Apple MacOS. The results of the actual data attest to the importance of VIF and VII in the cybersecurity problem we are currently facing.

An Information System for Risk-Vulnerability Assessment to Flood

An exhaustive knowledge of flood risk in different spatial locations is essential for developing an effective flood mitigation strategy for a watershed. In the present study, a riskvulnerability analysis to flood is performed. Four components of vulnerability to flood: 1) physical, 2) economic, 3) infrastructure and 4) social;are evaluated individually using a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment. The proposed methodology estimates the impact on infrastructure vulnerability due to inundation of critical facilities, emer gency service stations and bridges. The components of vulnerability are combined to determine an overall vulnerability to flood. The exposures of land use/land cover and soil type (permeability) to flood are also considered to include their effects on severity of flood. The values of probability of occurrence of flood, vulnerability to flood, and exposures of land use and soil type to flood are used to finally compute flood risk at different locations in a watershed. The proposed methodology is implemented for six major damage centers in the Upper Thames River watershed, located in the SouthWestern Ontario, Canada to assess the flood risk. An information system is developed for systematic presentation of the flood risk, probability of occurrence of flood, vulnerability to flood, and exposures of land use and soil type to flood by postal code regions or Forward Sortation Areas (FSAs). The flood information system is designed to provide support for different users, i.e., general public, decisionmakers and water management professionals. An interactive analysis tool is developed within the information system to assist in evaluation of the flood risk in response to a change in land use pattern.

Establishment and Application of Assessment Indicator System of Agricultural Catastrophe Vulnerability

To give play to the role of agricultural catastrophe risk fund in spreading agricultural catastrophe risk,we select natural conditions,economic conditions,social conditions,as the external vulnerability assessment indicators;select commodity rate of agricultural products,substitutability of agricultural products,the extent of agricultural products being related to the national economy and the people's livelihood,as the internal vulnerability assessment indicators.We assign weight to indicators using Analytic Hierarchy Process,and establish assessment indicator system of agricultural catastrophe vulnerability,to analyze the compensation for losses of different agricultural products arising from agricultural catastrophe in different regions.And we take the case of rice in Sichuan Province,to demonstrate the role this indicator system.

Quantitative Security Evaluation for Software System from Vulnerability Database

This paper proposes a quantitative security evaluation for software system from the vulnerability data consisting of discovery date, solution date and exploit publish date based on a stochastic model. More precisely, our model considers a vulnerability life-cycle model and represents the vulnerability discovery process as a non-homogeneous Poisson process. In a numerical example, we show the quantitative measures for contents management system of an open source project.

Optimal configuration of firewall, IDS and vulnerability scan by game theory

The integrated linkage control problem based on attack detection is solved with the analyses of the security model including firewall, intrusion detection system （IDS） and vulnerability scan by game theory. The Nash equilibrium for two portfolios of only deploying IDS and vulnerability scan and deploying all the technologies is investigated by backward induction. The results show that when the detection rates of IDS and vulnerability scan are low, the firm will not only inspect every user who raises an alarm, but also a fraction of users that do not raise an alarm; when the detection rates of IDS and vulnerability scan are sufficiently high, the firm will not inspect any user who does not raise an alarm, but only inspect a fraction of users that raise an alarm. Adding firewall into the information system impacts on the benefits of firms and hackers, but does not change the optimal strategies of hackers, and the optimal investigation strategies of IDS are only changed in certain cases. Moreover, the interactions between IDS ＆ vulnerability scan and firewall ＆ IDS are discussed in detail.

The vulnerability evolution and simulation of social-ecological systems in a semi-arid area: A case study of Yulin City, China

Taking the semi-arid area of Yulin City as an example, this study improves the vulnerability assessment methods and techniques at the county scale using the VSD(Vulnerability Scoping Diagram) assessment framework, integrates the VSD framework and the SERV(Spatially Explicit Resilience-Vulnerability) model, and decomposes the system vulnerability into three dimensions, i.e., exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Firstly, with the full understanding of the background and exposure risk source of the research area, the vulnerability indexes were screened by the SERV model, and the index system was constructed to assess the characteristics of the local eco-environment. Secondly, with the aid of RS and GIS, this study measured the spatial differentiation and evolution of the social-ecological systems in Yulin City during 2000–2015 and explored intrinsic reasons for the spatial-temporal evolution of vulnerability. The results are as follows:(1) The spatial pattern of Yulin City's SESs vulnerability is "high in northwest and southeast and low along the Great Wall". Although the degree of system vulnerability decreased significantly during the study period and the system development trend improved, there is a sharp spatial difference between the system vulnerability and exposure risk.(2) The evolution of system vulnerability is influenced by the risk factors of exposure, and the regional vulnerability and the spatial heterogeneity of exposure risk are affected by the social sensitivity, economic adaptive capacity and other factors. Finally, according to the uncertainty of decision makers, the future scenarios of regional vulnerability are simulated under different decision risks by taking advantage of the OWA multi-criteria algorithm, and the vulnerability of the regional system under different development directions was predicted based on the decision makers' rational risk interval.

Analysis of cascading failures of power cyber-physical systems considering false data injection attacks

This study considers the performance impacts of false data injection attacks on the cascading failures of a power cyber-physical system,and identifies vulnerable nodes.First,considering the monitoring and control functions of a cyber network and power flow characteristics of a power network,a power cyber-physical system model is established.Then,the influences of a false data attack on the decision-making and control processes of the cyber network communication processes are studied,and a cascading failure analysis process is proposed for the cyber-attack environment.In addition,a vulnerability evaluation index is defined from two perspectives,i.e.,the topology integrity and power network operation characteristics.Moreover,the effectiveness of a power flow betweenness assessment for vulnerable nodes in the cyberphysical environment is verified based on comparing the node power flow betweenness and vulnerability assessment index.Finally,an IEEE14-bus power network is selected for constructing a power cyber-physical system.Simulations show that both the uplink communication channel and downlink communication channel suffer from false data attacks,which affect the ability of the cyber network to suppress the propagation of cascading failures,and expand the scale of the cascading failures.The vulnerability evaluation index is calculated for each node,so as to verify the effectiveness of identifying vulnerable nodes based on the power flow betweenness.

Reliability and sensitivity analysis of loop-designed security and stability control system in interconnected power systems

Security and stability control system(SSCS)in power systems involves collecting information and sending the decision from/to control stations at different layers;the tree structure of the SSCS requires more levels.Failure of a station or channel can cause all the execution stations(EXs)to be out of control.The randomness of the controllable capacity of the EXs increases the difficulty of the reliability evaluation of the SSCS.In this study,the loop designed SSCS and reliability analysis are examined for the interconnected systems.The uncertainty analysis of the controllable capacity based on the evidence theory for the SSCS is proposed.The bidirectional and loop channels are introduced to reduce the layers and stations of the existing SSCS with tree configuration.The reliability evaluation and sensitivity analysis are proposed to quantify the controllability and vulnerable components for the SSCS in different configurations.By aiming at the randomness of the controllable capacity of the EXs,the uncertainty analysis of the controllable capacity of the SSCS based on the evidence theory is proposed to quantify the probability of the SSCS for balancing the active power deficiency of the grid.

Simulating Sustainable Urban Development by Incorporating Social-ecological Risks into a Constrained CA Model

A key solution to urban and global sustainability is effective planning of sustainable urban development, for which geo-techniques especially cellular automata(CA) models can be very informative. However, existing CA models for simulating sustainable urban development, though increasingly refined in modeling urban growth, capture mostly the environmental aspect of sustainability. In this study, an adaptable risk-constrained CA model was developed by incorporating the social-ecological risks of urban development. A three-dimensional risk assessment framework was proposed that explicitly considers the environmental constraints on, system resilience to, and potential impacts of urban development. The risk-constrained model was then applied to a case study of Sheyang County, Jiangsu Province in the eastern China. Comparative simulations of urban development in four contrasting scenarios were conducted, namely, the environmental suitability constrained scenario, the ecological risk constrained scenario, the social risk constrained scenario, and the integrated social-ecological risk constrained scenario. The simulations suggested that considering only environmental suitability in the CA simulation of urban development overestimated the potential of sustainable urban growth, and that the urbanization mode changed from city expansion that was more constrained by social risks to town growth that was more constrained by ecological risks. Our risk-constrained CA model can better simulate sustainable urban development; additionally, we provide suggestions on the sustainable urban development in Sheyang and on future model development.

Evaluating Watershed Vulnerability in Bernalillo County, New Mexico Using Expert Testimony, Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process, and GIS

Geographic Information System (GIS) software was used to create a watershed vulnerability model for Bernalillo County, New Mexico. Watershed vulnerability was investigated as a function of soil erosion and infiltration criteria: precipitation, land slope, soil erodibility (K-factor), vegetation cover (NDVI), land use, drainage density, saturated hydraulic conductivity, and hydrologic soil group. Respective criteria weights were derived using a Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) supported by expert opinion. A survey of 10 experts, representing New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NMT), the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources (NMBGMR), and the United States Geologic Survey (USGS), provided model input data for an integrated pair-wise comparison matrix for soil erosion and for infiltration. Individual criteria weights were determined by decomposing the respective fuzzy synthetic extent matrix using the centroid method. GIS layers were then combined based on criteria weights to produce maps of soil erosion potential and infiltration potential. A composite watershed vulnerability map was generated by equal weighting of each input map. Model results were categorized into five vulnerability categories: not vulnerable (N), slightly vulnerable (SV), moderately vulnerable (MV), highly vulnerable (HV), and extremely vulnerable (EV). The resulting FAHP/GIS model was used to generate a watershed vulnerability map of discrete areas in Bernalillo County, which may be vulnerable to stormwater run-off events and soil erosion. Such high volume run-off events can cause erosion damage to property and infrastructure. Alternatively, in areas near urban development, stormwater run-off may contribute non-point-source pollutant contamination of New Mexico’s surface water resources. The most problematic areas in Bernalillo County are present in the Eastern and Northwestern portions. However, less than 1% of the total area lies within the lowest and highest vulnerability categories with the majority centered around moderate vulnerability. The results of the model were compared with a previously published crisp AHP method. Both methods showed similar regional vulnerability trends. This MCDS/GIS approach is intended to provide support to local governments and decision makers in selection of suitable structural or nonstructural stormwater control measures.

Erosion Vulnerability Assessment of Sperchios River Basin, in East Central Greece—A GIS Based Analysis

One of the most important natural processes, with significant environmental impacts, is soil erosion. The aim of this paper is to evaluate and assess the erosion vulnerability of the geological formations constituting Sperchios River basin, in Eastern Central Greece, as well as to distinguish and locate the areas of such risk and estimate it. The developed methodology in this paper is based on Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE), with the implementation of Weighted Cartographic Overlay (WCO) technique in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) environment. By applying this method, an attempt was made to combine a set of factors, such as geological-hydrogeological characteristics, morphological slopes and hydrographic texture (causative factors of the phenomenon) along with rainfall (triggering factor) and land cover/use (competitive factor). The weighted combination of these factors defines the vulnerability of the formations in the area of interest. The main results of the methodology are two thematic maps of erosion vulnerability of Sperchios basin’s formations, one that does not include land use/cover factor and one with current existing conditions of the basin (co-evaluating land use/cover). In the first case, 36% of the basin surface undergoes high erosion vulnerability, while 53% present medium vulnerability. These percentages reduced significantly in the second case (3% is the high erosion vulnerability category and 38% the medium one), fact that proves the importance of vegetation in erosion restriction and protection of the geological formations consisting the Sperchios River basin.

Identification of system vulnerabilities in the Ethiopian electric power system

The Ethiopian Electric Power(EEP) has been operating and managing the national interconnected power system with dispersed and geographically isolated generators, a complex transmission system and loads. In recent years, with an increasing load demand due to rural electrification and industrialization, the Ethiopian power system has faced more frequent, widely spread and long lasting blackouts. To slash the occurrence of such incidents, identifying the system vulnerabilities is the first step in this direction. In this paper, the vulnerability assessment is performed using indices called active power performance index(PIp) and voltage performance index(PIv). These indices provide a direct means of comparing the relative severity of the different line outages on the system loads and voltage profiles. Accordingly, it is found that the most severe line outages are those lines that interconnect the high load centered(Addis Ababa and Central regions) with the rest of the regional power systems. In addition, the most vulnerable buses of the network in respect of voltage limit violations are mainly found at the high load centers.