Critical infrastructure (CI) modeling and analysis is a very challenging research topic. One of the most pressing issues is to find an effective representation for addressing the system vulnerabilities caused by interdependencies, which, if exploited, could result in nontrivial accident scenarios. Until now, this question has been tackled for different sector-specific infrastructures (electricity grid, telecommunications networks, supply chains, etc.), and very few generalizable analysis tools have been developed. However, all CI share some features that can be leveraged in order to build a common modeling framework. This paper identifies these common features, which it exploits to develop a modeling language: the infrastructure resilience-oriented modeling language (I®ML). I®ML is designed to facilitate the analysis of operational interdependencies among the infrastructure components and overall resilience, i.e., the ability of the infrastructure to withstand and recover under off-nominal (anomalous) conditions. A number of examples are used to illustrate the modeling concepts and highlight the analytical capability of I®ML.

This paper presents a new interdisciplinary approach to support context modeling in context-awareness software developments. The premise of this approach relies on the idea that understanding a complex socio-technical ecology, while adapting the software to its behavior and evolution, is a primary challenge to address. Thus, the paper proposes an activity theory-based approach to aid in the conception, design, development, and evolution of emerging context-aware socio-technical ecologies. The concepts and notations used by the proposed approach are illustrated through a proof of concept that demonstrates the essential ideas and their use in real scenarios. Also, the feasibility of this approach is measured empirically through an experiment. Preliminary results show how, for a context-aware software design and development team, the proposal provides a better understanding of context than alternatives and helps to outline context models by establishing relationships and interactions between socio-technical components and by anticipating potential conflicts among them. The key ideas of the proposed approach result in the ability to analyze and model social and technological contexts around perpetually evolving system ecologies as useful representations for understanding operating environments closely tied to human actions, with software as a mediator component.

Governments are facing reductions in ICT budgets just as users are increasing demands for electronic services. One solution announced aggressively by vendors is cloud computing. Cloud computing is not a new technology, but it is a new way of offering services, taking into consideration business and economic models for providing and consuming ICT services. The paper explains the impact and benefits for public organizations of cloud services and explore issues of why governments are slow to adopt use of the cloud.