Dimiter Velev

Cloud infrastructure security

Cloud computing can help companies accomplish more by eliminating the physical bonds between an IT infrastructure and its users. Users can purchase services from a cloud environment that could allow them to save money and focus on their core business. At the same time certain concerns have emerged as potential barriers to rapid adoption of cloud services such as security, privacy and reliability. Usually the information security professionals define the security rules, guidelines and best practices of the IT infrastructure of a given organization at the network, host and application levels. The current paper discusses miscellaneous problems of providing the infrastructure security. The different aspects of data security are given a special attention, especially data and its security. The main components of cloud infrastructure security are defined and the corresponding issues and recommendations are given.

A Model for Fuzzy Logic Assessment of Real Estate Investment Risks

Assessing the real estate investment risks is a major issue for the responsible management and the sustainable regional development. The paper proposes a fuzzy logic model for complex estimation of the real estate investment risks, based on the available information sources and the expert knowledge. The fuzzy logic model is designed as a hierarchical system that includes several variables. This model is intended to be implemented as a Web service in a cloud computing environment as a next natural step for increasing the span and efficiency of real estate manager activities.

Digital technologies of industry 4.0 in management of natural disasters

Data collection and provisioning, horizontal and vertical integration, cloud computing, big data analytics, mobile and social technologies, IoT (Internet of Things) are some of the essential components of the fourth industrial revolution. The synergy between cloud technologies and mobile applications globally changes every aspect of how organizations work today. This change has never been so tangible and fast. Mobile devices and sensors, cloud technologies and geographical information systems are digital technologies - factors in Industry 4.0. Natural disaster data acquisition through mobile units and sensors via internet, data management and data analysis are targets, which will be solve by digital technologies and system integration. The survey suggests an approach to management natural disaster and crisis, interoperability with existing IT systems, and decision support.

Challenges of 5G Usability in Disaster Management

In recent years, there is a registered increase in the number and intensity of disasters caused by natural phenomena or human activities around the world. Such calamities adversely affect social relations, economic growth and sustainable development of the countries. Although many information systems for disaster management try to reduce the possible aftereffects of disasters and assess the damages, not always they are capable of handling the consequences in the right way regardless of the advanced information technologies used. Recently all technical achievements are being planned and focused on the forthcoming 5G technology with its numerous possible applications in different aspects of real life. The aim of the paper is to investigate the 5G usability in disasters and how this technology could improve the management of the negative consequences.

Information Technology in Disaster Risk Reduction

Computer and information systems are now at the core of numerous critical infrastructures. However, their security management is by far not a trivial issue. Further, these systems, by their very nature, belong to the domain of complex systems, where system dynamics (SD) is an established method, which aims at modelling such systems, their analysis and understanding. Further, on this basis it enables simulation of various policies to properly manage complex systems. More precisely, through understanding of the basic elements of the whole mosaic and their interplay, proper incentives can be tested. And this is important, because proper incentives can lead to the desired patterns of behavior of such systems, which may often be counter-intuitive. Therefore this paper presents a novel approach by using SD for managing critical infrastructures (more precisely the internet) when it comes to security related incentives. Based on already developed archetypes it provides a template model that bridges these conceptual models with concrete models that are suited to particular environments, and enable quantitative simulations.

Modelling of Major Flood Arrivals on Chinese Rivers by Switch-time Processes

Nowadays, there is a considerable flood risk in China is. A brief description of major floods on Yangtze River and Huang He River is given. Both big Chinese rivers have long records of floods with severe life and property damages. Quantification of the stochastic behaviour of the largest floods is a key task in the risk assessment and mitigation. An exponential distribution of the time intervals between consecutive floods is assumed in classical study of inter-arrival times of floods. An approach for modelling of flood arrivals on both Chinese rivers by switch-time (ST) processes is proposed. These ST distributions can be considered as distributions of sums of random number exponentially distributed random variables. The proposed model specifies explicitly times of occurrence not only of floods but also of higher risk of potential floods. This approach could be useful for making prognoses of floods and for analysing changes in hydrologic behaviour of rivers.

An analysis of the relation between natural disasters and Big Data

Nowadays the combination of several major ICT developments form a trend to a more effective management of natural disasters - social networking, mobile computing, Internet of Things and Cloud computing. The combination of these ICT technologies leads to the fact that rescue organisations are trying ways to find value in and insight from both structured and unstructured data from internal and external sources, generated in large volumes. New technology and software tools are needed for handling this and the answer is Big Data. The purpose of this paper is to investigate and analyse the relation between natural disasters and Big Data.

Insurance Models for Assessment of the Municipal Losses Due to Natural Disasters

 Abstract—Various insurance models for assessment of the possible possible financial losses for a municipality due to natural disasters. Risk situations which describe the possible financial losses of the monitored objects, are considered. The main components of the insurance models are discussed. The loss assessment results can support the municipal government to take more informed decisions for effective use of limited financial resources to activities in emergency situations. A concept for implementing the insurance models as a part of a Web integrated information system for risk management of natural disasters are outlined.