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Following the so-called “Industrial Revolution”, the shipping industry has benefitted from a very extended number of technology innovations. Over time, shipbuilding practices and the equipment of ships have been significantly improved. Furthermore, during the last couple of decades, the continuous improvement and integration-interconnection of electronics systems (the “network-centric” approach), have created a new operating environment for shipping. It is therefore not a coincidence that recent discussions on digitalization and autonomous ships provide a disruptive picture of how this industry may be transformed in the near future. Contemporary sea-going vessels are equipped with various technologically advanced systems and are highly automated. Today, all systems supporting the conduct of navigation and the various information technology (IT) applications related to ship management activities are heavily reliant upon real-time information to safely/effectively fulfil their allocated tasks. The issues of connectivity and interconnection clearly stand out. It is important to assess how navigation will be conducted in the near future. This analysis is based on a qualitative methodology, and its starting point, which also serves as the necessary “literature review”, is to identify and briefly discuss a certain number of technological developments that follow the network-centric architecture and have been recently introduced as equipment appropriate for ships. Next, it will examine how interactive processes and applications, both on the shore side and onboard vessels, can facilitate a safer working environment for seafarers and allow personnel based ashore to have a better understanding of what is happening at sea, as part of explaining the so-called “net-centric” framework of operations. Another important aim is to evaluate these promising technological trends according to their capacity of adoption in order to promote efficient and safe operations within the extended maritime transport domain. An important conclusion is that a net-centric philosophy and associated software applications can truly break down any existing limitations and create a collaborative environment for people and “machines”, including remotely controlled unmanned vessels.

Automated Test Equipment (ATE) is an integral tool in the arsenal of the Fleet Marines performing maintenance on ground weapon systems. An essential output of that tool is the test configuration and diagnostic data generated during the testing event. Historically, collecting and transforming diagnostic data into meaningful and actionable information has been a challenge for the Marine Corp's Automated Test Equipment Program (ATEP). The ATEP's position is that diagnostic data generated during testing can provide valuable fault history data, streamline the maintenance process, and ultimately lead to the development of a predictive maintenance capability.

Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) has begun the modernization of the nation's air transportation system (NAS), with goals to improve system safety, increase operation efficiency and capacity, provide enhanced predictability, resilience and robustness [1]. The overall objective of the Air Traffic Management-eXploration (ATM-X) project is to facilitate the goals of NextGen by conducting research to enable the growing demand of new, mission variant, air vehicles with safe access to the NAS. The implementation and utilization of new and burgeoning technologies that are both flexible, scalable, and systematically user-focused are requisite for ATM-X to achieve its intention of NAS safe entry [2]. Researchers from NASA Langley's Flight Deck Integration Team have developed a system architecture that would allow ATM-X to leverage the necessary capabilities of an Increasingly Autonomous System (IAS), machine-agent that will promote the safe access and operation of air vehicles within what has become the byproduct of NextGen modernization, a Net-Centric airspace architecture and an Urban Air Mobility (UAM) community. Conducting flight operations within this type of architecture constrains the human-agent's natural ability to data manage. When the massive volume of data, its types, and the acquisition speed at which the data is ingested is observed it becomes evident that the human-agent will be functioning at an operational disadvantage. Therefore, the development and integration of intelligent machine-agents into the flight deck are a necessary implementation to achieve ATM-X overall objective of safe access and operation in the NAS.

The development of science and technology is now increasingly providing convenience in everyday life. Various household appliances to office work tools use electronic devices so that human work is much lighter and easier. As an example of the use of an Arduino microcontroller which is used as an automatic bell time warning bell control. This research wants to provide a solution to these problems by giving automatic prayer times. The formulation of the problem in research is. (i) How do you design and implement a set of prayer time warning bell system tools? (ii) How do you test the series of prayer bell alert system tools? There are several research objectives including the following. (i) Can design and implement a series of prayer time warning bell system tools. (ii) Can produce a test time series of prayer time bell alarm system tools. The method in this study includes (i) analysis consisting of needs analysis, and analysis of work methods, (ii) Design consisting of Hardware Design, and Network Design (iii) Implementation consists of Hardware Implementation, Software Implementation , (iv) Testing Consists of Real Time Clock (RTC) Testing, Dfplayer Testing, i2c LCD Testing, System Testing Results, Telegram Testing. This prayer time automatic alarm bell is equipped with a dfplayer module that can play mp3, or wav, sound file formats. So the call to prayer information can play well. And this warning bell system will provide a notification to the telegram when the call to prayer time has arrived.

This paper analyzed the conception and characters of net-centric military information system (NMIS), and proposed a data reference model for NMIS to support data sharing, business interoperability and flexible system reconstructing. Furthermore, the paper give the analysis of the data application modes of NMIS, which describe how the data reference model performed in data sharing, business interoperability and flexible system reconstructing.

The use of industrial internet networks with net-centric control is the driving trend behind the future material manufacturing of goods and services. The promising future of this approach is provided by these complex net-centric systems functioning with high reliability. The problem of intelligent net-centric control and reliable network functioning is fundamental, with the additional requirement that the system should preserve stakeholder security and privacy according to policies. The issue is that such systems are characterized by complex multi-parameter operability modes controlled by various criteria. This study considers an approach to providing reliable management of complicated Internet of things (IoT) systems. This is achieved by solving multi-criteria tasks over many processes of various physical natures. Corresponding methods of hierarchical decomposition of multi-criteria tasks, process levels of multi-criteria optimization, specifics of aggregation levels, and the master equation of the optimization process are described.

The European Air Traffic Management (ATM) system is moving to a net centric operational environment. This transformation increasingly depends on appropriate communication, navigation and surveillance technologies (CNS) to enhance safety, efficiency, and capacity. New aeronautical data link communications systems such as Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) allows safer operations, denser airspace and cost savings for operators. However, it is a fact that ADS-B provides unauthenticated information over an unencrypted data link. In this paper, the Mode S data link structure and broadcasts are elaborated as basis to provide a comprehensive understanding for the information exchange and cyber security analysis of ADS-B. The information exchange is demonstrated by analyzing interrogated Mode S broadcasts, followed by a cyber security analysis in terms of a threat picture and taxonomy for various possible attacks. Finally, a scenario-based dynamic threat analysis is illustrated to clarify the consequences of ADS-B vulnerabilities.

NextGen has begun the modernization of the nation’s air transportation system, with goals to improve system safety, increase operation efficiency and capacity, provide enhanced predictability, resilience and robustness. With these improvements, NextGen is poised to handle significant increases in air traffic operations, more than twice the number recorded in 2016, by 2025.1 NextGen is evolving toward collaborative decision-making across many agents, including automation, by use of a Net-Centric architecture, which in itself creates a very complex environment in which the navigation and operation of aircraft are to take place. An intricate environment such as this, coupled with the expected upsurge of air traffic operations generates concern respecting the ability of the human-agent to both fly and manage aircraft within. Therefore, it is both necessary and practical to begin the process of increasingly autonomous systems within the cockpit that will act independently to assist the human-agent achieve the overall goal of NextGen. However, the straightforward technological development and implementation of intelligent machines into the cockpit is only part of what is necessary to maintain, at minimum, or improve human-agent functionality, as desired, while operating in NextGen. The full integration of Increasingly Autonomous Systems (IAS) within the cockpit can only be accomplished when the IAS works in concert with the human, formulating trust between the two, thereby establishing a team atmosphere. Imperative to cockpit implementation is ensuring the proper performance of the IAS by the development team and the human-agent with which it will be paired when given a specific piloting, navigation, or observational task. Described in this paper are the steps taken, at NASA Langley Research Center, during the second and third phases of the development of an IAS, the Traffic Data Manager (TDM), its verification and validation by human-agents, and the foundational development of Human Autonomy Teaming (HAT) between the two.

The aim of this paper is to provide an approach to planning and optimization of small-scale net-centric manufacturing. Automation of small-scale net-centric manufacturing in machinery requires solution of many tasks such as automated formalization of technological processes (implying conversion of existing and new production documentation into technological paths of automated manufacturing), distribution of workshop equipment, materials and tools between technological paths, monitoring of concurrent processes of supply and execution, analysis, network planning and manufacturing optimization considering miscellaneous criteria distributed among three levels of industrial network.

An end-to-end, holistic approach to capturing diagnostic data for disconnected automatic test systems, as part of a global maintenance capability, is a challenge many maintenance organizations face today. This is especially true for the Marine Corp's Automatic Test Equipment Program (ATEP) supporting Ground Weapon Systems. These systems often operate under austere conditions, with little to no connectivity, making data collection by manual processes, at point of calibration, or during support representative site visits the only viable options. While the goal is to collect diagnostic data every thirty days, the reality is that in many cases data collection periodicity can exceed a year or more. A review of the data collected over the two year period of 2016 to 2017 indicates that less than half of all systems supported by ATEP report annually. Of those systems, there were some that showed evidence of loss of data due to a reset of the diagnostic history databases. This evidence, coupled with the growing importance of diagnostic data, make it imperative that we reduce the gap in reliable diagnostic data collection. The purpose of this study is to investigate the integration of recent developments in areas of technical convergence to support more effective diagnostic data collection. The specific areas that will be demonstrated are the Marine Corp's integration of Boeing's Health Management System (HMS), whose evolution has undergone much growth in support of Joint efforts, and the Marine Corp's Electronic Maintenance Support System (EMSS). This infrastructure will be used to demonstrate the diagnostic data needs of the Ground Radio Maintenance Automatic Tests System (GRMATS). This paper will include descriptions of operational scenarios, prototypes and integration through a partnership between Marine Corp's ATEP, and Penn State's Systems Integration Lab (SIL). It is the goal of this paper to demonstrate an integrated, technical solution that shows the potential of recent capabilities. By combining recent advancements in maintenance support, the author seeks to demonstrate a prototype environment that meets the goal of an end-to-end diagnostic data solution that bridges the air-gap between disconnected automatic tests systems and the test support enterprise, exceeding previously unrealized goals of collection frequency.

This chapter analyzes two contemporary approaches towards confrontation: net-centric and information wars, developed during late 1990s early 2000s by two Russian scholars, Aleksandr Dugin and Igor Panarin. Although neither mentions Messner’s works, the essence of their concepts echo many of Messner’s ideas discussed in the previous chapter. Indeed, the core of Dugin’s net-centric war and Panarin’s information war (as well as Messner’s subversion-war, as it was interpreted by many Russian contemporary military thinkers) is quite similar. As this chapter shows, all these theories claim that with the geopolitical and technological realities of the twenty-first century, it is easier to achieve political goals by undermining the political authority of the adversary through the manipulation of political elites and the generation of political dissent, separatism and social problems, rather than by waging classic wars and military operations.

Typical aerospace embedded computers have many characters in common, especially in the aspect of the design of computer architecture. To evaluate this category of computers, 3 typical aerospace embedded computers were sampled and their characters of architecture and common technology were analyzed. Eight characters of architecture were concluded, and three evaluation dimensions were proposed. A basic guideline and a practical reference value or design were attached to each architecture character. The relationship was analyzed among the final assessment result, the evaluation dimensions and the architecture characters. Any aerospace embedded computer can be scored according to the assessment model for various estimate requirements. The evaluating method and progress were illustrated through one kind of advanced aerospace embedded computer's evaluation case. The case indicates that the assessment model is clear, effective and practical. It can provide some guidance for the design and performance analysis of aerospace embedded computers.

There are various approaches to the formalization of systems that operate in accordance with the principles of the Internet of Things (IoT). The main goal of creating such formalisms is the need to build complete digital models of real objects used for the purposes of their optimal management and the rational (optimal) use of available resources. The methods based on network models of processes, which develop in time are among the most effective approaches to digital modelling. However, the existing network technologies can be effectively used in the analysis of essentially single-level processes only and can hardly be used to model nested hierarchical systems due to insufficient formalization thereof. The proposed work is intended to fill the specified gap to some extent. Another issue in the field of management of the industrial IoT workshop is ensuring the reliability of the production process, which should be checked via modelling and simulation of the process. The work is aimed at automation of the small-scaled production site. Digital simulation is used as the research method. The multilevel representation of a workshop infrastructure based on IoT technology is described. An abstract network set-theoretic model of multistage processes developing in time is constructed and substantiated in this paper. The constructed model allows you to automatically perform an unlimited number of nested processes within a given hierarchical structure and implement some algorithmic methods thereby for decomposition of the complex systems. Furthermore, the method of reliable solution of scheduling and managing automation of multicriteria control network is described, which provides a balance between a set of target efficiency criteria of technological processes at different stages. The issues of application of the developed concept of network modelling to improve the performance of production sites of various kinds are considered. It is assumed that the main task of the production site is manufacturing a different range of parts from workpieces. In addition, each workpiece must go through certain stages of processing. These operations are interdependent, and the technological process itself is characterized by transitions from the initial state to the final state within the framework of a certain state graph. The developed model allows calculating the optimal path for this graph based on the principles of dynamic programming. The latter leads to savings of both temporary and other resources taken into account in the model.

Information Fusion is the integration of synergic information to support cognition and high-level processing. Emergency management systems may take advantage of such integration and better support human operators in the development of Situational Awareness (SAW) for decision-making. The critical and dynamic nature of real emergency scenarios impose challenges to reveal, integrate and derive useful information for decision processes. The problem increases when humans are the main source of data, leading to information quality issues, such as imprecision, inconsistency and uncertainty. Current syntactical-only fusion approaches are limited regarding the assessment of situational meaning and human language nuances. Semantic models help to describe and to apply relationships among entities that may be useful for a net centric fusion and Situation Assessment (SA) routines. The objective of this paper is to present advances towards a new semantic fusion approach supported by information quality inferences and semantic web concepts to improve the SA about emergency situations and hence supporting SAW. For such, a new architecture is presented to integrate objects and situation assessment approaches by syntactical and semantic means. A previous fusion approach based on a syntactic integration with quality indexes is used to illustrate the improvements on information fusion results with the semantic models.

The future battlefield environment has changed platform centric warfare into a network centric warfare. The NCO is a operational concept to improve combat power through information sharing, shared situational awareness, decision making and synchronized action based on powerful network grid. In addition, these operational environment is composed of physical, information, cognitive and social domains. The platform environment system is associated with the OSI 7 layer. However, OSI 7 layer is limited to express NCW environment including cognitive and social domains. Therefore, we requires a new model for expressing cognitive and social domains. After we developed a new model, this model applied to the NCW architecture taxonomy.

One of the major challenges facing many Service-oriented Architecture (SOA)-based programs used in the Department of Defense (DoD) is how to define a SOA model that is robust and scalable enough to meet mission-specific needs, while satisfying the Net-centric requirements for data sharing across the multiple services and agencies. While there have been many SOA initiatives in the DoD with various successes, data and service interoperability across multiple organizations are still limited due to the lack of a coherent and overarching SOA model. Most SOA implementations in the DoD today still follow a complex centralized model that lacks the necessary flexibility, extensibility, and scalability for large enterprises. We believe that a federated SOA model, as proposed by the present author in a previous work, has the benefits and potential to solve both the scalability and complexity problems that have become prevalent in centralized SOAs. In this paper, several design principles are introduced for implementing such a federated SOA model in a Net-centric Environment. First, we provide a formal definition of interoperability and establish an enterprise model with the necessary model components and behaviors for achieving the desired federation. Secondly, the design principles are described in detail revolving around the use of core enterprise services (i.e., a registry service and a security policy service) and focused on the capability to support disconnected operations. The benefits of the model in representing a federated enterprise are demonstrated via a concrete study on an existing SOA implementation in the DoD. Finally, future research directions, including the establishment of a quantitative federation model and analyzing its behaviors via modeling and simulation techniques, are highlighted.

With the rapid advancement in remote sensing technology and corresponding applications, the Earth Observation Ground Segment has undergone a significant change at NRSA. From dedicated data acquisition and processing systems, we have realized multi-mission data acquisition quick look and browse systems and also multi-mission integrated information management systems. Front end of data reception station has been upgraded to handle wider bandwidth and data rates up to 320 Mbps for near future missions such as the Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT). Antenna, feed, down converters and RF chain have been upgraded. To cater to multi-mission scenario mission independent, fully configurable demodulator/bit synchs have been deployed. For handling data acquisition in multi-satellite scenario where in data from 5 to 6 remote sensing satellites are to be received almost simultaneously, automation of operations has been incorporated towards station configuration to avoid manual errors. From media-based data handling, there has been a shift towards net centric data handling among the various work centers such as user order processing, data processing systems, special processing systems, data quality evaluation, and product quality control work centers. The turn around time for dissemination of user desired data products has been improved from two weeks to one day. Presently a state of the art integrated environment has been envisaged which will bring down the turn around time for the supply of data products significantly. Automation has been incorporated at both data acquisition and data processing to improve the product throughput. Presently NRSA is catering to a demand of about 30,000 data products per annum and in the next two years it is aimed to reach a level of 50,000 products per annum by realizing the integrated multi-mission ground system for earth observation (IMGEOS). This will significantly modify the entire data production and dissemination chain so that data can be made available to user within 1 h from data acquisition at Shadnagar in some cases. Some of these novel developments planned in the near future will be discussed in this paper.

The Net-Centric Adapter for Legacy Systems (NCALS) is a software technology that makes legacy system data and services available in near real-time to the military Global Information Grid (GIG). The intent of NCALS is to lower the cost and risk, and to decrease the time required for legacy systems to comply with U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) net-centric technical standards. Many different systems could use a common, configurable NCALS software component to comply with these standards. The benefit to the warfighter is improved interoperability with joint and coalition forces. NCALS enables legacy systems to move to a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) compatible with the GIG without requiring a costly and risky re-architecture of their legacy software. In addition, NCALS enables mission critical systems such as weapon systems to segregate their real-time, mission critical software from enterprise integration software. This maintains the safety and security required by such systems, while accommodating rapid changes in Internet-based, enterprise technologies. This paper will discuss the legacy system challenge and describe a technology prototype developed by the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren to realize the NCALS concept. The prototype works automatically, behind the scenes, to expose legacy data to the GIG and to make GIG data available to legacy systems.

This paper presents a net-centric communication, command, and control architecture for a heterogeneous unmanned aircraft system comprised of small and miniature unmanned aircraft. An integrated system was developed using a bottom-up design approach to reflect and enhance the interplay between networked communication and autonomous aircraft coordination. The advantages of the approach are demonstrated through a description of the unmanned system that resulted from using this design process. First, the hardware system is described, including both small and miniature unmanned aircraft along with their respective avionics systems. Second, a network architecture is described that seamlessly combines the miniature aircraft's IEEE 802.15.4 components with IEEE 802.11 (WiFi) components on the small aircraft. Integration of intravehicle communication and service discovery is also described. Third, a hierarchical control architecture is presented that uses the network architecture to coordinate the small and miniature aircraft at several layers in the control hierarchy. Hardware in the loop demonstrations are performed to validate the capabilities of the heterogeneous unmanned aircraft system.

The goal of net-centric warfare (NCW) is to give soldiers an information advantage that leads to a war-fighting advantage. However, the inherent nature of NCW systems is often quite complex and dynamic, which leads to impaired situation awareness (SA) and heightened levels of mental workload for the human operator. The following study investigated the moderating effects of automated audio-visual alerts on user SA and perceived workload while using a net-centric warfare system. Twenty-six participants observed battlefield scenarios on a simulation of the common NCW system, Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below (FBCB2), and were required to pay attention and remember critical events (e.g., the appearance of an enemy unit). The system was presented with or without an automated alerting aid that provided combined auditory and visual alerts when certain critical events occurred (i.e., System to Help Implement and Empower Leader Decisions; SHIELD). Results revealed that contrary to current assumptions the use of an automated alerting aid did not impact user SA; however, perceived workload was significantly lower with the addition of the alerting aid. This work demonstrates that the automated alerts used in this NCW experiment do not affect SA (either positively or negatively) and decreased perceived workload.

This paper, documents the activity of a workshop on defining a research agenda for Systems of Systems SoS; Architecting, which was held at USC in October 2006. After two days of invited talks on critical success factors for SoS engineering, the authors of this paper convened for one day to brainstorm topics for the purpose of shaping the near-term research agenda of the newly convened USC Center for Systems and Software Engineering (CSSE). The output from the workshop is a list of ten high-impact items with corresponding research challenges in the context of SoS Architecting. Each item includes a description of the research challenges, its link to contemporary academic or industrial problems and reasons for advocacy of that area. The items were assessed in terms of value and difficulty to determine a prioritisation both for the CSSE's future research agenda and for others in the field.

We explore how a shift in logistics management philosophy from centralized supply to many small and redundant systems linked in a robust global network may help blunt terrorist primary goals of disrupting orderly government and commerce. In effect, logistics can be weaponized.

As the system engineering industry sees an increasing focus on the lifecycle development, acquisition, and sustainment of net-centric Systems of Systems (SoS) and Family of Systems (FoS), organizations find the need to evolve current processes and tools to better handle the increased scope, scale, and complexity of these efforts. One such tool, the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is important in planning and execution of program activities as requirements and goals of the program evolve. This paper provides an overview of the limitations of current WBSs with respect to SoS efforts and presents a proposed WBS structure that more adequately reflects the evolving processes and cross-organizational complexities.

This paper reviews several different perspectives of net-centric operations (NCO) identified by the INCOSE NCO working group. It is of one of three initial products of the group alongside a review of the Systems Engineering challenges posed by NCO and a literature survey of the state of the art in NCO. The paper uses elements of Checkland's Soft-Systems Methodology to understand a range of different perspectives on NCO. It describes three different perspectives of the benefits of net-centric approaches, four perspectives of what constitutes a net-centric solution and four different approaches to realising net-centric solutions. Finally the paper examines the relationship between the perspectives and draws some high level conclusions about the utility of the different approaches to different situations.

Net-Centric weapon systems interoperate on the Global Information Grid to achieve information superiority. In a sensor-to-shooter scenario, the chain of events that connect the initiation of a control event to its result is not within a closed space. The chain may incorporate information gathering devices and weapons a thousand miles apart, or any of a myriad of devices in a more local confederated environment. Net-Centric systems need to consider determinism not only on the control side, but the communications side as well. This paper investigates a Net-Centric Dynamic System Model architecture in the context of interoperability.

Complexity is ever increasing within our information environment and organisations, as interdependent dynamic relationships within sociotechnical systems result in high variety and uncertainty from a lack of information or control. A net-centric approach is a strategy to improve information value, to enable stakeholders to extend their reach to additional data sources, share Situational Awareness (SA), synchronise effort and optimise resource use to deliver maximum (or proportionate) effect in support of goals. This paper takes a systems perspective to understand the dynamics within a net-centric information system. This paper presents the first stages of the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), to develop a conceptual model of the human activity system and develop a system dynamics model to represent system behaviour, that will inform future research into a net-centric approach with information security. Our model supports the net-centric hypothesis that participation within a information sharing community extends information reach, improves organisation SA allowing proactive action to mitigate vulnerabilities and reduce overall risk within the community. The system dynamics model provides organisations with tools to better understand the value of a net-centric approach, a framework to determine their own maturity and evaluate strategic relationships with collaborative communities.

There exists a wide field of strong theoretical models, which provide a basis for diagnostic and probabilistic reasoning. Among these are Bayesian methods, decision trees, D-matrices, logic based frameworks, and more. The IEEE 1232–2010 Standard for Artificial Intelligence Exchange and Service Tie to All Test Environments (AI-ESTATE) [1] strives to provide a common interface for interacting with these reasoning models to establish a common platform for prognosis and diagnosis. In this work, we propose a platformagnostic net-centric framework and interface, conformant to the AI-ESTATE standard. The IEEE AI-ESTATE provides platform-agnostic models and a service interface facilitating the exchange of diagnostic knowledge and reasoning capabilities. The Numerical Intelligent Systems Laboratory at Montana State University has been working continuously on promoting and enhancing this standard. Within AI-ESTATE is defined a set of Reasoner Manipulation Services (i.e., a service API). These services provide a standardized way to interact with a reasoning server for the purposes of diagnostic and prognostics. Previously, the AIESTATE service API had been implemented locally within our tool, called the Standards-based Analysis Platform for Predictive Health and Intelligent Reasoning Environment (SAPPHIRE).

In the last ten years there is an increased interest in System of Systems (SoS). The availability and affordability of communication made many systems to connect to each other and create networks with different stakeholders who collaborate to achieve common goals. There are many examples of SoS around us and they are part of our everyday life such as: Net Centric Warfare (NCW) System, transportation, electric grid, hotel chains, navigation, banking etc… are all Systems of Systems.

Nowadays, both wired and wireless computer networks have significant importance. In addition, we are entering the world of big data analysis, where a lot of data is transferred from the sources to given computing centers for further processing. This trend requires changes in the computer science' computer networking curriculum in order to prepare the students with market opportunities and challenges after graduating. The Computer Networks (and / or data communications) course, or the whole knowledge area of networking and communication in general, are supposed to be a core part of computer science and net centric computing. Given the fact that these students prefer to learn software oriented courses, the Universities have to make the course more interesting and sophisticated enough to follow today's trends. In this paper, we present a new adaptive curriculum for the Computer Networks course. The students have the opportunity to choose between a practically or theoretically oriented course. Our intention is to make the most of the learning objectives in the course more practical and thus initiate increased interest of the students. However, the core part of theoretical lectures about low level reliable data communication is obligatory for both approaches.

Sound flood management strategies are of utmost importance in low-lying areas like The Netherlands. Flood perceptions have changed over time, from flood protection and economically-oriented strategies, to more environmentally focused strategies such as the ‘Room for River’ program. Recently, a multi-level safety policy for flood management has gained more attention, which aims to take both preventive and effect-restrictive measurements. Preventive measures (level 1) are for example dike strengthening. Effect-restrictive measurements concern spatial planning (level 2), for example by compartmenting polders, and crisis management (level 3). The waterboard of the province of Noord-Holland (The Netherlands) intends to implement the Eagle Crisis Management System (CMS). This system uses a net-centric approach, which facilitates to share actual geographical and textual data that is part of the Common Operational Picture among the different organizations that are involved during a flood crisis. The Eagle system will be integrated with the 3Di flood simulation model. This allows to calculated flood areas and inundation depths during a flood, which can be directly visualized and shared in Eagle CMS, and used for example to define or adapt evacuation routes.

The omnipresence of the Internet and the World Wide Web (Web) via phone lines, cable-TV, power lines, and wireless RF devices has created an inexpensive media for telemonitoring and remotely controlling distributed electronic appliances. The great variety of potential benefits of aggregating and connecting embedded systems over the Internet is matched by the currently unsolved problem of how to design, test, maintain, and evolve such heterogeneous, collaborative systems. Recently, component-oriented software development has shown great potential for cutting production costs and improving the maintainability of systems. We discuss component-oriented engineering of embedded control software in the light of emerging requirements of distributed, net-centric systems. Our approach is baed on applying the graphical specification language SDL for composing complex networks of embedded software components. From the SDL specification, we generate internet-aware connector components to local embedded controller networks. The described research is carried out in a collaborative effort between industry and academia.

The World Wide Web (WWW) is now accepted as a i>de facto standard for human–computer interaction and human–human communication, so it is desirable to develop net-centric, multimedia and collaborative applications. In this paper, we present a new scripting language, JACIE, designed to support rapid prototyping and implementation of such applications. The support for the management of multimedia interaction and communication in collaborative applications is highlighted. JACIE facilitates such support through the concepts of channels and a collection of interaction protocols. A template-based programming style is adopted by JACIE, using a single program for both client and server, and platform-independence achieved by employing Java as the target language. All these features characterise a desirable multimedia software engineering tool.

Today’s satellite-based sensing can be transformed into a ubiquitous and cost effective capability with the use of a network-centric architecture. This architecture provides interoperability across multiple sensors, either LEO satellites or hosted payloads on LEO satellites, generic GEO communications satellites, multi-purpose gateways, cloud-based computing, and universal end-product dissemination. A key differentiator of this architectural approach is the use of the Kuand Ka-band GEO communications satellite systems that can relay LEO-sensing data to the ground for processing and distribution. This architecture, with automated hand-offs across multiple GEO satellites, reduces data delivery latency and costs with the use of the existing GEO constellation and gateways worldwide. A local buffering mechanism on the LEO sensors preserve temporarily stored data (for future replay) during hand-offs or when there is no GEO satellite coverage. Our standards-based architecture comprising Ku/Ka-band LEO-GEO links strikes an effective balance among risk, functionality, and operational costs compared to the use of other (bandwidth constrained and expensive) RF bands and purpose built GEO relay satellites.

System of Systems (SoS) architectures have been used to conceptually define complex systems. However, very few SoS architectures have been physically realized to solve real-world problems. Proposed in this work is the full realization of a net-centric SoS architecture used to implement and integrate a complex system used to automate human detection from an image source. A SoS architecture was selected to implement the human detection system due to a SoS's ability to achieve high levels of interoperability. This high level of interoperability is feasible via standardization of communication and by structuring information to conform to a proposed XML framework. Additionally, each individual system within the SoS hierarchy is functionally decomposed based on sets defined services that each system requires and provides. Moreover, a new concept of a commonly implemented directory service is used to initialize system communication and automate SoS architecture discovery.

Flight information in Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems today is scattered across multiple systems in proprietary formats. Systems must maintain multiple point-to-point connections to access data necessary to fulfill operational objectives leading to high overhead costs. For example, flight messages from the en-route system are accessed through the legacy interfaces in a proprietary format, which requires domain knowledge of the data definition and format in order to parse the content. Developing and maintaining such connections and formats increases costs to both the consumer and the provider. The FAA's Next Generation (NextGen) solution is to abstract the data content and information to standard formats and publish the data to net-centric services in order to provide common services and governance for net-centric data sharing. Through a set of demonstrations, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has shown improved logical and physical simplicity and harmonization of flight information exchange through standardized data and net-centric services. During these demonstrations, it was determined that flight information common support services must be hosted at the enterprise level and made accessible through System Wide Information Management (SWIM) as net-centric services in order for governance rules to be enforced and information be shared authoritatively to the global flight community.

Data diodes provide protection of critical cyber assets by the means of physically enforcing traffic direction on the network. In order to deploy data diodes effectively, it is imperative to understand the protection they provide, the protection they do not provide, their limitations, and their place in the larger security infrastructure. In this work, we study data diodes, their functionalities and limitations. We then propose two critical infrastructure systems that can benefit from the additional protection offered by data diodes: process control networks and net-centric cyber decision support systems. We review the security requirements of these systems, describe the architectures, and study the trade-offs. Finally, the architectures are evaluated against different attack patterns.

The Boeing Company Support Equipment & Services (SES) organization, in partnership with the Army, Ground Marine Corps and Navy, is leveraging the Cloud to create a Network Centric Support Environment for Support Equipment (SE) by developing and deploying the Next Generation Operations Management Software (NxOMS) within the Department of Defense (DoD).