ABSTRACT. At European airports, it is a regulatory requirement that security screeners either take a break of at least 10 minutes after 20 minutes of continuous visual inspection of baggage x-rays or move to another working position at the aviation security checkpoint. It is therefore common practice for security screeners to rotate between working positions at the checkpoint every 20 minutes. With a new technology in place, called remote screening, the screening position is moved away from the checkpoint to a separate room. Thus, it becomes more operationally challenging to maintain the rotation every 20 minutes. This raises the question of whether screeners can also inspect x-ray images for longer periods of time and how longer screening sessions affect their performance and well-being. In a field study at a European airport, two groups of screeners inspected x-ray images of cabin baggage over a four-month period. One group analyzed x-rays for 20 minutes and then moved to a different work position (control group), while the other group analyzed x-rays for up to 60 minutes (experimental group). A group comparison showed that screeners did not differ on various performance measures (hit rate, reject rate, or processing time). The examination of the screening sessions conducted by the experimental group revealed that when the workload was low or average, the screeners were able to maintain their performance for up to 60 minutes. However, if the workload was high, the hit rate dropped significantly. In interviews and questionnaires, screeners reported that they usually had difficulty maintaining attention after 30 to 40 minutes. Our results imply that longer screening sessions between 30 to 40 minutes could be tested and introduced. Thereby it is advisable to monitor and set a minimum hit rate that should be achieved during these prolonged screening sessions.

ABSTRACT. At airports, security officers inspect X-ray images of passenger baggage for prohibited articles. Because some threats occur rarely, airports use a threat image projection (TIP) system, which projects pre-recorded threat images into some of the X-ray images. TIP is used to measure threat detection performance on-the-job; and TIP is also thought to increase threat detection and to be beneficial for motivation. However, officers sometimes recognize TIP images to be artificial, which could reduce the efficacy of TIP; depending on the prevalence of artifacts and whether they affect TIP-detection. In a first experiment, professional screeners rated a representative sample of TIP images whether they contain artifacts. In a second experiment, the same images were presented to another sample of screeners in a simulated screening task to evaluate whether the artifacts affect detection. Results suggest that about 24% of the TIP images contain artifacts, mostly related to alignment and placement of the fictional threat items in the X-ray images of passenger bags. We also found that TIP artifacts influence detection performance. We discuss the potential impact on different applications of TIP in practice and derive suggestions how artifacts can be reduced.

ABSTRACT. Automation covers a vast range of functionalities, including autopilots, expert systems, alarm systems, etc. Decision support systems (DSS) are one type of automation that supports humans in information acquisition and the decision-making process for detecting targets. However, human tendencies toward the use of heuristics in decision making can also be triggered by the DSSs, leading to either over- or undercompliance with automation alarms resulting in suboptimal human-machine system performance. At airport security checkpoints, explosives detection systems for cabin baggage (EDSCB) as DSS allow passengers to leave personal electronic devices (PEDs) inside bags. However, leaving PEDs inside the baggage increases the difficulty of X-ray images. It is unclear how image difficulty affects compliance and reliance with the DSS and thus detection performance. This study investigated human-machine system performance supported by a reliable EDSCB depending on image difficulty in a simulated baggage X-ray screening task and allowed us to gain further insights into which factors influence the effective use of automation. We tested 98 professional airport security screeners in three different realistic scenarios of how airports deal with PEDs in passenger baggage at airport security checkpoints. In the baseline condition, PEDs were placed outside of the cabin baggage into plastic trays that were screened separately, and EDSCB did not support screeners. In the second condition, PEDs were also put into trays, but EDSCB supported screeners. In the third condition, PEDs were left inside the cabin baggage, and EDSCB supported screeners. EDSCB used as a DSS increased detection of explosive targets built into PEDs when they were screened separately. Unfortunately, operators often ignored automation alarms (cry-wolf effect), leading to insufficient performance, especially when PEDs were inside the cabin baggage. In this condition, operators also made omission errors when the EDSCB did not alarm. We recommend implementing EDSCB with automated decision to achieve a high detection performance for explosive targets concealed in PED while they do not have to be screened separately.

ABSTRACT. This introduces a network-uncertainty-trust (NUT) model which shows how the individual reputation of each node can be assessed on the basis of opinions provided by other nodes of the hybrid measurement network. He will discuss how end-to end trust can be maintained in an energy system with a consensus-driven ecosystem at its core.

ABSTRACT. Aditi has a unique insight into key compliance risks associated with innovative solutions, especially the development of Microgrids and Local Energy Markets which use blockchains for energy trading and to explain this further she will discuss how residents in a block of flats can trade solar electricity between themselves, tracked by Blockchains. This will include comments on development of electricity ‘flexibility platforms’ and make the point that using blockchains will promote sustainability and facilitate investment in renewable generation.

ABSTRACT. Jiro will outline how the energy sector can radically evolve using Hedera Token Services (HTS). HTS is based on third-generation distributed ledger technology – not strictly blockchains – and is just what is needed for Local Energy Markets. HTS can issue and configure tokens on the Hedera network, exploiting the inherent performance, security, stability, and governance.

ABSTRACT. Carl will talk about security of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) based on IoT devices at the edge of the network. A critical issue here is to ensure they are not attacked and he will outline the importance of keeping track of the identity and firmware of each device.

ABSTRACT. Leon-Gerard will talk about his new venture called Sunified. They have licenced Trusted Renewable’s smart solar panel patents to enhance accuracy, transparency and bankability to solar assets worldwide. They call their technology UNITY™. Sunified’s version of the smart solar panels will used for a number of centrally controlled grid-scale distributed virtual power plants in Australia and also for true-green bitcoin mining in the USA. Leon will emphasise how important adding trustworthiness to the renewable energy will be.

ABSTRACT. This article is focused on risk analysis with the help of multi-criteria decision making. We create many risk analyses for Soft targets, and we continually try to find new methods for objective evaluation of the risks. Many risk analyses are subjective, which is a problem for planning security measures and comparing the results (other events, object, place etc.). In this article, we pre-sent our case study, which deals with the utilization of fuzzy TOPSIS. We have chosen one cate-gory of the Soft targets – the cultural events. Our goal was to find the most endangered localization for the violent attacks in the cultural event selected – musical concert. Then we started to cooperate with three experts. They filled in data in our risk analysis, and then we compared the results with practice. We have chosen fuzzy TOPSIS because we assumed this method would be more objective. In the end, this hypothesis has confirmed. The results were objectively and in line with practice.

ABSTRACT. This article is focused on the planning of security measures. In our research, we are focused on soft targets and their protection. In this article, we present one part of our work – the process of planning and security strategy. In the beginning, the definitions of the soft targets and the cultural events are. Then we describe our proposal for schedule steps and security documents for effective security measures, generally for effective security and protection of people. The last part is about security strategy. We need to understand the possibilities of different strategies, their advantages and disadvantages.

ABSTRACT. Martin will talk about next year's IEEE ICCST which will be hosted by the Tomas Bata University in Zlin, Czech Republic