Deliverable 4.4 Toolset
Report on Risk, Benefit, Impact and Value.
Report on Risk, Benefit, Impact and Value.
The LNEC, established in November 1946, is a public Science and Technology institution, which is subject to Government supervision through the Ministry of Public Works, Transports and Communications. Its competences, as referred to in the definition of strategic guidelines, are performed in conjunction with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education. Its activity is developed in the various fields of civil engineering and its main assignments are the execution, supervision and promotion of scientific research and technological developments to achieve progress, innovation and good practices in civil engineering. The institution is also responsible for providing an unbiased and suitable scientific and technical support to the executive power in its governing and regulatory activities. At present, it has about 680 staff, of which approximately 42% have a University degree and about 22% are researchers holding a PhD or an equivalent degree2. It also has about 80 scientific research fellows with a grant awarded by LNEC. From the annual LNEC budget, about 50% of LNEC's income results from the generation of private revenues, namely referring to the provision of science and technology services, the remaining 50% deriving from the National Budget and from other sources.
LNEC undertakes research in the following areas:
The Portuguese Dam Safety Legislation that regulates the dam safety control of big Portuguese dams (dams where the maximum height from the foundation is more than 15 meters or with a reservoir with more than 100 000 m3 of capacity) gives LNEC the responsibility of surveying the behaviour and the structural safety of approximately 150 concrete and masonry dams. This responsibility includes the generating observation plans, the periodic inspection of the dam structure and potential anomalies, the generation of analysis and interpretation reports of the observed behaviour and also, the management and operation of an electronic archive of data concerning the dam safety.
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Software Providers develop and maintain software having in consideration the organizations requirements. These software products are used to support the value propositions of the organization.
Hardware providers sell and maintain the hardware deployed in the organization to support the value propositions of the organization.
Another value proposition of LNEC's archive besides the ones in the generic OAIS model is to improve concrete dam safety through the collection of data from dams and further analysis by LNEC researchers.
"Long Term Preservation is the act of maintaining information, Independently Understandable by a Designated Community, and with evidence supporting its Authenticity, over the Long Term." ([1], Page 1-13) "Long Term may extend indefinitely. In the OAIS reference model there is a particular focus on digital information, both as the primary forms of information held and as supporting information for both digitally and physically archived materials." ([1], Page 1-1)
"The access functional entity contains the services and functions which make the archival information holdings and related services visible to Consumers." ([1], Page 1-8) It also provides the services and functions that support Consumers in determining the existence, description, location and availability of information stored in the OAIS. ([1], Page 4-2)
"Allows Consumers to request and receive information from the archive. Access functions include communicating with Consumers to receive requests, applying controls to limit access to specially protected information, coordinating the execution of requests to successful completion, generating responses (Dissemination Information Packages, query responses, reports) and delivering the responses to Consumers." ([1], Page 4-3)
LNEC's researchers initiate DIP Dissemination sessions with the archive to collect relevant information on dam structural behaviour.
There are sensors installed in dams that have automated procedures to read data and send it to the archive for ingest. Despite this fact, there are some measurements that have to be performed by people on a periodic basis and this data is submitted manually to the archive for ingest.
"The agreement reached between an OAIS and the Producer that specifies a data model, and any other arrangements needed, for the Data Submission Session. This data model identifies format/contents and the logical constructs used by the Producer and how they are represented on each media delivery or in a telecommunication session." ([1], Page 1-15)
"An agreement between the Archive and the Consumer in which the physical details of the delivery, such as media type and format of Data, are specified." ([1], Page 1-13)
"A session initiated by the Consumer with the Archive during which the Consumer will use the Archive Finding Aids to identify and investigate potential holdings of interest." ([1], Page 1-15)
The LNEC Researchers use the information in the Archive to analyse dam structures behaviour through time, as such there are both a consumer and part of the designated community as the archive must fulfil their requirements. Dam Owners also have specific requirements as they are both consumers and producers. The Portuguese authorities also have specific requirements which are detailed in law, as there is a mandate to collect this information by law.
The LNEC Researchers use the information in the archive to analyse the dam structures behaviour and also to predict future behaviour. The Dam Owners also use the information in the archive to check on their dam's structural integrity.
The data collected in sensors and by staff from the dam owners is ingested to the archive, for long-term preservation and analysis.
The AIPs in the archive consist of the data collected in dams and ingested automatically and manually.
"The set of information, consisting primarily of Package Descriptions, which is provided to Data Management to support the finding, ordering, and retrieving of OAIS information holdings by Consumers". ([1], Page 1-11)
The Archiving infrastructure contains the services and functions for the ingestion, storage and retrieval of AIPs. ([1], Page 1-9)
The order service enables on-line private access to data for analysis for the LNEC researchers. Due to the sensitive aspect of the information in the archive there is the need to maintain private access.
Dam Owners submit their data, collected automatically and manually, through an on-line submission service made available by LNEC's archive.
The Query service allows consumers to perform queries on the holdings of the archive, to locate, analyse, order or retrieve potential information of interest. ([1], Page 1-15 and Page 1-8)
One of the costs of the archive is development. This cost comes from the initial development of the archive and also new functions and requirements that arise from the designated community and also when new technology is needed.
Another of the costs of the archive is maintenance. Maintenance of the archive is performed both by the software and hardware providers and also by the archive staff. There is the need to perform periodic procedures to guarantee that the archive is running smoothly and the information in the archive remains relevant for the designated community.
One of the costs of running the archive is the wages and salaries of the staff that supports the operation of the archive. There are staff with different qualification in the team and wages and salaries differences are also taken in consideration.
One of the main costs in the archive is related to storage and backups. As storage is not outsourced there is the need to check and maintain periodically the hardware that deals with the information storage in the archive.
The contracts that LNEC have with the dam owners so that these can ingest and archive data in the archive are one of the revenue streams of the archive.
The main portion of the revenue of the archive comes from public funding. As LNEC is a public organization there is budget allocated for LNEC as part of the annual government budget.
"The OAIS functional entity which provides the services and functions for monitoring the environment of the OAIS and which provides recommendations and preservation plans to ensure that the information stored in the OAIS remains accessible to, and understandable by, and sufficiently usable by, the Designated Community over the Long Term, even if the original computing environment becomes obsolete." ([1], Page 1-14)
The Submission Information Package (SIP) is "an Information Package that is delivered by the Producer to the OAIS for use in the construction or update of one or more AIPs and/or the associated Descriptive Information." ([1], Page 1-15) The Archival Information Package (AIP) is an Information Package, consisting of the Content Information and the associated Preservation Description Information, which is preserved within an OAIS. ([1], Page 1-9) The Ingest Functional Entity is "the OAIS functional entity that contains the services and functions that accept SIPs from Producers, prepares AIPs for storage, and ensures that AIPs and their supporting Descriptive Information become established within the OAIS." ([1], Page 1-12)
A Dissemination Information Package (DIP) is "an Information Package, derived from one or more AIPs, and sent by Archives to the Consumer in response to a request to the OAIS." ([1], Page 1-11)
The Administration Functional Entity "provides the services and functions for the overall operation of the Archive system. Administration functions include soliciting and negotiating submission agreements with Producers, auditing submissions to ensure that they meet Archive standards, and maintaining configuration management of system hardware and software. It also provides system engineering functions to monitor and improve Archive operations, and to inventory, report on, and migrate/update the contents of the Archive. It is also responsible for establishing and maintaining Archive." ([1], Page 4-2)
The Data Management Functional Entity "provides the services and functions for populating, maintaining, and accessing both Descriptive Information which identifies and documents Archive holdings and administrative data used to manage the Archive. Data Management functions include administering the Archive database functions (maintaining schema and view definitions, and referential integrity), performing database updates (loading new descriptive information or Archive administrative data), performing queries on the data management data to generate query responses, and producing reports from these query responses." ([1], Page 4-2)
The Archival Storage Functional Entity "provides the services and functions for the storage, maintenance and retrieval of AIPs. Archival Storage functions include receiving AIPs from Ingest and adding them to permanent storage, managing the storage hierarchy, refreshing the media on which Archive holdings are stored, performing routine and special error checking, providing disaster recovery capabilities, and providing AIPs to Access to fulfil orders." ([1], Page 4-2)
[1] The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems, Space data and information transfer systems - Open archival information system - Reference model - Magenta Book. June 2012. CCSDS 650.0-M-2.
