Nuclear power plant operators increasingly face the task of replacing their instrumentation and control systems with modern (digital) systems. In this work the "System Theoretic Process Analysis" (STPA) risk analysis method was adapted and amended to enable it to be used in digital instrumentation and control systems. 1 Background Information Nuclear power plant operators increasingly face the ...

ISO 26262 is the de facto standard for automotive functional safety, and every automotive Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), as well as their major suppliers, are striving to ensure that their development processes are ISO 26262 compliant. ISO 26262 mandates both hazard analysis and risk assessment. Systems Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) is a relatively new hazard analysis technique, tha...

The nucleoid-associated protein, StpA, of Escherichia coli binds non-specifically to double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) and apparently forms bridges between adjacent segments of the DNA. Such a coating of protein on the DNA would be expected to hinder the action of nucleases. We demonstrate that StpA binding hinders dsDNA cleavage by both the non-specific endonuclease, DNase I, and by the site-specifi...

The histone-like protein H-NS is a global regulator in Escherichia coli that has been intensively studied in nonpathogenic strains. However, no comprehensive study on the role of H-NS and its paralogue, StpA, in gene expression in pathogenic E. coli has been carried out so far. Here, we monitored the global effects of H-NS and StpA in a uropathogenic E. coli isolate by using DNA arrays. Express...

Systems Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) is a powerful new hazard analysis method designed to go beyond traditional safety techniques—such as Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)—that overlook important causes of accidents like flawed requirements, dysfunctional component interactions, and software errors. Although traditional techniques have been effective at analyzing and reducing accidents caused by c...

Safety has become of paramount importance in the development lifecycle of the modern automobile systems. However, the current automotive safety standard ISO 26262 does not specify clearly the methods for safety analysis. Different methods are recommended for this purpose. FTA (Fault Tree Analysis) and FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) are used in the most recent ISO 26262 applications to...

STPA (System-Theoretic Process Analysis) is a new, more powerful hazard analysis technique that assumes accidents are caused by inadequate enforcement of constraints on component behavior rather than simply component failures (ref. 3). Accidents in complex systems are often caused by unsafe interactions among components that have not failed. Because STPA includes both component failure accident...

The Hha family of proteins is involved in the regulation of gene expression in enterobacteria by forming complexes with H-NS-like proteins. Whereas several amino acid residues of both proteins participate in the interaction, some of them play a key role. Residue D48 of Hha protein is essential for the interaction with H-NS, thus the D48N substitution in Hha protein abrogates H-NS/Hha interactio...

This paper experimentally validates the basic feasibility of our proposed blind adaptive array (BAA) with subcarrier transmission power assignment (STPA) scheme using a prototype. The proposed STPA-BAA enables spectrum superposing without any channel state information between two different wireless communication systems: employing STPA-BAA to the secondary system, inter-system interference from...

The mechanism of repression of the beta-glucoside utilization (bgl) operon of Escherichia coli by a carboxy-terminally truncated derivative of the nucleoid-associated protein H-NS which is defective in DNA binding was investigated. The DNA-binding function of the H-NS-like protein StpA was found to be necessary for repression, which is consistent with a role for StpA as a DNA-binding adapter fo...