Naval Supply Systems Command or NAVSUP’s Business Systems Center has deployed a new platform designed to support decision making via data analytics. The Navy Data Platform applies analytics to business processes supporting strategic and tactical decision making, the U.S. Navy said Tuesday.

“Navy Data Platform is supply-chain focused data analytics for NAVSUP and is important because our mission is data-driven,” said Kurt Wendelken, assistant commander of NAVSUP Supply Chain Technology/Systems Integration. The platform features self-service analytics, allowing users with no extensive statistics expertise to leverage data. NDP does this by delivering a secure hosting environment, software access, data access control and compatibility with organization-specific data.

“Users can access data, run queries and build leadership reports on demand without the wait of developing new systems,” said Tom Wirfel, data strategy lead for NAVSUP BSC. Wirfel added that users may examine NDP-generated reports to interpret causations and correlations. Navy personnel may undergo an identity management process with NAVSUP BSC to gain NDP access.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released a document detailing the need for transparent monitoring procedures and methods of distribution for federal community clouds to improve the efficiency of, and make cloud processes and transactions easier for, the members of these cloud environments.

According to the NIST Cloud Federation Reference Architecture, federal community clouds are cloud infrastructures that are used by a group of users and organizations who have a particular interest or area common, such as governance, security or missions. Members of a cloud environment include auditors, brokers, carriers, consumers, managers, operators and providers that function in the same online community.

Included in the draft architecture are suggestions for distinctions between different types of cloud-related auditing, varied capabilities for brokers and an identity verification process for new consumers entering a federal community cloud. The CFRA builds on principles found in the NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture, a cloud computing treatise published in 2011.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate is launching an effort to promote research and development in blockchain technology for government and industry applications. DHS said Tuesday that the project, supported by S&T’s Silicon Valley Innovation Program, seeks to foster public-private partnerships to test blockchain technology and develop relevant security, interoperability and privacy standards and specifications.

“The goal of the blockchain program was to further understand the technology’s capabilities, and also to support and, as needed, create broadly accepted standards to benefit both government entities and the companies in the emerging sector,” DHS noted.

According to the agency, blockchain is known to be resistant to hacking and alternation, and therefore useful for homeland security enterprise operations that require speed and security. S&T collaborated with Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Transportation Security Administration to integrate blockchain into their respective operations.

A team of scientists led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has developed a satellite data analysis technique for identifying vulnerabilities in infrastructure such as bridges that may lead to catastrophic events. NASA said Tuesday that the group comprised of NASA, the University of Bath in England and the Italian Space Agency used synthetic aperture radar data to measure relative displacement and structural changes in the Morandi Bridge in Italy from 2003 through its collapse in August 2018.

The team detected subtle changes in the bridge in 2015 as well as significant transformations in its structure in the lead-up to its collapse.

“We couldn’t have forecasted this particular collapse because standard assessment techniques available at the time couldn’t detect what we can see now. But going forward, this technique, combined with techniques already in use, has the potential to do a lot of good,” said Pietro Milillo from NASA JPL.

NASA partnered with the Indian Space Research Organization to expand the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar’s coverage by 2022 to include areas that lack systems supporting consistent SAR functionalities.