Individual verifiability in electronic voting

This PhD Thesis is the fruit of the job of the author as a researcher at Scytl Secure Electronic Voting, as well as the collaboration with Paz Morillo, from the Department of Applied Mathematics at UPC and Alex Escala, PhD student. In her job at Scytl, the author has participated in several electronic voting projects for national-level binding elections in different countries. The participation of the author covered from the protocol design phase, to the implementation phase by providing support to the development teams. The thesis focuses on studying the mechanisms that can be provided to the voters, in order to examine and verify the processes executed in a remote electronic voting system. This work has been done as part of the tasks of the author at the electronic voting company Scytl. Although this thesis does not talk about system implementations, which are interesting by themselves, it is indeed focused on protocols which have had, or may have, an application in the real world. Therefore, it may surprise the reader by not using state of the art cryptography such as pairings or lattices, which still, although providing very interesting properties, cannot be efficiently implemented and used in a real system. Otherwise, the protocols presented in this thesis use standard and well-known cryptographic primitives, while providing new functionalities that can be applied in nowadays electronic voting systems. The thesis has the following contents: A survey on electronic voting systems which provide voter verification functionalities. Among these systems we can find the one used in the Municipal and Parliamentary Norwegian elections of 2011 and 2013, and the system used in the Australian State of New South Wales for the General State Elections in 2015, in which the author has had an active participation in the design of their electronic voting protocols. A syntax which can be used for modeling electronic voting systems providing voter verifiability. This syntax is focused on systems characterized by the voter confirming the casting of her vote, after verifying some evidences provided by the protocol. Along with this syntax, definitions for the security properties required for such schemes are provided. A description of the electronic voting protocol and system which has been used in 2014 and 2015 elections in the Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel, which has individual verification functionalities, is also provided in this thesis, together with a formal analysis of the security properties of the scheme and further extensions of the protocol. Finally, two new protocols which provide new functionalities respect to those from the state of the art are proposed: A new protocol providing individual verifiability which allows voters to defend against coertion by generating fake proofs, and a protocol which makes a twist to individual verifiability by ensuring that all the processes executed by the voting device and the remote server are correct, without requiring an active verification from the voter. A formal analysis of the security properties of both protocols is provided, together with examples of implementation in real systems.Aquesta tesi és fruit de la feina de l'autora com a personal de recerca a la empresa Scytl Secure Electtronic Voting, així com de la col·laboració amb la Paz Morillo, del departament de matemàtica aplicada a la UPC, i el Alex Escala, estudiant de doctorat. A la feina a Scytl, l'autora ha participat a varis projectes de vot electrònic per a eleccions vinculants a nivell nacional, que s'han efectuat a varis països. La participació de la autora ha cobert tant la fase de disseny del protocol, com la fase de implementació, on ha proveït suport als equips de desenvolupament. La tesi estudia els mecanismes que es poden proporcionar als votants per a poder examinar i verificar els processos que s'executen en sistemes de vot electrònic. Tot i que la tesi no parla de la implementació dels sistemes de vot electrònic, sí que s'enfoca en protocols que han tingut, o poden tenir, una aplicació pràctica actualment. La tesi té els continguts següents: Un estudi en sistemes de vot electrònic que proporcionen funcionalitats per a que els votants verifiquin els processos. Entre aquests sistemes, trobem el que es va utilitzar a les eleccions municipals i parlamentàries a Noruega als anys 2011 i 2013, així com el sistema utilitzat a l'estat Australià de New South Wales, per a les eleccions generals de 2015, sistemes en els que l'autora ha participat directament en el diseny dels seus protocols criptogràfics. La tesi també conté una sintaxi que es pot utilizar per modelar sistemes de vot electrònic que proporcionen verificabilitat individual (on verifica el votant). Aquesta sintaxi s'enfoca en sistemes caracteritzats pel fet de que el votant confirma la emissió del seu vot un cop ha verificat unes evidències sobre ell, proporcionades pel protocol. A més de la sintaxi, es proporcionen definicions de les propietats de seguretat d'aquestts sistemes. La tesi també conté una descripció del sistema i protocol de vot electrònic que s'utilitza al cantó Suís de Neuchâtel a partir del 2014, el qual té funcionalitats per a que els votants verifiquin certs processos del sistema. La tesi a més conté un anàlisi de la seguretat de l'esquema, així com possibles extensions del protocol. Finalment, la tesi inclou dos protocols nous que proporcionen noves característiques i funcionalitats respecte als existents a l'estat de l'art de la tècnica. El primer permet a un votant defendre's de un coaccionador generant proves falses, i el segon fa un canvi de paradigma de la verificabilitat individual, de forma que el votant no ha de verificar certs processos per a saber que s'han efectuant correctament. La tesi inclou un anàlisi formal de les propietats de seguretat dels dos protocols, així com exemples de com podrien ser implementats en un escenari real.Postprint (published version

Efficient cryptosystem for universally verifiable mixnets

Projecte final de carrera realitzat en col.laboració amb Scytl Secure Electronic Votin

Multivariate time series analysis of temperatures in the archaeological museum of L'Almoina (Valencia, Spain)

[EN] An earlier study carried out in 2010 at the archaeological site of L'Almoina (Valencia, Spain) found marked daily fluctuations of temperature, especially in summer. Such pronounced gradient is due to the design of the museum, which includes a skylight as a ceiling, covering part of the remains in the museum. In this study, it was found that the thermal conditions are not homogeneous and vary at different points of the museum and along the year. According to the European Standard EN10829, it is necessary to define a plan for long-term monitoring, elaboration and study of the microclimatic data, in order to preserve the artifacts. With the aforementioned goal of extending the study and offering a tool to monitor the microclimate, a new statistical methodology is proposed. For this propose, during one year (October 2019-October 2020), a set of 27 data-loggers was installed, aimed at recording the temperature inside the museum. By applying principal component analysis and k-means, three different microclimates were established. In order to characterize the differences among the three zones, two statistical techniques were put forward. Firstly, Sparse Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (sPLS-DA) was applied to a set of 671 variables extracted from the time series. The second approach consisted of using a random forest algorithm, based on the same functions and variables employed by the first methodology. Both approaches allowed the identification of the main variables that best explain the differences between zones. According to the results, it is possible to establish a representative subset of sensors recommended for the long-term monitoring of temperatures at the museum. The statistical approach proposed here is very effective for discriminant time series analysis and for explaining the differences in microclimate when a net of sensors is installed in historical buildings or museums.The authors are grateful to Angel Perles for his support in this research. In addition, the authors would like to thank the Museum of L'Almoina, managed by the local government of Valencia (Spain) and his director Vicent Escriva. Thanks are also given to Esther Nebot Diaz from the "Department of Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage" of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) for her help in the calibration of sensors. S.R. wants to thank the grant received from Instituto Colombiano de Credito Educativo y Estudios Tecnicos en el Exterior (ICETEX) by means of Programa credito Pasaporte a la Ciencia ID 3595089, as well as by Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali (Nit 860013720-1) through the Convenio de Capacitacion para Docentes O. J. 086/17.Ramírez, S.; Zarzo Castelló, M.; García Diego, FJ. (2021). Multivariate time series analysis of temperatures in the archaeological museum of L'Almoina (Valencia, Spain). Sensors. 21(13):1-40. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21134377140211

Characterization of temperature gradients according to height in a baroque church by means of wireless sensors

[EN] The baroque church of Saint Thomas and Saint Philip Neri (Valencia, Spain), which was built between 1727 and 1736, contains valuable paintings by renowned Spanish artists. Due to the considerable height of the central nave, the church can experience vertical temperature gradients. In order to investigate this issue, temperatures were recorded between August 2017 and February 2018 from a wireless monitoring system composed of 21 sensor nodes, which were located at different heights in the church from 2 to 13 m from the floor level. For characterizing the temperature at high, medium and low altitude heights, a novel methodology is proposed based on sparse Partial Least Squares regression (sPLS), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), and the Holt-Winters method, among others, which were applied to a time series of temperature. This approach is helpful to discriminate temperature profiles according to sensor height. Once the vertical thermal gradients for each month were characterized, it was found that temperature reached the maximum correlation with sensor height in the period between August 10th and September 9th. Furthermore, the most important features from the time series that explain this correlation are the mean temperature and the mean of moving range. In the period mentioned, the vertical thermal gradient was estimated to be about 0.043 ºC/m, which implies a difference of 0.47 ºC on average between sensor nodes at 2 m from the floor with respect to the upper ones located at 13 m from the floor level. The gradient was estimated as the slope from a linear regression model using height and hourly mean temperature as the predictor and response, respectively. This gradient is consistent with similar reported studies. The fact that such gradient was only found in one month suggests that the mechanisms of dust deposition on walls involved in vertical thermal gradients are not important in this case regarding the preventive conservation of artworks. Furthermore, the methodology proposed here was useful to discriminate the time series at high, medium and low altitude levels. This approach can be useful when a set of sensors is installed for microclimate monitoring in churches, cathedrals, and other historical buildings, at different levels and positions.This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 814624.Ramírez, S.; Zarzo Castelló, M.; Perles, A.; García Diego, FJ. (2021). Characterization of temperature gradients according to height in a baroque church by means of wireless sensors. Sensors. 21(20):1-35. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21206921S135212

A methodology for discriminant time series analysis applied to microclimate monitoring of fresco paintings

[EN] The famous Renaissance frescoes in Valencia¿s Cathedral (Spain) have been kept under confined temperature and relative humidity (RH) conditions for about 300 years, until the removal of the baroque vault covering them, carried out in 2006. In the interest of longer-term preservation and in order to maintain these frescoes in good condition, a unique monitoring system was implemented to record both air temperature and RH. Sensors were installed in different points at the vault of the apse, during the restoration process. The present study proposes a statistical methodology for analyzing a subset of RH data recorded in 2008 and 2010, from the sensors. This methodology is based on fitting different functions and models to the time series, in order to classify the sensors. The methodology proposed, computes classification variables and applies a discriminant technique to them. The classification variables correspond to estimates of parameters of the models and features such as mean and maximum, among others. These features are computed using values of the functions such as spectral density, sample autocorrelation (sample ACF), sample partial autocorrelation (sample PACF), and moving range (MR). The classification variables computed were structured as a matrix. Next, Sparse Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (sPLS-DA) was applied in order to discriminate sensors according to their position in the vault. It was found that the classification of sensors derived from Seasonal ARIMA-TGARCH showed the best performance (i.e., lowest classification error rate). Based on these results, the methodology applied here can be useful for characterizing the differences in RH, measured at different positions in a historical building.This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 814624. Furthermore, the project was partially supported by Instituto Colombiano de Credito Educativo y Estudios Tecnicos en el Exterior (ICETEX) by means of Programa credito Pasaporte a la Ciencia ID 3595089, and also by Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali (Nit 860013720-1) through the Convenio de Capacitacion para Docentes O. J. 086/17.Ramírez, S.; Zarzo Castelló, M.; Perles, A.; García Diego, FJ. (2021). A methodology for discriminant time series analysis applied to microclimate monitoring of fresco paintings. Sensors. 21(2):1-28. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21020436S12821

Programming parallel dense matrix factorizations with look-ahead and OpenMP

[EN] We investigate a parallelization strategy for dense matrix factorization (DMF) algorithms, using OpenMP, that departs from the legacy (or conventional) solution, which simply extracts concurrency from a multi-threaded version of basic linear algebra subroutines (BLAS). The proposed approach is also different from the more sophisticated runtime-based implementations, which decompose the operation into tasks and identify dependencies via directives and runtime support. Instead, our strategy attains high performance by explicitly embedding a static look-ahead technique into the DMF code, in order to overcome the performance bottleneck of the panel factorization, and realizing the trailing update via a cache-aware multi-threaded implementation of the BLAS. Although the parallel algorithms are specified with a high level of abstraction, the actual implementation can be easily derived from them, paving the road to deriving a high performance implementation of a considerable fraction of linear algebra package (LAPACK) functionality on any multicore platform with an OpenMP-like runtime.The researchers from Universidad Jaume I were supported by the CICYT Projects TIN2014-53495-R and TIN2017-82972-R of the MINECO and FEDER, and the H2020 EU FETHPC Project 671602 "INTERTWinE". The researchers from Universidad Complutense de Madrid were supported by the CICYT Project TIN2015-65277-R of the MINECO and FEDER. Sandra Catalan was supported during part of this time by the FPU program of the Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte. Adrian Castello was supported by the ValI+D 2015 FPI program of the Generalitat Valenciana.Catalán, S.; Castelló, A.; Igual, FD.; Rodríguez-Sánchez, R.; Quintana Ortí, ES. (2020). 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In: Proceedings of the IEEE International European Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (August 2017)Castelló, A., Seo, S., Mayo, R., Balaji, P., Quintana-Ortí, E.S., Peña, A.J.: GLTO: on the adequacy of lightweight thread approaches for OpenMP implementations. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Parallel Processing, Bristol, UK (August 2017)Catalán, S, Herrero, JR., Quintana-Ortí, E.S., Rodríguez-Sánchez, R., van de Geijn, R.A.: A case for malleable thread-level linear algebra libraries: The LU factorization with partial pivoting. CoRR (2016) arXiv:1611.06365Catalán, S., Igual, F.D., Mayo, R., Rguez-Sánchez, R.: Architecture-aware configuration and scheduling of matrix multiplication on asymmetric multicore processors. Clust. Comput. 19(3), 1037–1051 (2016)Chameleon project. http://project.inria.fr/chameleon/Demmel, J.: Applied Numerical Linear Algebra. 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Tractament rehabilitador en pacients amb càncer de mama sotmeses a limfadentecomia axil·lar o biòpsia selectiva del gangli sentinella

Introducció. La cirurgia de càncer de mama està associada a morbiditat de l'extremitat superior (ES) tributària de prevenció i de tractament rehabilitador. Objectius: Identificar la morbiditat de l'ES després de limfadenectomia axil·lar (LA) o biòpsia selectiva del gangli sentinella (BSGS); el moment del diagnòstic i quan és tributaria de tractament rehabilitador. Estudiar la relació d'aquesta morbiditat amb variables clíniques periquirúrgiques. Material i mètodes. Estudi longitudinal descriptiu amb 2 anys seguiment. Es recolliren les variables edat, pes, talla, tipus de tractament quirúrgic, complicacions peri-quirúrgiques, alteracions de l'espatlla, limfedema, dolor neuropàtic, lesions neurològiques i la indicació de tractament rehabilitador per aquestes alteracions. Les relacions es van estudiar amb t-test o ji quadrat, amb significació p 0,05 Resultats: Es van incloure 312 pacients. Van requerir tractament rehabilitador 133 (42,6%) pacients, 81 (26,0%) per alteracions de l'espatlla, 63 (20,2%) per limfedema, 21 (6,7%) per dolor neuropàtic, i 9 (2.9%) per escàpula alada. Es van determinar relacions significatives de limfedema amb LA (p=0.000); les alteracions de l'espatlla amb les complicacions periquirúrgiques (p=0.04); dolor neuropàtic amb edat més jove (p=0.004); i l'escàpula alada amb hematoma (p=0.000). Més del 70% dels diagnòstics i tractaments de l'espatlla i limfedema es van realitzar durant el primer any de seguiment. Conclusions: Van requerir tractament rehabilitador 42.6% de pacients. Les alteracions de l'espatlla i el limfedema varen ser les més freqüentment tractades. La majoria de diagnòstics i tractament s'efectuaren durant el primer any de seguiment

Mutational Profile Enables the Identification of a High-Risk Subgroup in Myelodysplastic Syndromes with Isolated Trisomy 8

Simple Summary Trisomy 8 (+8) is one of the most frequent cytogenetic alterations found in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). MDS patients harboring isolated +8 show clinical heterogeneity, and life expectancy varies between several months and several years after diagnosis. We aimed to investigate whether the mutational profile of isolated +8 MDS patients could help to clarify the heterogeneous prognosis of these patients. In fact, we found that mutations in STAG2, SRSF2 and RUNX1 are independent prognostic factors, enough to define the course of the disease in terms of overall survival and leukemic transformation in isolated +8 MDS. Therefore, these findings might help to identify patients at a high risk of evolving disease and open new horizons by changes in the management of a high subset of patients within MDS with isolated +8. Trisomy 8 (+8) is the most frequent trisomy in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and is associated with clinical heterogeneity and intermediate cytogenetic risk when found in isolation. The presence of gene mutations in this group of patients and the prognostic significance has not been extensively analyzed. Targeted deep sequencing was performed in a cohort of 79 MDS patients showing isolated +8. The most frequently mutated genes were: TET2 (38%), STAG2 (34.2%), SRSF2 (29.1%) and RUNX1 (26.6%). The mutational profile identified a high-risk subgroup with mutations in STAG2, SRSF2 and/or RUNX1, resulting in shorter time to acute myeloid leukemia progression (14 months while not reached in patients without these mutations, p < 0.0001) and shorter overall survival (23.7 vs. 46.3 months, p = 0.001). Multivariate analyses revealed the presence of mutations in these genes as an independent prognostic factor in MDS showing +8 isolated (HR: 3.1; p < 0.01). Moreover, 39.5% and 15.4% of patients classified as low/intermediate risk by the IPSS-R and IPSS-M, respectively, were re-stratified as a high-risk subgroup based on the mutational status of STAG2, SRSF2 and RUNX1. Results were validated in an external cohort (n = 2494). In summary, this study validates the prognosis significance of somatic mutations shown in IPSS-M and adds STAG2 as an important mutated gene to consider in this specific subgroup of patients. The mutational profile in isolated +8 MDS patients could, therefore, offer new insights for the correct management of patients with a higher risk of leukemic transformation

Adherence to the Western, Prudent and Mediterranean Dietary Patterns and Colorectal Cancer Risk: Findings from the Spanish Cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Spain)

The aim of this study was to explore the association between three previously identified dietary patterns (Western, Prudent, and Mediterranean) and colorectal cancer (CRC) risk by sex and cancer subtype. The Spanish cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study provided dietary and epidemiological information from 15,629 men and 25,808 women recruited between 1992 and 1996. Among them, 568 CRC cases and 3289 deaths were identified during a median follow-up of 16.98 years. The associations between adherence to the three dietary patterns and CRC risk (overall, by sex, and by tumour location: proximal and distal colon and rectum) were investigated by fitting multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression models stratified by study centre and age. Possible heterogeneity of the effects by sex and follow-up time (1-10 vs. >= 10 years) was also explored. While no clear effect of the Prudent dietary pattern on CRC risk was found, a suggestive detrimental effect of the Western dietary pattern was observed, especially during the first 10 years of follow-up (HR1SD-increase (95% CI): 1.17 (0.99-1.37)), among females (HR1SD-increase (95% CI): 1.31 (1.06-1.61)), and for rectal cancer (HR1SD-increase (95% CI): 1.38 (1.03-1.84)). In addition, high adherence to the Mediterranean pattern seemed to protect against CRC, especially when restricting the analyses to the first 10 years of follow-up (HR1SD-increase (95% CI): 0.84 (0.73-0.98)), among males (HR1SD-increase (95% CI): 0.80 (0.65-0.98)), and specifically against distal colon cancer (HR1SD-increase (95% CI): 0.81 (0.63-1.03)). In conclusion, low adherence to the Western diet and high adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern could prevent CRC, especially distal colon and rectal cancer

Unitats d’aprenentatge interdisciplinari en la doble titulació de Mestre d’Educació Infantil i d’Educació Primària

Podeu consultar la versió castellana al camp recurs relacionat.L’obra que es presenta es un llibre sobre competències transversals implicades a la doble titulació de Mestre d’Educació Infantil i Educació Primària, a partir del model formatiu basat en Unitats d’aprenentatge, com a eix vertebrador. És un llibre actual i útil, per a professors que imparteixin docència en els Estudis del Grau de Mestre de doble titulació d’Educació Infantil i Educació Primària com als Estudis de Grau de Mestre d’Educació Infantil i Grau de Mestre d’Educació Primària; i ho és també pels alumnes que estan estudiant aquestes titulacions. El públic al que va dirigit és ampli i necessita de materials curriculars que els facin no només de guia sinó que els proporcionin també exemplificacions argumentades de forma rigorosa, coherent i vinculades a un marc teòric científic. I en la mateixa línia, per a la Facultat d’Educació, suposarà un document de referència d’innovació educativa per anar avançant en la millora de la qualitat dels nostres Ensenyaments. Els autors del llibre, tenen àmplia i sobrada experiència docent en impartir docència en les titulacions del Grau de Mestre, així com una reconeguda trajectòria de recerca i innovació en el camp de l’educació superior; aquest fet és important i necessari en els àmbits universitaris perquè justament la seva docència es fonamenta en els resultats de les seves recerques i innovacions.L’obra que es presenta es un llibre sobre competències tranversals implicades a la doble titulació de Mestre d’Educació Infantil i Educació Primària, a partir del model formatiu basat en Unitats d’aprenentatge, com a eix vertebrador. És un llibre actual i útil, per a professors que imparteixin docència en els Estudis del Grau de Mestre de doble titulació d’Educació Infantil i Educació Primària com als Estudis de Grau de Mestre d’Educació Infantil i Grau de Mestre d’Educació Primària; i ho és també pels alumnes que estan estudiant aquestes titulacions. El públic al que va dirigit és ampli i necessita de materials curriculars que els facin no només de guia sinó que els proporcionin també exemplificacions argumentades de forma rigorosa, coherent i vinculades a un marc teòric científic. I en la mateixa línia, per a la Facultat d’Educació, suposarà un document de referència d’innovació educativa per anar avançant en la millora de la qualitat dels nostres Ensenyaments. Els autors del llibre, tenen àmplia i sobrada experiència docent en impartir docència en les titulacions del Grau de Mestre, així com una reconeguda trajectòria de recerca i innovació en el camp de l’educació superior; aquest fet és important i necessari en els àmbits universitaris perquè justament la seva docència es fonamenta en els resultats de les seves recerques i innovacions