A Situational Awareness Dashboard for a Security Operations Center

As a result of this dissertation, a solution was developed which would provide visibility into an institution’s security posture and its exposure to risk. Achieving this required the development of a Situational Awareness Dashboard in a cybersecurity context. This Dashboard provides a unified point of view where workers ranging from analysts to members of the executive board can consult and interact with a visual interface that aggregates a set of strategically picked metrics. These metrics provide insight regarding two main topics, the performance and risk of the organization’s Security Operations Center (SOC). The development of the dashboard was performed while working with the multinational enterprise entitled EY. During this time frame, two dashboards were developed one for each of two of EY’s clients inserted in the financial sector. Even though the first solution did not enter production, hence not leaving testing, the dashboard that was developed for the second client successfully was delivered fulfilling the set of objectives that were proposed initially. One of those objectives was enabling the solution to be as autonomous and selfsustained as possible, through its system architecture. Despite having different architectural components, both solutions were based on the same three-layered model. Whereas the first component runs all data ingestion, parsing and transformation operations, the second is in charge of the storage of said information into a database. Finally, the last component, possibly the most important one, is the visualization software tasked with displaying the previous information into actionable intelligence through the power of data visualization. All in all, the key points listed above converged into the development of a Situational Awareness Dashboard which ultimately allows organizations to have visibility into the SOC’s activities, as well as a perception of the performance and associated risks it faces.Como resultado desta dissertação, foi desenvolvida uma solução que proporcionaria visibilidade sobre a postura de segurança de uma instituição e sua exposição ao risco. Para tal foi necessário o desenvolvimento de um Situational Awareness Dashboard num contexto de cibersegurança. Este Dashboard pretende fornecer um ponto de vista unificado onde os trabalhadores, desde analistas a membros do conselho executivo, podem consultar e interagir com uma interface visual que agrega um conjunto de métricas escolhidas estrategicamente. Essas métricas fornecem informações sobre dois tópicos principais, o desempenho e o risco do Security Operations Center (SOC) da organização. O desenvolvimento do Dashboard foi realizado em parceria com a empresa multinacional EY. Nesse período, foram desenvolvidos dois dashboards, um para cada um dos dois clientes da EY inseridos no setor financeiro. Apesar de a primeira solução não ter entrado em produção, não saindo de teste, o painel que foi desenvolvido para o segundo cliente foi entregue com sucesso cumprindo o conjunto de objetivos inicialmente proposto. Umdesses objetivos era permitir que a solução fosse o mais autónoma e auto-sustentável possível, através da sua arquitetura de sistema. Apesar de terem diferentes componentes arquiteturais, ambas as soluções foram baseadas no mesmo modelo de três camadas. Enquanto a primeiro componente executa todas as operações de ingestão, análise e transformação de dados, a segundo é responsável pelo armazenamento dessas informações numa base de dados. Finalmente, o último componente, possivelmente o mais importante, é o software de visualização encarregue em exibir as informações anteriores em inteligência acionável através do poder da visualização de dados. Em suma, os pontos-chave listados acima convergiram no desenvolvimento de um Situational Awareness Dashboard que, em última análise, permite que as organizações tenham visibilidade das atividades do SOC, bem como uma percepção do desempenho e dos riscos que esta enfrenta

Analysis of the relationship between individual variables in urban routes: a comparison of built, natural and hybrid routes in distance estimation ability

openDiverse ricerche, negli ultimi anni, hanno analizzato l’influenza che l’ambiente che ci circonda può avere sulle variabili individuali e sui compiti cognitivi di ogni individuo. La presente ricerca si pone l’obiettivo di misurare il comportamento di alcune variabili individuali in ambienti urbani di diverso tipo: ambienti prevalentemente verdi, prevalentemente costruiti e ibridi. In particolare, l’obiettivo di questo studio è quello di analizzare le relazioni tra la familiarità con un ambiente, le emozioni percepite al momento dell’esposizione con un ambiente, la restoratività percepita e la capacità di stima di distanza. La misurazione delle variabili è avvenuta tramite un esperimento composto da due sessioni: la prima costituita da un questionario svolto autonomamente dai partecipanti e la seconda costituita dallo svolgimento di alcuni percorsi in ambienti urbani e dalla contemporanea compilazione di ulteriori questionari. Nel primo capitolo sono illustrate teoricamente le variabili di interesse della ricerca e vengono commentati i risultati di alcuni studi simili precedenti. Nel secondo capitolo è presentata la ricerca dal punto di vista metodologico: sono illustrati il metodo, la procedura e i risultati dell’esperimento. Nel terzo e ultimo capitolo sono commentati i risultati ottenuti e confrontati con i dati già presenti in letteratura con il fine di dare una spiegazione a quanto emerso dalla ricerca.Several researches in recent years have analyzed the influence that the environment around us can have on individual variables and cognitive tasks of each individual. The present research aims to measure the behavior of some individual variables in urban environments of different types: predominantly green, predominantly built, and hybrid environments. Specifically, the objective of this study is to analyze the relationships between familiarity with an environment, perceived emotions upon exposure with an environment, perceived restorativeness, and distance estimation ability. The variables were measured through an experiment consisting of two sessions: the first consisting of a questionnaire carried out independently by the participants, and the second consisting of the performance of some routes in urban environments and the simultaneous completion of additional questionnaires. In the first chapter, the variables of interest in the research are explained theoretically and the results of some previous similar studies are commented on. In the second chapter, the research is presented methodologically: the method, procedure and results of the experiment are explained. In the third and final chapter, the results obtained are commented on and compared with data already in the literature with the aim of providing an explanation for what emerged from the research

POTENTIAL ROLE OF MICROBIOME IN CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME/MYALGIC ENCEPHALOMYELITIS (CFS/ME)

La Sindrome da Affaticamento Cronico/Encefalomielite Mialgica (CFS/ME), è una grave malattia multisistemica caratterizzata da anomalie immunologiche e disfunzioni del metabolismo energetico. Recenti evidenze suggeriscono l’esistenza di una forte correlazione tra disbiosi e condizione patologica. La presente ricerca ha analizzato la composizione del microbiota intestinale ed orale in pazienti con CFS/ME rispetto a controlli sani e ha determinato se eventuali differenze osservate potrebbero essere utili in futuro per l'identificazione di biomarcatori diagnostici. La composizione batterica fecale e salivare dei pazienti con CFS/ME è stata studiata mediante sequenziamento Illumina degli ampliconi del gene 16S rRNA. Il microbiota fecale dei pazienti con CFS/ME ha mostrato una significativa riduzione di Lachnospiraceae, in particolare di Anaerostipes, rispetto ai gruppi di soggetti senza CFS/ME e un incremento di Phascolarctobacterium faecium e unclassified Ruminococcus. Bacteroides vulgatus, unclassified Bacteroides, Bacteroides uniformis e unclassified Barnesiella sono risultati significativamente più abbondanti nei pazienti con CFS/ME. Il microbiota orale dei pazienti con CFS/ME ha mostrato un aumento significativo di Rothia dentocariosa. Il profilo metabolico fecale di un sottogruppo di pazienti con CFS/ME ha mostrato un aumento complessivo di SCFA e di derivati dell'indolo rispetto ai gruppi non CFS/ME, suggerendo un aumento dei processi di fermentazione. I nostri risultati supportano l'ipotesi autoimmune per la CFS/ME e se saranno confermati da studi più ampi, le differenze rilevate nei profili microbici dei pazienti CFS/ME potrebbero essere utilizzate come markers per una diagnosi più accurata e per lo sviluppo di strategie terapeutiche specifiche.The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME), is a severe multisystemic disease characterized by immunological abnormalities and dysfunction of energy metabolism. Recent evidence suggest that there is a strong correlation between dysbiosis and pathological condition. The present research investigated the composition of the intestinal and oral microbiota in CFS/ME patients in comparison to healthy controls and determined whether any observed differences could be useful for the identification of diagnostic biomarkers. The fecal and salivary bacterial composition in CFS/ME patients was investigated by Illumina sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons. The fecal microbiota of CFS/ME patients showed a significant reduction of Lachnospiraceae, particularly Anaerostipes, compared to the non-CFS/ME groups, and an increase of Phascolarctobacterium faecium and unclassified Ruminococcus. Bacteroides vulgatus, unclassified Bacteroides, Bacteroides uniformis and unclassified Barnesiella resulted significantly more abundant in CFS/ME patients. The oral microbiota of CFS/ME patients showed a significant increase of Rothia dentocariosa. The fecal metabolic profile of a subgroup of CFS/ME patients revealed an overall increase of SCFAs and indole derivatives compared to the non-CFS/ME groups, suggesting an increase in the fermentation processes. Our results support the autoimmune hypothesis for CFS/ME condition and if confirmed by larger studies, the differences detected in the microbial profiles of CFS/ME patients may be used as markers for a more accurate diagnosis and for the development of specific therapeutic strategies

Correlation Plenoptic Imaging between Arbitrary Planes

We propose a novel method to perform plenoptic imaging at the diffraction limit by measuring second-order correlations of light between two reference planes, arbitrarily chosen, within the tridimensional scene of interest. We show that for both chaotic light and entangled-photon illumination, the protocol enables to change the focused planes, in post-processing, and to achieve an unprecedented combination of image resolution and depth of field. In particular, the depth of field results larger by a factor 3 with respect to previous correlation plenoptic imaging protocols, and by an order of magnitude with respect to standard imaging, while the resolution is kept at the diffraction limit. The results lead the way towards the development of compact designs for correlation plenoptic imaging devices based on chaotic light, as well as high-SNR plenoptic imaging devices based on entangled photon illumination, thus contributing to make correlation plenoptic imaging effectively competitive with commercial plenoptic devices.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Regenerative Approaches in Wound Healing: New Alternatives for Older Tools

Critical wounds are well known to develop in elderly people and in other conditions where inflammation, vascular, and nervous disease lead to chronical inefficiency in running up healing processes. Recent researches have been focusing on microenvironment, and specific technologies have contributed to design and produce new materials (the era of biomaterials and devices in wound healing)

Dynamical quantum phase transitions of the Schwinger model: real-time dynamics on IBM Quantum

Simulating real-time dynamics of gauge theories represents a paradigmatic use case to test the hardware capabilities of a quantum computer, since it can involve non-trivial input states preparation, discretized time evolution, long-distance entanglement, and measurement in a noisy environment. We implement an algorithm to simulate the real-time dynamics of a few-qubit system that approximates the Schwinger model in the framework of lattice gauge theories, with specific attention to the occurrence of a dynamical quantum phase transition. Limitations in the simulation capabilities on IBM Quantum are imposed by noise affecting the application of single-qubit and two-qubit gates, which combine in the decomposition of Trotter evolution. The experimental results collected in quantum algorithm runs on IBM Quantum are compared with noise models to characterize the performance in the absence of error mitigation

Prothrombotic genetic risk factors in chronic daily headache

The aetiology of chronic daily or near-daily headache (CDH) is unknown. We evaluated prothrombotic genetic risk factors (factor V G1691A, factor II 20210 G/A, methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase mutations and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 4G/5G polymorphism) in 100 patients with CDH, and in 73 healthy controls. Patients did not differ from controls for the studied prothrombotic polymorphisms. These findings suggest that prothrombotic genetic risk factors do not play a role in the development of CDH