Improving reconfigurable systems reliability by combining periodical test and redundancy techniques: a case study

This paper revises and introduces to the field of reconfigurable computer systems, some traditional techniques used in the fields of fault-tolerance and testing of digital circuits. The target area is that of on-board spacecraft electronics, as this class of application is a good candidate for the use of reconfigurable computing technology. Fault tolerant strategies are used in order for the system to adapt itself to the severe conditions found in space. In addition, the paper describes some problems and possible solutions for the use of reconfigurable components, based on programmable logic, in space applications

Learning how (not) to fire a gun: combatant training and civilian victimization

What is the relationship between the type of training combatants receive upon recruitmentinto an armed group and their propensity to abuse civilians in civil war? Does military training or political training prevent or exacerbate the victimization of civilians by armed non-state actors? While the literature on civilian victimization has expanded rapidly, few studies have examined the correlation between abuse of civilians and the modes of training that illegal armed actors receive. Using a simple formal model, we develop hypotheses regarding this connection and argue that while military training should not decrease the probability that a combatant engages in civilian abuse, political training should. We test these hypotheses using a new survey consisting of a representative sample of approximately 1,500 demobilized combatants from the Colombian conflict, which we match with department-level data on civilian casualties. The empirical analysis conrms our hypotheses about the connection between training and civilian abuse and the results are robust to adding a full set of controls both at the department and at the individual level.civil war, civilian abuse, survey instrument, demobilized combatants

Evolutionary robotics and neuroscience

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Principio de favorabilidad -ausencia en el derecho civil colombiano-. Bases constitucionales para su incorporación: del sistema escritural a la oralidad

Artículo de reflexiónEl cambio de legislación de un sistema procesal mayoritariamente escritural a un sistema procesal donde prima la oralidad permite afirmar que se han limitado las posibilidades de vulneración de los derechos fundamentales o de que se restrinjan las garantías indebidamente, la inmediatez permite que en el momento exacto en que se vislumbre una posible vulneración, esta se pueda detener. En este contexto, se destaca el Principio de Favorabilidad, el cual ha sido aplicado tradicionalmente en ramas como el derecho penal y el derecho laboral, siendo luego su concepto extendido a otros ámbitos jurídicos, buscando la aplicación de la norma procesal que beneficie en mayor medida al destinatario de la norma, posibilidad que a la fecha no existe en el derecho civil, por lo anterior el presente escrito evalúa la posibilidad de extender esta garantía constitucional al derecho civil colombiano, teniendo en cuenta el cambio normativo procesal –Código General del Proceso- cuya expedición se dio en el año 2012, el texto planteará como hipótesis la ausencia del principio de favorabilidad en el derecho civil colombiano, una vez hechas reformas y cambios de legislación por las cuales se pasó del sistema escritural a un sistema de oralidad, debilita las garantías procesales y de seguridad jurídica, para quienes acceden a este tipo justicia.36 p.INTRODUCCIÓN 1. ENFOQUE CONSTITUCIONAL SOBRE EL PRINCIPIO DE FAVORABILIDAD 2. APROXIMACIÓN AL PRINCIPIO DE FAVORABILIDAD APLICADO AL DERECHO CIVIL CONCLUSIONES REFERENCIASPregradoAbogad

4chan and /b/: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community

We present two studies of online ephemerality and anonymity based on the popular discussion board /b/ at 4chan.org: a website with over 7 million users that plays an influential role in Internet culture. Although researchers and practitioners often assume that user identity and data permanence are central tools in the design of online communities, we explore how /b/ succeeds despite being almost entirely anonymous and extremely ephemeral. We begin by describing /b/ and performing a content analysis that suggests the community is dominated by playful exchanges of images and links. Our first study uses a large dataset of more than five million posts to quantify ephemerality in /b/. We find that most threads spend just five seconds on the first page and less than five minutes on the site before expiring. Our second study is an analysis of identity signals on 4chan, finding that over 90% of posts are made by fully anonymous users, with other identity signals adopted and discarded at will. We describe alternative mechanisms that /b/ participants use to establish status and frame their interaction

The Work of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch: Evidence from Colombia

We process the main written output of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Colombia covering the period 1988-2004, recording all numerical conflict information and accounts of specific conflict events. We check for internal consistency and against a unique Colombian conflict database. We find that both organizations have substantive problems in their handling of quantitative information. Problems include failre to specify sources, unclear definitions, an erratic reporting template and a distorted portrayal of conflict dynamics. Accounts of individual events are fairly representative and much more useful and accurate than the statistical information. We disprove a common accusation that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch rarely criticize the guerrillas, but do find some evidence of anti-government bias. The quantitative human rights and conflict information produced by these organizations for other countries must be viewed with scepticism along with cross-country and time series human rights data based on Amnesty International reports.

Trypanosoma cruzi IIc: phylogenetic and phylogeographic insights from sequence and microsatellite analysis and potential impact on emergent Chagas disease.

Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas disease, is highly genetically diverse. Numerous lines of evidence point to the existence of six stable genetic lineages or DTUs: TcI, TcIIa, TcIIb, TcIIc, TcIId, and TcIIe. Molecular dating suggests that T. cruzi is likely to have been an endemic infection of neotropical mammalian fauna for many millions of years. Here we have applied a panel of 49 polymorphic microsatellite markers developed from the online T. cruzi genome to document genetic diversity among 53 isolates belonging to TcIIc, a lineage so far recorded almost exclusively in silvatic transmission cycles but increasingly a potential source of human infection. These data are complemented by parallel analysis of sequence variation in a fragment of the glucose-6-phosphate isomerase gene. New isolates confirm that TcIIc is associated with terrestrial transmission cycles and armadillo reservoir hosts, and demonstrate that TcIIc is far more widespread than previously thought, with a distribution at least from Western Venezuela to the Argentine Chaco. We show that TcIIc is truly a discrete T. cruzi lineage, that it could have an ancient origin and that diversity occurs within the terrestrial niche independently of the host species. We also show that spatial structure among TcIIc isolates from its principal host, the armadillo Dasypus novemcinctus, is greater than that among TcI from Didelphis spp. opossums and link this observation to differences in ecology of their respective niches. Homozygosity in TcIIc populations and some linkage indices indicate the possibility of recombination but cannot yet be effectively discriminated from a high genome-wide frequency of gene conversion. Finally, we suggest that the derived TcIIc population genetic data have a vital role in determining the origin of the epidemiologically important hybrid lineages TcIId and TcIIe