Determinismo, compatibilismo y escepticismo respecto al libre albedrío

This paper discusses the free will scepticism claim and discerns whether the compatibilism - incompatibilism debate presupposes a rationalistic/necessitarism stance about if a subject S acts freely. The last ten years makes it possible to establish a relevant distinction between an action being free, without discarding causal antecedents of that action. Specifically, this does not lead to a compromise with the so-called Principle of Alternative Possibilities or with the Consequence Argument. It will be discussed how the experiment developed by Libet comprises whether a free action is equivalent to a conscious action, considering the relevance of freedom of veto and the role of the control criterion of an action. A relevant edge in this analysis will be the epiphenomenalist stance. Finally, it will be evaluated the impossibilist modal alternative and its role in a sceptical position regarding free will.El presente escrito tiene por objetivo discutir los alcances de la postura denominada escepticismo sobre el libre albedrío (Free Will Scepticism) y evaluar si el debate compatibilismo – incompatibilismo supone una postura racionalista y/o necesitarista respecto a si un sujeto S actúa libremente. La discusión de los últimos diez años sobre este tópico permite establecer una distinción relevante entre que una acción sea libre, sin que ello descarte antecedentes causales de esa acción. En particular, sin que ello conduzca a un compromiso con el denominado principio de posibilidades alternativas (principle of alternate possibilities) ni con el denominado argumento consecuencial (consequence argument). Se discutirá cómo el experimento desarrollado por Libet comprende el si una acción libre es equivalente a una acción consciente, considerando la relevancia de la libertad de veto y el rol del criterio de control de una acción. Una arista relevante en este análisis será la postura epifenomenalista. Finalmente, se evaluará la alternativa modal denominada imposibilismo y su rol en una postura escéptica respecto al libre albedrío

CSVMS - Cyber Security Vulnerability Management System

Trabalho de projecto de mestrado em Segurança Informática, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2020A monitorização contínua das vulnerabilidades presentes nos sistemas que compõem a infraestrutura de uma organização, é um processo fundamental para garantir segurança e estabilidade dos seus serviços. A complexidade deste processo é proporcional à diversidade da infraestrutura, sendo por vezes um fator que pode causar dificuldades em empresas de grandes dimensões, especialmente na priorização do processo de remediação. Com a utilização de diferentes tecnologias é importante considerar a necessidade de diversos métodos de análise, que produzem informação distinta. Esta informação deve ser armazenada de forma organizada, i.e, de forma canónica e unificando as diferentes taxonomias usadas pelas diferentes ferramentas de descoberta de vulnerabilidades. Deste modo é possível garantir uma análise eficiente da informação e consequentemente facilitar o processo de resolução ou remediação dos problemas encontrados. Com o objetivo de agilizar esta tarefa, reduzindo drasticamente o tempo de análise e resolução de vulnerabilidades, foi desenvolvido o Cyber Security Vulnerability Management System (CSVMS). O CSVMS é um sistema que coordena automaticamente a extração, processamento e armazenamento da informação sobre as vulnerabilidades existentes. Esta informação é enriquecida e guardada num repositório, seguindo uma estrutura normalizada e transversal à sua origem. Deste repositório é possível extrair relatórios operacionais que serão entregues às entidades competentes, beneficiando directamente as equipas responsáveis pelos ativos com informação útil e priorizada. A informação produzida pelo CSVMS pode ser consultada de acordo com o objetivo pretendido. Podem ser analisados os relatórios operacionais, gerados automaticamente e que permitem realizar consultas dinâmicas sobre os ativos em geral. Estes são interativos e adaptam a informação de acordo com o foco de investigação do analista, através da aplicação de filtros. ´É também dada a possibilidade de consulta da informação armazenada em bruto. Este método de consulta permite analisar em detalhe cada vulnerabilidade específica, contendo toda a informação recolhida pelas múltiplas ferramentas usadas. Deste modo, limita-se o processo de investigação num só local, que armazena toda a informação de forma segura. Permitindo poupar tempo em tarefas desnecessárias e não existir dependência da consulta a terceiros. O CSVMS foi implementado sobre a infraestrutura operacional da MEO, processando a informação recolhida sobre este ambiente. Por fim foi avaliada a eficácia do sistema, através da realização de inquéritos e da adição de uma nova ferramenta, produzindo resultados muito satisfatórios.In the current global environment, the risks associated with cybersecurity threats are one of the most important concerns for any organization. Those concerns tend to increase due to the continuous evolution of industries, motivating the rush for new technological approaches that may bring more business prosperity and expansion. This evergoing process is responsible for the growth of new opportunities, which can highly benefit the company but may attract malicious actors that want to exploit any vulnerability left behind. So, for every vulnerability left in the system, the risk of being attacked increases dramatically, resulting in substantial financial losses, reputational damage and information leaks that might be enough to sentence the end of a company. The management of the infrastructure that supports the business is crucial for companies to assure the quality and reliability of its services, as well as the security of the information held. This process covers the analysis of all the required elements for the company to run and might be very complex. First, companies have to scan every possible asset to make sure that most of the existing vulnerabilities are identified. It commonly requires the usage of different tools for specific scanning and analysis to get the best results on different groups of assets. With the results obtained from the scanning phase, a list of existing vulnerabilities is created, which the cybersecurity technicians have to analyze to make sure that most of the vulnerabilities are fixed as soon as possible. These steps end up being very timeconsuming due to the heterogeneity of the tools and also by the possibility of error occurance during the manual analysis of all the data. According to the current vulnerability assessment procedure, adopted by MEO, the results produced by all the scanning tools are gathered by the cybersecurity analysts to be inspected. After the detailed study of all the vulnerable environment, vulnerabilities start to get fixed based on its priority (risk/cost ratio). The inefficiency of this process will have an extreme impact on such a time-critical task, preventing the optimization of the company’s resilience. Since this procedure is not as efficient as desired, we created the Cyber Security Vulnerability Management System (CSVMS), an effective time-saving vulnerability management system. This solution automatically extracts, processes, and delivers the information gathered from every scanning tool used internally. The aim is to reduce the time spent on manual extraction and organization of the required vulnerability assessment information, allowing the technicians to save time on unnecessary and error-prone tasks. The CSVMS aggregates and normalizes the collected information, creating a consolidated report to analyze the data in a time-sensitive manner. This generated report presents the simplified and enriched version of the relevant data, allowing for the dynamic inspection and resolution of the issues found. After including CSVMS in MEO’s operational routine, an evaluation was undertaken through feedback from the cybersecurity analysts team. In general, the results were very positive, proving that the system is very adaptable and provides helpful normalized information through a user-friendly environment. These evaluation conclusions are relevant to assure the best quality of the system results, ending up by saving essential time that, in the end, can be used to turn the company even more secure

Assessment of fruit growth response to water stress in a super-high-density olive orchard: monitoring, physiological mechanisms and potential use to schedule irrigation.

Olive fruit growth has an important effect on the final yield, and thus, it is important to study its response to water stress, and to know how olive fruits grow under no water restriction. The present PhD. Thesis centered on the fruit growth, and the factors that influence it, such as the root system distribution, the leaf gas exchange and the water relations between fruits and leaves as well as on the utility of continuous measurements of fruit diameter variations. Therefore, in Chapter 2 we assessed the influence of the increment of drip lines (from one to two drip lines per tree row) on the belowground and aboveground vegetative and on the fruit growth, during two irrigation seasons. We also estimated leaf stomatal conductance from sap flux measurements, and simulated photosynthesis (Chapter 3). From the simulated photosynthesis, we compared its accumulated values with growth, both vegetative growth (leaf area and number of internodes in current-year stems) and fruit growth (fruit dry weight and oil content). As fruit growth is not only influenced by photosynthesis, but also by the water relations, we assessed the influence of water stress on the water relations between fruits and leaves, and its influence on fruit growth (Chapter 4). Additionally, we performed pressure-volume curves with olive fruits from well irrigated and deficit irrigated treatments. Finally, we evaluated the usefulness of fruit dendrometers, and the indexes derived from its measurements, to assess tree water status and to schedule irrigation (Chapter 5). The results presented in this PhD. Thesis improve the knowledge on the factors involved in fruit growth and present a first step towards the use of fruit dendrometers in olive trees. Additionally, these results are important for the development of future studies on the olive fruit growth physiology

Produtização de uma aplicação móvel: design participativo e desenvolvimento

The advent of smartphones changed the way we communicate and collaborate. During the last years mobile applications have experienced an exponential growth, representing new technological challenges that require effective solutions. The internet has plenty of information about building applications, but many aspects are ignored or simplified to present a simple solution to who is starting. The construction of a prototype is relatively straightforward, but there are several challenges faced when building an application with higher standards. Considering the target audience, does it meet the user needs? Is it easy to use? Knowing that it can potentially be downloaded by a growing number of users, is it scalable? What is the right deployment? How to handle frequent updates? These are some of the questions that nourished the research agenda in this dissertation. It starts from an idea for a mobile application and goes through some of the aspects to consider when conceiving and transforming that application in a product ready to be delivered to the customers, available in the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Thus, this document reports on all the steps that were followed during this project, regarding aspects mainly related to the design, development and deployment stages. The beta version of the app is currently available in the Play Store, with more than 300 users registered. It is expected that the application is sufficiently representative of the challenges it involves, so the co-design and development process could be adapted to other applications. Hopefully, the ideas discussed here can be an example of what might be the problems to keep in mind when starting to develop an application, what might be the solutions for these problems and what will be the mistakes to avoid. The future work includes the necessary improvements to reach the version 1.0 and the further exploration of some topics, such as gamification and A/B testing to improve the user interface and optimize the user experience.O advento dos smartphones mudou a forma como comunicamos e colaboramos. Durante os últimos anos houve um aumento exponencial de aplicações móveis, representando novos desafios tecnológicos que exigem soluções eficazes. A internet está repleta de informação sobre a criação de aplicações, mas muitos aspetos são ignorados ou simplificados para apresentar uma solução simples para quem está a começar. A construção de um protótipo é relativamente simples, mas há diversos desafios a enfrentar quando se constrói uma aplicação com padrões mais elevados. Tendo em conta o público-alvo, será que vai ao encontro das suas necessidades? Será fácil de utilizar? Sabendo que potencialmente será instalada por um número crescente de utilizadores, será que é escalável? Qual será o deployment adequado? Como lidar com atualizações frequentes? Estas são algumas das questões que guiaram o plano de trabalhos desta dissertação. O documento parte de uma ideia para uma aplicação móvel e aborda os diversos aspetos a ter em consideração na conceção e transformação dessa aplicação num produto pronto para ser disponibilizado aos utilizadores, na Google Play Store ou na Apple App Store. Nesse sentido, este documento reporta todas as decisões tomadas durante este projeto, principalmente no que respeita a aspetos relacionados com as fases de design, desenvolvimento e deployment. A versão beta está atualmente disponível na Play Store, com mais de 300 utilizadores registados. Espera-se que a aplicação seja suficientemente representativa nos desafios que envolve, pelo que o processo de design participativo e respetivo desenvolvimento poderá ser adaptado a outras aplicações. Espera-se ainda que as ideias aqui discutidas possam servir de exemplo quanto ao que poderão ser os problemas a ter em conta quando se começa a desenvolver uma aplicação, quais poderão ser as soluções para esses problemas e quais serão os erros a evitar. O trabalho futuro inclui as melhorias necessárias até à versão 1.0 e a exploração mais detalhada de alguns tópicos, tais como gamificação e A/B testing, de modo a melhorar a interface e otimizar a experiência de utilização.Mestrado em Engenharia Informátic

Dos nuevas aportaciones sobre los aspectos económicos de la Guerra Civil Española

Reseñas de: SANTACREU SOLER, José Miguel: La crisis monetaria española de 1937. Moneda y municipios en la provincia de Alicante durante la guerra civil española, Universidad de Alicante, Alicante, 1986, 182 págs.; GONZÁLEZ PORTILLA, Manuel y GARMENDIA, José María: La guerra civil en el País Vasco. Política y economía, Universidad del País Vasco-Siglo XXI de España Editores, Madrid, 1988, 154 págs

A Comprehensive Study of Hydrolyzed Polyacrylamide as a Binder for Silicon Anodes.

Silicon anodes have a high theoretical capacity for lithium storage, but current composite electrode formulations are not sufficiently stable under long-term electrochemical cycling. The choice of polymeric binder has been shown to impact stability and capacity of silicon anodes for electrochemical energy storage. While several promising polymeric binders have been identified, there is a knowledge gap in how various physicochemical properties-including adhesion, mechanical integrity, and ion diffusion-impact electrochemical stability and performance. In this work, we comprehensively investigate the physical properties and performance of a molecular-weight series (3-20 × 106 g/mol) of partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) in silicon anodes. We quantify the mechanical strength, electrolyte uptake, adhesion to silicon, copper, and carbon, as well as electrochemical performance and stability and find that HPAM satisfies many of the properties generally believed to be favorable, including good adhesion, high strength, and electrochemical stability. HPAM does not show any electrolyte uptake regardless of any molecular weight studied, and thin films of mid- and high-molecular-weight HPAM on silicon surfaces suppress lithiation of silicon. The resulting composite electrodes exhibit an electrochemical storage capacity greater than 3000 mAh/g initially and 1639 mAh/g after 100 cycles. We attribute capacity fade to failure of mechanical properties of the binder or an excess of the solid electrolyte interphase layer being formed at the Si surface. While the highest-molecular-weight sample was expected to perform the best given its stronger adhesion and bulk mechanical properties, we found that HPAM of moderate molecular weight performed the best. We attribute this to a trade-off in mechanical strength and uniformity of the resulting electrode. This work demonstrates promising performance of a low-cost polymer as a binder for Si anodes and provides insight into the physical and chemical properties that influence binder performance

Cladistic analysis of Simulium (Trichodagmia) and Simulium (Thyrsopelma) (Diptera: Simuliidae)

A cladistic analysis of Simulium (Trichodagmia) sensu Crosskey and Howard, using 34 morphological characters of larvae (6 characters), pupa (5) and adults (23), yields nine most parsimonious trees under equal weights (length 101 steps CI 0.49 RI 0.73). Successive weighting based on the maximal rescaled consistency index preferred one of the nine (31.37 steps CI 0.62 RI 0.87 total fitcon3 = 235.8), which was also one of two trees found under implicit weights with concavity values of 3-6. The cladogram justifies the recognition of two subgenera. Simulium (Trichodagmia) sensu stricto (containing S. muiscorum, sumapazense, S. wygodzinskyorum, S. nigrimanum, S. chalcocoma, S. huairayacu and S. lahillei) is supported by the branchial tip sclerotization and the presence of cibarial teeth, larval body tegument covered with lanceolate hairs, female with simple claw, and gonapophysis size. Simulium (Thyrsopelma) (containing S. scutistriatum, S. hirtipupa, S. orbitale, S. guianense, S. perplexum and S. itaunense) is supported by the hypostomial teeth.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse