Modularity and Temporal Reasoning: a Logic Programming Approach

Albeit temporal reasoning and modularity are very prolific fields of research in Logic Programming (LP), we find few examples of their integration. In this paper we propose the addition of temporal annotations to a modular extension of LP. Moreover, besides an illustrative example we also provide a sketch for a compiler, allowing this way for the development of applications based such language

Temporal Annotations for a Contextual Logic Programming Language}

In this paper we propose the combination of modularity and temporal reasoning using logic programming as common ground. Moreover, we consider that the usage of a given module is influenced by temporal constraints, i.e. modularity and temporal reasoning are strongly connected. Besides illustrative examples, we also present the operational semantics and corresponding compiler for this language

Integrating Temporal Annotations in a Modular Logic Language

Albeit temporal reasoning and modularity are very prolific fields of research in Logic Programming (LP) we find few examples of their integration. Moreover, in those examples, time and modularity are considered orthogonal to each other. In this paper we propose the addition of temporal annotations to a modular extension of LP such that the usage of a module is influenced by temporal conditions. Besides illustrative examples we also provide an operational semantics together with a compiler, allowing this way for the development of applications based on such language

The effect of marketing messages on changing behaviour disorders

Behaviour disorders such as over-eating and smoking have been a constant debate in many societies throughout the years, being prejudicial not only for the individuals’ health but also resulting in heavy burdens on the society. Consequently, regulators and public authorities have been trying to implement warning messages that can guide consumers to stop embracing such behaviour disorders. Hence, the main purpose is to understand how public regulators can more effectively use different messages’ framing to address different behaviour scenarios, which ultimately will decrease the effect these disorders have on society. Additionally, there is also the goal to understand if there are any differences between consumers’ characteristics, as low and high self-regulated consumers, understanding which message frame is more effective among both types. With these objectives in mind, six in-depth interviews and an online experimental study was used to reach insightful results. The main conclusions taken from the present study indicate that smoking disorder is considered as an addictive behaviour, and that a loss-framed message would work best on prevention warnings and a gain-framed message in medical detection warnings. Furthermore, high self-regulated smokers tend to be less influenced by these warnings, due to their intrinsic self-control. Smokers knowingly keep smoking, not being motivated to quit, preferring to endure in medical examinations to monitor health. Contrarily, overweight consumers do not consider over-eating as an addictive behaviour, believing to be able to lose the excess weight at any time. Hence, framing conditions do not influence their behaviour like in the smoking disorder.Vícios comportamentais como obesidade e tabaco são um debate recorrente na sociedade. Estes comportamentos são prejudiciais não só para a saúde dos consumidores, como acarretam consequências para a sociedade. Autoridades reguladoras têm feito esforços para desenvolver e implementar mensagens que orientem consumidores a cessar estes comportamentos. Assim, este estudo tem como objetivo entender como utilizar diferentes tipos de mensagens, de forma a controlar vícios comportamentais, procurando diminuir os seus efeitos nefastos na sociedade. Adicionalmente, é relevante entender se existe alguma diferença entre caraterísticas pessoais dos consumidores, mais concretamente entre consumidores com baixo e alto controlo pessoal. Tendo em vista estes objetivos, foram realizadas seis entrevistas e um questionário, de forma a produzir um conjunto de resultados mais detalhado. Em conclusão, verificou-se que fumar é aceite como um vicio, onde uma mensagem formulada em termos de perda funcionará melhor na prevenção do comportamento, enquanto que mensagens formuladas em termos de ganhos funcionarão melhor na detecção de doenças. Como esperado, consumidores com um elevado nível de controlo são menos influenciados por este tipo de mensagens, não se verificando o acima descrito. Os fumadores mantêm o seu comportamento, conscientes das implicações na sua saúde, preferindo fazer exames médicos a parar de fumar. Contrariamente, consumidores com excesso de peso não consideram comer demais como um vicio, acreditando que conseguem perder o excesso de peso a qualquer momento. Estes consumidores têm mais motivação para perder peso do que fazer exames médicos, pelo que os diferentes tipos de mensagens estudados não influenciam o seu comportamento

Modeling and analysis of network resilience : the security perspective

The increased impact of global Internet in our daily lives is a continuous challenge for those who are responsible for their design, planning, implementation and administration. As the Internet becomes more important to citizens, organizations and nations, more pressure is placed in their reliability, availability and security or, in other terms, in its Resilience. Because Internet was not initially designed to support the actual levels of responsibility in the global economy, it is now evident that new paradigms and enhancements are needed to make this a resilient network. From the three disciplines that mainly characterize network resilience, security is one of the most challenging. In fact, the range of security threats that nowadays affect Internet is immense and increasingly complex, with the beginning of a new era where the concept of cyber-wars between nations becomes reality. One of the most relevant security threats is the malware and botnet phenomenon. Despite the development of several different types of countermeasures to fight these threats during more than a decade, this continues to be a field with big challenges and where new and solid improvements are needed

Fighting botnets - a systematic approach

The increasing impact of Internet in the global economy has transformed botnets into one of the most feared security threats for citizens, organizations and governments. Despite the significant efforts that have been made over the last years to understand this phenomenon and develop detection techniques and countermeasures, this continues to be a field with big challenges to address. The most important detection approaches and countermeasures that have been proposed are usually oriented to address some specific type of botnet threat or fight botnets in particular scenarios or conditions. This paper proposes a generic and systematic model to describe the network dynamics whenever a botnet threat is detected, defining all actors, dimensions, states and actions that need to be taken into account at each moment. We believe that the proposed model can be the basis for developing systematic and integrated frameworks, strategies and tools to predict and fight botnet threats in an efficient way.This research was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, under research project PTDC/EEA-TEL/101880/2008

A Facebook event collector framework for profile monitoring purposes

Social networks have recently emerged to become vital tools for information and content dissemination among connections. Indeed, the immense increase of number of users of Facebook made it rise to become the largest existing social network with more than 1.2 billion active users. However, these numbers also rose the attention of hackers and attackers who aim at propagating malware and viruses for obtaining confidential information regarding social network users. In this manner, it is crucial that each Facebook user is able to easily access, control and analyse the information shared on the corresponding profile so that profile usage deviations can be more efficiently detected. However, despite the fact that Facebook allows an analysis of all user actions through the Timeline Review, this information is not comprehensively organized and there is no statistical analysis of the user generated data. In this paper, we propose a novel framework comprising a Facebook event collector, which by being provided with an authentication token for a user profile obtained through a Facebook application developed for this purpose, collects all the corresponding posted information and stores it in a relational database for \textit{a posteriori} analysis. Through the graphical interface of the developed application, users can access all stored information in a comprehensible manner, according to the type of event, thus facilitating the analysis of user behaviour. By storing each event with the corresponding timestamp, we are able to perform an efficient and comprehensive analysis of all posted contents and compute statistical models over the obtained data. In this manner, we can create a notion of normal usage profile and detect possible deviations which may be indicative of a compromised user account

Characterization and modeling of top spam botnets

The increasing impact of the Internet in the global economy has transformed Botnets into one of the most relevant security threats for citizens, organizations and governments. Despite the significant efforts that have been made over the last years to understand this phenomenon and develop detection techniques and countermeasures, this continues to be a field with big challenges to address. Several approaches can be taken to study Botnets: analyze its source code, which can be a hard task because it is usually unavailable; study the control mechanism, particularly the activity of its Command and Control server(s); study its behavior, by measuring real traffic and collecting relevant statistics. In this work, we have installed some of the most popular spam Botnets, captured the originated traffic and characterized it in order to identify the main trends/patterns of their activity. From the intensive statistics that were collected, it was possible to conclude that there are distinct features between Botnets that can be explored to build efficient detection methodologies. Based on this study, the second part of the paper proposes a generic and systematic model to describe the network dynamics whenever a Botnet threat is detected, defining all actors, dimensions, states and actions that need to be taken into account at each moment. We believe that this type of modeling approach is the basis for developing systematic and integrated frameworks and strategies to predict and fight Botnet threats in an efficient way.This research was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, under research project PTDC/EEA-TEL/101880/2008

Livro de materiais pedagógicos para o 1º grau de formação musical

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo a construção de uma proposta de livro de materiais pedagógicos para o primeiro grau do ensino básico para a disciplina de Formação Musical do Ensino Especializado da Música. Foi construído tendo em conta a análise de manuais já existentes no mercado, as teorias da aprendizagem musical de vários pedagogos da música e necessidades de professores e alunos da área. Este trabalho de investigação encontra-se separado em duas partes. A primeira inerente à prática de ensino supervisionada e a segunda à construção do livro acima mencionado. Na primeira parte são apresentadas a cidade da realização da prática supervisionada, as instituições envolvidas na mesma e as turmas com as quais o mestrando trabalhou. Serão apresentados alguns planos de aula e relatórios, através dos quais serão retiradas conclusões sobre que práticas de ensino são mais ou menos efetivas tendo em conta as turmas trabalhadas. Por sua vez, na segunda parte, encontra-se uma reflexão sobre os métodos de investigação, a forma como funciona ou deveria funcionar o ensino sob o ponto de vista de várias individualidades e, como não poderia deixar de ser, o trabalho intrínseco à criação do livro de materiais pedagógicos. Quanto à construção do livro, esta servir-se-á da análise de livros e manuais existentes, da execução e análise de um inquérito a preencher pelo máximo de indivíduos ligados à comunidade musical e na análise das teorias da aprendizagem musical de pedagogos de renome. Após a construção do livro, este será enviado a profissionais e especialistas da área a fim de ser validado. Além da realização do livro em questão, este trabalho visa promover uma reflexão sobre o sistema de ensino, nomeadamente o ensino da música. Ao longo da história, a escola foi das instituições que menos evoluiu e, salvaguardando as diferenças tecnológicas, não se notam grandes evoluções no que diz respeito ao seu funcionamento desde os últimos cinquenta anos. Deste modo, é feita uma reflexão sobre até que ponto o sistema de ensino realmente prepara os alunos para o futuro e a forma como deve funcionar num tempo em que a informação é criada a um ritmo nunca antes visto na história da humanidade. Toda essa discussão sobre a forma de como o funcionamento do ensino pode ou não estar a preparar os alunos para o futuro é transposta para a música. A reflexão deste ponto é feita no sentido de tentar entender se os conteúdos devem ser passados da forma que a tradição dita ou se, por outro lado, devem ser passados de modo a que os alunos possam evoluir de acordo com as suas capacidades e trabalho individual, fornecendo-lhes, além dos conteúdos, as ferramentas necessárias para, de acordo com o seu interesse e capacidade, poderem ir em busca de mais conhecimento, conseguindo autonomamente decidir se esse conhecimento é ou não válido. Este é o verdadeiro objetivo deste trabalho. O livro que dele resultar deve ter como base o cumprimento destes requisitos. Deste modo, espera-se a obtenção não de um livro de teoria musical nem de um livro de exercícios, mas sim um livro de materiais pedagógicos, ferramentas com as quais os alunos poderão evoluir para além da informaçãoque o livro em questão fornece.Abstract : The present work has as objective the construction of a proposal of book of pedagogic materials for the first degree of the basic teaching for the discipline of Musical Formation of the Specialized Teaching of the Music, through the analysis of manuals already existent in the market, of the theories of the several educators of the music musical learning and tends in bill the teacher’s needs and students of the area. This investigation work is separate in two parts. The first inherent to the teaching practice supervised and Monday to the construction of the book above mentioned. In the first part, on the teaching practice supervised, they are presented the city of the accomplishment of it practices supervised, the institutions involved in the same and the groups with which the student worked. Some will be presented class plans and reports, through which will be removed a series of conclusions on that teaching practices are more or less effective tends in bill the worked groups. For his time, in the second it leaves, it is a reflection on the investigation methods, the form how it works or the teaching should work under the point of view of you vary individualities and, as it could not stop being, the fundamental work to the creation of the book of pedagogic materials. As for the construction of the book, this will be served as the analysis of books and existent manuals, of the execution and analysis of an inquiry to fill out for the linked individuals' maximum to the musical community and in the analysis of the theories of the renowned educators' musical learning. After the construction of the book, this will be sent to professionals and specialists of the area in order to be validated. Besides the accomplishment of the book in subject, this work seeks to promote a reflection on the education system, namely the teaching of the music. Along the history, the school was of the institutions that less it developed and, safeguarding the technological differences, they are not noticed great evolutions in what says respect to his operation since the last fifty years. This way, it is made a reflection the education system really prepares the students for the future and the form on to what extent how it should work in one time in that the information is created to a rhythm never before seen in the humanity's history. That whole discussion on the form of as the operation of the teaching it can or not to be to prepare the students for the future is transposed for the music. The reflection of this point is made in the sense of trying to understand the contents should be passed in the way that the said tradition or if, on the other hand, they should be passed in way what the students can develop in agreement with their capacities and individual work, supplying them, besides the contents, the necessary tools for, in agreement with his interest and capacity, they could go in search of more knowledge getting them self’s to decide that knowledge it is or no valid. This is the true objective of this work. The book that of him to result should have as base the execution of these requirements. This way, the obtaining is not expected of a book of musical theory nor of a book of exercises, but a book of pedagogic materials, tools with which the students can develop besides the information that the book in subject supplies