Low-dimensional affine synchronizing groups

Tese de mestrado em Matemática, apresentada à Universidade de Lisboa, através da Faculdade de Ciências, 2012The synchronization property emerged from finite state automata and transformation semigroup theory. Synchronizing permutation groups were introduced by Arnold and Steinberg to study the Cerný Conjecture. In this thesis we study the synchronization property in affine permutation groups of low-dimensions. J.E. Pin proved that one-dimensional affine groups are synchronizing. Hence our main results concern affine groups in dimension 2. We used the characterization given by Neumann of synchronization using graph theory, which relies on the study of the equality between the clique number and the chromatic number of certain graphs invariant under the actions of a group, called the suitability property. It turned out that some of such graphs for two-dimensional affine groups have an interesting geometry and are part of a widely studied class of graphs, the generalized Paley graphs. Further, we used the properties of the theta-function defined by Lovász connected to eigenvalues of a graph to obtain a necessary condition for the suitability in edge-transitive and vertex-transitive graphs. In this thesis we stated a criterion to decide if a generalized Paley graph is suitable. Then we used the tools referred to above and we presented conditions for twodimensional affine groups to be synchronizing.A propriedade de sincronização surgiu no contexto da teoria de autómatos e semigrupos de transformaçãoo. Arnold and Steinberg definiram os grupos de permutação sincronizantes com o objectivo de estudar a Conjectura de Cerný por outra perspectiva. Nesta tese estudamos a propriedade de sincronização em grupos afins de pequenas dimensões. Dado que J.E. Pin provou que os grupos afins de dimensão 1 são sempre sincronizantes, os resultados principais desta tese aplicam-se a grupos afins bidimensionais. Peter Neumann estudou os grupos sincronizantes usando teoria de grafos. Esta caracterização consiste no estudo de grafos invariantes sobre a acção de um grupo e em determinar se os seus números cromático e de clique coincidem. Descobrimos que alguns grafos invariantes sobre a acção de grupos afinns bidimensionais tinham uma geometria simétrica e que faziam parte de uma classe amplamente estudada de grafos, conhecidos como grafos de Paley generalizados. Como ferramenta extra, estudámos a função-teta, um número invariante num grafo, que foi definida por Lovász. Esta função possui uma caracterização que utiliza os valores próprios da matriz de adjacência do grafo e que nos permitiu concluir uma condição suficiente para a igualdade no número cromático e de clique em grafos cujo grupo de automorfismos é transitivo nas arestas e nos vértices. Nesta tese estabelecemos um critério para a igualdade no número cromático e de clique nos grafos de Paley generalizados e usámos esse resultado, bem como as ferramentas anteriormente referidas, para obter uma caracterização dos grupos afins bidimensionais sincronizantes

Verifying Policy Enforcers

Policy enforcers are sophisticated runtime components that can prevent failures by enforcing the correct behavior of the software. While a single enforcer can be easily designed focusing only on the behavior of the application that must be monitored, the effect of multiple enforcers that enforce different policies might be hard to predict. So far, mechanisms to resolve interferences between enforcers have been based on priority mechanisms and heuristics. Although these methods provide a mechanism to take decisions when multiple enforcers try to affect the execution at a same time, they do not guarantee the lack of interference on the global behavior of the system. In this paper we present a verification strategy that can be exploited to discover interferences between sets of enforcers and thus safely identify a-priori the enforcers that can co-exist at run-time. In our evaluation, we experimented our verification method with several policy enforcers for Android and discovered some incompatibilities.Comment: Oliviero Riganelli, Daniela Micucci, Leonardo Mariani, and Yli\`es Falcone. Verifying Policy Enforcers. Proceedings of 17th International Conference on Runtime Verification (RV), 2017. (to appear

The POPC Citizen: Political Information in the Fourth Age of Political Communication

A woman checking messages on her phone while standing next to a newspaper rack. A girl waiting in line scrolling down the Facebook timeline, stumbling upon a video clip about the outcome of the recent US presidential elections. A young man playing a game on his tablet, with TV news running in another window. These are just three everyday scenarios that illustrate how today’s “permanently online, permanently connected” (POPC) communication environment has created new conditions for the access to and consumption of political information. A myriad of options to choose from regarding the form and content of communication make it easy to acquire political information continuously, but also to avoid political content given the many other interesting things to do online. At the same time, social networking sites (SNS) have made it more difficult to abstain completely from political information, as they often push news to unsuspecting users. With the permanent potential to activate social ties through SNS and instant messaging services, the political information of citizens has become embedded into their mediated social networks whose members like, share, and comment on it. The implications of widespread digitization and mediatization for the political domain are so profound and far-reaching that they have recently led Jay Blumler (2016) to announce a new “fourth age of political communication.” Political communication in the fourth age is characterized by “yet more communication abundance” (p. 24) compared to the preceding ages, particularly due to new, mobile-access devices that have led to an ever more intense competition for audience attention. The fact that the Internet has gone mobile reinforces developments it initiated much earlier: Mobility increases the frequency of communication and thus the frequency of situations in which more or less conscious choices regarding the modes and content of communication are necessary. Because people often initiate and process digital communication in parallel with an ongoing “offline life,” communication acts may also become more impulsive and automatic (van Koningsbruggen, Hartmann, & Du, this volume), and attention paid to content more superficial than in the past

Optogenetic targeting of cardiac myocytes and non-myocytes: tools, challenges and utility

In optogenetics, light-activated proteins are used to monitor and modulate cellular behaviour with light. Combining genetic targeting of distinct cellular populations with defined patterns of optical stimulation enables one to study specific cell classes in complex biological tissues. In the current study we attempted to investigate the functional relevance of heterocellular electrotonic coupling in cardiac tissue in situ. In order to do that, we used a Cre-Lox approach to express the light-gated cation channel Channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) specifically in either cardiac myocytes or non-myocytes. Despite high specificity when using the same Cre driver lines in a previous study in combination with a different optogenetic probe, we found patchy off-target ChR2 expression in cryo-sections and extended z-stack imaging through the ventricular wall of hearts cleared using CLARITY. Based on immunohistochemical analysis, single-cell electrophysiological recordings and whole-genome sequencing, we reason that non-specificity is caused on the Cre recombination level. Our study highlights the importance of careful design and validation of the Cre recombination targets for reliable cell class specific expression of optogenetic tools

Disease flare of ankylosing spondylitis presenting as reactive arthritis with seropositivity: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Concurrent rheumatoid factor seropositivity is occasionally detected in ankylosing spondylitis and often causes confusion in clinical routine. Overlap between various seronegative arthritides is a known but uncommon association. Differentiation of spondyloarthropathy from rheumatoid arthritis is important, since the natural history, complications, treatments and prognosis of the two diseases differ significantly.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>Here, we report the case of a 47-year-old Sri Lankan man who had a long history of intermittent joint pains worsening following a recent episode of self-resolving non-bloody diarrhea. Subsequently, he developed a skin rash suggestive of keratoderma blenorrhagica and circinate balanitis. He had classical radiological evidence of ankylosing spondylosis (previously undiagnosed) associated with human leukocyte antigen B27 antigen, but was positive for rheumatoid factor.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A disease flare of ankylosing spondylitis prompted by a minor diarrheal illness showing well documented features of reactive arthritis is remarkable. The prognostic implications of seropositivity in spondyloarthritis are discussed.</p

Automatically proving termination and memory safety for programs with pointer arithmetic

While automated verification of imperative programs has been studied intensively, proving termination of programs with explicit pointer arithmetic fully automatically was still an open problem. To close this gap, we introduce a novel abstract domain that can track allocated memory in detail. We use it to automatically construct a symbolic execution graph that over-approximates all possible runs of a program and that can be used to prove memory safety. This graph is then transformed into an integer transition system, whose termination can be proved by standard techniques. We implemented this approach in the automated termination prover AProVE and demonstrate its capability of analyzing C programs with pointer arithmetic that existing tools cannot handle