An Exegetical Analysis of Jeremiah 1:5: The Presence of Free Will and Choice

This research paper will show that even during the collapse of the kingdom of Judah, the Lord, wanting to save His children, never forced or predestined the will of Jeremiah. The following exegesis points to an alternate reading, one of free will and choice

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

Design and performance of liquid hydrogen fueled aircraft for year 2050 EIS

The present paper reports on the investigation of long-range LH2 aircraft concepts for year 2050 entry into service. The paper attempts to identify the limitations set by the LH2 storage technology when targeting typical design payload-range missions. In particular, the paper aims at providing a reasonable estimate of the upper efficiency levels set by low-weight rigid cell foam insulated tank technology, when integrated in a conventionallyshaped airframe. Additionally, a sensitivity study on the gravimetric efficiency of the tanks will be carried out, to identify the required roadmap for LH2 storage technology that is compliant with the typical long range mission requirements. Results for the different LH2 aircraft are compared with a year 2020 and year 2050 reference aircraft fueled with conventional jet-A

CONTRIBUIÇÃO PARA O ESTUDO DO VALOR SOCIOECONÓMICO E CULTURAL DAS PLANTAS MEDICINAIS DE TIMOR-LESTE

As plantas medicinais são utilizadas desde há longo tempo para tratar as doenças da população de Timor-Leste. O conhecimento existente sobre essa utilização é muito limitado. Com este trabalho pretendeu-se analisar os três grupos de intervenientes no consumo de plantas medicinais utilizadas para tratar doenças: os curadores as clínicas de saúde e os utilizadores, com o intuito de caracterizar este mercado e identificar as suas principais lacunas. A metodologia utilizada para a realização do trabalho e concretização dos objectivos formulados incluiu o recurso a dados primários e secundários. A obtenção de dados secundários foi feita através de uma revisão da literatura tanto de componentes teóricas como de estudos empíricos. Os dados primários foram obtidos através da aplicação de um inquérito por questionário a cada um dos intervenientes: os curadores, as clínicas de saúde e os utilizadores finais.Com os resultados obtidos tivemos indicações sobre o tipo de oferta e de procura para a utilização de plantas medicinais e para propor medidas para dinamizar esta actividade numa base em que se perspective a segurança da população que as usa e o reconhecimento dos curadores competentes

Numerical Analysis of Design Parameters With Strong Influence on the Aerodynamic Efficiency of a Small-Scale Self-Pitch VAWT

In the paper, four key design parameters with a strong influence on the performance of a small-scale high solidity variable pitch VAWT (Vertical Axis Wind Turbine), operating at low tip-speed-ratio (TSR) are addressed. To this aim a numerical approach, based on a finite-volume discretization of two-dimensional Unsteady RANS equations on a multiple sliding mesh, is proposed and validated against experimental data. The self-pitch VAWT design is based on a straight blade Darrieus wind turbine with blades that are allowed to pitch around a feathering axis, which is also parallel to the axis of rotation. The pitch angle amplitude and periodic variation are dynamically controlled by a four-bar-linkage system. We only consider the efficiency at low and intermediate TSR, therefore the pitch amplitude is chosen to be a sinusoidal function with a considerable amplitude. The results of this parametric analysis will contribute to define the guidelines for building a full size prototype of a small scale turbine of increased efficiency

Design of an innovative off road hybrid vehicle by energy efficiency criteria

The environmental impact of road transport is significant because it is a major user of energy and the major user of the world's petroleum that is extracted every year. This creates air pollution, including nitrous oxides and particulates, and is a significant contributor to global warming through emission of carbon dioxide, for which transport is the fastest-growing emission sector. These impacts assume a particular importance if considered the place where they are emitted such as the cities and highways that develop near the human settlements. By subsector, road transport can globally be considered the largest contributor to global warming. This paper takes into account an effective design methodology, which is based on an effective energy optimization of the vehicle and its main components. This method takes inspiration from constructal law, even if it could not be limited to this. The inspiration is limited to considering the fluxes of different physical magnitudes inside a complex system, such as a vehicle is, and analyzing how they develop and how they develop and mix. This analysis leads to a general analysis to the vehicle and to an effective optimization based on energy principle by a step by step optimization that allows identifying the critical elements that limit the flow of the different magnitudes inside the system, with particular attention to the factor that limits energy efficiency at different scale levels. The components have been considered only if they are industrial grade and inside a modular design, which allows merging design, finalized to energy efficiency, minimization of exergy disruption and of LCA impacts. The emotion that has been caused by the end of the production of the most successful British vehicle that is Land Rover Defender has stimulated to produce a sample design of a vehicle in this class producing different alternatives for different uses. The case of a vehicle that can compete with Discovery in terms of use and specifications has been considered, Results have been surprising demonstrating that the use of industrial grade components and their accurate choice will allow defining new vehicle platforms that can radically improve energy efficiency of vehicles

Temperature oscillations in the wall of a cooled multi pulsejet propeller for aeronautic propulsion

Environmental and economic issues related to the aeronautic transport, with particular reference to the high-speed one are opening new perspectives to pulsejets and derived pulse detonation engines. Their importance relates to high thrust to weight ratio and low cost of manufacturing with very low energy efficiency. This papers presents a preliminary evaluation in the direction of a new family of pulsejets which can be coupled with both an air compression system which is currently in pre-patenting study and a more efficient and enduring valve systems with respect to today ones. This new pulsejet has bee specifically studied to reach three objectives: a better thermodynamic efficiency, a substantial reduction of vibrations by a multi-chamber cooled architecture, a much longer operative life by more affordable valves. Another objective of this research connects directly to the possibility of feeding the pulsejet with hydrogen. This paper after a preliminary analysis of the pulsejet takes into account two necessary stages of this activity with the initial definition of the starting point of this activity, which aim to define an initial thermodynamic balance of a Lenoir cycle and a preliminary but effective estimation of the thermal problem. It analyses the heat transfer process through the wall of the combustion chamber of a pulsejet for aeronautic propulsion. The inside wall is exposed to burning gases with an average temperature of 1500 K, which oscillates with an amplitude 500 k and a frequency of 50 Hz. It has been considered the possibility of using Hydrogen injection to reduce the environmental impacts at the price of introducing a cooling water envelope at an average temperature of 80 °c. The water mass flow to ensure this condition has been evaluated and it has been evaluated both the average temperature profile within the wall and the effects of the oscillations of gas temperature inside the combustion chamber. Obtained results have allowed starting an effective activity through a radically new pulsejet architecture, which is expected to outclass any former pulsejet in term of operative life and of compression ratio with a consequent step increase in terms of thermodynamic efficiency

Study on the Manipulation of Plasma Density around a Cubesat Using Magnetohydrodynamics

During hypersonic flight regime or re-entry flights, a phenomenon known as radio blackout occurs, in which the high velocities attained lead to a significant increase in temperature surrounding the vehicle. This raise is so substantial that the molecules around the vehicle start to ionize, surrounding the vehicle in electrons. These electrons will prevent electromagnetic waves from leaving or reaching the aircraft, preventing all communications. Several blackout mitigation schemes have been proposed, among which is the magnetic window.  In this scheme, a magnetic field is imposed near the nose of the aircraft, which will then prevent electron movement, generating a spectral window through which the electromagnetic waves can pass. In this work, the effectiveness of this method in affecting the plasma density is tested. The mesh is tested for grid independency, ensuring an accurate solution in a sensible ammount of time. The effect of different magnetic field intensities is then tested for a CubeSat flying in hypersonic flight regime, in order to determine the effect of the magnetic field in the electron number density. Keywords: Magnetohydrodynamics, Radio blackout, Magnetic window, CubeSa

Development of an aerodynamic analysis tool for boundary layer ingestion concept design

The methods incorporated in an aerodynamic analysis tool are introduced to support aircraft conceptual designs, where a boundary layer ingestion (BLI) propulsion system is deployed. In order to integrate the BLI model to a generic tool for aircraft designs, two methods of approximating boundary layer profiles along the airframe/fuselage have been examined. For an airfoil-shaped wing/body configuration, the airfoil analysis program XFOIL is used and, alternatively, the flat plate boundary layer theory may be adopted. With the boundary layer characteristics approximated from these methods, the fan performance in terms of pressure ratio and efficiency is corrected considering the inflow distortion incurred by the boundary layer ingested, based on a simplified parallel compressor method. Given the corrected fan pressure ratio and efficiency, an equivalent velocity bookkeeping method is used for predicting the BLI fan performance in terms of power requirement and thrust generation. A validation against the boundary layer approximation is also presented in comparison with the RANS-based CFD simulations for a blended wing body (BWB) aircraft