On the anonymity risk of time-varying user profiles.

Websites and applications use personalisation services to profile their users, collect their patterns and activities and eventually use this data to provide tailored suggestions. User preferences and social interactions are therefore aggregated and analysed. Every time a user publishes a new post or creates a link with another entity, either another user, or some online resource, new information is added to the user profile. Exposing private data does not only reveal information about single users’ preferences, increasing their privacy risk, but can expose more about their network that single actors intended. This mechanism is self-evident in social networks where users receive suggestions based on their friends’ activities. We propose an information-theoretic approach to measure the differential update of the anonymity risk of time-varying user profiles. This expresses how privacy is affected when new content is posted and how much third-party services get to know about the users when a new activity is shared. We use actual Facebook data to show how our model can be applied to a real-world scenario.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Computation of forces from deformed visco-elastic biological tissues

We present a least-squares based inverse analysis of visco-elastic biological tissues. The proposed method computes the set of contractile forces (dipoles) at the cell boundaries that induce the observed and quantified deformations. We show that the computation of these forces requires the regularisation of the problem functional for some load configurations that we study here. The functional measures the error of the dynamic problem being discretised in time with a second-order implicit time-stepping and in space with standard finite elements. We analyse the uniqueness of the inverse problem and estimate the regularisation parameter by means of an L-curved criterion. We apply the methodology to a simple toy problem and to an in vivo set of morphogenetic deformations of the Drosophila embryo.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

On web user tracking of browsing patterns for personalised advertising

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems on 19/02/2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17445760.2017.1282480On today’s Web, users trade access to their private data for content and services. App and service providers want to know everything they can about their users, in order to improve their product experience. Also, advertising sustains the business model of many websites and applications. Efficient and successful advertising relies on predicting users’ actions and tastes to suggest a range of products to buy. Both service providers and advertisers try to track users’ behaviour across their product network. For application providers this means tracking users’ actions within their platform. For third-party services following users, means being able to track them across different websites and applications. It is well known how, while surfing the Web, users leave traces regarding their identity in the form of activity patterns and unstructured data. These data constitute what is called the user’s online footprint. We analyse how advertising networks build and collect users footprints and how the suggested advertising reacts to changes in the user behaviour.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Estrategias de recuperación de predios baldíos en la Ciudad de Toluca: prospectiva del ordenamiento urbano

This study contributes to a scarcely worked topic, the lack of regulations that regulate the recovery of vacant urban land in the city of Toluca. The foundations of urban planning, territorial ordering and the law made it possible not only to identify the complexity of the recovery of the ownership of unoccupied urban land, but also the lack of cohesion in urban matters of the different systems at the state and local level. The results show that the regulatory framework of urban land uses does not include strategies for the reintegration of urban gaps into the city's economy. What sharpens its abandonment, commercial speculation, fraudulent alienation and underutilization under the weakness of urban policy. The legislative gaps identified in the State of Mexico defined the normative nature of the capital gains exchange policy and the recovery strategies that are proposed, which are subject to a long process of discussion in the local congress according to the Constitution of the State from Mexico; and approval in the different spheres of government of the State of Mexico and in the city councils. The contribution of this research constitutes a viable initiative in the context of the New General Law of Human Settlements, Territorial Planning and Urban Development, which raises the need to update the municipal plans of urban development, incorporating strategies that guarantee urban innovation in the medium and long term. The exchange of capital gains policy should be considered as a proposal for public regulation of the problems and contradictions of vacant urban land. This policy instructs on the fiscal mechanisms to recover the value of the uncultivated land, provides intervention 10 instruments that will contribute to the containment of commercial speculation of the urban land and to mitigate the outbreaks of unhealthiness. The fiscal mechanisms of the exchange of capital gains policy respond not only to the phenomenon of vacant urban land in the city of Toluca, in its general nature have an impact on the regulation of the real estate processes of the State of Mexico and previous adjustment applicable to other entities from the country. The contribution of this research constitutes an innovative initiative in the context of the provisions of the New General Law of Human Settlements, Territorial Planning and Urban Development. The State of Mexico and all the federal entities have the challenge of adapting the guidelines to the particularities demanded by urban development. It represents the opportunity to reformulate soil regulation instruments to adapt them to a new order to optimize urban uses and functions. The municipal plans of urban development that derive require policies and strategies of medium and long term that guarantee the reinsertion of the urban uncultivated lands to the economic dynamics and contribute in the urban densification. Based on the results of this research, additions are proposed to the New General Law of Human Settlements, Territorial Planning and Urban Development, which make up the general support of the exchange policy of capital gains proposed for the recovery of vacant urban land. The analytical method was applied in the literature review, orders, plans and programs, and the inductive method through a reference list and a technical sheet to update the information of urban wastelands.Resumen Este estudio contribuye con un tema escasamente trabajado, la carencia de ordenamientos que regulen la recuperación de los predios urbanos baldíos en la ciudad de Toluca. Los fundamentos del urbanismo, el ordenamiento territorial y el derecho permitieron identificar no solo la complejidad de la recuperación de la propiedad de los predios urbanos baldíos, sino también la carencia de cohesión en materia urbana de los diversos ordenamientos en el ámbito estatal y local. Los resultados muestran que el marco regulatorio de los usos de suelo urbano no contempla estrategias de reinserción de los vacíos urbanos a la economía de la ciudad. Lo que agudiza su abandono, la especulación comercial, la enajenación fraudulenta y la subutilización al amparo de la debilidad de la política urbana. Los vacíos legislativos identificados en el Estado de México definieron la naturaleza normativa de la política de intercambio de plusvalías y las estrategias de recuperación que se proponen, mismas que están sujetas a un proceso largo de discusión en el congreso local de acuerdo a la Constitución del Estado de México; y aprobación en los diversos ámbitos de gobierno del Estado de México y en los ayuntamientos. El aporte de esta investigación se constituye en una iniciativa viable en el contexto de la Nueva Ley General de Asentamientos Humanos, Ordenamiento Territorial y Desarrollo Urbano, misma que plantea la necesidad de actualizar los planes municipales de desarrollo urbano, incorporando estrategias que garanticen la innovación urbana a mediano y largo plazo. La política de intercambio de plusvalías debe considerarse como propuesta de regulación pública de los problemas y contradicciones de los predios urbanos baldíos. Esta política instruye sobre los mecanismos fiscales para recuperar el valor de la renta de los baldíos, dota de instrumentos de intervención que coadyuvarán en la contención de la especulación comercial del suelo urbano y en la mitigación de los focos de insalubridad. Los mecanismos fiscales de la política de intercambio de plusvalías responden no solo al fenómeno de los predios urbanos baldíos en la ciudad de Toluca, en su carácter general tienen incidencia en la regulación de los procesos inmobiliarios del Estado de México y previa adecuación aplicables a otras entidades del país. El aporte de esta investigación constituye una iniciativa innovadora en el contexto de las disposiciones de la Nueva Ley General de Asentamientos Humanos, Ordenamiento Territorial y Desarrollo Urbano. El Estado de México y todas las entidades federativas tienen el reto de adaptar los lineamientos a las particularidades que demanda el desarrollo urbano. 9 Representa la oportunidad para reformular los instrumentos de regulación del suelo para adaptarlos a un nuevo orden para optimizar los usos y funciones urbanas. Los planes municipales de desarrollo urbano que se deriven requieren de políticas y estrategias de mediano y largo plazo que garanticen la reinserción de los predios urbanos baldíos a la dinámica económica y coadyuven en la densificación urbana. A partir de los resultados de esta investigación se proponen adiciones a la Nueva Ley General de Asentamientos Humanos, Ordenamiento Territorial y Desarrollo Urbano, las cuales conforman el sustento general de la política de intercambio de plusvalías que se propone para la recuperación de los predios urbanos baldíos. Se aplicó el método analítico en la revisión de literatura, ordenamientos, planes y programas, y el método inductivo mediante un listado de referencia y una ficha técnica para actualizar la información de los baldíos urbanos.CONACYT Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Méxic