Open source intelligence and AI: a systematic review of the GELSI literature

Today, open source intelligence (OSINT), i.e., information derived from publicly available sources, makes up between 80 and 90 percent of all intelligence activities carried out by Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and intelligence services in the West. Developments in data mining, machine learning, visual forensics and, most importantly, the growing computing power available for commercial use, have enabled OSINT practitioners to speed up, and sometimes even automate, intelligence collection and analysis, obtaining more accurate results more quickly. As the infosphere expands to accommodate ever-increasing online presence, so does the pool of actionable OSINT. These developments raise important concerns in terms of governance, ethical, legal, and social implications (GELSI). New and crucial oversight concerns emerge alongside standard privacy concerns, as some of the more advanced data analysis tools require little to no supervision. This article offers a systematic review of the relevant literature. It analyzes 571 publications to assess the current state of the literature on the use of AI-powered OSINT (and the development of OSINT software) as it relates to the GELSI framework, highlighting potential gaps and suggesting new research directions

Effects of dichlorvos and formalin on fatty acid metabolism of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) skin cells in primary culture

The effects of sub-lethal doses of dichlorvos and formalin, antimicrobial/parasitic agents used in aquaculture, on lipid composition and metabolism of rainbow trout skin cells in primary culture were investigated. [1-14C]Stearic (18:0), [1-14C]linoleic (18:2n-6) and [1-14C]linolenic (18:3n-3) acids were used as tracers to determine effects on fatty acid incorporation and metabolism. Formalin increased cell numbers and reduced the lipid content of the cells and the incorporation of radioactive fatty acids. The effects of dichlorvos were qualitatively similar but quantitatively less. Formalin induced relatively small but significant changes in lipid class composition including a decreased proportion of phosphatidycholine with increased proportions of phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylserine. Dichlorvos had no significant effect on lipid class compositions. The trout primary skin cells expressed substantial Δ9, Δ6 and Δ5 fatty acyl desaturase activities. Although, as expected, the cells were more active towards [1-14C]18:3n-3, the cells were unusually active towards [1-14C]18:2n-6. Both dichlorvos and, especially, formalin appeared to significantly inhibit Δ9 and Δ6 desaturase. Changes in the distribution of radioactivity between individual phospholipid classes was also influenced by formalin and dichlorvos, and this may be related to changes in desaturase activity. This study has shown that topically active agents used in aquaculture, formalin and dichlorvos, had a range of effects on the rainbow trout skin cell cultures that may affect cell proliferation and lipid and fatty acid metabolism. Both agents significantly inhibited desaturation of fatty acids, particularly of 18:2n-6 to 20:4n-6 and, as 20:4n-6 is a major eicosanoid precursor in fish and considering the importance of eicosanoids in the biochemistry of skin ,it is suggested that these agents may have direct effects on fish skin that may have important consequences for fish health in general

The effect of culture on morphology, lipid and fatty acid composition, and polyunsaturated fatty acid metabolism of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) skin cells

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) skin cell cultures were obtained by trypsinisation of the tissue and grown in Leibovitz L-15 medium. Lipid class compositions, and fatty acid profiles of total lipids and individual phospholipid classes were determined at different times of culture. The metabolism of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) was investigated by incubating primary cultures after 7 and 14 days with [1-14C]18:2n-6 and [1-14C-]18:3n-3. The change in morphology between epithelial-like primary cultures and fibroblastic-like secondary subcultures was accompanied by alterations in the lipid composition. Polar lipids became predominant by 14 days in culture. The relative proportions of phosphatidylcholine (PC), the most abundant phospholipid, phosphatidylinositol and cholesterol increased significantly, while sphingomyelin decreased. Saturated fatty acids, 18:1n-9, n-6 and n-9PUFA were more abundant in total lipid in cultures at 14 days and 4 months than in cells initially isolated which contained higher percentages of longer chain monoenes and n-3PUFA. The changes in fatty acid composition with time in culture were observed in all the major phospholipid classes. Rainbow trout skin cells in culture desaturated and elongated both 18:2n-6 and 18:3n-3, with 20:4n-6 and 20:5n-3 being the most abundant products, respectively. PC presented the highest incorporation of radioactivity, especially following incubation with 18:3n-3. Lipid metabolism in general increased with the age of primary cultures, with both the amount of C18 PUFA incorporated and metabolised by desaturation/elongation significantly increased in 14 day cultures compared to 7 day cultures. Product/precursor ratios calculated for both n-6 and n-3 fatty acids showed that, while Δ6 desaturase activity was increased significantly with cell age, Δ5 desaturase activity was more affected by the fatty acid series, with 18:3n-3 being more readily transformed to 20:5n-3 than 18:2n-6 to 20:4n-6. Further desaturation of 20:5n-3 to hexaenes was low. Overall, the data suggested that the trout skin cell cultures were more similar to mammalian skin fibroblasts than mammalian epidermal/keratinocyte cultures

Custom silicon technology for SPAD-arrays with red-enhanced sensitivity and low timing jitter

Single-photon detection is an invaluable tool for many applications ranging from basic research to consumer electronics. In this respect, the Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) plays a key role in enabling a broad diffusion of these techniques thanks to its remarkable performance, room-temperature operation, and scalability. In this paper we present a silicon technology that allows the fabrication of SPAD-arrays with an unprecedented combination of low timing jitter (95 ps FWHM) and high detection efficiency at red and near infrared wavelengths (peak of 70% at 650 nm, 45% at 800 nm). We discuss the device structure, the fabrication process, and we present a thorough experimental characterization of the fabricated detectors. We think that these long-awaited results can pave the way to new exciting developments in many fields, ranging from quantum optics to single molecule spectroscop

Alcances de la cristalización del orden SVO en PB y posibles implicaciones para el aprendizaje de PLE y ELSE

Durante varias décadas, la centralidad del enfoque comunicativo en la enseñanza-aprendizaje de segundas lenguas relegó a la marginalidad los estudios formales dentro de ese campo. Esta circunstancia se vio acentuada en el caso de la enseñanza del español (E) a brasileros y del portugués a hispanohablantes, por la consabida proximidad entre ambas lenguas. Sin embargo, en los últimos años esa postura comenzó a ser revisada, principalmente a partir del estudio de algunos cambios en el portugués de Brasil que fueron perfilando la emergencia de una gramática del portugués brasilero (PB), diferenciada del portugués europeo en particular y de las lenguas románicas en general. Paralelamente, comenzaron a estudiarse con mayor profundidad algunos fenómenos de interlengua en la interfaz E-PB y PB-E que resultan más fácilmente comprensibles considerando el hiato entre las gramáticas de las dos lenguas. Ese hiato se relaciona, fundamentalmente, con la pérdida del sujeto nulo y la rigidización del orden SVO (sujeto, verbo, objeto) en PB, frente al E que mantiene las características de una lengua típicamente pro-drop. No obstante, el alcance de esas divergencias así como sus posibles repercusiones en el aprendizaje de PLE y ELSE son cuestiones que siguen siendo exploradas. En este trabajo analizaremos algunos datos de interlengua que resultan en un sentido amplio sintomáticos de tales contrastes y propondremos una sistematización posible.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Readout Architectures for High Efficiency in Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting Experiments—Analysis and Review

In recent years, time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) has become the technique of choice in many life science analyses, where fast and faint luminous signals are recorded with picosecond accuracy. Nevertheless, the maximum operating frequency of a single TCSPC acquisition channel limits the measurement speed, especially when scanning point systems are exploited. In order to increase the speed of TCSPC experiments, many multichannel systems based on single photon avalanche diode arrays have been proposed in the literature, which integrate thousands of pixels on the same chip. Unfortunately, the huge number of data generated by this kind of system can easily bring to the saturation of the transfer bandwidth to the external processing unit. For this reason, several different readout architectures have been proposed in the literature, attempting to exploit at best the limited bandwidth under TCSPC operating conditions. In this paper, some typical readout approaches, namely clock-driven and event-driven readouts, are discussed and compared, along with a recently-introduced router-based algorithm that is specifically designed to obtain maximum bandwidth exploitation under any condition. Quantitative comparisons are performed starting from imager response of the systems, which is the rate of recorded events in the case of uniform illumination of the detector array

Quasi un secolo, tra 'cronaca' e 'fantasia': Corrado Alvaro e la diaristica italiana

This research aims at analyzing the phenomenon of the 20th century Italian diaries, considered as a literary genre. The powerful devastation of History plays a great role in defeating the old centricity of the “I” (pronoun as well as subject) and the diary isn’t a mere representation of the self anymore, but it hybridizes with the note-book and turns into a subjective chronicle of the present. My work tries to prove it by studying about a hundred of Italian diaries. After an introduction about theoretical studies, the first section focuses on the structure of the diary, its style (the use of subjective pronouns and tenses, the choice of the fragment and the level of literacy), the most frequent functions (the quest for identity, the evaluation of the whole life, the struggle for saving private and social memory, a neurotic exercise, but also the diary as a fictional genre). The diary deals with evergreen themes, such as sincerity and authenticity, love, money and metaliterary comments. After the writing, it can be reread, corrected and published; it arouses strong reactions among the readers, the other diarists, but also some philological problems for the publishers. This approach has been applied to Corrado Alvaro’s Quasi una vita and Ultimo diario as two very representative cases of 20th century Italian diary: they combine over thirty years of fragments about History, Literature, while the author looks for his writing style and his role in the present

A 1.9 ps-rms Precision Time-to-Amplitude Converter With 782 fs LSB and 0.79%-rms DNL

Measuring a time interval in the nanoseconds range has opened the way to 3-D imaging, where additional information as distance of objects light detection and ranging (LiDAR) or lifetime decay fluorescence-lifetime imaging (FLIM) is added to spatial coordinates. One of the key elements of these systems is the time measurement circuit, which encodes a time interval into digital words. Nowadays, most demanding applications, especially in the biological field, require time-conversion circuits with a challenging combination of performance, including sub-ps resolution, ps precision, several ns of measurement range, linearity better than few percent of the bin width (especially when complex lifetime data caused by multiple factors have to be retrieved), and operating rates in the order of tens of Mcps. In this article, we present a time-to-amplitude converter (TAC) implemented in a SiGe 350 nm process featuring a resolution of 782 fs, a minimum timing jitter as low as 1.9 ps-rms, a DNL down to 0.79% LSB-rms, and conversion rate as high as 12.3 Mcps. With an area occupation of 0.2 mm2 [without PADs and digital-to-analog converter (DAC)], a FSR up to 100 ns, and a power dissipation of 70 mW, we developed a circuit suitable to be the core element of a densely integrated, faster and high-performance system

Not everything is what it seems: malignant pleural mesothelioma mimicking lung cancer

Malignant pleural mesothelioma usually arises from the pleural surface and progressively encases the lungs. Pulmonary involvement generally occurs at an advanced stage, while intraparenchymal nodules, in the absence of pleural lesions, constitute a less frequent presentation. We describe the case of a patient with multiple bilateral pulmonary nodules, mediastinal lymphadenopathies and left pleural effusion in the absence of pleural lesions, simulating advanced stage lung cancer. Thoracoscopic inspection did not detect any lesions. Pathological examination on one pulmonary nodule revealed malignant pleural mesothelioma. Despite its rarity, intraparenchymal malignant pleural mesothelioma should always be taken into account, when  lung nodules are present, to prevent misdiagnosis and avoid delayed treatmen