A Satisfaction-based Model for Affect Recognition from Conversational Features in Spoken Dialog Systems

Detecting user affect automatically during real-time conversation is the main challenge towards our greater aim of infusing social intelligence into a natural-language mixed-initiative High-Fidelity (Hi-Fi) audio control spoken dialog agent. In recent years, studies on affect detection from voice have moved on to using realistic, non-acted data, which is subtler. However, it is more challenging to perceive subtler emotions and this is demonstrated in tasks such as labelling and machine prediction. This paper attempts to address part of this challenge by considering the role of user satisfaction ratings and also conversational/dialog features in discriminating contentment and frustration, two types of emotions that are known to be prevalent within spoken human-computer interaction. However, given the laboratory constraints, users might be positively biased when rating the system, indirectly making the reliability of the satisfaction data questionable. Machine learning experiments were conducted on two datasets, users and annotators, which were then compared in order to assess the reliability of these datasets. Our results indicated that standard classifiers were significantly more successful in discriminating the abovementioned emotions and their intensities (reflected by user satisfaction ratings) from annotator data than from user data. These results corroborated that: first, satisfaction data could be used directly as an alternative target variable to model affect, and that they could be predicted exclusively by dialog features. Second, these were only true when trying to predict the abovementioned emotions using annotator?s data, suggesting that user bias does exist in a laboratory-led evaluation.

Integración en la plataforma 4mobile de mecanismos de atención en redes sociales

El presente texto se ha desarrollado como Proyecto Fin de Grado en la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería y Sistemas de Telecomunicación de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid en colaboración con la Consultora Tecnológica everis. El mismo tiene como objetivo realizar un estudio de los requisitos necesarios para poder desplegar un servicio que permita ofrecer a las Operadoras Móviles Virtuales (OMV) soporte técnico a sus clientes a través de las redes sociales. Este módulo establecerá una nueva vía de comunicación entre el consumidor y el cliente de la OMV con la propia OMV, el cual se caracterizará por una alta accesibilidad y una gran rapidez en el servicio permitiendo de este modo, una mayor satisfacción del cliente con su operador móvil y por tanto de una nueva vía para conseguir la fidelización del mismo y la captación de nuevos clientes. Para ello, este proyecto se lleva a cabo sobre el sistema de información 4mobile el cual es comercializado por la mencionada Consultora Tecnológica. Este sistema consiste en una plataforma web la cual permite cubrir todos los procesos de negocio comunes que un OMV necesita gestionar. Es por ello, que el mencionado estudio se centra en la evaluación de los aspectos necesarios para la integración de un módulo de estas características dentro de la plataforma de 4mobile. Este módulo, estará basado en una herramienta software que permitirá gestionar el ciclo de vida completo del comentario realizado por el cliente a través de una red social, desde que es publicado por el cliente, hasta que se haya respondido al mismo y su solución sea considerada como satisfactoria por el cliente. Por ello, y de cara a definir correctamente esta herramienta, será necesario un detallado análisis el cual recoja diversos aspectos y que a lo largo del texto, será denominado como Plan de Marketing de Medios Sociales (PMMS). Estos aspectos versarán tanto de las necesidades tecnológicas para su mencionada integración, como de la serie de características funcionales que una solución basada en servicio técnico a través de las redes sociales deberá poseer con el objetivo de ofrecer un servicio técnico de calidad. Finalmente, estas funcionalidades y necesidades tecnológicas se expondrán en forma de propuesta a everis para su integración en la plataforma 4mobile junto con un análisis de diseño a alto nivel software de la solución a desarrollar. ABSTRACT. This text has been developed as Final Degree Project in the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería y Sistemas de Telecomunicación de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in collaboration with the Technology Consultant everis, aims to conduct a study of how to provide technical support through social networks and the evaluation of the integration of a social support module within the system platform 4mobile, which cover all business processes that need to manage a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), which is marketed by above-mentioned consultant . This module will establish a new communication channel between the consumer and the client with the OMV and itself, which is characterized by high accessibility and great fast service. Thus will allow a higher customer satisfaction with him service and thus a new way to get the same loyalty and attract new customers To this end, this project is performed on the information system 4mobile which is marketed by the consulting part thereof everis. This system is a platform to cover all business processes that need to manage an MVNO. Therefore, the mentioned study focuses on the evaluation of the elements necessary for integrating module these features within the platform 4mobile. This module will be based on a software tool for managing the entire lifecycle of the comment made by the customer via social networking, from the moment it is published, until it has been respond and their solution is considered satisfactory for the customer. So, in order to properly define this tool, a detailed analysis which will be necessary to collect various aspects and throughout the text, it will be referred to as Plan of Social Media Marketing (PMMS). These aspects will be address both: the technological needs for the mentioned integration, and the number of functional characteristics-based service through social networking solution, as this must in order to provide a quality service Finally, these goals and requirements will be discussed as everis offer for integration into the platform 4mobile analysis along with a high level of software design to develop the solution.

Thin Client Technology in the Academic Environment

From research groups at the universities of developed countries there is a growing interest in providing solutions to problems of developing countries. In this context we have studied typical problems in many (educational) institutions, such as the lack of technicians who repair the computers, the administration of the machines, and also the difficulty to maintain and configure the old hardware available due to the variety of characteristics of the different machines and the amount of hardware breakdowns and software issues (viruses, administration issues) that the local staff has to face up to with their equipments. We propose a thin client approach that takes into account the human, hardware and software characteristics of developing institutions to provide a complete service for a computer network. The network administration is reduced to the administration of one server only. The maintenance of the machines is simplified and old computers can simulate the running of a powerful computer. Our proposal results in a cheap, simple (from the support point of view) and powerful (in terms of achieved functionalities) design.

Justice, emotions and satisfaction in complaint behavior in services

This study proposes a marketing approach to service recovery (SR) models in order to help to explain what factors affect cumulative satisfaction, loyalty and word-of-mouth following complaint behavior. The model has its base on the definition of perceived justice and its influence on satisfaction with service recovery (SSR) and on emotions (positive and negative). Trust acts as a central construct in the model, receiving influence from the affective and cognitive aspect and mediating the relationship between SSR and cumulative satisfaction and between positive/negative emotions and loyalty. The sample for this study consists of 303 Spanish B2C-EC users who made a complaint after an electronic transaction. Results from the analysis show the influence of perceived justice ?mainly interactional justice and procedural justice? on SSR, and the relevance of positive emotions as a key factor in SSR processes, in contrast to the major role which negative emotions have traditionally played in these models. Furthermore, trust mediates the relation between SSR and cumulative satisfaction, and is the factor which has a higher influence on loyalty, whilst cumulative satisfaction becomes the more relevant factor affecting WOM.

Are team personality and climate related to satisfaction and software quality? Aggregating results from a twice replicated experiment

Research into software engineering teams focuses on human and social team factors. Social psychology deals with the study of team formation and has found that personality factors and group processes such as team climate are related to team effectiveness. However, there are only a handful of empirical studies dealing with personality and team climate and their relationship to software development team effectiveness. Objective We present aggregate results of a twice replicated quasi-experiment that evaluates the relationships between personality, team climate, product quality and satisfaction in software development teams. Method Our experimental study measures the personalities of team members based on the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) and team climate factors (participative safety, support for innovation, team vision and task orientation) preferences and perceptions. We aggregate the results of the three studies through a meta-analysis of correlations. The study was conducted with students. Results The aggregation of results from the baseline experiment and two replications corroborates the following findings. There is a positive relationship between all four climate factors and satisfaction in software development teams. Teams whose members score highest for the agreeableness personality factor have the highest satisfaction levels. The results unveil a significant positive correlation between the extraversion personality factor and software product quality. High participative safety and task orientation climate perceptions are significantly related to quality. Conclusions First, more efficient software development teams can be formed heeding personality factors like agreeableness and extraversion. Second, the team climate generated in software development teams should be monitored for team member satisfaction. Finally, aspects like people feeling safe giving their opinions or encouraging team members to work hard at their job can have an impact on software quality. Software project managers can take advantage of these factors to promote developer satisfaction and improve the resulting product.

Formal Verification of Temporal Properties for Parametrized Concurrent Programs and Concurrent Data Structures

Los tipos de datos concurrentes son implementaciones concurrentes de las abstracciones de datos clásicas, con la diferencia de que han sido específicamente diseñados para aprovechar el gran paralelismo disponible en las modernas arquitecturas multiprocesador y multinúcleo. La correcta manipulación de los tipos de datos concurrentes resulta esencial para demostrar la completa corrección de los sistemas de software que los utilizan. Una de las mayores dificultades a la hora de diseñar y verificar tipos de datos concurrentes surge de la necesidad de tener que razonar acerca de un número arbitrario de procesos que invocan estos tipos de datos de manera concurrente. Esto requiere considerar sistemas parametrizados. En este trabajo estudiamos la verificación formal de propiedades temporales de sistemas concurrentes parametrizados, poniendo especial énfasis en programas que manipulan estructuras de datos concurrentes. La principal dificultad a la hora de razonar acerca de sistemas concurrentes parametrizados proviene de la interacción entre el gran nivel de concurrencia que éstos poseen y la necesidad de razonar al mismo tiempo acerca de la memoria dinámica. La verificación de sistemas parametrizados resulta en sí un problema desafiante debido a que requiere razonar acerca de estructuras de datos complejas que son accedidas y modificadas por un numero ilimitado de procesos que manipulan de manera simultánea el contenido de la memoria dinámica empleando métodos de sincronización poco estructurados. En este trabajo, presentamos un marco formal basado en métodos deductivos capaz de ocuparse de la verificación de propiedades de safety y liveness de sistemas concurrentes parametrizados que manejan estructuras de datos complejas. Nuestro marco formal incluye reglas de prueba y técnicas especialmente adaptadas para sistemas parametrizados, las cuales trabajan en colaboración con procedimientos de decisión especialmente diseñados para analizar complejas estructuras de datos concurrentes. Un aspecto novedoso de nuestro marco formal es que efectúa una clara diferenciación entre el análisis del flujo de control del programa y el análisis de los datos que se manejan. El flujo de control del programa se analiza utilizando reglas de prueba y técnicas de verificación deductivas especialmente diseñadas para lidiar con sistemas parametrizados. Comenzando a partir de un programa concurrente y la especificación de una propiedad temporal, nuestras técnicas deductivas son capaces de generar un conjunto finito de condiciones de verificación cuya validez implican la satisfacción de dicha especificación temporal por parte de cualquier sistema, sin importar el número de procesos que formen parte del sistema. Las condiciones de verificación generadas se corresponden con los datos manipulados. Estudiamos el diseño de procedimientos de decisión especializados capaces de lidiar con estas condiciones de verificación de manera completamente automática. Investigamos teorías decidibles capaces de describir propiedades de tipos de datos complejos que manipulan punteros, tales como implementaciones imperativas de pilas, colas, listas y skiplists. Para cada una de estas teorías presentamos un procedimiento de decisión y una implementación práctica construida sobre SMT solvers. Estos procedimientos de decisión son finalmente utilizados para verificar de manera automática las condiciones de verificación generadas por nuestras técnicas de verificación parametrizada. Para concluir, demostramos como utilizando nuestro marco formal es posible probar no solo propiedades de safety sino además de liveness en algunas versiones de protocolos de exclusión mutua y programas que manipulan estructuras de datos concurrentes. El enfoque que presentamos en este trabajo resulta ser muy general y puede ser aplicado para verificar un amplio rango de tipos de datos concurrentes similares. Abstract Concurrent data types are concurrent implementations of classical data abstractions, specifically designed to exploit the great deal of parallelism available in modern multiprocessor and multi-core architectures. The correct manipulation of concurrent data types is essential for the overall correctness of the software system built using them. A major difficulty in designing and verifying concurrent data types arises by the need to reason about any number of threads invoking the data type simultaneously, which requires considering parametrized systems. In this work we study the formal verification of temporal properties of parametrized concurrent systems, with a special focus on programs that manipulate concurrent data structures. The main difficulty to reason about concurrent parametrized systems comes from the combination of their inherently high concurrency and the manipulation of dynamic memory. This parametrized verification problem is very challenging, because it requires to reason about complex concurrent data structures being accessed and modified by threads which simultaneously manipulate the heap using unstructured synchronization methods. In this work, we present a formal framework based on deductive methods which is capable of dealing with the verification of safety and liveness properties of concurrent parametrized systems that manipulate complex data structures. Our framework includes special proof rules and techniques adapted for parametrized systems which work in collaboration with specialized decision procedures for complex data structures. A novel aspect of our framework is that it cleanly differentiates the analysis of the program control flow from the analysis of the data being manipulated. The program control flow is analyzed using deductive proof rules and verification techniques specifically designed for coping with parametrized systems. Starting from a concurrent program and a temporal specification, our techniques generate a finite collection of verification conditions whose validity entails the satisfaction of the temporal specification by any client system, in spite of the number of threads. The verification conditions correspond to the data manipulation. We study the design of specialized decision procedures to deal with these verification conditions fully automatically. We investigate decidable theories capable of describing rich properties of complex pointer based data types such as stacks, queues, lists and skiplists. For each of these theories we present a decision procedure, and its practical implementation on top of existing SMT solvers. These decision procedures are ultimately used for automatically verifying the verification conditions generated by our specialized parametrized verification techniques. Finally, we show how using our framework it is possible to prove not only safety but also liveness properties of concurrent versions of some mutual exclusion protocols and programs that manipulate concurrent data structures. The approach we present in this work is very general, and can be applied to verify a wide range of similar concurrent data types.

A real case of a cognitive multiplayer game: design and development of the iOS client in Swift and its cloud architecture

as tecnologías emergentes como el cloud computing y los dispositivos móviles están creando una oportunidad sin precedentes para mejorar el sistema educativo, permitiendo tanto a los educadores personalizar y mejorar la experiencia de aprendizaje, como facilitar a los estudiantes que adquieran conocimientos sin importar dónde estén. Por otra parte, a través de técnicas de gamificacion será posible promover y motivar a los estudiantes a que aprendan materias arduas haciendo que la experiencia sea más motivadora. Los juegos móviles pueden ser el camino correcto para dar soporte a esta experiencia de aprendizaje mejorada. Este proyecto integra el diseño y desarrollo de una arquitectura en la nube altamente escalable y con alto rendimiento, así como el propio cliente de iOS, para dar soporte a una nueva version de Temporis, un juego móvil multijugador orientado a reordenar eventos históricos en una línea temporal (e.j. historia, arte, deportes, entretenimiento y literatura). Temporis actualmente está disponible en Google Play. Esta memoria describe el desarrollo de la nueva versión de Temporis (Temporis v.2.0) proporcionando detalles acerca de la mejora y adaptación basados en el Temporis original. En particular se describe el nuevo backend hecho en Go sobre Google App Engine creado para soportar miles de usuarios, asó como otras características por ejemplo como conseguir enviar noticaciones push desde la propia plataforma. Por último, el cliente de iOS en Temporis v.2.0 se ha desarrollado utilizando las últimas y más relevantes tecnologías, prestando especial atención a Swift (el lenguaje de programación nuevo de Apple, que es seguro y rápido), el Paradigma Funcional Reactivo (que ayuda a construir aplicaciones altamente interactivas además de a minimizar errores) y la arquitectura VIPER (una arquitectura que sigue los principios SOLID, se centra en la separación de asuntos y favorece la reutilización de código en otras plataformas). ABSTRACT Emerging technologies such as cloud computing and mobile devices are creating an unprecedented opportunity for enhancing the educational system, letting both educators customize and improve the learning experience, and students acquire knowledge regardless of where they are. Moreover, through gamification techniques it would be possible to encourage and motivate students to learn arduous subjects by making the experience more motivating. Mobile games can be a perfect vehicle to support this enhanced learning experience. This project integrates the design and development of a highly scalable and performant cloud architecture, as well as the iOS client that uses it, in order to provide support to a new version of Temporis, a mobile multiplayer game focused on ordering time-based (e.g. history, art, sports, entertainment and literature) in a timeline that currently is available on Google Play. This work describes the development of the new Temporis version (Temporis v.2.0), providing details about improvements and details on the adaptation of the original Temporis. In particular, the new Google App Engine backend is described, which was created to support thousand of users developed in Go language are provided, in addition to other features like how to achieve push notications in this platform. Finally, the mobile iOS client developed using the latest and more relevant technologies is explained paying special attention to Swift (Apple's new programming language, that is safe and fast), the Functional Reactive Paradigm (that helps building highly interactive apps while minimizing bugs) and the VIPER architecture (a SOLID architecture that enforces separation of concerns and makes it easy to reuse code for other platforms).

Defending against cybercrime: advances in the detection of malicious servers and the analysis of client-side vulnerabilities

Esta tesis se centra en el análisis de dos aspectos complementarios de la ciberdelincuencia (es decir, el crimen perpetrado a través de la red para ganar dinero). Estos dos aspectos son las máquinas infectadas utilizadas para obtener beneficios económicos de la delincuencia a través de diferentes acciones (como por ejemplo, clickfraud, DDoS, correo no deseado) y la infraestructura de servidores utilizados para gestionar estas máquinas (por ejemplo, C & C, servidores explotadores, servidores de monetización, redirectores). En la primera parte se investiga la exposición a las amenazas de los ordenadores victimas. Para realizar este análisis hemos utilizado los metadatos contenidos en WINE-BR conjunto de datos de Symantec. Este conjunto de datos contiene metadatos de instalación de ficheros ejecutables (por ejemplo, hash del fichero, su editor, fecha de instalación, nombre del fichero, la versión del fichero) proveniente de 8,4 millones de usuarios de Windows. Hemos asociado estos metadatos con las vulnerabilidades en el National Vulnerability Database (NVD) y en el Opens Sourced Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) con el fin de realizar un seguimiento de la decadencia de la vulnerabilidad en el tiempo y observar la rapidez de los usuarios a remiendar sus sistemas y, por tanto, su exposición a posibles ataques. Hemos identificado 3 factores que pueden influir en la actividad de parches de ordenadores victimas: código compartido, el tipo de usuario, exploits. Presentamos 2 nuevos ataques contra el código compartido y un análisis de cómo el conocimiento usuarios y la disponibilidad de exploit influyen en la actividad de aplicación de parches. Para las 80 vulnerabilidades en nuestra base de datos que afectan código compartido entre dos aplicaciones, el tiempo entre el parche libera en las diferentes aplicaciones es hasta 118 das (con una mediana de 11 das) En la segunda parte se proponen nuevas técnicas de sondeo activos para detectar y analizar las infraestructuras de servidores maliciosos. Aprovechamos técnicas de sondaje activo, para detectar servidores maliciosos en el internet. Empezamos con el análisis y la detección de operaciones de servidores explotadores. Como una operación identificamos los servidores que son controlados por las mismas personas y, posiblemente, participan en la misma campaña de infección. Hemos analizado un total de 500 servidores explotadores durante un período de 1 año, donde 2/3 de las operaciones tenían un único servidor y 1/2 por varios servidores. Hemos desarrollado la técnica para detectar servidores explotadores a diferentes tipologías de servidores, (por ejemplo, C & C, servidores de monetización, redirectores) y hemos logrado escala de Internet de sondeo para las distintas categorías de servidores maliciosos. Estas nuevas técnicas se han incorporado en una nueva herramienta llamada CyberProbe. Para detectar estos servidores hemos desarrollado una novedosa técnica llamada Adversarial Fingerprint Generation, que es una metodología para generar un modelo único de solicitud-respuesta para identificar la familia de servidores (es decir, el tipo y la operación que el servidor apartenece). A partir de una fichero de malware y un servidor activo de una determinada familia, CyberProbe puede generar un fingerprint válido para detectar todos los servidores vivos de esa familia. Hemos realizado 11 exploraciones en todo el Internet detectando 151 servidores maliciosos, de estos 151 servidores 75% son desconocidos a bases de datos publicas de servidores maliciosos. Otra cuestión que se plantea mientras se hace la detección de servidores maliciosos es que algunos de estos servidores podrán estar ocultos detrás de un proxy inverso silente. Para identificar la prevalencia de esta configuración de red y mejorar el capacidades de CyberProbe hemos desarrollado RevProbe una nueva herramienta a través del aprovechamiento de leakages en la configuración de la Web proxies inversa puede detectar proxies inversos. RevProbe identifica que el 16% de direcciones IP maliciosas activas analizadas corresponden a proxies inversos, que el 92% de ellos son silenciosos en comparación con 55% para los proxies inversos benignos, y que son utilizado principalmente para equilibrio de carga a través de múltiples servidores. ABSTRACT In this dissertation we investigate two fundamental aspects of cybercrime: the infection of machines used to monetize the crime and the malicious server infrastructures that are used to manage the infected machines. In the first part of this dissertation, we analyze how fast software vendors apply patches to secure client applications, identifying shared code as an important factor in patch deployment. Shared code is code present in multiple programs. When a vulnerability affects shared code the usual linear vulnerability life cycle is not anymore effective to describe how the patch deployment takes place. In this work we show which are the consequences of shared code vulnerabilities and we demonstrate two novel attacks that can be used to exploit this condition. In the second part of this dissertation we analyze malicious server infrastructures, our contributions are: a technique to cluster exploit server operations, a tool named CyberProbe to perform large scale detection of different malicious servers categories, and RevProbe a tool that detects silent reverse proxies. We start by identifying exploit server operations, that are, exploit servers managed by the same people. We investigate a total of 500 exploit servers over a period of more 13 months. We have collected malware from these servers and all the metadata related to the communication with the servers. Thanks to this metadata we have extracted different features to group together servers managed by the same entity (i.e., exploit server operation), we have discovered that 2/3 of the operations have a single server while 1/3 have multiple servers. Next, we present CyberProbe a tool that detects different malicious server types through a novel technique called adversarial fingerprint generation (AFG). The idea behind CyberProbe’s AFG is to run some piece of malware and observe its network communication towards malicious servers. Then it replays this communication to the malicious server and outputs a fingerprint (i.e. a port selection function, a probe generation function and a signature generation function). Once the fingerprint is generated CyberProbe scans the Internet with the fingerprint and finds all the servers of a given family. We have performed a total of 11 Internet wide scans finding 151 new servers starting with 15 seed servers. This gives to CyberProbe a 10 times amplification factor. Moreover we have compared CyberProbe with existing blacklists on the internet finding that only 40% of the server detected by CyberProbe were listed. To enhance the capabilities of CyberProbe we have developed RevProbe, a reverse proxy detection tool that can be integrated with CyberProbe to allow precise detection of silent reverse proxies used to hide malicious servers. RevProbe leverages leakage based detection techniques to detect if a malicious server is hidden behind a silent reverse proxy and the infrastructure of servers behind it. At the core of RevProbe is the analysis of differences in the traffic by interacting with a remote server.