PokerMapper: : mapping executive functions, poker playing ability and responsible gambling in online environments

Research objectives Poker and responsible gambling both entail the use of the executive functions (EF), which are higher-level cognitive abilities. The main objective of this work was to assess if online poker players of different ability show different performances in their EF and if so, which functions are the most discriminating ones. The secondary objective was to assess if the EF performance can predict the quality of gambling, according to the Gambling Related Cognition Scale (GRCS), the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) and the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI). Sample and methods The study design consisted of two stages: 46 Italian active players (41m, 5f; age 32±7,1ys; education 14,8±3ys) fulfilled the PGSI in a secure IT web system and uploaded their own hand history files, which were anonymized and then evaluated by two poker experts. 36 of these players (31m, 5f; age 33±7,3ys; education 15±3ys) accepted to take part in the second stage: the administration of an extensive neuropsychological test battery by a blinded trained professional. To answer the main research question we collected all final and intermediate scores of the EF tests on each player together with the scoring on the playing ability. To answer the secondary research question, we referred to GRCS, PGSI and SOGS scores.  We determined which variables that are good predictors of the playing ability score using statistical techniques able to deal with many regressors and few observations (LASSO, best subset algorithms and CART). In this context information criteria and cross-validation errors play a key role for the selection of the relevant regressors, while significance testing and goodness-of-fit measures can lead to wrong conclusions.   Preliminary findings We found significant predictors of the poker ability score in various tests. In particular, there are good predictors 1) in some Wisconsin Card Sorting Test items that measure flexibility in choosing strategy of problem-solving, strategic planning, modulating impulsive responding, goal setting and self-monitoring, 2) in those Cognitive Estimates Test variables related to deductive reasoning, problem solving, development of an appropriate strategy and self-monitoring, 3) in the Emotional Quotient Inventory Short (EQ-i:S) Stress Management score, composed by the Stress Tolerance and Impulse Control scores, and in the Interpersonal score (Empathy, Social Responsibility, Interpersonal Relationship). As for the quality of gambling, some EQ-i:S scales scores provide the best predictors: General Mood for the PGSI; Intrapersonal (Self-Regard; Emotional Self-Awareness, Assertiveness, Independence, Self-Actualization) and Adaptability  (Reality Testing, Flexibility, Problem Solving) for the SOGS, Adaptability for the GRCS. Implications for the field Through PokerMapper we gathered knowledge and evaluated the feasibility of the construction of short tasks/card games in online poker environments for profiling users’ executive functions. These card games will be part of an IT system able to dynamically profile EF and provide players with a feedback on their expected performance and ability to gamble responsibly in that particular moment. The implementation of such system in existing gambling platforms could lead to an effective proactive tool for supporting responsible gambling. 

Automating condition monitoring of vegetation on railway trackbeds and embankments

Vegetation growing on railway trackbeds and embankments present potential problems. The presence of vegetation threatens the safety of personnel inspecting the railway infrastructure. In addition vegetation growth clogs the ballast and results in inadequate track drainage which in turn could lead to the collapse of the railway embankment. Assessing vegetation within the realm of railway maintenance is mainly carried out manually by making visual inspections along the track. This is done either on-site or by watching videos recorded by maintenance vehicles mainly operated by the national railway administrative body. A need for the automated detection and characterisation of vegetation on railways (a subset of vegetation control/management) has been identified in collaboration with local railway maintenance subcontractors and Trafikverket, the Swedish Transport Administration (STA). The latter is responsible for long-term planning of the transport system for all types of traffic, as well as for the building, operation and maintenance of public roads and railways. The purpose of this research project was to investigate how vegetation can be measured and quantified by human raters and how machine vision can automate the same process. Data were acquired at railway trackbeds and embankments during field measurement experiments. All field data (such as images) in this thesis work was acquired on operational, lightly trafficked railway tracks, mostly trafficked by goods trains. Data were also generated by letting (human) raters conduct visual estimates of plant cover and/or count the number of plants, either on-site or in-house by making visual estimates of the images acquired from the field experiments. Later, the degree of reliability of(human) raters’ visual estimates were investigated and compared against machine vision algorithms. The overall results of the investigations involving human raters showed inconsistency in their estimates, and are therefore unreliable. As a result of the exploration of machine vision, computational methods and algorithms enabling automatic detection and characterisation of vegetation along railways were developed. The results achieved in the current work have shown that the use of image data for detecting vegetation is indeed possible and that such results could form the base for decisions regarding vegetation control. The performance of the machine vision algorithm which quantifies the vegetation cover was able to process 98% of the im-age data. Investigations of classifying plants from images were conducted in in order to recognise the specie. The classification rate accuracy was 95%.Objective measurements such as the ones proposed in thesis offers easy access to the measurements to all the involved parties and makes the subcontracting process easier i.e., both the subcontractors and the national railway administration are given the same reference framework concerning vegetation before signing a contract, which can then be crosschecked post maintenance.A very important issue which comes with an increasing ability to recognise species is the maintenance of biological diversity. Biological diversity along the trackbeds and embankments can be mapped, and maintained, through better and robust monitoring procedures. Continuously monitoring the state of vegetation along railways is highly recommended in order to identify a need for maintenance actions, and in addition to keep track of biodiversity. The computational methods or algorithms developed form the foundation of an automatic inspection system capable of objectively supporting manual inspections, or replacing manual inspections.

A Gradient-Type Method For Real-Time State Estimation Of Water Distribution Networks

Drinking water distribution networks risk exposure to malicious or accidental contamination. Several levels of responses are conceivable. One of them consists to install a sensor network to monitor the system on real time. Once a contamination has been detected, this is also important to take appropriate counter-measures. In the SMaRT-OnlineWDN project, this relies on modeling to predict both hydraulics and water quality. An online model use makes identification of the contaminant source and simulation of the contaminated area possible. The objective of this paper is to present SMaRT-OnlineWDN experience and research results for hydraulic state estimation with sampling frequency of few minutes. A least squares problem with bound constraints is formulated to adjust demand class coefficient to best fit the observed values at a given time. The criterion is a Huber function to limit the influence of outliers. A Tikhonov regularization is introduced for consideration of prior information on the parameter vector. Then the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm is applied that use derivative information for limiting the number of iterations. Confidence intervals for the state prediction are also given. The results are presented and discussed on real networks in France and Germany.

Gestão de parcerias na administração pública: uma experiência no setor de telecomunicações

O tema parceria vem sendo objeto de estudo em todo o mundo. Ganhando força, com as Joint-venture Internacionais, nas áreas de telecomunicações, informática, automobilística, aeroespacial etc., o elemento inovador passou a ser a constituição de alianças estratégicas com potenciais concorrentes, seja na exploração de novos nichos de mercado, seja em atividades de pesquisa e desenvolvimento de novos serviços e produtos. Considerando como normal esta troca ou sinergia entre parceiros, o trabalho apresenta e analisa os dados relativos ao estudo de campo realizado (pesquisa seletiva) junto a profissionais envolvidos com o dia-a-dia do processo de parceria de empresas líderes dos setores de Telecomunicações (Empresa Estatal) e do setor de serviços de Rede e Informática ( Empresa Privada). As considerações estão estruturadas nas seguintes partes: a caracterização e segmentação da amostra utilizada (caracterização dos respondentes); a análise descritiva e avaliação das variáveis representativas dos fatores inibidores e facilitadores; as percepções diferenciadas face aos elementos dependendo da experiência profissional e grau de envolvimento com os processos da parceria; os elementos inibidores e facilitadores apontados como de maior relevância; e os resultados obtidos a partir do uso da técnica de análise fatorial.

Modelo de gestão de risco em segurança da informação: um estudo de caso no mercado brasileiro de cartões de crédito

As questões ligadas a gestão de riscos associados a segurança da informação já é uma realidade no cenário empresarial brasileiro. O crescimento das operações de negócios em direção aos sistemas de informação baseados em tecnologia fez com que os números de ameaças e de vulnerabilidades sobre as redes de computadores e comunicações aumentassem. Vários são os desafios de estruturação e implementação de uma área de segurança da informação dentro das empresas. Este trabalho analisa as diversas formas de construção de uma infra-estrutura de gestão de risco em segurança de informação, não só no âmbito tecnológico, mas também, no operacional e no mercadológico, de forma a estabelecer uma relação transparente às demais áreas internas da organização, aos clientes e a todo o mercado. A segurança da informação, vista freqüentemente como um assunto ligado a tecnologia, passa a ser entendida cada vez mais como um processo de negócio, e conseqüentemente, uma grande vantagem competitiva para o mundo empresarial.

A emergência da governança socioambiental no mercado internacional de biocombustíveis

O esgotamento das reservas de energia fóssil e o processo de mudanças climáticas causadas pelas emissões de GEEs posicionaram os biocombustíveis como a principal fonte alternativa de energia renovável disponível para uso em transportes no curto e médio prazos. Contudo, a presença de externalidades e assimetrias de informação dificultam a verificação da sustentabilidade neste setor. Assim, a emergência do mercado internacional de biocombustíveis mostra-se condicionada pela construção de instituições que garantam a sustentabilidade da produção e consumo desses produtos. O processo de construção das instituições de governança socioambiental é afetado por fatores de ordem técnica, política e institucional. Apoiado em aportes teóricos do institucionalismo econômico e sociológico, o presente estudo buscou analisar que elementos afetam este processo considerando a trajetória de mercados já estabelecidos que apresentam caraterísticas análogas ao setor de biocombustíveis (alimentos orgânicos e produtos florestais). A forma como legislações nacionais, acordos internacionais e sistemas de certificação privada se desenvolveram e interagiram nesses setores apresenta aderência com o processo de construção do mercado de biocombustíveis observado até o momento. Dentre os resultados encontrados, observa-se tendência à convergência entre padrões de sustentabilidade em diferentes legislações nacionais e sistemas de certificação privados devido às externalidades de rede que conferem maior valor a padrões adotados por uma gama mais ampla de usuários. A União Europeia desponta como o principal formador de padrões de sustentabilidade, dado seu perfil importador e o estabelecimento de critérios mais amplos nas legislações dos Estados Membros, geralmente implementada via integração de mecanismos de governança públicos e privados (meta-standards). Apesar do expressivo potencial de consumo, os EUA apresentam menor influência nesse processo devido a considerável capacidade de produção doméstica e a priorização de elementos estratégicos (segurança energética e desenvolvimento rural) no desenho de suas políticas de sustentabilidade para combustíveis de biomassa. Na esfera privada, o desenvolvimento de sistemas de certificação apresenta-se condicionado por elementos técnicos, como a eficiência em cobrir critérios relevantes e os custos incorridos neste processo; e políticos, relacionados à capacidade de legitimição dos atores envolvidos em cada um destes programas de certificação. Também se observa que caraterísticas tecnológicas e organizacionais das cadeias de produção de biocombustíveis afetam a expansão de sistemas de certificação, condicionando tanto os custos para o estabelecimento da cadeia de custódia como a capacidade de coordenação de ações setoriais visando a adoção de práticas sustentáveis que facilitem a obtenção da certificação. Essa relação fica evidente em novas nações que buscam estabelecer um setor bioenergético e enfrentam dificuldades em integrar a agricultura familiar à modelos de produção que respeitem critérios socioambientais vigentes no mercado internacional. A pesquisa revelou a necessidade de um entendimento mais aprofundado da interconexão de novas rotas tecnológicas e atores adentrando no mercado internacional de biocombustíveis. A compreensão dos riscos e potencialidades de novas formas de interação pública e privada na governança socioambiental apresenta-se como um campo prolífico para futuros estudos neste setor e em outros em que atributos ambientais se mostrem relevantes.

Entry mode choice and market selection of born globals in developing countries: a multiple-case study of the ecuadorian software sector

O fenômeno "Born global" refere-se a empresas que consideram o mercado global como seu contexto natural e que iniciam seu processo de internacionalização muito cedo após sua criação. As teorias tradicionais como o modelo de Uppsala não conseguem explicar este processo. Portanto, outras teorias têm surgido, como a perspectiva de redes. Existem alguns estudos relacionados a esta área, principalmente realizados em países desenvolvidos com pequenos mercados e economias abertas. No entanto, poucos estudos têm sido feitos em economias em desenvolvimento. Além disso, o número de pesquisas quanto à escolha do modo de entrada e seleção de mercados das empresas “born global” é bastante limitado. Consequentemente, este estudo pretende descrever os principais fatores que influenciam a escolha do modo de entrada e seleção de mercados das empresas, de economias em desenvolvimento, nascidas globais. O foco da pesquisa é a indústria de software e um estudo de casos múltiplo foi realizado com três empresas no Equador. A metodologia incluiu entrevistas com fundadores, bem como a coleta de dados secundários. Com base na evidência empírica, verificou-se que os principais fatores que influenciam a escolha do modo de entrada são as restrições financeiras, as receitas esperadas, a velocidade de internacionalização, mercados nicho e a experiência empresarial anterior dos fundadores. Por outro lado, a seleção de mercado é influenciada por semelhanças de língua e cultura, mercados nicho e relações em rede.

Graph analysis of verbal fluency test discriminate between patients with Alzheimer’s disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment and normal elderly controls

Verbal fluency is the ability to produce a satisfying sequence of spoken words during a given time interval. The core of verbal fluency lies in the capacity to manage the executive aspects of language. The standard scores of the semantic verbal fluency test are broadly used in the neuropsychological assessment of the elderly, and different analytical methods are likely to extract even more information from the data generated in this test. Graph theory, a mathematical approach to analyze relations between items, represents a promising tool to understand a variety of neuropsychological states. This study reports a graph analysis of data generated by the semantic verbal fluency test by cognitively healthy elderly (NC), patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment – subtypes amnestic(aMCI) and amnestic multiple domain (a+mdMCI) - and patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Sequences of words were represented as a speech graph in which every word corresponded to a node and temporal links between words were represented by directed edges. To characterize the structure of the data we calculated 13 speech graph attributes (SGAs). The individuals were compared when divided in three (NC – MCI – AD) and four (NC – aMCI – a+mdMCI – AD) groups. When the three groups were compared, significant differences were found in the standard measure of correct words produced, and three SGA: diameter, average shortest path, and network density. SGA sorted the elderly groups with good specificity and sensitivity. When the four groups were compared, the groups differed significantly in network density, except between the two MCI subtypes and NC and aMCI. The diameter of the network and the average shortest path were significantly different between the NC and AD, and between aMCI and AD. SGA sorted the elderly in their groups with good specificity and sensitivity, performing better than the standard score of the task. These findings provide support for a new methodological frame to assess the strength of semantic memory through the verbal fluency task, with potential to amplify the predictive power of this test. Graph analysis is likely to become clinically relevant in neurology and psychiatry, and may be particularly useful for the differential diagnosis of the elderly.

Segurança da informação no correio eletrônico com base na ISO/IEC 17799 :um estudo de caso em uma instituição superior com foco no treinamento

The electronic mail service is one of the most Internet services that grow in the corporate environment. This evolution is bringing several problems for the organizations, especially to information that circulates inside of the corporate net. The lack of correct orientation to the people, about the usage and the security importance of these resources, is leaving breaches and causing misusage and overuse of service, for example. In recent literature, it starts to coming out several ideas, which has helped to rganizations how to plain and how to implement the information security system to the electronic mail in computer environment. However, these ideas are still not placed in practice in many companies, public or private. This dissertation tries to demonstrate the results of a research that has like goal, identify the importance that user training has over the information security policy, through a case study inside of private superior education institute in this state. Besides, this work had by basic orientation the ISO/IEC 17799, which talk about People Security. This study was developed over a proposed model to this research, which looked for offer conditions to guide the institution studied, how to plan better a information security policy to the electronic mail. Also, this research has an exploratory and descreptive nature and your type, qualitative. Firstly, it was applied na questionary to the information technology manager, as better way to get some general data and to deepen the contact which still then, it was being kept through e-mail. Thereupon this first contact, eleven interviews were done with the same manager, beside one interview with twenty-four users, among employees e students. After that to collect and transcript the interviews, were review with the manager all informations given, to correct any mistakes and to update that informations, to then, start the data analyze. The research suggests that the institution has a pro attitude about the information security policy and the electronic mail usage. However, it was clear that answers have their perception about information security under a very inexperient way, derived of a planning lack in relation to training program capable to solve the problem

Um ambiente integrado para manipulação de tráfego multicast

In the two last decades of the past century, following the consolidation of the Internet as the world-wide computer network, applications generating more robust data flows started to appear. The increasing use of videoconferencing stimulated the creation of a new form of point-to-multipoint transmission called IP Multicast. All companies working in the area of software and the hardware development for network videoconferencing have adjusted their products as well as developed new solutionsfor the use of multicast. However the configuration of such different solutions is not easy done, moreover when changes in the operational system are also requirede. Besides, the existing free tools have limited functions, and the current comercial solutions are heavily dependent on specific platforms. Along with the maturity of IP Multicast technology and with its inclusion in all the current operational systems, the object-oriented programming languages had developed classes able to handle multicast traflic. So, with the help of Java APIs for network, data bases and hipertext, it became possible to the develop an Integrated Environment able to handle multicast traffic, which is the major objective of this work. This document describes the implementation of the above mentioned environment, which provides many functions to use and manage multicast traffic, functions which existed only in a limited way and just in few tools, normally the comercial ones. This environment is useful to different kinds of users, so that it can be used by common users, who want to join multimedia Internet sessions, as well as more advenced users such engineers and network administrators who may need to monitor and handle multicast traffic

Uma ferramenta de manipulação de pacotes para análise de protocolos de redes industriais baseados em TCP/IP

This work presents a packet manipulation tool developed to realize tests in industrial devices that implements TCP/IP-based communication protocols. The tool was developed in Python programming language, as a Scapy extension. This tool, named IndPM- Industrial Packet Manipulator, can realize vulnerability tests in devices of industrial networks, industrial protocol compliance tests, receive server replies and utilize the Python interpreter to build tests. The Modbus/TCP protocol was implemented as proof-of-concept. The DNP3 over TCP protocol was also implemented but tests could not be realized because of the lack of resources. The IndPM results with Modbus/TCP protocol show some implementation faults in a Programmable Logic Controller communication module frequently utilized in automation companies

Otimização de Algoritmos Criptográficos para Redes de Sensores e Atuadores Sem-fio para Poços do Tipo Plunger Lift

Wireless sensors and actuators Networks specified by IEEE 802.15.4, are becoming increasingly being applied to instrumentation, as in instrumentation of oil wells with completion Plunger Lift type. Due to specific characteristics of the environment being installed, it s find the risk of compromising network security, and presenting several attack scenarios and the potential damage from them. It`s found the need for a more detailed security study of these networks, which calls for use of encryption algorithms, like AES-128 bits and RC6. So then it was implement the algorithms RC6 and AES-128, in an 8 bits microcontroller, and study its performance characteristics, critical for embedded applications. From these results it was developed a Hybrid Algorithm Cryptographic, ACH, which showed intermediate characteristics between the AES and RC6, more appropriate for use in applications with limitations of power consumption and memory. Also was present a comparative study of quality of security among the three algorithms, proving ACH cryptographic capability.