Post tenebras spero lucem : Alquimia y ritos en el Quijote y otras obras cervantinas

This study focuses on two areas: alchemy (Part I) and rituals of initiation (Part II) in the works of Miguel de Cervantes, focusing on Don Quijote de la Mancha as my main case study. The first part analyses the function of alchemy and how it can be interpreted throughout the works and various literary genres of Cervantes. It will demonstrate that the texts of Cervantes contain both explicit and implicit allusions to, as well as different aspects of alchemy, such as operative and spiritual alchemy and how these are ultimately used by Cervantes as a means of expression. The author draws from this rich source and modifies these means of expression in order to achieve various results: sometimes with wit or in relation to fraud; at other times it focuses on inner alchemy relating to chivalry in what I have called spiritual chivalry, which has the aim of self-improvement and ultimately, gnosis. Regarding the chivalric rituals of initiation, according to this investigation chivalry serves as both satire and representation of the alchemical process in the case of Don Quijote, which finds its key moments during the rituals. In this sense alchemy and chivalry are studied as two sides of the same coin, in which the search for something higher, an object (the philosopher stone, the beloved), subjects the protagonist to continuous transmutations and puts him in contact with the transitory, that is, liminal states, people and spaces. From this perspective Don Quixote de la Mancha is built upon liminal poetics. My approach, which follows the tenets of analogical hermeneutics, is included within the framework of the Western Esotericism Studies. The 16th and 17th centuries were a fertile age for alchemy throughout Europe. In Spain, alchemy and other esoteric disciplines co-existed with the Spanish Inquisition and its body for the control of ideas and texts: censorship. By being ambiguous and putting into dialogue different ideas of alchemy, Cervantes not only allowed readers to reach their own conclusions, he also protected his work from censorship.

The Adolescent Empathy Paradox and Juvenile Offending

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Avaliação da viabilidade da aplicação de técnicas biomoleculares na autenticação de produtos alimentares

A carne continua a ser a fonte proteica mais comum no quotidiano das pessoas. Além disso, os produtos cárneos processados apresentam-se como uma mais-valia nas suas vidas agitadas. Este tipo de produto torna difícil a diferenciação das carnes utilizadas na sua confecção, sendo por isso propícios a adulteração. A Reacção em Cadeia da Polimerase (PCR) tem ganho cada vez mais importância nos laboratórios de biologia molecular, revelando-se uma técnica de análise rápida, sensível e altamente específica na identificação de espécies em produtos alimentares. No entanto, vários factores podem interferir com o processo de amplificação, pelo que alguns cuidados devem ser implementados desde a aquisição da amostra a analisar, ao seu acondicionamento e posterior extração de ADN. Existem inúmeros protocolos de extração de ADN, devendo para cada estudo avaliar-se e optar-se pelo mais adequado, considerando a finalidade estabelecida para a amostra extraída. O trabalho laboratorial apresentado nesta dissertação baseou-se em três etapas principais. Inicialmente, avaliaram-se diferentes protocolos de extração de ADN, utilizando-se amostras de carne adquiridas num talho. Entre os protocolos testados, o método de Brometo de Cetil-Trimetil-Amónio (CTAB) modificado foi o que permitiu obter amostras de ADN com maior concentração e elevado nível de pureza. Posteriormente, foram testados e optimizados diferentes protocolos de amplificação, por PCR em tempo real, para a detecção das espécies Bos taurus (vaca), Sus scrofa (porco), Equus caballus (cavalo) e Ovis aries (ovelha). Foram empregues primers específicos de espécie para a detecção de genes mitocondriais e genómicos, consoante cada protocolo. Para o caso concreto do porco, foi efectuada a avaliação de dois protocolos, singleplex com EvaGreen® e tetraplex com AllHorse, para possível aplicação dos mesmos na sua quantificação. Os resultados demonstraram elevada especificidade e sensibilidade das reacções para esta espécie, permitindo a sua detecção até um limite de 0,001 ng e 0,1%, respectivamente. Somente a primeira metodologia se mostrou adequada para quantificação. Por último, as metodologias sugeridas foram aplicadas com sucesso na análise de 4 amostras comerciais de hambúrgueres, tendo-se verificado a consistência da rotulagem em todos os casos, no que concerne a composição em termos de espécies animais. O interesse de trabalhos neste âmbito recai na importância da autenticidade dos rótulos de produtos alimentares, principalmente nos produtos cárneos, para segurança dos consumidores e salvaguarda dos produtores.

InfoScout: An interactive, entity centric, person search tool.

Individuals living in highly networked societies publish a large amount of personal, and potentially sensitive, information online. Web investigators can exploit such information for a variety of purposes, such as in background vetting and fraud detection. However, such investigations require a large number of expensive man hours and human effort. This paper describes InfoScout, a search tool which is intended to reduce the time it takes to identify and gather subject centric information on the Web. InfoScout collects relevance feedback information from the investigator in order to rerank search results, allowing the intended information to be discovered more quickly. Users may still direct their search as they see fit, issuing ad-hoc queries and filtering existing results by keywords. Design choices are informed by prior work and industry collaboration.

Development of a simple and fast “DNA extraction kit” for sea food identification and marine species

Seafood products fraud, the misrepresentation of them, have been discovered all around the world in different forms as false labeling, species substitution, short-weighting or over glazing in order to hide the correct identity, origin or weight of the seafood products. Due to the value of seafood products such as canned tuna, swordfish or grouper, these species are the subject of the commercial fraud is mainly there placement of valuable species with other little or no value species. A similar situation occurs with the shelled shrimp or shellfish that are reduced into pieces for the commercialization. Food fraud by species substitution is an emerging risk given the increasingly global food supply chain and the potential food safety issues. Economic food fraud is committed when food is deliberately placed on the market, for financial gain deceiving consumers (Woolfe, M. & Primrose, S. 2004). As a result of the increased demand and the globalization of the seafood supply, more fish species are encountered in the market. In this scenary, it becomes essential to unequivocally identify the species. The traditional taxonomy, based primarily on identification keys of species, has shown a number of limitations in the use of the distinctive features in many animal taxa, amplified when fish, crustacean or shellfish are commercially transformed. Many fish species show a similar texture, thus the certification of fish products is particularly important when fishes have undergone procedures which affect the overall anatomical structure, such as heading, slicing or filleting (Marko et al., 2004). The absence of morphological traits, a main characteristic usually used to identify animal species, represents a challenge and molecular identification methods are required. Among them, DNA-based methods are more frequently employed for food authentication (Lockley & Bardsley, 2000). In addition to food authentication and traceability, studies of taxonomy, population and conservation genetics as well as analysis of dietary habits and prey selection, also rely on genetic analyses including the DNA barcoding technology (Arroyave & Stiassny, 2014; Galimberti et al., 2013; Mafra, Ferreira, & Oliveira, 2008; Nicolé et al., 2012; Rasmussen & Morrissey, 2008), consisting in PCR amplification and sequencing of a COI mitochondrial gene specific region. The system proposed by P. Hebert et al. (2003) locates inside the mitochondrial COI gene (cytochrome oxidase subunit I) the bioidentification system useful in taxonomic identification of species (Lo Brutto et al., 2007). The COI region, used for genetic identification - DNA barcode - is short enough to allow, with the current technology, to decode sequence (the pairs of nucleotide bases) in a single step. Despite, this region only represents a tiny fraction of the mitochondrial DNA content in each cell, the COI region has sufficient variability to distinguish the majority of species among them (Biondo et al. 2016). This technique has been already employed to address the demand of assessing the actual identity and/or provenance of marketed products, as well as to unmask mislabelling and fraudulent substitutions, difficult to detect especially in manufactured seafood (Barbuto et al., 2010; Galimberti et al., 2013; Filonzi, Chiesa, Vaghi, & Nonnis Marzano, 2010). Nowadays,the research concerns the use of genetic markers to identify not only the species and/or varieties of fish, but also to identify molecular characters able to trace the origin and to provide an effective control tool forproducers and consumers as a supply chain in agreementwith local regulations.

Planeamento Fiscal nas operações relativas a instrumentos financeiros derivados e a sua tributação

Mestrado em Fiscalidade

Caraterização e identificação de esquemas Ponzi: Casos Chales Ponzi, Bernard Madoff e Dona Branca

Mestrado em Auditoria

A auditoria contínua como resposta ao risco de fraude

Mestrado em Auditoria

O sistema de controlo interno e a qualidade da auditoria

A qualidade da auditoria é uma preocupação crescente no sentido de credibilizar as demonstrações financeiras, pelo que muitos estudos têm sido desenvolvido nos últimos tempos com vista a avaliar quais serão os fatores que maior influência poderão ter na qualidade de uma auditoria. Sendo o Sistema de Controlo Interno (SCI) um elemento fundamental no aumento da fiabilidade da informação importa analisar o contributo do SCI para a qualidade da auditoria. Com base em questionários e entrevistas a Revisores Oficiais de Contas (ROC) procuramos perceber o que é um bom SCI numa entidade e quais os fatores de que depende, bem como o seu contributo para a qualidade da auditoria. Os nossos resultados mostram que os ROC dão grande importância ao SCI ao longo de todo o processo de auditoria, e em particular para a avaliação do risco de distorções relevantes e avaliação do risco de fraude. Mostram ainda que consideram o SCI entre os três fatores mais determinantes da qualidade da auditoria, considerando que o ambiente de controlo e a monitorização dos controlos são os componentes do SCI que mais contribuem para esse facto. Assim, os resultados obtidos evidenciam um contributo positivo do SCI para a qualidade da auditoria.

Active Data Collection Techniques to Understand Online Scammers and Cybercriminals

Nigerian scam, also known as advance fee fraud or 419 scam, is a prevalent form of online fraudulent activity that causes financial loss to individuals and businesses. Nigerian scam has evolved from simple non-targeted email messages to more sophisticated scams targeted at users of classifieds, dating and other websites. Even though such scams are observed and reported by users frequently, the community’s understanding of Nigerian scams is limited since the scammers operate “underground”. To better understand the underground Nigerian scam ecosystem and seek effective methods to deter Nigerian scam and cybercrime in general, we conduct a series of active and passive measurement studies. Relying upon the analysis and insight gained from the measurement studies, we make four contributions: (1) we analyze the taxonomy of Nigerian scam and derive long-term trends in scams; (2) we provide an insight on Nigerian scam and cybercrime ecosystems and their underground operation; (3) we propose a payment intervention as a potential deterrent to cybercrime operation in general and evaluate its effectiveness; and (4) we offer active and passive measurement tools and techniques that enable in-depth analysis of cybercrime ecosystems and deterrence on them. We first created and analyze a repository of more than two hundred thousand user-reported scam emails, stretching from 2006 to 2014, from four major scam reporting websites. We select ten most commonly observed scam categories and tag 2,000 scam emails randomly selected from our repository. Based upon the manually tagged dataset, we train a machine learning classifier and cluster all scam emails in the repository. From the clustering result, we find a strong and sustained upward trend for targeted scams and downward trend for non-targeted scams. We then focus on two types of targeted scams: sales scams and rental scams targeted users on Craigslist. We built an automated scam data collection system and gathered large-scale sales scam emails. Using the system we posted honeypot ads on Craigslist and conversed automatically with the scammers. Through the email conversation, the system obtained additional confirmation of likely scam activities and collected additional information such as IP addresses and shipping addresses. Our analysis revealed that around 10 groups were responsible for nearly half of the over 13,000 total scam attempts we received. These groups used IP addresses and shipping addresses in both Nigeria and the U.S. We also crawled rental ads on Craigslist, identified rental scam ads amongst the large number of benign ads and conversed with the potential scammers. Through in-depth analysis of the rental scams, we found seven major scam campaigns employing various operations and monetization methods. We also found that unlike sales scammers, most rental scammers were in the U.S. The large-scale scam data and in-depth analysis provide useful insights on how to design effective deterrence techniques against cybercrime in general. We study underground DDoS-for-hire services, also known as booters, and measure the effectiveness of undermining a payment system of DDoS Services. Our analysis shows that the payment intervention can have the desired effect of limiting cybercriminals’ ability and increasing the risk of accepting payments.

Recetas castellanas medievales sobre el trabajo de la cera

El fin del presente trabajo es dar a conocer una serie de recetas, localizadas, en los fondos españoles. Temáticamente, pertenecen al mundo de la candelería y de la cerería. Nos describen, de una parte como se hace la cera de color (blanca, roja y verde) y su utilidad, y, de otra, como se fabrican las velas, tanto de sebo como de cera. Se caracterizan por su brevedad, enumeran las sustancias a la vez que describen el proceso. Se asemejan entre ellas en la metodología empleada y se diferencian en las materias. La brevedad se rompe en el Libro de los Oficios de Guadalupe, se trata de una ordenanza, y no de una receta. Aprovechando la ocasión, hemos hablado de las materias primas (cera y sebo), de los métodos que se usan para elaborar los distintos sistemas de iluminación y de las ordenanzas; dentro de estas destacamos el fraude. Por último, estudiamos el pabilo o torcida, concretamente: la materia prima y el grosor que debe presentar.

THERE GOES THE ELECTORAL NEIGHBORHOOD: LOCAL NETWORKS, ATTRIBUTION OF RESPONSIBILITY, AND THE (UN) FAIRNESS OF ELECTIONS

During the last two decades there have been but a handful of recorded cases of electoral fraud in Latin America. However, survey research consistently shows that often citizens do not trust the integrity of the electoral process. This dissertation addresses the puzzle by explaining the mismatch between how elections are conducted and how the process is perceived. My theoretical contribution provides a double-folded argument. First, voters’ trust in their community members (“the local experience”) impacts their level of confidence in the electoral process. Since voters often find their peers working at polling stations, negative opinions about them translate into negative opinions about the election. Second, perceptions of unfairness of the system (“the global effect”) negatively impact the way people perceive the transparency of the electoral process. When the political system fails to account for social injustice, citizens lose faith in the mechanism designed to elect representatives -and ultimately a set of policies. The fact that certain groups are systematically disregarded by the system triggers the notion that the electoral process is flawed. This is motivated by either egotropic or sociotropic considerations. To test these hypotheses, I employ a survey conducted in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala during May/June 2014, which includes a population-based experiment. I show that Voters who trust their peers consistently have higher confidence in the electoral process. Whereas respondents who were primed about social unfairness (treatment) expressed less confidence in the quality of the election. Finally, I find that the local experience is predominant over the global effect. The treatment has a statistically significant effect only for respondents who trust their community. Attribution of responsibility for voters who are skeptics of their peers is clear and simple, leaving no room for a more diffuse mechanism, the unfairness of the political system. Finally, now I extend analysis to the Latin America region. Using data from LAPOP that comprises four waves of surveys in 22 countries, I confirm the influence of the “local experience” and the “global effect” as determinants of the level of confidence in the electoral process.

Challenges and Opportunities in Transforming Laser System Industry to Deliver Integrated Product and Service Offers

Part 4: Transition Towards Product-Service Systems

A psicologia económica associada ao cumprimento fiscal em IVA

Mestrado em Contabilidade, Fiscalidade e Finanças Empresariais

Criação do espaço de habitar como um processo colaborativo

A criação do espaço de habitar está na origem do Homem. Através do seu entendimento da paisagem, o Homem foi ao longo dos tempos adaptando o seu espaço segundo as suas atividades e necessidades específicas. Desde o abrigo até à casa contemporânea, novas formas foram sendo criadas e adaptadas, acompanhando a evolução humana, baseada nas novas formas, atividades e requisitos definidos na realização pessoal. Numa época onde os requisitos habitacionais são cada vez mais estritos na garantia de um conforto e segurança padronizada, verificamos a existência de díspares formas de habitar. Juntamente com a valorização contemporânea dos direitos humanos podemos entender grande parte da população não tem o devido acesso a espaços verdadeiramente adaptados aos seus requisitos de habitar. Socialmente encerrados em torno de uma civilização globalizada, vivemos cúmplices de uma desigualdade social, que não consegue garantir o direito a uma habitação adequada para todos. Desta forma procura-se perceber as causas das falhas no cumprimento dos direitos humanos fundamentais e das desigualdades no sector habitacional. Entendendo o papel fundamental das populações e do sector da construção na criação dos seus habitares e tentando esclarecer o papel fundamental da arquitetura na requalificação dos espaços de habitar, oferecendo soluções e formas práticas acessíveis a todos os habitantes para a construção de um futuro sustentável, adaptado e dignificante da vida humana; ABSTRACT: The creation of the space of inhabiting is in the Man’s origin, through his under- standing of the landscape, the Man was along the times adapting his space second their activities and specific needs. From the shelter to the contemporary house, new forms were being created and adapted, accompanying the human evolution, based on the new forms, activities and defined requirements in the personal accomplishment. In a time where the habitational requirements are more and more strict in the warranty of a comfort and standardized safety, we verified the existence of disparate ways of inhabiting. Together with the contemporary valorization of the human rights we can understand great part of the population doesn’t have the access to spaces truly adapted to their requirements of inhabiting. This way we try to notice the causes of the flaws in the execution of the fundamental human rights and of the inequalities in the habitational sector. Understanding the fundamental paper of the populations and of the construction sector in the creation of our inhabit and trying to explain the fundamental paper of the architecture in the qualification of the spaces of inhabiting, offering solutions and accessible practical forms to all of the inhabitants for the construction of a maintainable future, adapted and dignifying the human life