Auditoría integrada de Información + Conocimiento: aplicación en un caso de estudio

Se presentan los resultados de la aplicación de una metodología integradora de auditoría de información y conocimiento, llevada a cabo en un Centro de Investigación del Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología y Medio Ambiente de la provincia de Holguín, Cuba, conformada por siete etapas con un enfoque híbrido dirigida a revisar la estrategia y la política de gestión de información y conocimiento, identificar e inventariar y mapear los recursos de I+C y sus flujos, y valorar los procesos asociados a su gestión. La alta dirección de este centro, sus especialistas e investigadores manifestaron la efectividad de la metodología aplicada cuyos resultados propiciaron reajustar la proyección estratégica en relación con la gestión de la I+C, rediseñar los flujos informativos de los procesos claves, disponer de un directorio de sus expertos por áreas y planificar el futuro aprendizaje y desarrollo profesional.

Opinion: Can coalescent models explain deep divergences in the diatoms and argue for the acceptance of paraphyletic taxa at all taxonomic hierarchies?

Although ancestral polymorphisms and incomplete lineage sorting are commonly used at the population level, increasing reports of these models have been invoked and tested to explain deep radiations. Hypotheses are put forward for ancestral polymorphisms being the likely reason for paraphyletic taxa at the class level in the diatoms based on an ancient rapid radiation of the entire groups. Models for ancestral deep coalescence are invoked to explain paraphyly and molecular evolution at the class level in the diatoms. Other examples at more recent divergences are also documented. Discussion as to whether or not paraphyletic groups seen in the diatoms at all taxonomic levels should be recognized is provided. The continued use of the terms centric and pennate diatoms is substantiated with additional evidence produced to support their use in diatoms both as descriptive terms for both groups and as taxonomic groups for the latter because new morphological evidence from the auxospores justifies the formal classification of the basal and core araphids as new subclasses of pennate diatoms in the Class Bacillariophyceae. Keys for higher levels of the diatoms showing how the terms centrics and araphid diatoms can be defined are provided.

Opinion: Can coalescent models explain deep divergences in the diatoms and argue for the acceptance of paraphyletic taxa at all taxonomic hierarchies?

Although ancestral polymorphisms and incomplete lineage sorting are commonly used at the population level, increasing reports of these models have been invoked and tested to explain deep radiations. Hypotheses are put forward for ancestral polymorphisms being the likely reason for paraphyletic taxa at the class level in the diatoms based on an ancient rapid radiation of the entire groups. Models for ancestral deep coalescence are invoked to explain paraphyly and molecular evolution at the class level in the diatoms. Other examples at more recent divergences are also documented. Discussion as to whether or not paraphyletic groups seen in the diatoms at all taxonomic levels should be recognized is provided. The continued use of the terms centric and pennate diatoms is substantiated with additional evidence produced to support their use in diatoms both as descriptive terms for both groups and as taxonomic groups for the latter because new morphological evidence from the auxospores justifies the formal classification of the basal and core araphids as new subclasses of pennate diatoms in the Class Bacillariophyceae. Keys for higher levels of the diatoms showing how the terms centrics and araphid diatoms can be defined are provided.

Time-dependent Suppression of Oscillatory Power in Evolving Solar Magnetic Fields

Oscillation amplitudes are generally smaller within magnetically active regions like sunspots and plage when compared to their surroundings. Such magnetic features, when viewed in spatially resolved power maps, appear as regions of suppressed power due to reductions in the oscillation amplitudes. Employing high spatial- and temporal-resolution observations from the Dunn Solar Telescope (DST) in New Mexico, we study the power suppression in a region of evolving magnetic fields adjacent to a pore. By utilizing wavelet analysis, we study for the first time how the oscillatory properties in this region change as the magnetic field evolves with time. Image sequences taken in the blue continuum, G-band, Ca ii K, and Hα filters were used in this study. It is observed that the suppression found in the chromosphere occupies a relatively larger area, confirming previous findings. Also, the suppression is extended to structures directly connected to the magnetic region, and is found to get enhanced as the magnetic field strength increased with time. The dependence of the suppression on the magnetic field strength is greater at longer periods and higher formation heights. Furthermore, the dominant periodicity in the chromosphere was found to be anti-correlated with increases in the magnetic field strength.

Secure Wireless Key Establishment Using Retrodirective Array

In this paper a new method of establishing secret keys for wireless communications is proposed. A retrodirective array (RDA) that is configured to receive and re-transmit at different frequencies is utilized as a relay node. Specifically the analogue RDA is able to respond in ‘real-time’, reducing the required number of time slots for key establishment to two, compared with at least three in previous relay key generation schemes. More importantly, in the proposed architecture equivalent reciprocal wireless channels between legitimate keying nodes can be randomly updated within one channel coherence time period, leading to greatly increased key generation rates (KGRs) in slow fading environment. The secrecy performance of this RDA assisted key generation system is evaluated and it is shown that it outperforms previous relay key generation systems.

Experimental Study on Key Generation for Physical Layer Security in Wireless Communications

This paper presents a thorough experimental study on key generation principles, i.e. temporal variation, channel reciprocity, and spatial decorrelation, via a testbed constructed by using wireless open-access research platform (WARP). It is the first comprehensive study through (i) carrying out a number of experiments in different multipath environments, including an anechoic chamber, a reverberation chamber and an indoor office environment, which represents little, rich, and moderate multipath, respectively; (ii) considering static, object moving, and mobile scenarios in these environments, which represents different levels of channel dynamicity; (iii) studying two most popular channel parameters, i.e., channel state information and received signal strength. Through results collected from over a hundred tests, this paper offers insights to the design of a secure and efficient key generation system. We show that multipath is essential and beneficial for key generation as it increases the channel randomness. We also find that the movement of users/objects can help introduce temporal variation/randomness and help users reach an agreement on the keys. This paper complements existing research by experiments constructed by a new hardware platform.

The Precipitationshed : Concepts, Methods, and Applications

Human societies are reliant on the functioning of the hydrologic cycle. The atmospheric branch of this cycle, often referred to as moisture recycling in the context of land-to-land exchange, refers to water evaporating, traveling through the atmosphere, and falling out as precipitation. Similar to the surface water cycle that uses the watershed as the unit of analysis, it is also possible to consider a ‘watershed of the sky’ for the atmospheric water cycle. Thus, I explore the precipitationshed - defined as the upwind surface of the Earth that provides evaporation that later falls as precipitation in a specific place. The primary contributions of this dissertation are to (a) introduce the precipitationshed concept, (b) provide a quantitative basis for the study of the precipitationshed, and (c) demonstrate its use in the fields of hydrometeorology, land-use change, social-ecological systems, ecosystem services, and environmental governance. In Paper I, the concept of the precipitationshed is introduced and explored for the first time. The quantification of precipitationshed variability is described in Paper II, and the key finding is that the precipitationsheds for multiple regions are persistent in time and space. Moisture recycling is further described as an ecosystem service in Paper III, to integrate the concept into the existing language of environmental sustainability and management. That is, I identify regions where vegetation more strongly regulates the provision of atmospheric water, as well as the regions that more strongly benefit from this regulation. In Paper IV, the precipitationshed is further explored through the lens of urban reliance on moisture recycling. Using a novel method, I quantify the vulnerability of urban areas to social-ecological changes within their precipitationsheds. In Paper V, I argue that successful moisture recycling governance will require flexible, transboundary institutions that are capable of operating within complex social-ecological systems. I conclude that, in the future, the precipitationshed can be a key tool in addressing the complexity of social-ecological systems. 

Imagerie Musicale Involontaire : caractéristiques phénoménologiques et mnésiques

L’imagerie musicale involontaire (IMIN) est un phénomène mental extrêmement commun. Il peut être défini en tant que type d’imagerie mentale musicale qui devient consciente sans effort ou intentionnalité et qui n’est pas pathologique. La forme la plus connue d’IMIN est le « ver d’oreille », qui se présente généralement comme un court extrait musical tournant en boucle en tête et dont on se débarrasse difficilement. L’objectif principal de la présente thèse est d’investiguer les mécanismes cognitifs sous-tendant le phénomène puisque, malgré l’intérêt répandu dans les médias populaires, son étude expérimentale est récente et un modèle intégré n’a pas encore été proposé. Dans la première étude, l’induction expérimentale a été tentée et les caractéristiques des images mentales d’épisodes d’IMIN ont été investiguées. Dans le laboratoire, des chansons accrocheuses (versus des proverbes) ont été présentées répétitivement aux participants qui devaient ensuite les chanter le plus fidèlement possible. Ils ont par après quitté le laboratoire, une enregistreuse numérique en mains, avec la consigne d’enregistrer une reproduction vocale la plus fidèle possible de ce qu’ils avaient en tête lors de tous leurs épisodes d’IMIN sur une période de quatre jours, ainsi que de décrire leur timbre. L’expérience a été répétée deux semaines plus tard. Douze des dix-huit participants du groupe expérimental ont rapporté des pièces induites comme épisodes d’IMIN, ce qui confirme l’efficacité de la procédure d’induction. La tonalité et le tempo des productions ont ensuite été analysés et comparés à ceux des pièces originales. Similairement pour les épisodes d’IMIN induits et les autres, les tempi produits et, dans une moindre mesure pour les non-musiciens, les tonalités étaient proches des originaux. Le timbre décrit était généralement une version simplifiée de l’original (un instrument et/ou une voix). Trois études se sont ensuite intéressées au lien entre le potentiel d’IMIN et la mémorabilité. Dans une étude préliminaire, 150 chansons du palmarès francophone radiophonique ont été évaluées en ligne par 164 participants, sur leur niveau de familiarité, d’appréciation et de potentiel d’IMIN. Les pièces ont ensuite été divisées en groupes de stimuli à faible et à fort potentiel d’IMIN, qui ont été utilisés dans une tâche typique de rappel libre/reconnaissance, premièrement avec des francophones (pour qui les pièces étaient familières) et ensuite avec des non-francophones (pour qui les pièces étaient non-familières). Globalement, les pièces à fort potentiel d’IMIN étaient mieux rappelées et reconnues que les pièces à faible potentiel. Une dernière étude a investigué l’impact de la variabilité inter-stimulus du timbre sur les résultats précédents, en demandant à une chanteuse d’enregistrer les lignes vocales des pièces et en répétant l’expérience avec ces nouveaux stimuli. La différence précédemment observée entre les stimuli à fort et à faible potentiel d’IMIN dans la tâche de reconnaissance a ainsi disparu, ce qui suggère que le timbre est une caractéristique importante pour le potentiel d’IMIN. En guise de conclusion, nous suggérons que les phénomènes mentaux et les mécanismes cognitifs jouant un rôle dans les autres types de souvenirs involontaires peuvent aussi s’appliquer à l’IMIN. Dépendamment du contexte, la récupération mnésique des pièces peut résulter de la répétition en mémoire à court terme, de l’amorçage à court et long terme ou de l’indiçage provenant de stimuli dans l’environnement ou les pensées. Une des plus importantes différences observables entre l’IMIN et les autres souvenirs involontaires est la répétition. Nous proposons que la nature même de la musique, qui est définie par la répétition à un niveau micro- et macro-structurel en est responsable.

La fortuna de la "Artificiosa memoria sive Phoenix" de Pedro de Rávena: entre el éxito y la retractatio

La Artificiosa memoria siue Phoenix de Pedro de Rávena tuvo una amplia difusión en la Europa del siglo XVI. Dos son las claves de su éxito: la fama de ilustre memorioso que consiguió forjarse con sus exhibiciones de memoria y el uso de las emociones en la formulación de reglas mnemotécnicas basadas en el humor y el erotismo. Sin embargo, poco antes de morir, en 1508, publicó unas breves Additiones quaedam ad artificiosam memoriam en las que añade algunas reglas nuevas y, sobre todo, renuncia a la norma que aconseja usar la imagen de jóvenes hermosas para elaborar escenas mnemotécnicas. Esta suerte de retractatio se explica en el contexto de la polémica mantenida con algunos teólogos de Colonia

Search Based Clustering for Protecting Software with Diversified Updates

Reverse engineering is usually the stepping stone of a variety of at-tacks aiming at identifying sensitive information (keys, credentials, data, algo-rithms) or vulnerabilities and flaws for broader exploitation. Software applica-tions are usually deployed as identical binary code installed on millions of com-puters, enabling an adversary to develop a generic reverse-engineering strategy that, if working on one code instance, could be applied to crack all the other in-stances. A solution to mitigate this problem is represented by Software Diversity, which aims at creating several structurally different (but functionally equivalent) binary code versions out of the same source code, so that even if a successful attack can be elaborated for one version, it should not work on a diversified ver-sion. In this paper, we address the problem of maximizing software diversity from a search-based optimization point of view. The program to protect is subject to a catalogue of transformations to generate many candidate versions. The problem of selecting the subset of most diversified versions to be deployed is formulated as an optimisation problem, that we tackle with different search heuristics. We show the applicability of this approach on some popular Android apps.

Parasites of endemic and introduced fishes of Zaianderud River of the Esfahan

In this research, 9 species of local and introduced fishes of the Zayandehroud River in Esfahan province (in the Sarmatian region belonging to the large paleoarctic fauna) in 6 seasons (winter 2003, spring, summer, autumn and winter 2004 and summer 2005) were parasitologically studied. The local fishes included alburnoides bipunctatus, Alburnus maculatus, Aphanius vladykovi, Capoeta aculeata & Capoeta damascina & the introduced fishes included Aristichthys nobilis, Carassius auratus, Ctenopharyngodon idella and Cyprinus carpio. Upon being hunted, the fishes were transferred alive to Esfahan Aquatics Breeding Center and physiologically studied after the determination of their species and genus by identification keys Berg (30), Coad (31), Saadati (51), Abdoli (20) and Holchic (38). 32 species of parasites were totally identified as follows: 6 Protozoan species including Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, 5 Trichodina species, 2 Myxobolus species including Myxobolus cristatus & Myxobolus saidovi, 16 monogenea species including Dactylogyrus alatus. D. anchorutus, D. baueri, D. chalcalburni, D. chramuli, D. extensus, D. gracilis, D. lamellatus, D. lenkorani and D. pukher, 4 Dactylogyrus spp. 2 Gyrodactylus species, 1 species of Digenea, Diplostomum spthaceum, 4 species of Cestoda including Bothriocephallus gowkongensis, khawia armeniaca, Ligulaintestinalis. Caryophyllaeus sp. 1 Acanthocephala: Acanthocephalo rhynchoides cholodkowsky, 2 species of the crustaceans including the mature & copepodian stages of Lernaea cyprinacea & 1 sp of the genus Lamproglena. Out of all the 166 pcs of the fishes hunted in this research, 127 fishes (76.5%) were infected, and 39 fishes (23.50%) were not infected. In the fishes studied, having 14 of 32 species of the parasites identified, Capoeta aculeata displayed the most variety of infection, and having only 1 sp of the parasites. Aristichthys nobilis displayed the least variety of infection. The new findings of the research will follow: Myxobolus saidovi sp is reported for the 1st time from Iran's fresh water fishes, Alburnus maculatus and Capoeta aculeata are new hosts for M. saidovi and M. cristatus, respectively. Regarding monogenea Capoeta damascina & C. aculeata were reported as the new hosts for parasite D. pukher. The presence of D. pukher the infection of Capoeta aculeata with D. chramuli, D. lenkorani and D. gracilis in the Zayandehroud river were the 1st report. Regarding the Cestodea, Bothriocephalus gowkongensis was reported to be hosted by Aphanius Vladykovi for the 1St time in Iran.

DNA Barcoding as a tool for Zoological Taxonomy: Identification of bony fish in the Mediterranean Sea

The description of all the species present in nature is a vast task to be fulfilled by using the classical approach of morphological description of the organisms. In recent years, 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 and inconsistencies with the genetic data. Furthermore, the increasing need to get a true estimate of biodiversity has led Zoological Taxonomy to seek new approaches and methodologies to support the traditional methods. The classification procedure has added modern criteriasuch as the evolutionary relationships and the genetic, biochemical and morphological characteristics of the organisms.Until now the Linnean binomial was the only abbreviated code associated with the description of the morphology of a species. The new technologies aim to achieve a short nucleotide sequence of the DNA to be used as an unique and solely label for a particular species, a specific genetic barcode. For both morphological and genetic approaches, skills and experience are required. Taxonomy is one of zoological disciplines that has been benefited from the achievements reached by modern molecular biotechnology. Using a molecular approach it is possible to identify cryptic species, to establish a family relationship between species and their membership of taxonomic categories or to reconstruct the evolutionary history of a taxon.

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.

New Directions in Commercial Secrecy and Encryption Protocols

Secure transmission of bulk data is of interest to many content providers. A commercially-viable distribution of content requires technology to prevent unauthorised access. Encryption tools are powerful, but have a performance cost. Without encryption, intercepted data may be illicitly duplicated and re-sold, or its commercial value diminished because its secrecy is lost. Two technical solutions make it possible to perform bulk transmissions while retaining security without too high a performance overhead. These are: 1. a) hierarchical encryption - the stronger the encryption, the harder it is to break but also the more computationally expensive it is. A hierarchical approach to key exchange means that simple and relatively weak encryption and keys are used to encrypt small chunks of data, for example 10 seconds of video. Each chunk has its own key. New keys for this bottom-level encryption are exchanged using a slightly stronger encryption, for example a whole-video key could govern the exchange of the 10-second chunk keys. At a higher level again, there could be daily or weekly keys, securing the exchange of whole-video keys, and at a yet higher level, a subscriber key could govern the exchange of weekly keys. At higher levels, the encryption becomes stronger but is used less frequently, so that the overall computational cost is minimal. The main observation is that the value of each encrypted item determines the strength of the key used to secure it. 2. b) non-symbolic fragmentation with signal diversity - communications are usually assumed to be sent over a single communications medium, and the data to have been encrypted and/or partitioned in whole-symbol packets. Network and path diversity break up a file or data stream into fragments which are then sent over many different channels, either in the same network or different networks. For example, a message could be transmitted partly over the phone network and partly via satellite. While TCP/IP does a similar thing in sending different packets over different paths, this is done for load-balancing purposes and is invisible to the end application. Network and path diversity deliberately introduce the same principle as a secure communications mechanism - an eavesdropper would need to intercept not just one transmission path but all paths used. Non-symbolic fragmentation of data is also introduced to further confuse any intercepted stream of data. This involves breaking up data into bit strings which are subsequently disordered prior to transmission. Even if all transmissions were intercepted, the cryptanalyst still needs to determine fragment boundaries and correctly order them. These two solutions depart from the usual idea of data encryption. Hierarchical encryption is an extension of the combined encryption of systems such as PGP but with the distinction that the strength of encryption at each level is determined by the "value" of the data being transmitted. Non- symbolic fragmentation suppresses or destroys bit patterns in the transmitted data in what is essentially a bit-level transposition cipher but with unpredictable irregularly-sized fragments. Both technologies have applications outside the commercial and can be used in conjunction with other forms of encryption, being functionally orthogonal.