154 research outputs found
The ambassador of Spain to the Russian Empire Anibal Morillo y Pérez del Villar and his “Memories”
No full textThe article examines the memoirs of a Spanish diplomat Anibal Morillo and Perez del Villar, the Count of Cartagena. He held the post of the Spanish ambassador in the Russian Empire in 1914-1916 when World War One broke out. “Memories of my Embassy in Russia” by Morillo is a specific source that shows the life of the zarist court and diplomatic circles of St. Petersburg in that period. The Count of Cartagena’s activity has not been considered much in Russian historiography. Based on the analysis of his memoirs, the author of the article suggests that Morillo considered the Russian revolution to be brought in from outside. A study of the memoirs showed that the Spanish ambassador at St. Petersburg preferred German diplomacy and had a peculiar notion of the role of Russia in unleashing the war. The author of this article concludes that Morillo’s ideas were partly shaped by the internal problems and the international situation of his own country at the beginning of the 20th century and that the Spanish ambassador was one of the Spanish Germanophiles. Spain maintained strict neutrality throughout the war. The Spanish embassy in Russia carried out important humanitarian mission and active mediation activities, supporting Russian citizens on enemy territory and trying to improve the situation of Russian prisoners of war and facilitate their return. The issue of the personal participation of Anibal Morillo in mediation is also touched upon in this article
Individual verifiability in electronic voting
No full textThis PhD Thesis is the fruit of the job of the author as a researcher at Scytl Secure Electronic Voting, as well as the collaboration with Paz Morillo, from the Department of Applied Mathematics at UPC and Alex Escala, PhD student.
In her job at Scytl, the author has participated in several electronic voting projects for national-level binding elections in different countries. The participation of the author covered from the protocol design phase, to the implementation phase by providing support to the development teams.
The thesis focuses on studying the mechanisms that can be provided to the voters, in order to examine and verify the processes executed in a remote electronic voting system. This work has been done as part of the tasks of the author at the electronic voting company Scytl. Although this thesis does not talk about system implementations, which are interesting by themselves, it is indeed focused on protocols which have had, or may have, an application in the real world. Therefore, it may surprise the reader by not using state of the art cryptography such as pairings or lattices, which still, although providing very interesting properties, cannot be efficiently implemented and used in a real system. Otherwise, the protocols presented in this thesis use standard and well-known cryptographic primitives, while providing new functionalities that can be applied in nowadays electronic voting systems.
The thesis has the following contents: A survey on electronic voting systems which provide voter verification functionalities. Among these systems we can find the one used in the Municipal and Parliamentary Norwegian elections of 2011 and 2013, and the system used in the Australian State of New South Wales for the General State Elections in 2015, in which the author has had an active participation in the design of their electronic voting protocols. A syntax which can be used for modeling electronic voting systems providing voter verifiability. This syntax is focused on systems characterized by the voter confirming the casting of her vote, after verifying some evidences provided by the protocol. Along with this syntax, definitions for the security properties required for such schemes are provided. A description of the electronic voting protocol and system which has been used in 2014 and 2015 elections in the Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel, which has individual verification functionalities, is also provided in this thesis, together with a formal analysis of the security properties of the scheme and further extensions of the protocol. Finally, two new protocols which provide new functionalities respect to those from the state of the art are proposed: A new protocol providing individual verifiability which allows voters to defend against coertion by generating fake proofs, and a protocol which makes a twist to individual verifiability by ensuring that all the processes executed by the voting device and the remote server are correct, without requiring an active verification from the voter. A formal analysis of the security properties of both protocols is provided, together with examples of implementation in real systems.Aquesta tesi és fruit de la feina de l'autora com a personal de recerca a la empresa Scytl Secure Electtronic Voting, així com de la col·laboració amb la Paz Morillo, del departament de matemàtica aplicada a la UPC, i el Alex Escala, estudiant de doctorat. A la feina a Scytl, l'autora ha participat a varis projectes de vot electrònic per a eleccions vinculants a nivell nacional, que s'han efectuat a varis països. La participació de la autora ha cobert tant la fase de disseny del protocol, com la fase de implementació, on ha proveït suport als equips de desenvolupament. La tesi estudia els mecanismes que es poden proporcionar als votants per a poder examinar i verificar els processos que s'executen en sistemes de vot electrònic. Tot i que la tesi no parla de la implementació dels sistemes de vot electrònic, sí que s'enfoca en protocols que han tingut, o poden tenir, una aplicació pràctica actualment. La tesi té els continguts següents: Un estudi en sistemes de vot electrònic que proporcionen funcionalitats per a que els votants verifiquin els processos. Entre aquests sistemes, trobem el que es va utilitzar a les eleccions municipals i parlamentàries a Noruega als anys 2011 i 2013, així com el sistema utilitzat a l'estat Australià de New South Wales, per a les eleccions generals de 2015, sistemes en els que l'autora ha participat directament en el diseny dels seus protocols criptogràfics. La tesi també conté una sintaxi que es pot utilizar per modelar sistemes de vot electrònic que proporcionen verificabilitat individual (on verifica el votant). Aquesta sintaxi s'enfoca en sistemes caracteritzats pel fet de que el votant confirma la emissió del seu vot un cop ha verificat unes evidències sobre ell, proporcionades pel protocol. A més de la sintaxi, es proporcionen definicions de les propietats de seguretat d'aquestts sistemes. La tesi també conté una descripció del sistema i protocol de vot electrònic que s'utilitza al cantó Suís de Neuchâtel a partir del 2014, el qual té funcionalitats per a que els votants verifiquin certs processos del sistema. La tesi a més conté un anàlisi de la seguretat de l'esquema, així com possibles extensions del protocol. Finalment, la tesi inclou dos protocols nous que proporcionen noves característiques i funcionalitats respecte als existents a l'estat de l'art de la tècnica. El primer permet a un votant defendre's de un coaccionador generant proves falses, i el segon fa un canvi de paradigma de la verificabilitat individual, de forma que el votant no ha de verificar certs processos per a saber que s'han efectuant correctament. La tesi inclou un anàlisi formal de les propietats de seguretat dels dos protocols, així com exemples de com podrien ser implementats en un escenari real.DOCTORAT EN ENGINYERIA TELEMÀTICA (Pla 2007
Es ich groter bin dan mag ik naar de peuterspeelzaal: Analysing the Multilingual Landscape of Eijsden-Margraten's Pre-School Playgrounds
No full textIn the multilingual landscape at Eijsden-Margraten’s pre-school playgrounds, Limburgish and Dutch are commonly spoken, in addition to a few different home languages. This thesis details how this ‘landscape’ looks for teachers and children (with different first languages), and to what extent social inequality exists. Adopting an ethnographic approach, the observations are reflected against literature on language socialisation, multilingualism, language policy, accommodation, and usage-based theory. Additionally, the Limburgish observations are reflected against reported behaviour by the Frisian Sintrum Frysktalige Berne-opfang, too. Dutch is the language highest in the social order: children are socialised to use it in group communication, instructions, and important social, educational, hierarchically defined activities, unlike Limburgish which is restricted to individual, conversations between those who speak it. Other home languages are even lower in the social order. In Friesland, as reported by the SFBO, a language policy in which both languages are hierarchically equal in all contexts exists
Long-term privacy in electronic voting systems
No full textThis PhD thesis focuses on lattice-based cryptography and how to apply it to build post-quantum online voting systems. It is the result of the research done by the author at Scytl in close collaboration with Dr. Paz Morillo, from the Department of Applied Mathematics at UPC and Ramiro Martínez, PhD student. As part of her work at the electronic voting company Scytl, the author has participated in the design of several electronic voting systems as well as in their implementation, by providing support to the development team. Nevertheless, all these systems use standard and well-known cryptographic primitives,
i.e., not lattice-based primitives, to ensure that the security requirements are fulfilled. Due to this, one of the main challenges of this PhD has been to start researching on a field which was not familiar to the author and contribute to its state of the art. This has allowed the company to enter the post-quantum world by participating in a project which aims to implement a lattice-based online voting system. The thesis has the following contents: an introduction to the lattice theory by describing some of its basic concepts and the computational problems in which the security of lattice-based cryptosystems relies. In this first part it is also described in detail those cryptosystems that are used as building blocks of three new protocols proposed in the thesis: a lattice-based coercion-resistant cast-as-intended protocol, a post-quantum mix-net and a fully post-quantum proof of a shuffle. The former is the lattice version of an existing protocol and allows the voter to check that the vote cast contains the selected voting options. The second and third protocols are the result of the research on lattice-based mix-nets. Two constructions are proposed: the first one allows to demonstrate that a mix-node has permuted and re-encrypted a list of RLWE ciphertexts without modifying them, but it cannot be considered fully post-quantum since the binding property of the commitment scheme relies on classical computational problems. The second one is fully post-quantum since all the cryptographic schemes used for building it, i.e., commitment scheme and zero-knowledge proofs, are based on lattices. Last but not least, for this second proposal a security definition and a proof of security are also provided. Finally, the last part of the thesis consists of building a post-quantum online voting system using as building blocks the protocols already presented and existing lattice-based constructions. This system is considered secure under quantum attacks and provides long-term privacy. It also guarantees vote anonymity, vote authenticity, vote integrity, individual verifiability and receipt-freeness. The algorithms involved in each phase are described in detail as well as the interaction among the participants. An implementation of this system is not given as part of this thesis although a lattice-based online voting system based on that is already being implemented at the company.Aquest tesi es centra en la criptografia basada en reticles i com aplicar-la a la construcció de sistemes de votació electrònica post-quàntics. És el fruit de la recerca feta per l'autora de la tesi a Scytl en estreta col·laboració amb la Dra. Paz Morillo, del Departament de Matemàtica Aplicada de la UPC i en Ramiro Martínez, estudiant de doctorat. Com a part de la seva feina a l'empresa de vot electrònic Scytl, l'autora ha participat tant en el disseny de sistemes de votació electrònica com en la seva implementació, donant suport a l'equip de desenvolupament. No obstant, tots aquests sistemes utilitzen primitives criptogràfiques estàndard (primitives no basades en reticles) per assegurar que els requisits de seguretat es compleixen, i és per aquest motiu que un dels principals reptes d'aquest doctorat ha estat fer en recerca en un camp que no era familiar per l'autora, i contribuir-hi. Per altra banda, això ha permès a l'empresa endinsar-se en el món post-quàntic i participar en un projecte que té per objectiu implementar un sistema de vot electrònic basat en reticles. Aquest tesi consta dels següents continguts: una introducció a la teoria dels reticles on es descriuen alguns dels seus conceptes bàsics i els problemes computacionals dels quals depèn la seguretat dels criptosistemes basats en reticles. En aquesta primera part també es descriuen en detall aquells criptosistemes utilitzats en la construcció dels tres nous protocols presentats en aquesta tesi: un protocol basat en reticles resistent a la coacció i que ofereix verificabilitat “cast-as-intended”; una “mix-net post-quàntica” i una prova de coneixement nul totalment post-quàntica que permet demostrar que la barreja de vots s'ha realitzat correctament. El primer protocol és la versió basada en reticles d'un protocol ja existent i permet que el votant comprovi que el vot emès conté les opcions que havia seleccionat. El segon i el tercer protocol són el resultat de la recerca feta en el camp de les mix-nets basades en reticles. Es proposen dues construccions: la primera d'elles permet demostrar que un node de la mix-net ha barrejat i rexifrat una llista de xifrats RLWE sense modificar-los, però no es pot considerar totalment post-quàntica ja que la propietat de lligar de l'esquema de compromís utilitzat per construir la prova es basa en problemes computacionals clàssics. La segona construcció és totalment post-quàntica ja que tots els esquemes criptogràfics utilitzats en el seu disseny, és a dir, esquema de compromís i proves de coneixement nul, estan basats en reticles. Finalment, però no per això menys important, per aquesta segona proposta també es dóna una definició de seguretat i una prova de seguretat. L'última part de la tesi consisteix en construir un sistema de vot online post-quàntic, utilitzant com a components els protocols prèviament presentats i construccions ja existents basades en reticles. El sistema es considera segur en front atacs quàntics i ofereix privadesa a llarg plaç. També garanteix l'anonimat del vot, la seva autenticitat i integritat, verificabilitat individual i resistència a la coacció. Es descriuen en detall tant els algoritmes executats a cada fase com la interacció entre els seus participants. Com a part de la tesi no s'inclou cap implementació del sistema tot i que l'empresa està implementant un sistema de vot online basat en el que es presenta en aquesta tesi.Matemàtica aplicadaDOCTORAT EN MATEMÀTICA APLICADA (Pla 2012
Are women under-represented in two important types of co-authored publications?
No full textThis study investigates gender disparities in the Spanish workforce's distribution in international and industry collaborative publications, highlighting common issues and potential differences. The work provides detailed information not only by gender but also by research field, research career, author position, and number of co-authors. The findings show a lower presence of women in both types of collaboration, even in 'Biomedical & Health Sciences', although there are more women in the total number of publications of this field. Women are under-represented in relevant authorship positions (first, last or corresponding author), possibly due to their concentration in the early career stages. A greater number of co-authors is associated with a decreased likelihood of holding relevant authorship positions, with some exceptions for women in international collaboration. This article aims to encourage responsible metrics by suggesting changes in evaluation policies to avoid indirect biases affecting gender and career progression.N
Author's Choice: The Relevance of Author as Casting Director on the Restoration Stage
No full textDuring the Restoration playwrights were often able to act as directors when their works reached the stage. Playwrights were also very public about their intentions within their plays: the attitudes they wished the audience to take and the emotions they hoped their works to instill. As a result, we are able to examine the author⁄director's choice of cast and determine how those choices were intended to directly affect interpretation. With the loss of a play's original cast, much of the author's intent was lost. John Dryden wrote his story of Antony and Cleopatra, All For Love, as a tragedy, with the intent of evoking the pity of the audience. His choice of cast for the play's premiere in 1677 reflects this intent. Though the play was still highly popular in 1718, the changing cast had counteracted the intended pity. In 1696, Sir John Vanbrugh wrote The Relapse in response to Colley Cibber's move toward sentimental comedy in Love's Last Shift. Vanbrugh's play immediately met criticism from moralists, and by the time of its performance in 1716 the changing cast indicated the first shift of many that took the play from a reaction against sentimental comedy to a specimen of the same. Dryden's most extravagant heroic drama, The Conquest of Granada, used the personalities of its original cast to add depth to the play. By the play's final production in 1709, the new cast was unable to sustain the claims and characterizations necessary to the genre. Consistent throughout the major genres of Restoration drama is a move away from author intent over time, which is exemplified in changing cast lists, and amplified by comparisons between the changing casts and the casts of each play's premiere
Literary representation of the disturbing sound change in the novel Mene by Ramón Díaz Sánchez
No full textEl estudio analiza en la novela Mene (1936) de Ramón Díaz Sánchez, la representación de los cambios en los so-nidos ambientales, producto de la explotación petrolera y de su impacto en los habitantes de una región Venezo-lana. El narrador utiliza el sonido como eje portador de los cambios drásticos generados por la naciente indus-tria, valiéndose de imágenes auditivas simples, símiles y metáforas. La construcción de conceptos metafóricos se aborda desde la teoría de Lakoff y Johnson (1980). La metodología es de corte analítico documental donde se devela el tratamiento de las categorías emergentes por parte del autor. Los resultados destacan como un grupo de metáforas se desarrollan a partir de un con-cepto metafórico particular, derivado de un modo de comprensión del mundo proveniente de la experiencia. Se concluye que el autor a través de la obra, expresa formas complejas de pensamiento sistémico, donde las figuras literarias representan constructos que conducen el encadenamiento lógico de las ideas.The study analyzes in the novel Mene (1936) by Ramón Díaz Sánchez, the representation of changes in envi-ronmental sounds, the product of oil exploitation and its impact on the inhabitants of a Venezuelan region. The narrator uses sound as a carrier for the drastic changes generated by the nascent industry, using simple audi-tory images, similes and metaphors. The construction of metaphorical concepts is approached from the theory of Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The methodology is do-cumentary analytical cut where the treatment of emer-ging categories by the author is revealed. The results stand out as a group of metaphors are developed from a particular metaphorical concept, derived from a way of understanding the world from experience. It is concluded that the author, through the work, expresses complex forms of systemic thinking, where literary figures re-present constructs that drive the logical chain of ideasMontero Morillo, Alicia Cecilia-0000-0002-3282-1183-600Quintero Suárez, Mayli Maria
The social class struggles concept with an interdisciplinary approach: a paramount concept for research in library and information science (LIS)
No full textThis paper analyses the social class struggles concept with an interdisciplinary approach to be used by theorists and practitioners of library and information science (LIS). This concept emerged as part of the theoretical framework employed by the author in his doctoral thesis (Muela-Meza, 2010): An Application of Community Profiling to Analyse Community Information Needs, and Providers: Perceptions from the People of the Broomhall Neighbourhood of Sheffield, UK. This concept is complemented from philosophy (Marx and Engels, [1848] 1976a), and the natural sciences (Hauser, 2006; Sagan and Druyan, 1992), and it served the author to understand better the bigger dimensions of the underlying issues behind social classes and human conflicts. It also served to understand better the contradictions between people (e.g. LIS users with contradictory and mutually exclusive information needs to be provided by libraries and other institutions of information recorded in documents), and how these intensify when these are interrelated with the social class they belong to (Muela-Meza, 2007). This paper also criticises some competing views whose proponents by pretending fallaciously and deceitfully to deny the presence of social class divides in society, such as those rhetorical ploys of post-modernism that propose capitalist-class-driven ideologues of “community cohesion” based on “social capital” (Putnam, 1999). It shows evidence of how those followers (e.g. Pateman, 2006; Contreras Contreras, 2004; Bryson, Usherwood and Proctor, 2003) of capitalist-class ideologues, by doing so they aligned their discourse to that of dominance hierarchies and hegemony against working class people, in LIS and other sciences, and the humanities. It also criticises the postmodern pseudoscience because it pretends to undermine the logical rationality fundamental in LIS and all other sciences. It recommends that LIS theorists and practitioners employ the social class struggles concept as configured here in order to understand better contradictions, conflicts, and struggles within LIS theory and practice, and also to search for broader epistemological aims such as justice and wisdom (Fleissner and Hofkirchner, 1998), concealed by the capitalist or bourgeois and middle classes for their benefit against working class
Las cartas de Pablo Morillo para los sectores subalternos: una cavilación del “Pueblo” a propósito del principio de ciudadanía en la Guerra de Independencia de Venezuela
No full textin 1820, an anonymous author sent an article to the newspaper Correo del Orinoco, where he analyzed and pondered the scope of a series of letters written in 1818 by Captain Pablo Morillo urging people to join the ranks of the royalist army, especially people coming from the subaltern sectors of the colonial class system, but who firmly believed in the defense of the Bourbon king's cause. The value of this communication lies in the fact that it intensified the tension of the debates stirred up by the French Abbé Dominique-Georges-Frédéric Dufour de Pradt, as well as by other European and Latin American thinkers -men of action or of letters- who discussed the concepts of freedom, emancipation, citizenship or people in the heat of the emerging liberal thought that was becoming more and more dominant. In this scenario, having the viewpoint of an anonymous person allows us to investigate from another angle the problematic relations between the dominant and dominated sectors in the context of change of the Spanish-American Independences.em 1820, um autor anônimo enviou um artigo ao jornal Correo del Orinoco, no qual analisava e ponderava sobre o alcance de uma série de cartas escritas em 1818 pelo capitão Pablo Morillo, instando as pessoas a se juntarem às fileiras do exército monárquico, especialmente as pessoas dos setores subalternos do sistema de classes sociais coloniais, mas que acreditavam firmemente na defesa da causa do rei Bourbon. O valor dessa comunicação reside no fato de que ela intensificou a tensão dos debates suscitados pelo abade francês Dominique-Georges-Frédéric Dufour de Pradt, bem como por outros pensadores europeus e latino-americanos - homens de ação ou de letras - que discutiam os conceitos de liberdade, emancipação, cidadania ou povo no calor do pensamento liberal emergente que se tornava cada vez mais dominante. Nesse cenário, ter o ponto de vista de uma pessoa anônima nos permite investigar de outro ângulo as relações problemáticas entre os setores dominantes e dominados no contexto de mudança durante as independências hispano-americanas.en el año de 1820, un autor anónimo envió un artículo al periódico Correo del Orinoco, donde analizó y ponderó los alcances de una serie de cartas escritas en 1818 por el capitán Pablo Morillo instando a la gente a formar parte de las filas del ejército realista, especialmente, a personas provenientes de los sectores subalternos del sistema estamental colonial, pero que creyesen firmemente en la defensa de la causa del rey borbónico. El valor de esta comunicación radica en que intensificó la tensión de los debates atizados por el abate francés Dominique-Georges-Frédéric Dufour de Pradt, así como por otros pensadores europeos e hispanoamericanos —hombres de acción o de letras— que discutían los conceptos de libertad, emancipación, ciudadanía o pueblo al calor del emergente pensamiento liberal que se tornaba cada vez más dominante. En este escenario, contar con la mirada de una persona anónima, nos permite indagar desde otro ángulo las relaciones problemáticas entre los sectores dominantes y los dominados en el contexto de cambio de las Independencias hispanoamericanas
"Her cradle, and his sepulchre": The Shelleys' Anxiety of Creation and Identity
No full textBoth Percy Shelley and Mary Wollestonecraft Shelley asserted their belief in the nature of literature to transcend conscious thoughts and to operate as a dream state, manifesting unconscious fears and desires. By analyzing two primary works by the Shelleys as dreams, and applying Freud's theories of dream interpretation and the unconscious, this thesis reveals how these works demonstrate a shared unconscious anxiety about the transformative nature of creation and its power to establish or destroy identity. In Alastor, Percy Shelley manifests his anxiety about his relationship with artistic creation through his treatment of gender, most especially in his description of and interaction with the veiled maid. Alastor demonstrates Shelley's conflicting desire both to unite with the powerful creative force and to reject it in order to maintain his own socially constructed role as male Romantic Poet. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley both responds to and expands upon the thematic focus established by Percy Shelley in Alastor. Focusing on the power of physical creation to redefine a woman's identity, Mary Shelley manifests her anxiety about the possibility of integrating the dueling aspects of her own identity, mother and author, into one cohesive identity. Percy examines how his desire for pure poetic expression affects his role within a masculine construct, while Mary interrogates her own beliefs about integrating the role of mother and author into one cohesive identity in a world that privileges and requires motherhood. Their creation of marginalized, exiled characters in the figures of the wandering poet, who chooses to shun society, and the monster, who is shunned by a society he deeply desires to be a part of, indicates their own fear of the consequences of societal rejection
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