The design of FFML: A rule-based policy modelling language for proactive fraud management in financial data streams

Developing fraud management policies and fraud detection systems is a vital capability for financial institutions towards minimising the effect of fraud upon customer service delivery, bottom line financial losses and the adverse impact on the organisation’s brand image reputation. Rapidly changing attacks in real-time financial service platforms continue to demonstrate fraudster’s ability to actively re-engineer their methods in response to ad hoc security protocol deployments, and highlights the distinct gap between the speed of transaction execution within streaming financial data and corresponding fraud technology frameworks that safeguard the platform. This paper presents the design of FFML, a rule-based policy modelling language and encompassing architecture for facilitating the conceptual level expression and implementation of proactive fraud controls within multi-channel financial service platforms. It is demonstrated how a domain specific language can be used to abstract the financial platform into a data stream based information model to reduce policy modelling complexity and deployment latencies through an innovative policy mapping language usable by both expert and non-expert users. FFML is part of a comprehensive suite of assistive tools and knowledge-based systems developed to support fraud analysts’ daily work of designing new high level fraud management policies, mapping into executable code of the underpinning application programming interface and deployment of active monitoring and compliance functionality within the financial platform.     

Robust stability analysis of filtered Smith predictor for time-varying delay processes

This paper focuses on the robust stability analysis of the filtered Smith predictor (FSP) dead-time compensator for uncertain processes with time-varying delays. For this purpose, a delay-dependent LMI-based condition is used to compute a maximum delay interval and tolerance to model uncertainties such that the closed-loop system remains stable. Some simulation results illustrate that the proposed controller gives larger delays intervals or better performance than similar approaches proposed in literature applied both to stable and unstable processes.     

Globally exponentially stable cascade observers for attitude estimation

This paper presents the design, analysis, and performance evaluation of a novel cascade observer for attitude estimation. A sensor-based observer, which resorts to rate gyro readings and a set of vector observations, estimates the rate gyro bias. Afterwards, a cascaded observer explicitly estimates the attitude in the form of a rotation matrix based on the rate gyro measurements, the vector observations, and the estimated gyro bias. The overall error dynamics are globally exponentially stable and the proposed system is computationally efficient. Finally, the resulting estimator is successfully evaluated, in simulation and experimentally, with ground truth data in both cases.     

A survey of security in multi-agent systems

Multi-agent systems (MAS) are a relatively new software paradigm that is being widely accepted in several application domains to address large and complex tasks. However, with the use of MAS in open, distributed and heterogeneous applications, the security issues may endanger the success of the application. The goal of this research is to identify the security issues faced by MAS and to survey the current state of the art of this field of knowledge. In order to do it, this paper examines the basic concepts of security in computing, and some characteristics of agents and multi-agent systems that introduce new threats and ways to attack. After this, some models and architectures proposed in the literature are presented and analyzed.     

Network convergence and QoS for future multimedia services in the VISION project

The emerging use of real-time 3D-based multimedia applications imposes strict quality of service (QoS) requirements on both access and core networks. These requirements and their impact to provide end-to-end 3D videoconferencing services have been studied within the Spanish-funded VISION project, where different scenarios were implemented showing an agile stereoscopic video call that might be offered to the general public in the near future. In view of the requirements, we designed an integrated access and core converged network architecture which provides the requested QoS to end-to-end IP sessions. Novel functional blocks are proposed to control core optical networks, the functionality of the standard ones is redefined, and the signaling improved to better meet the requirements of future multimedia services. An experimental test-bed to assess the feasibility of the solution was also deployed. In such test-bed, set-up and release of end-to-end sessions meeting specific QoS requirements are shown and the impact of QoS degradation in terms of the user perceived quality degradation is quantified. In addition, scalability results show that the proposed signaling architecture is able to cope with large number of requests introducing almost negligible delay.     

Annealing and crystallization kinetics of poly(lactic acid) pieces obtained by additive manufacturing

In this study, we investigated the influence of isothermal treatment of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) 3D printed samples at different crystallization temperatures. In this case, we analyzed the effect of each crystallization temperature on spherulites formation in printed PLA, affecting the final mechanical properties of pieces. For such, the thermomechanical properties, morphological structure, and crystallization kinetics were analyzed before and after thermal treatment. The 3D printed samples were heat treated at 80°C, 90°C, 100°C, 110°C, and 119°C. With annealing, we observed an improvement in the mechanical PLA properties; however, the exothermic crystallization peak was different for the samples. Pieces before annealing were found to have a low crystallinity index (Ic) of 2%–7%, and the pieces after annealing presented a considerable Ic (27%–34%). Annealing temperatures of 100°C, 110°C, and 119°C produced the fastest crystallization kinetics, while annealing temperatures of 80°C and 90°C resulted in the lowest crystallization kinetics for complete crystallization. After annealing, improvement in the flexural strength (34%–47%) and Young's modulus (26%–51%) for all annealed pieces occurred. The appropriate condition was observed at 100°C, which was the onset temperature of crystallization, owing to the combination of the shorter time of crystallization with the increased mechanical properties.     

Chromeno[3,4-b]xanthones as First-in-Class AChE and Aβ Aggregation Dual-Inhibitors

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a complex multifactorial disorder, mainly characterized by the progressive loss of memory and cognitive, motor, and functional capacity. The absence of effective therapies available for AD alongside the consecutive failures in the central nervous system (CNS) drug development has been motivating the search for new disease-modifying therapeutic strategies for this disease. To address this issue, the multitarget directed ligands (MTDLs) are emerging as a therapeutic alternative to target the multiple AD-related factors. Following this concept, herein we describe the design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of a family of chromeno[3,4-b]xanthones as well as their (E)-2-[2-(propargyloxy)styryl]chromone precursors, as first-in-class acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and β-amyloid (Aβ) aggregation dual-inhibitors. Compounds 4b and 10 emerged as well-balanced dual-target inhibitors, with IC₅₀ values of 3.9 and 2.9 μM for AChE and inhibitory percentages of 70 and 66% for Aβ aggregation, respectively. The molecular docking showed that most of the compounds bound to AChE through hydrogen bonds with residues of the catalytic triad and π-stacking interactions between the main scaffold and the aromatic residues present in the binding pocket. The interesting well-balanced activities of these compounds makes them interesting templates for the development of new multitarget compounds for AD.     

Preservation of cold‐stored guavas influenced by package materials

The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of package materials on the preservation of cold‐stored ‘Kumagai’ guavas. The treatments were: PO2, co‐extruded polyolephinic film with gas injection (5% O₂/5% CO₂/N₂); PO3, co‐extruded polyolephinic film with gas injection (5% O₂/5% CO₂/N₂); LDPE, linear low density polyethylene film; LDPE‐gas, linear low density polyethylene film with gas injection (3% O₂/8% CO₂/N₂); PVC, polyvinylchloride stretch film; PO1, co‐extruded polyolephinic film and control: non‐packaged guavas. Guavas were stored at 10 ± 1°C/80–90% RH for 21 days, and then transferred to room temperature. Gas composition within the package headspace was analysed during storage and the physical and chemical characteristics of the guavas were evaluated daily during ripening. The modified atmosphere provided by PO1 film was insufficient to promote the benefit of senescence control. Although PVC provided an atmosphere close to that recommended, it did not preserve the colour and pulp firmness. PO2, PO3, LDPE and LDPE‐gas retarded the senescence process of the guavas during 21 days at 10°C plus 2 days at room temperature, but harmed the normal ripening of guavas in some aspects. This can be explained by reduced O₂ and elevated CO₂ levels within these four packages. None of the packages influenced the titratable acidity and the soluble solids, but they did harm ascorbic acid synthesis. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A finite‐strain quadrilateral shell element based on discrete Kirchhoff–Love constraints

This paper improves the 16 degrees‐of‐freedom quadrilateral shell element based on pointwise Kirchhoff–Love constraints and introduces a consistent large strain formulation for this element. The model is based on classical shell kinematics combined with continuum constitutive laws. The resulting element is valid for large rotations and displacements. The degrees‐of‐freedom are the displacements at the corner nodes and one rotation at each mid‐side node. The formulation is free of enhancements, it is almost fully integrated and is found to be immune to locking or unstable modes. The patch test is satisfied. In addition, the formulation is simple and amenable to efficient incorporation in large‐scale codes as no internal degrees‐of‐freedom are employed, and the overall calculations are very efficient. Results are presented for linear and non‐linear problems. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Integral sliding mode design for robust filtering and control of linear stochastic time‐delay systems

This paper presents an integral sliding mode technique robustifying the optimal controller for linear stochastic systems with input and observation delays, which is based on integral sliding mode compen‐sation of disturbances. The general principles of the integral sliding mode compensator design are modified to yield the basic control algorithm oriented to time‐delay systems, which is then applied to robustify the optimal controller. As a result, two integral sliding mode control compensators are designed to suppress disturbances in state and observation equations, respectively, from the initial time moment. Moreover, it is shown that if certain matching conditions hold, the designed compensator in the state equation can simultaneously suppress observation disturbances, as well as the designed compensator in the observation equation can simultaneously suppress state disturbances. The obtained robust control algorithm is verified by simulations in the illustrative example, where the compensator in the observation equation provides simultaneous suppression of state and observation disturbances. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.