Open Calls

Advisor: Any faculty member can act as research director

Keywords: Information Systems, Artificial intelligence, System architectures

Research in Computer Science and Engineering at DEIB is organized along these lines: - Information Systems, which deals with service based and adaptive information systems, IT cost evaluation, and in particular green ICT and green software, information quality and security, and Web reputation, including semantic categorization and sentiment analysis of social media. - Data, web, and society: the research in this area addresses technologies, design methods, and tools for data management systems, information management and querying on the Web, and multimedia and multichannel communication. - Artificial intelligence and robotics, devoted to the integration of Machine Learning, Computational Intelligence, Intelligent Data Analysis, Robotics, and Artificial Intelligence techniques for the development of intelligent systems and autonomous agents. - Advanced software architectures and methodologies, which is focused on techniques, tools and frameworks for the development of complex software systems, characterized as distributed, pervasive, adaptive, reconfigurable, dynamic and critical. - System Architectures, which deals with digital systems architecture and design methodologies for concurrent development of hardware and software components development of hardware and software components for development of hardware and software components for embedded digital systems, including multi-core, reconfigurable and adaptive platforms.

• Computer Science and Engineering
• Generic

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Advisor: Prof. Luca Maria Cassano

Keywords: Integrated circuits, System-on-Chip (SoC), Intelligent Security Checkers (ISCs)

Computing platforms for modern embedded systems, e.g., automotive systems or next generation satellites, are required to be flexible, high-performance and low-cost. To achieve these requirements, integrated circuits are produced following a globally distributed design flow: the System-on-Chip (SoC) will integrate modules designed inhouse with other modules coming from third party entities, either in the form of Third-Party IP cores (3PIPs) or in the form of Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) components. Moreover, the final fabrication of the silicon device will rely on outsourced foundries. While ensuring highperformance and reduced cost, such globalized design process exposes the obtained system to several security threats both at design time and at runtime. In particular, purchased IP cores may contain unwanted functionalities or the final produced integrated circuit may be maliciously modified. Such stealthy unwanted functionalities are known as Hardware Trojan Horses (HTHs).The goal of the PhD is to the system Intelligent Security Checkers (ISCs) meant for monitoring the activity carried out by the microprocessor and to detect at runtime the activation of HTHs and Transient Execution Attacks, e.g., Spectre and Meltdown. As a beneficial additional side-effect, such ISCs would also allow to detect anomalous behaviors due to random faults (e.g. Soft Errors in memories, SEUs inregisters) instead of malicious attacks. Of course, it is mandatory for the introduced security checker not to interfere with the nominal functioning of the system, i.e., not to introduce working frequency slow-down, and to bring the smallest possible silicon area and power consumption overhead.

• Computer Science and Engineering
• Company-sponsored

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Advisor: Stefano Longari

Keywords: Smart and electric vehicles (EVs), AI technologies, grid ecosystems

The evolution of the landscape associated with smart and electric vehicles (EVs), along with their growing market share, has prompted the development of novel solutions for integrating EV charging stations with the electric smart grid. This ecosystem integrates critical infrastructure, safety-critical cyber-physical systems, and innovative AI technologies. Given the critical assets involved and the complexity of this new landscape, a careful cybersecurity evaluation is fundamental to ensure the development of safe and secure solutions. This Ph.D. research aims to systematically investigate the threat model of EV charging stations and smart grid ecosystems to understand relevant threats and identify the most effective countermeasures.

• Computer Science and Engineering
• Thematic

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