Invited Speaker 1

Empowering Cognitive Security Systems with Computational Intelligence & Granular Computing

Vincenzo Loia Ph.D.
Chair Professor
Department of Management and Innovation Systems
University of Salerno, Italy



Abstract:
To solve the pressing security challenges of our era, we need more creative approaches capable to detect connections between relations, events concepts, in evolving context characterized by an explosive mixture of structered and unstructered data coming up from multiple sensor and human based networks.
In this talk we explore how to integrate Granular Computing and Computational Intelligence with security based systems in order to enrich the cognitive power.
We present the evolution of a framework where different application scenarios are described, evidentiating the benefits arising from such an integration.
This novel integration can be viewed as a novel paradigm useful to design, build, and deploy distributed systems suitable for Smart Cities.

Biography:
Professor Vincenzo Loia received B.S. degree in computer science from University of Salerno, Italy in 1985 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from University of Paris VI, France, in 1987 and 1989, respectively. From 1989 he is Faculty member at the University of Salerno where he teaches Safe Systems, Situational Awareness. His current position is as Chair and Professor of Computer Science at Department of Management and Innovation Systems. He is the editor-in-chief of Evolutionary Intelligence and the editor-in-chief of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing, both from Springer. He is an Associate Editor of various journals, including the IEEE Transactions on System, Man and Cybernetics: Systems; IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems; IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics; IEEE Transactions on the IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems. His research interests include soft computing, agent technology for technologically complex environments Web intelligence, Situational Awareness He was principal investigator in a number of industrial R&D projects and in academic research projects. He is author of over 400 original research papers in international journals, book chapters, and in international conference proceedings. He hold in the last years several role in IEEE Society in particular for Computational Intelligence Society (Chair of Emergent Technologies Technical Committee, IEEE CIS European Representative, Vice-Chair of Intelligent Systems Applications Technical Committee).

Invited Speaker 2

Blockchain for Smart Communities: Opportunities and challenges

Neeraj Kumar Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, India


Abstract:
From the last few decades there has been an exponential increase in the usage of Internet-enabled devices which raises the issues of security and privacy of the data among the end users. The traditional existing cryptographic primitives are not sufficient to solve these problems due to their heavy computation and communication costs. However, during this era, there is an evolution of new distributed ledger based technology called as Blockchain. Blockchain is a specific distributed shared database, which has been illustrated to possess salient advantages including security, immutability, and decentralization. It allows every transaction to be recorded in a verifiable and permanent way, which is essential to create a distributed, transparent, and secure energy-trading environment.
However, various issues in blockchain are still in their infancy and need novel contribution from the research community to address these issues. For example, proof of work used for block verification requires heavy cryptographic primitives computation. Hence, efficient decisions need to be taken that whether this proof of work needs to be executed on resource constrained smart devices or powerful servers. Secondly, blocks in the blockchain use storage space before any operation to be carried out. Hence, efficient usage of various data structures is prerequisite for successful implementation of any solution in this environment. So, the issues such as searching and indexing play a vital role with respect to efficient implementation. Verification and validation of the blocks created also is important issues need to be analysed before any block to be included in the chain of blocks. So, verification and validation time for the blocks verification is also an important issue to be discussed. Hence, in this talk we will explore the applicability of blockchain for various IoT application, challenges to implement blockchain for real world critical applications, and future scope of this emerging technology.

Biography:
Neeraj Kumar (M16, SM) received the Ph.D. degree in computer science and engineering from Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Jammu and Kashmir, India, and worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Coventry University, Coventry, U.K. He is working as an Associate Professor with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology (Deemed to be University), Patiala, India. Dr. Kumar has coauthored more than 200 technical research papers in leading journals and conferences from IEEE, Elsevier, Springer, John Wiley etc. Some of his research findings are published in top cited journals such as IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON DEPENDABLE AND SECURE COMPUTING, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, IEEETRANSACTIONS ON CONSUMER ELECTRONICS, TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, IEEE INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS MAGAZINE, IEEE NETWORK, IEEE COMMUNICATIONS MAGAZINE, IEEEWIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, IEEE SYSTEMS JOURNAL, Future Generation Computing Systems, Journal of Network and Computer Applications, and ComCom. He has guided many research scholars leading to Ph.D. and M.E./M.Tech degree. His research is supported by funding from UGC, DST, CSIR, and TCS. He is an Associate Technical Editor of IEEE Communication Magazine and an Associate Editor of IJCS, Wiley, JNCA, Elsevier, and Security & Communication, Wiley. He is a member of Cyber Physical Sysytem research groupm where his team is exploring various aspects related to security, privacy, network management and embedded systems. He has supervised various Ph.D. and M.E. thesis. He is member of various professional bodies across the globe.