PhD Program in Computer Science and Systems Engineering
Industrial Research Projects Proposals 2022 (XXXVIII Cycle), PNRR/DIBRIS
Computer Science
Machine Learning for Ultrasound Imaging (Dibris/Esaote)
The focus of this 3 years position is the application of machine learning algorithms, libraries and tool for the analysis of ultrasound images. The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the Esaote company (https://www.esaote.com) and the MaLGa and Computer Vision research groups of Dibris (Prof. Francesca Odone). Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry and they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in computer science. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
More details on the company research activity:
https://vimeo.com/473605488
- MRI R&D https://vimeo.com/533432792
- Ultrasounds R&D https://vimeo.com/512512187
- Ultrasounds Probe R&D https://vimeo.com/512511923
- Medical IT https://vimeo.com/512510149
Virtual images for learning and testing of neural networks (Dibris/Aitek)
The goal of this 3 years position is the use of virtual images, computer-graphics generated images representing a close approximation to reality, for learning and testing of neural networks. The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the Aitek company (https://www.aitek.it/) and the Computer Vision research group (Prof. Francesca Odone). Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry and they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in computer science. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
GNSS Positioning with smartphones and low cost devices (Dibris/Gter)
The focus of this 3 years position is the use of study of algorithms and heuristics for improving GNSS positioning on smartphone and low cost device. The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the Gter company (https://www.gter.it/) and Dibris researchers working on IoT applications (Prof. Giorgio Delzanno). Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry. In this respect they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in computer science and engineering. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
Additional material:
A Glance on GNSS (presentation of GNSS positioning and related research topics)
A Solution for Improving Robustness of GNSS Positioning from Android Devices
Lorenzo Benvenuto's Phd Thesis in Computer Science and Systems Engineering, University of Genoa, May 2022
Supervisors: Giorgio Delzanno (Dibris) and Tiziano Cosso (Gter)
Cybersecurity and information management in maritime terminals (Dibris/PSA Genoa Investments)
The focus of this 3 years position is the design of innovative methods and tools for cybersecurity and information management in maritime terminals. The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the PSA Genoa Investment company (https://www.globalpsa.com/), and computer science and engineering researchers working in cybersecurity at Dibris (CSec Lab https://www.csec.it/). Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry and they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in computer science and engineering. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
Resilience, integration and efficiency of ICT systems in the rail transport domain (Dibris/M3S)
The focus of this 3 years position is the application of innovative methods for improving resilience, integration and efficiency of ICT systems in the rail transport domain. The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the M3S company (https://www.m3s.it/), and Computer Engineering researchers at Dibris (Prof. Massimo Maresca and Prof. Pierpaolo Baglietto). Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry and they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in computer engineering. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
Digital transformation of process management in the insurance appraisals domain (Dibris/Teec)
The focus of this 3 years position is the study of innovative models, methods and tools for supporting the digital transformation of process management in the insurance appraisals domain (e.g image and text processing and ad hoc edge computing tools). The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the TEEC company (https://www.queirolo.eu/work/teec/), and computer science researchers at Dibris (Prof. Giovanna Guerrini, Prof. Giorgio Delzanno). Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry and they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in computer science. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
BigData and High Performance Computing Solutions in the Computing Continuum, Cloud-Edge, and Digital Twin applications (Leonardo Labs)
The focus of this 3 years position is the study of innovative methods and tools for BigData and High Performance Computing Solutions in the Computing Continuum, Cloud-Edge, and Digital Twin applications. The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the Leonardo Labs company , and computer science researchers at Dibris. Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry and they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in computer science. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
Detailed description: The research will focus on the performance efficiency of container technologies for BigData and HPC Digital Twin distributed applications, deployed on heterogeneous Cloud-Edge architectures. The student will have the possibility of performing his/her research using the davinci-1 supercomputer: Supercomputer Davinci -1 | Leonardo and collaborating with the leonardo lab researchers. The research will be co-supervised by Carlo Cavazzoni responsible for the HPC, BigData and Cloud Computing Leonardo Lab. Before joining Leonardo in May 2020, Carlo Cavazzoni spent more than 20 years in Cineca (Italian supercomputing centre). He is a member of the EuroHPC-JU Research and Innovation Advisory Board., and he contributed to many EC infrastructure and research HPC projects.
Carlo Cavazzoni is author and co-author of 100+ peer review publications, including Science, Physical Review Letters, Nature Materials, and many others. See also https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlo-Cavazzoni-2/publications. Finally, he was a pioneer in HPC architecture designs with two successful HPC prototypes cofounded by PRACE (prace-ri.eu): Eurora and DAVIDE, build in partnership with Eurotech (Eurora) and E4 (DAVIDE). In particular Eurora was ranked first in the Green500 lists in June 2013.
Digital twins are software applications built with the aim of replicating, in a synthetically generated environment, the response of a real system to a change in its environment, and then used to make predictions about the behaviour of the real system (e.g. perform prediction about a failure of a component, aka predictive maintenance). Digital twin can be data driven, model driven or a combination of the two. Data driven digital twins take their predictive power from an implicit model of a real system built using AI and Data Analytics and are boosted by the use of BigData technologies. Model driven Digital twins takes their predictive power from an explicit model built using a set of equations describing the physics of the system, and are boosted by the use of High Performance Computing technologies. The combination of the two requires both BigData and HPC technologies. Digital Twins evolve and improve the predictive power also assimilating data collected from the real system being monitored. Whereas from the point of view of the infrastructure we can assume that today and in future digital twin run on a cloud service, but requiring the monitoring functionalities for data collection being run close to the real system in an edge device or server. Digital twins have then a software component running at the core and one running on the edge in the so called digital continuum.
Security and Resilience of Orchestration and Software Defined Networking and Computing (SDN / SDC) technologies for certified applications in the Cloud and 5G areas (Leonardo)
The focus of this 3 years position is the study of innovative methods and tools for security and resilience of orchestration and software defined networking and computing (SDN / SDC) technologies for certified applications in the cloud and 5G areas. The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the Leonardo Labs company , and computer science researchers at Dibris. Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry and they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in computer science. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
Systems Engineering
Transport Optimization in the Decathlon logistics network and supply chain (Dibris/Decathlon)
The focus of this 3 years position is the application of innovative methods for transport optimizations in logistic networks, supply chain (see detailed description). The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the Decathlon company (Decathlon Italia https://www.decathlon.it/), the Stamtech company (/https://www.stamtech.com/), and Systems Engineering researchers at Dibris (Prof. Michela Robba). Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry and they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in systems engineering. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
Decathlon is a French multinational created in 1976, dedicated to design, manufacturing and distribution of sport goods with a strong development based on their own brands and a very large offer related on more than 110 different sport activities. Decathlon’s supply chain mainly outsources the production of main products such as: sportswear, equipment, and sports equipment. Manufacturing is the only stage in which Decathlon cooperates with subcontractors located mainly in Asia (most in China and Vietnam) and Europe (Portugal and Italy). The supply chain today is very complex because of siloed steps from the production to the final customer. Indeed, the products have to pass through Decathlon's logistics network made up of 69 warehouses and logistics platforms distributed all over the world. Indeed, the product passes from the manufacturing country to the warehouse called Continental Network Warehouse (EDC) and distributed to the other local warehouses called Regional Network Warehouse (DC). The latter delivers the product to the Decathlon stores or, for the e-commerce, directly to the customer.
The digitalization process that Decathlon is following aims to bring down these barriers transforming the supply chain in an integrated and fully transparent ecosystem.
The main aim of the activities which will be done during the thesis will be focused on:
- Traceability of the goods during all shipment phases from supplier to customer. Today, there is a list of internal initiative to map each shipment, for instance from DC to regional shop. The digital transformation will bring the implementation of a unique platform able to map the position of a singular BAC/product form the production to the end of life. An intensive Data layering and data extraction from different internal and external tools will be performed. The chain visibility depends on the creation of an effective “Track and Trace” (T&T) system that allows players to determine the status of any given shipment of goods at any point in its travels, by any transport mode. Transport data and status information will be captured from enterprise resource planning systems as well as from carriers, either through direct connections or via third-party portals. GPS technology will enable companies to check exact shipment locations.
- Optimization of shipments Suppliers-EDC and DC-Customer. It will be based on timeline, costs, routes and other constraints. The result will enable companies to react to disruptions in the supply chain, and even anticipate them, by fully modeling the network, creating “what-if” scenarios, and adjusting the supply chain in real time as conditions change.
- Reduction of measurable environmental impact. In a product's life cycle, transport is not the most polluting stage, but this has not prevented Decathlon from taking measures relating to the transport part. Decathlon teams are currently in the midst of analyzing the environmental impact of this phase. The purpose of this activities is to perform a worldwide assessment, allowing Decathlon to precisely identify the areas for improvements and set goals for the years to come.
Mobility data analysis of TPS and MaaS users (Dibris/Aitek)
The focus of this 3 years position is the application of innovative methods for the analysis of mobility data dor TPS and MaaS (Mobility as a Service) users. The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the Aitek company (https://www.esaote.com) and Systems Engineering researchers at Dibris (Prof. Simona Sacone). Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry and they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in systems engineering. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
Design of methods and tools for the optimal planning of maritime terminals processes (Dibris/PSA Genoa Investment)
The focus of this 3 years position is the design of innovative methods and tools for the optimal planning of maritime terminals processes. The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the PSA Genoa Investment company (https://www.globalpsa.com/ and https://www.psagp.it/), and Systems Engineering researchers at Dibris (Prof. Simona Sacone). Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry and they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in systems engineering. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
Optimization of multi-agent systems through Reinforcement Learning (Dibris/Rulex Innovation Lab)
The focus of this 3 years position is the application of reinforcement learning methods, a special class of artificial intelligence methods, in the design of multi agent systems for industrial control systems. The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the Rulex company (https://www.rulex.ai/), and artificial intelligence researchers at Dibris (Prof. Armando Tacchella, Prof. Viviana Mascardi, AIMS group). Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry and they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in artifical intelligence. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
Digital and smart ticketing (Dibris/MyPass)
The focus of this 3 years position is the study of innovative models, methods and tools for the smart ticketing with applications in different domains (transportation, turism, etc). The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the MyPass company (https://www.mypass.cc/), and systems engineering researchers at Dibris (Prof. Roberto Sacile). Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry and they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in systems engineering. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
Analysis, planning, integration and monitoring of mobility services: innovative models, methods and tools for the mobility of the future (Dibris/Tema srl)
The focus of this 3 years position is the study of innovative models, methods and tools for the analysis, planning, integration and monitoring of mobility services. The research activity will be carried out in collaboration with the TeMa company (https://temasrl.net/), and systems engineering researchers at Dibris (Prof. Simona Sacone). Candidates will carry out a doctoral program in close collaboration between university and industry and they will be supported by an academic supervisor and a supervisor from the company's R&D department. Candidates are required to have a solid background in systems engineering. The PhD program includes training activities on advanced topics, research and technology transfer activities on themes of interest for the company R&D department and for the academic supervisor. During the PhD program, candidates will have the opportunity to attend PhD seminars, workshops, and schools organized by the CSSE PhD board and national and international workshops and conferences.
