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Round table  speakers

Exploring the Potential of Blockchains with BoCA A Blockchain-of-Custody Application for Data Preservation

Biography:
Dr. Thomas Martin is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing, Mathematics and Digital Technology at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK). He is a member of the Centre for Advanced Computational Science (CfACS) and contributes to the Greater Manchester Cyber Foundry project. He teaches on various Security and Forensics subjects. He has supervised several PhD students and published numerous papers. His research interests cover topics such as Applications of Blockchain Technology, Cryptocurrencies, and Digital Forensics. 

Biography:
Mohammad  Hammoudeh is a Professor (Chair) of Cyber Security in the Department of Computing and Mathematics at the Manchester Metropolitan University. Mohammad heads the CfACS Internet of Things Lab he founded in 2016 where he leads a multi-disciplinary group of research associates and PhD students. From this he established the Lab as a leading research hub with a broad portfolio of successful, industry-sponsored projects. Mohammad has been awarded above £2.5M in competitive research funding as Principal/Co-Investigator for 16 research projects. He has a global collaborative research network spanning the academic community, industry, policy makers and wider technology stakeholders in the field of cybersecurity, the Internet of Things and complex highly decentralised systems.  He published over 80 refereed conference papers, over 65 peer reviewed journal articles, and is a successful editor of 3 books and many journal special issues. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy UK.  Mohammad is the founder and Executive Editor in Chief of ACM’s Distributed Ledger Technologies: Research and Practice Journal.

Annotation:
Blockchains gained their popularity through their use in cryptocurrencies, but this feature is just one use of their primary function. A Blockchain is a distributed, verifiable, and immutable ledger. This inherent mechanism for preserving data has seen its uses in multiple applications. In this talk, we will discussion some of their strengths as well as some untapped potentials. We will also introduce our new BoCA The Blockchain-of-Custody Application.

COST Action CA20120 — Intelligence-Enabling Radio Communications for Seamless Inclusive Interactions (INTERACT)

Biography:
Laurent Clavier (Senior Member, IEEE) received the Ph.D. degree in signal processing from TELECOM Bretagne (now IMT Atlantique), Brest, France, in 1997, and the HDR degree from Lille University, Lille, France, in 2009. Since October 2011, he has been a Professor with the Mines-Telecom Institute (IMT Nord Europe), the Institut d’Electronique de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie (IEMN) (UMR CNRS 8520), and the Institut de Recherche sur les composants logiciels et matériels pour l’Information et la Communication Avancée (IRCICA) (USR CNRS 3380). His research activities concern digital communications and the physical layer of wireless networks for the IoT, more specifically energy autonomous sensor networks. He is particularly interested in the interference model and impact on ultradense wireless networks.

Annotation:
COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is a funding organization for research and innovation networks. COST Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and beyond and enable researchers and innovators to grow their ideas in any science and technology field by sharing them with their peers. COST Actions are bottom-up networks with a duration of four years that boost research, innovation and careers. CA20120 INTERACT COST Action vision is to go beyond the capabilities of the 5G and to make the radio network itself intelligent. This is required in order to enhance the human experience of both human-to-human and human-to-machine communications, and make it seamless, with the perception of no intermediary. Machine learning is an important tool in implementing this vision, since along with advanced network architectures and distributed content provision, it provides a means of implementing many aspects of this network intelligence. However, its use must be informed by theoretical and experimental research on radio channel models, network architectures and signal processing algorithms. Hence, the main scientific objectives of INTERACT are:
1. To perform fundamental research in the fields of antennas and propagation, signal processing and localization, and network architectures and protocols, to design intelligent-enabling radio communications.
2. To make the wireless network intelligent, meaning aware, adaptive, and parsimonious. Similarly to cities and buildings, future wireless networks should become intelligent by taking advantage of cutting-edge technologies to cope with the increasing demand for connectivity and traffic density and to bring the user experience to a new level.
3. To contribute to the creation of intelligent environments. Not only will mobile radio networks become intelligent, but they will constitute the nervous system to foster intelligence in other systems and verticals, such as e-health, transportation, industry, buildings and cities.

Cyber Threat Hunting and Intelligence in IoT Environments 

Biography:
Dr. Ali Dehghantanha is an academic-entrepreneur in cybersecurity and a Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity and Threat Intelligence. He is the director of Cyber Science Lab — a research lab dedicated to advance research and training in cybersecurity — and the director of the Master of Cybersecurity and Threat Intelligence program at the University of Guelph, ON, Canada.

Annotation:
Cyber Threat Hunting and Cyber Threat Intelligence are growing fields of practice in cyber security. This presentation first looks at meaning of these terms and where and how relevant technologies should be utilized. Afterwards, suitability of using artificial intelligence techniques for threat hunting and intelligence in IoT environments is discussed through analysing several case studies of using machine learning classification and deep learning techniques in attack detection. The presentation is concluded by suggesting some future works and opportunities for further collaboration.

Towards 6G Non-Terrestrial Networks

Biography:
Giuseppe Araniti received the Laurea (2000) and the Ph.D. degree (2004) in Electronic Engineering from the University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, Italy. Since. He is an Associate Professor on Telecommunications at the University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, where he is a member of the Laboratory for Advanced Researches into Telecommunication Systems (ARTS). His research activities are conducted by cooperating with several national and international research groups, from academia and industries, and the results of such researches are reported in more than 160 scientific publications. His principal area of research is on 5G/6G networks and it includes personal communications systems, enhanced wireless and satellite systems, traffic and radio resource management, multicast and broadcast services, device-to-device (D2D) and machine-type communications (M2M/MTC). He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, and IEEE Access Journal, is Vice-Chair of the Special Interest Group on Social Behaviour Driven Cognitive Radio Networks — IEEE Comsoc. Since 2003 he is involved in several teaching activities, mainly at the University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, where he is currently teaching Wireless Systems Planning and Radio Mobile Networks. Since February 2021, he is Bachelor’s degree Coordinator in Computer, Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering, and since January 2019, he is Rector's Delegate for the relationship with industry and job placement.

Annotation:
The Sixth-Generation (6G) technology will revolutionize the wireless ecosystem by offering futuristic services to a wide range of advanced devices through underwater, terrestrial, and non-terrestrial transmissions. Recently, the Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) is growing in importance owing to its capability to deliver services anywhere and anytime. One of the main NTN features is to provide coverage in places that are impossible to reach with any conventional Terrestrial Network (TN). It is essential to integrate NTNs and TNs into a unified wireless system. The talk will introduce the concept of non-terrestrial networking, review 3GPP NTN features and discuss their potential in satisfying user expectations in 5G-Beyond and upcoming 6G networks. State of the art, current research activities, and open issues will be described to highlight the importance of NTN in next-generation wireless communication networks.

Innovation in Applied AI and 5G: Space, Biometrics and Healthcare

Biography:
Rami Qahwaji is a Professor of Visual Computing at the University of Bradford (UK). Rami is originally trained as an Electrical Engineer and had MSc in Control and Computer Engineering and PhD in AI and signal/image processing. He has been working with different industries in the fields of satellite/space imaging, 5G communications, remote sensing, digital health and imaging, Biometrics, AI and data visualization developing intelligent systems in collaboration with NASA, ESA, NHS and different SMEs. Rami is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET), Charted Engineer (CEng), Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), IET technical assessor and sets on the IET’s Healthcare Sector Executive Committee. Rami attracted millions of pounds in research funding from various UK and European funding agencies. He has over 140 refereed Journal and Conference publications and has been invited to deliver many keynote speeches at national and international conferences. He has supervised 31 completed PhD projects and is an external examiner for several UK and international universities. He is heavily involved in the organization of international activities and public engagement events.

Annotation:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and 5G techniques are leading innovations in a variety of real life-applications dealing with challenging data that could be complex, big, multi-dimensional, multi-wavelength, noisy, incomplete, etc. This talk will briefly present our ongoing research and developments in 5G, satellite imaging, Biometrics and Digital Health in collaboration with industrial and healthcare partners. The talk will also focus on the extraction of meaningful information and knowledge representation, which makes it possible to develop different useful applications for prediction, security, diagnostic, etc.

Enabling Massive Industrial Applications in 5G+ Ecosystem

Biography:
Dr. Jiri Hosek is an Associate Professor and Deputy Vice-Head for R&D and International Relations at Department of Telecommunications, Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic. Jiri is also coordinating the WISLAB research group (http://wislab.cz), where he deals mostly with industry-oriented R&D projects in the area of future mobile networks, Internet of Things and home automation services. Jiri (co-) authored more than 80 research works on networking technologies, wireless communications, quality of service, quality of experience and IoT applications including those published in the IEEE Communications Magazine. Jiri is an experienced speaker regularly participating and actively presenting his research work on premier international conferences and workshops.

Annotation:
We are witnessing a rise of new industrial applications and services which were not present or simply needed before. To enable those massive scenarios we need not only the sufficient technology background, but also in many cases to re-think our understanding of legacy cellular network architectures and operational principles. During the talk, we will summarize emerging technologies enabling massive machine-type communications and also will discuss the issues like 5G+ cellular networks capacity planning, new traffic patterns or implementation of security features which are becoming the biggest challenges during the practical deployment of massive industrial applications like Smart Grids.