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Zeit: Dienstag, 10. September 2024, 10.00 Uhr
Ort: Im Süsterfeld 9, 52072 Aachen, Raum 259
Referent: Marco Lutz geb. Grochowski M.Sc.
Informatik 11 - Embedded Software
Thema: Test Suite Generation and Augmentation for Reconfigurable Industrial Control Software in the Internet of Production
Abstract:
With the advent of Industry 4.0 and the digitally networked factory, cyber-physical production systems (CPPSs) are reconfigured frequently along their life cycle to adapt to changing customer requirements or market demands. Such reconfigurations are not limited to the hardware but also affect the software of the programmable logic controllers (PLCs) driving these plants. While verification and testing are two techniques capable of alleviating the risk of introducing errors in production code, it is no longer sufficient to rely only on the results obtained by these methods during the commissioning of the CPPS. Even minor incremental reconfigurations to the PLC’s software during the operational phase of the life cycle may introduce regressions that can be quickly overlooked by a developer and therefore need to be reverified.
The goal of this thesis is to provide a “push button” analysis for generating test cases after a static reconfiguration. The generated test cases can be injected and monitored during maintenance or virtual commissioning to observe the impact of reconfiguration on the CPPS by the developer.
In order to reduce redundancy in test suite generation (TSG) after a structural reconfiguration to the PLC software, symbolic summaries of specific parts of the program should be cached and reused to benefit subsequent analysis. While automatic TSG is an established technique used to generate test suites adhering to structural coverage metrics of PLC software, the generated test suite might not anymore be adequate enough with regards to the coverage metric to ensure the absence of regressions. An indispensable part of regression testing (RT) is test suite augmentation (TSA), which guides the TSG toward the reconfigured behavior and increases the chances of deriving difference-revealing test cases which expose behavioral differences between the program and its reconfigured version. The derivation of new test cases is required to uncover potential regressions after a reconfiguration.
To this end, the contributions of this thesis include
* heuristics for the scalability of the existing TSG for PLC software,
* the reuse of symbolic summaries during TSG of reconfigured PLC software,
* and the concept of executing the old and new version of a reconfigured PLC software in one unified program version during TSA.
These contributions are evaluated on selected domain-specific benchmarks of varying difficulty, such as the PLCopen Safety suite and the Pick and Place Unit (PPU).
Es laden ein: die Dozentinnen und Dozenten der Informatik
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Zeit: Dienstag, 10. September 2024, 14.00 Uhr
Ort: Raum 9222, Gebäude E3, Ahornstr. 55
Referentin: Prof. Dr. Paula Herber
University of Münster
Title: Formal Verification of Cyber-physical Systems using Domain-specific
Abstractions
Abstract:
Cyber-physical systems have become ubiquitous in our daily lives, and their
complexity continually evolves to unprecedented levels. In addition to their
heterogeneity and interaction with a physical environment, we see a
tremendous increase in the use of learning to make autonomous decisions in
dynamic environments. These developments pose significant challenges for
ensuring the safety and reliability of cyber-physical systems. Formal
methods have the potential to guarantee crucial safety properties under all
circumstances, but are incredibly expensive and severely suffer from
scalability issues. In this talk, I will summarize some of our recent
efforts towards reusable specification and more scalable verification of
cyber-physical systems using domain-specific abstractions.
Es laden ein: die Dozentinnen und Dozenten der Informatik
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* Einladung
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Zeit: Mittwoch, 28 August 2024, 15:30 Uhr
Ort: Raum 9222, E3, Informatikzentrum
Zoom:
https://rwth.zoom-x.de/j/66261562709?pwd=2driMW8j0cRJLiYFWNJRqRp4Lya80Z.1
Meeting-ID: 662 6156 2709
Kenncode: 337848
Referent: Yingbo Gao, M.Sc. (Lehrstuhl Informatik 6)
Thema: Language Modeling and Machine Translation: Improvements in
Training and Modeling
Abstract:
Substantial improvements in language modeling and machine translation
have been achieved since the wide adoption of artificial neural
networks. In this talk, we discuss three directions related to training
and modeling in neural language modeling and neural machine translation.
First, sampling-based training criteria are investigated in order to
speed up the training of neural language models with large vocabularies.
Second, label smoothing, input smoothing as well as multi-agent training
are studied to improve the generalization of neural machine translation
models. Finally, a language modeling approach for machine translation is
proposed to simplify the architecture of existing translation models.
Es laden ein: die Dozentinnen und Dozenten der Informatik
--
Stephanie Jansen
Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Natural Sciences
Chair of Computer Science 6
ML - Machine Learning and Reasoning
RWTH Aachen University
Theaterstraße 35-39
D-52062 Aachen
Tel: +49 241 80-21601
sek(a)ml.rwth-aachen.de
www.hltpr.rwth-aachen.de
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Zeit: Freitag, 30. August 2024, 11:00 Uhr
Ort: Raum 9222 (Informatikzentrum E3, Ahornstraße 55)
Referent: Matthias Naaf, M.Sc.
LuFG Mathematische Grundlagen der Informatik
Thema: Logic, Semirings, and Fixed Points
Abstract:
Why does my SQL query return a particular answer? How does Hanna win an
infinite graph game against Simon? These questions can be answered with
semiring semantics, which was introduced by Green, Karvounarakis, and
Tannen (2007) for database provenance and has since been extended to
various logics within and beyond the database setting. In this talk,
we study semiring semantics for the fixed-point logic LFP, which
(despite its name) features both least and greatest fixed points.
The common theme in semiring semantics is the interplay of logic and
algebra, such as the compatibility with semiring homomorphisms and the
use of freely generated semirings to represent provenance information.
This becomes particularly interesting for fixed-point logic, where
additional algebraic and order-theoretic assumptions on the semirings
must be made to ensure the existence of fixed points. A key question
is the algorithmic computation of fixed points in these semirings.
Several techniques have been developed for least fixed points,
with the Newton iteration (Esparza, Kiefer, and Luttenberger, 2010)
emerging as the most general technique, but it was not known how to
compute greatest fixed points. We address this issue by providing an
efficient closed-form solution for greatest fixed points of polynomial
systems over absorptive semirings.
Using the example of Büchi games, we show how semiring semantics of
LFP can be applied to analyse winning strategies in infinite games.
Lastly, we take the perspective of model theory and study how the
classical 0-1 laws about the asymptotic behaviour of logic on random
structures can be generalised to semiring semantics of first-order
logic. By combining our proof with the fixed-point computation,
we further extend the 0-1 law to semiring semantics of LFP.
Es laden ein: die Dozentinnen und Dozenten der Informatik
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Zeit: Freitag, 16.08.2024, 10:00 Uhr
Ort: Informatikzentrum der RWTH Aachen University, Gebäude E3, 2.
Etage, Raum 9222
Referent: Eva Fluck, M.Sc.
Lehrstuhl für Logik und Theorie diskreter Systeme
Thema: Graph decompositions. A study on decompositions of graphs and
their application to logic and data science
Abstract:
We study decompositions of graphs and their application to the
expressiveness of first-order logic with counting quantifiers and
clustering data. Besides the decompositions themselves we also consider
graph parameters that arise from these decompositions as well as
obstructions to the existence of good decompositions.
The graph class T_q^k are all graphs which have a bounded tree-depth
decomposition that also bounds the width. Its homomorphism
indistinguishability relation enjoys a rich connection to the
expressiveness of counting logic, as shown by Dawar, Jakl and Reggio
(2021). Building upon ideas by Dvořák (2010), we reprove this
connection. Our proof strategy also enables to construct a graph class
which characterizes equivalence under guarded counting logic. A graph
theoretic analysis of T_q^k allows us separate it from the intersection
of TW_k−1 , the class of graphs of tree-width at most k−1, and TD_q the
graphs of tree-depth at most q, if q is sufficiently larger than k.
This also yields a new characterization of tree-depth via
treedecompositions and a characterization of T_q^k via a Cops-and-
Robber game. To lift this separation to the respective equivalence
relations, we show that this game is monotone, that is Robber can never
reach a vertex that was cleared in some earlier round. This also give a
novel proof of the monotonicity of the Cops-and-Robber game for tree-
width without the use of any dual object, like brambles. Another part
of the separation of the equivalence classes is to prove that T_q^k and
TD_q are homomorphism distinguishing closed, which was conjectured by
Roberson (2022).
Tangles are a concept to formalize regions of high connectivity in
graphs in an unambiguous way. It can be translated to more abstract
connectivity systems, where they describe highly connected regions in
the underling universe. Recently they emerged as a new approach to
clustering data. We find that the non-trivial clusters resulting from
the well known single linkage hierarchical clustering algorithm are
exactly the tangles of an appropriately chosen connectivity function on
the data points. We generalize this connection to a one-to-one
correspondence between connectivity functions that are maximum-
submodular and dendograms which are a way to represent the result of an
arbitrary hierarchical clustering algorithm.
Es laden ein: die Dozentinnen und Dozenten der Informatik
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Zeit: Freitag, 16. August 2024, 10:00 Uhr
Ort: UMIC_025 (2165|025), Mies-van-der-Rohe-Str. 15, EG
Referent: Malte Breuer M.Sc.
Lehr- und Forschungsgebiet IT-Sicherheit
Thema: Privacy-Preserving Kidney Exchange
Abstract:
Chronic kidney disease has become one of the most common causes of
natural death in our modern society. The preferred treatment for chronic
kidney disease is the transplant of a kidney from a living donor, who is
typically a close friend or relative of the patient. An impediment that
prevents such a living donation is that the found living donor is
sometimes not medically compatible with the patient. Kidney exchange
enables a patient to still receive a kidney transplant in such a
situation by exchanging the living donor with other patients. Nowadays,
many countries have centralized systems that organize kidney exchange,
often on a nationwide scale. Hospitals can register their associated
pairs of patients and medically incompatible donors with a central
platform, which then tries to find potential exchanges among all
registered pairs of patients and donors.
Such a centralized kidney exchange system, however, harbors severe
security risks that make the central platform susceptible to
manipulation and corruption. The core issue is that the operator of the
platform alone is responsible for the entire computation of the
exchanges. This, for example, allows the platform operator to manipulate
the computation such that a particular patient is treated with priority.
This does not only make the platform operator susceptible to corruption
but it also makes the platform a prime target for high impact attacks
aimed at manipulating the computation of exchanges. The central platform
becomes an even more attractive target for attackers as it stores the
sensitive data of many patients and donors. Thus, any attack that leads
to a data breach has a direct impact on the privacy of the sensitive
data of many individuals.
The main research goal of this thesis is to develop an alternative
approach for kidney exchange that is resistant to manipulation and
corruption, and protects the sensitive data of the involved patients and
donors. To this end, we propose the model of a privacy-preserving kidney
exchange system that follows a decentralized approach, where the
computation of exchanges is distributed among a set of so-called
computing peers. This model ensures that a computing peer is neither
able to manipulate the computation of the exchanges nor to learn any
information on the sensitive data of the involved patients and donors.
We achieve this by using a cryptographic technique called secure
multi-party computation. This allows a set of parties to compute a
functionality on their private inputs such that each party only learns
its own input and output and what can be deduced from both. The core
contribution of this thesis is then the development of secure
multi-party computation protocols that enable the computing peers to
efficiently compute the exchanges for a set of patients and their
associated medically incompatible donors. We evaluate the run time of
all our protocols and show that our most efficient protocol scales for
the large numbers of patients and donors that are to be expected in
practice. Thereupon, we simulate the use of our most efficient protocols
in our model of a privacy-preserving kidney exchange system over time
using real-world data. Our simulations show that the number of
transplants achieved over time in our privacy-preserving model is
comparable to the number of transplants achieved in the model that is
implemented by the existing kidney exchange systems that are susceptible
to manipulation and corruption. Thus, our model allows for the
replacement of most existing kidney exchange systems at a small or
sometimes even negligible impact on the number of transplants over time,
while significantly increasing the security guarantees compared to the
existing systems.
Es laden ein: die Dozentinnen und Dozenten der Informatik
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Zeit: Donnerstag, 08. August 2024, 10:00 - 11:00 Uhr
Ort: Raum 9222 (großer Seminarraum, Erweiterungsbau 3, Informatikzentrum, Ahornstraße 55)
Referent: Herr Hinrikus Eike Wolf, M. Sc.
Lehrstuhl Logik und Theorie diskreter Systeme (Informatik 7)
Thema: Learning on Graphs from Theory to Industrial Application in Power Management of Distribution Grids
Abstract:
Learning on graphs has strong ties to theoretical computer science, as some algorithms used for learning are rooted in graph theory.
Furthermore, expressivity of learning methods is analysed with techniques from theoretical computer science.
From a practical perspective, graph learning finds application in a wide range of domains, such as biochemistry, social science, and in case of this thesis in power management of electric grids.
An illustrative example for graph learning is to predict whether a chemical molecule is toxic or non-toxic.
The task behind this example involves predicting properties of the whole graph.
Beyond this, graph learning includes also to node level tasks, and link prediction.
We propose structural node embeddings motivated from Lovasz' (1967) theory of graph homomorphism counts.
These are the number of mappings from Graph H to G such that vertices which are adjacent in H are also adjacent in G.
The node embeddings consist of vectors representing homomorphism counts from families of graphs within the graph to be embedded.
We showcase that our approach achieves comparable accuracy to other methods on benchmark data, except for recent GNN architectures.
We conduct a study of the stability of node embeddings across five prominent methods.
Most embedding techniques inherently depend on randomness.
We analyse the effects of this randomness on the embeddings themselves and on downstream tasks, uncovering significant instabilities, particularly in individual predictions.
This finding is crucial for practitioners in selecting an embedding method that meets the requirements of their tasks.
We present a GNN architecture for the AC Power Flow problem, which helps detect congestion in AC (alternating current) grids.
The AC Power Flow is a non-linear, complex optimization problem without a closed-form solution and is typically addressed using Newton's iterative method.
Experimentally, we demonstrate that our method is able to generalize to unknown grids.
While the model is better than previous neural approaches, it is not accurate enough to replace classical solvers.
We introduce a deep reinforcement learning architecture that can resolve congestion detected by AC Power Flow computation.
Congestions appear more often in electric grids, due to the increasing number of electric vehicles, heatpumps, and photovoltaic systems.
As in contemporary grids measuring infrastructure is only sparsely available, our architecture learns from this sparse data to resolve the congestions.
We demonstrate the ability of our method by experiments on a real-world low voltage grid.
Our approach matches accuracy of state-of-the-art classical solvers, with the distinct advantage of being orders of magnitude faster.
Es laden ein: die Dozentinnen und Dozenten der Informatik
Dear all,
this is a reminder for Britta Peis's talk with the title "Future Research in Submodular Function Optimization"
taking place today (18.07) at 12:30 in the B-IT room 5053.2. Please find the details below
--- Abstract ---
Submodular function maximisation is a well-studied and fascinating topic which appears in a wide
range of research areas, like, e.g., in combinatorial optimization, algorithmic game theory, and machine learning.
In the talk, I will survey some results and algorithms for submodular function maximisation with
and without various combinatorial constraints, and discuss some open problems.
----------------
Part of the programme of the research training group UnRAVeL is a series of lectures on the topics of UnRAVeL’s research thrusts algorithms and complexity, verification, logic and languages,
and their application scenarios. Each lecture is given by one of the researchers involved in UnRAVeL.
This years topic is "UnRAVeL - New Ideas!". In these lectures, UnRAVeL professors will discuss current research as well as highlight open problems and offer a perspective on potential future directions.
All interested doctoral researchers and master students are invited to attend the UnRAVeL lecture series 2024 and engage in discussions with researchers and doctoral students.
We are looking forward to seeing you at the lecture. Note that this is the last lecture for this year. Many thanks for the great participation in the event!
Kind regards,
Jan-Christoph for the organisation committee
Dear all,
this is a reminder for Christopher Morris's talk with the title "Understanding the Generalization Abilities of Graph Neural Networks: Current Results and Future Directions"
taking place today (11.07) at 12:30 in the B-IT room 5053.2. Please find the details below
--- Abstract ---
Graph neural networks (GNNs) are the dominant approach in
machine learning on graphs. Surprisingly, their generalization
properties, i.e., their ability to make meaningful predictions outside
the training data, are poorly understood. Here, we overview some recent
results on GNNs’ generalization abilities and outline some future directions.
----------------
Part of the programme of the research training group UnRAVeL is a series of lectures on the topics of UnRAVeL’s research thrusts algorithms and complexity, verification, logic and languages,
and their application scenarios. Each lecture is given by one of the researchers involved in UnRAVeL.
This years topic is "UnRAVeL - New Ideas!". In these lectures, UnRAVeL professors will discuss current research as well as highlight open problems and offer a perspective on potential future directions.
All interested doctoral researchers and master students are invited to attend the UnRAVeL lecture series 2024 and engage in discussions with researchers and doctoral students.
We are looking forward to seeing you at the lectures.
Kind regards,
Jan-Christoph for the organisation committee
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Zeit: Mittwoch, 17.07.2024, 15:00-16:00 Uhr
Ort: Raum 5053.2 (großer B-IT-Hörsaal)/Informatikzentrum, Ahornstraße 55
Referent: Herr Felix Schwinger, M. Sc.
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
Thema: Ride-Sharing and Micromobility in Intermodal Transportation:
Data-Driven Integration, Assessment, and Facilitation of Mobility as a Service
Abstract:
Information and communication technology has led to a wide range of smartphone-based mobility services, including car-, bike-, scooter-, and ride-sharing. Combining these services into intermodal journeys promises more flexibility and customizability to travelers. However, this combination is challenging and requires improvements at several levels:
The lack of a technical ability for mobility providers to share information hinders their cooperation, the impact of intermodal transportation networks is poorly understood and inhibits an intelligent distribution of available transportation resources, and the increasingly heterogeneous nature of intermodal journeys easily overwhelms travelers.
Meanwhile, the status quo of car-centric transportation systems is inadequate, as climate change and urbanization have accelerated the need for rapid decarbonization and increased efficiency in the transportation sector. Thus, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) has been proposed as a solution that addresses these challenges by seamlessly integrating mobility services across different providers into a single platform.
Hence, MaaS-driven intermodal journeys promise to leverage the benefits of each mobility mode to fill the gap between individual car and public transportation journeys.
To study MaaS adoption, we employed the design science research paradigm, revealing three main problem areas: i) The integration among mobility providers; ii) the assessment of the impact of MaaS on the transportation network; and iii) the facilitation of user-interaction concepts for travel information systems. For each problem area, we produce, demonstrate, and evaluate artifacts of real-world use cases, illustrating the advantages for different stakeholders to support the creation of a seamless intermodal transportation network. For the lack of integration, we show that MaaS applications have yet to accommodate all mobility modes. Since a seamless integration requires highly accurate data, we propose approaches to improve the providers' data forecasts. As for the second problem area, we observe that a lack of historical data impedes the analysis of MaaS. We tackled the issue by developing an inference approach for the necessary data from openly available sources, thereby supporting the investigation of intermodal transportation networks. Finally, as MaaS changes how people conduct their daily mobility, we design two natural language interfaces that complement traditional travel information systems, thereby reducing the burden of intermodal journey planning.
Our research supports the management of the impact of the digital transformation as follows: i) The integration of autonomous ride-sharing into MaaS requires a strict adherence to the holistic mobility service chain, thus demonstrating its extensive applicability; ii) the novel forecasting algorithms serve as an improved information base for intermodal journey planning, thereby increasing the resilience of transfers; iii) our micromobility assessment compares the travel characteristics of micromobility with those of public transportation in a data-driven manner, which allowed us to find evidence for their complementary use; and iv) the proactive and context-overarching natural language interfaces support users in exploring mobility offers and complement traditional travel information systems. Overall, our research contributes significantly to the vision of enabling a seamless intermodal transportation network.
Es laden ein: die Dozentinnen und Dozenten der Informatik
_______________________________
Leany Maaßen
RWTH Aachen University
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5, LuFG Informatik 5
Prof. Dr. Stefan Decker, Prof. Dr. Matthias Jarke,
Prof. Gerhard Lakemeyer Ph.D., JunProf. Dr. Sandra Geisler
Ahornstrasse 55
D-52074 Aachen
Tel: 0241-80-21509
Fax: 0241-80-22321
E-Mail: maassen(a)dbis.rwth-aachen.de