Comunidad de Madrid | GRAFO Research Group

Cybersecurity and Resilient Artificial Intelligence for the Community of Madrid (GRAFO)

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Principal investigator: Jesús Sánchez-Oro Calvo
Funding entity: Comunidad de Madrid External reference: TEC-2024/COM-404 Internal reference: M3832 Duration: 01/01/2025 – 31/12/2028

Abstract:

This project focuses on developing cybersecurity solutions and resilient artificial intelligence systems for the Community of Madrid. The research aims to address emerging security challenges in AI systems and develop robust mechanisms to ensure the reliability and trustworthiness of artificial intelligence applications in critical infrastructure and public services.

COSYO – COmplex SYstem Optimization

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Principal investigator: Abraham Duarte Funding entities: URJC and Comunidad de Madrid (URJC-CM-2008-CET-3731) Duration: 01/01/2009 - 31/12/2009

Abstract:

There is a type of optimization problems especially difficult to solve in which only partial information is available, called Complex Systems. In these problems there is no explicit description of the problem since some of its characteristic elements, such as the objective function or the constraints, are obtained indirectly. As a consequence, they are treated as a black box.

The research project will focus on the design of a generic solver (Context-Independent Solver) for the optimization of complex systems using metaheuristic techniques. The Solver developed will generate solutions as input to the black box and then analyze the returned result, extracting information about the solutions, so that iteratively generate higher quality solutions.

To design the Solver, first the problems will be categorized according to whether they are described by integer variables, permutations of elements or continuous variables. Subsequently, a method based on metaheuristics will be designed to solve each type of problem. The last step in the design of the generic Solver will consist of the integration of the three methods into a single general scheme that will select the most suitable one for solving each problem. The Solver will be complemented with an implementation of the Solver in a tool called COSYO.

COSYO will be a generic Solver for the optimization of complex systems modeled as a black box. Two user profiles of the tool will be considered. On the one hand, researchers or professionals with optimization knowledge (using it as a programming library) and, on the other hand, professionals who do not have advanced knowledge in optimization (using it from the OpenOffice.org spreadsheet).

The methods proposed in the development of the project will be compared with the best existing methods for such problems in both academic and commercial fields. This will result in both an application providing high quality solutions and scientific publications of international impact.

CYNAMON – Cybersecurity, Network Analysis and Monitoring for the Next Generation Internet

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Principal investigator: Abraham Duarte. Funding entities: Comunidad de Madrid, Unión Europea (Fondos Estructurales) (Ref. P2018/TCS-4566). Duration: 07/10/2019 – 31/08/2020.

Abstract:

Cyberspace plays nowadays a key role in modern societies and economies, and its protection is a pivotal challenge in national security strategies. Over the last decade, various technological developments have contributed to make our dependency on cyberspace even greater, including the generation and processing of massive amounts of data, the influence of social networks over all activities of our daily lives, or the trend to connect to Internet virtually every real-world device.

The scientific program proposed in this project aims at contributing to a more secure cyberspace in our current and future technological context. Our approach identifies three paradigms, each with a varying degree of maturity, that will reshape cybersecurity in the coming years. These are: the processing of massive amounts of information (big data), including those generated by citizens and devices; the embedding of computers in essentially all reallife objects (cyberphysical systems) and their connection to the Internet (IoT, Internet of Things); and the challenges and opportunities associated with the rise of quantum computing. To address these challenges we propose an interdisciplinary work program involving five research groups with proven expertise in the areas of system and application security, data analysis, next generation communication systems, and cryptography.

The project establishes three general objectives closely linked to the three challenges discussed above. First, we will develop advanced data analysis techniques to deal with massive amount of data, with a focus on two key application domains: social networks and new generation networks. Second, we will propose security mechanisms and tools for connected IoT devices and the network services they access. Finally, we will explore cryptographic techniques providing information security services and protecting users privacy. This will be done by leveraging new techniques such as the applications of the blockchain technology, as well as the threat posed by quantum computers.

Expected results include a significant advance in the research lines sketched above. In addition, harmonization between research and innovation tasks is ensured by the presence in the consortium of relevant industry partners (BBVA, Vicomtech y Unisys) with a keen interest in developing marketfitting technologies, together with various extraordinarily relevant institutional partners (INCIBE, Jefatura de Información de la Guardia Civil y Centro Criptológico Nacional). Thus, it is expected that this project’s results will be transferred and exploited as soon as they develop, contributing to an improved national cybersecurity at all levels. Consequently, our expected results have a very high technological relevance since they will provide tools for a more trustworthy cyberspace for citizens, companies, and Public Administrations.

The project goals are perfectly aligned with the Spanish and European priorities for the development of secure environments, which aim at strengthening citizen’s rights and improving the competitiveness of our industries and our defense capabilities.

MA2VICMR – Improving Access, Analysis and Visibility of Multilingual and Multimedia Information and Content on the Web for the Community of Madrid

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Principal investigator: Abraham Duarte Funding entities: Comunidad de Madrid y Fondo Social Europeo (S2009/TIC-1542) Duration: 01/01/2010 – 31/12/2013

Abstract:

Multimedia information access systems that work on image collections usually have access to two types of data: the textual descriptors and the visual content of the images. Traditionally, these systems have approached the problem of image retrieval either by analyzing the associated textual information (TextBased Information Retrieval, TBIR) or by analyzing the visual content (ContentBased Information Retrieval, CBIR). Until a few years ago, mixed approaches did not provide any advantage to the results, besides being rather inefficient.

On the one hand, researchers from NLP&IRUNED and the Vision Team group at the University of Valencia coordinated their previous experience in textual and image content-based retrieval. The result of this collaboration has been an approach that not only takes advantage of the synergy between visual aspects and textual annotations together, but also provides an efficient computational method for the search of annotated images in large collections, from a multimedia query, either text and one or several images. This work has generated, besides participations in competitions such as ImageCLEF and MediEval, several publications in conference proceedings, an article in the IEEE Transactions on Multimedia Journal and a PhD thesis in the NLP&IRUNED group entitled Late Semantic Multimedia Fusion Applied to Multimedia Information Retrieval.

On the other hand, another mixed team formed by members of NLP&IRUNED and GAVABURJC have integrated previous technologies to build a hybrid image search system. The proposal, which combined content features and rich text analysis with linguistic resources such as WordNet, participated in two editions of the ImageCLEF Photo Annotation Task competition.

PILOH – Development of a software tool for solving linguistic engineering problems by heuristic optimization.

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Principal investigator: Abraham Duarte Funding entities: URJC y Comunidad de Madrid (URJC-CM-2006-CET-0603) Duration: 01/01/2007 – 31/12/2007

Abstract:

The processing and organization of the enormous amount of information in electronic format that is currently available has become a necessity in the Information Society in which we live. Consequently, it would not make sense to have large repositories of linguistic information from which we could not extract useful knowledge. This project is framed within the area of heuristic optimization applied to problems of Natural Language Processing and Linguistic Engineering. In this project we will develop software for the optimization of different optimization problems with the aim of solving two of the major problems currently facing the field of Natural Language Processing: automatic classification and clustering of documents.

The problems to be addressed are based on structured models, i.e., where a complete mathematical description or formulation is known. Different efficient resolution models based on metaheuristic procedures will be proposed. The methods proposed will be compared with the best existing resolution methods for such problems, both in the academic and commercial domains. It is intended that this will result in both an application that provides high quality solutions and scientific publications of international impact.