DISA

Centre for Data Intensive Sciences and Applications

Welcome to our PhD-seminar in May

2026-04-28

When? May 29, 14.00-15.00
Where? Onsite: D2272 and via zoom
Registration: Please sign up for the seminar via this link https://forms.gle/VXDXziHks8ZYC7kz5
by May 27. This is especially important if you plan to attend onsite so we can make sure there is fika for everyone.

Agenda
14.00-14.10 Welcome and practical information
14.10-14.55 FAVE: A Visual Analytics System for Urban Accessibility Fairness – Parisa Salmanian
14.55 – 15.05 Coffee break
15.05 – 15.50 Security and Digital Forensics for Industrial IoT and Connected Systems – Mohamed Eldefrawy
15.50 -16.00 Sum up and plan for our upcoming seminars

Abstract

FAVE: A Visual Analytics System for Urban Accessibility Fairness – Parisa Salmanian
Who has fair access to essential daily services such as schools, hospitals, and grocery stores, and who does not? In rapidly growing cities, answering this question requires more than aggregate statistics; it requires methods that reveal spatial inequalities across multiple urban scales. This talk presents FAVE (Fairness Accessibility Visual Explorer), an interactive visual analytics system for analyzing urban service accessibility fairness in Swedish cities. FAVE combines gravity-based and distance-based accessibility models with inequality measures, including the Gini coefficient and generalized entropy, in a coordinated interface that also integrates dimensionality reduction, parallel coordinates, and explainable boosting machines. 

The system supports the exploration of accessibility patterns at the district, neighborhood, and building levels, and enables exploratory what-if analysis through urban scenario editing, including additions with the ability to adjust attributes such as footprint, floor area, number of floors, floor height, and shape, modification of POIs and buildings, and changes in building type. It also incorporates LLM-based explanations and intervention suggestions. We demonstrate FAVE using building and OpenStreetMap data together with official statistics from Statistics Sweden (SCB) for Växjö and other Swedish municipalities. The results show how the system reveals spatial inequalities in access to healthcare, education, and other essential services, supporting more informed and evidence-based urban planning. 

Security and Digital Forensics for Industrial IoT and Connected Systems – Mohamed Eldefrawy
Mohamed Eldefrawy will present his current research activities with a focus on Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) security, digital forensics, lightweight authentication, and secure connected systems. He will also introduce the KK-stiftelsen-funded CyberGuard Academy project, which aims to strengthen practical competence in cybersecurity and digital forensics in collaboration with Swedish industry. The talk will highlight selected past and ongoing work on formal security analysis, lightweight authentication protocols, Internet of Vehicles security, and digital forensics. It will also outline possible areas for future collaboration between Halmstad University and Linnaeus University.

Short bio:
Mohamed Eldefrawy is a Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity at the School of Information Technology, Halmstad University. His research focuses on IIoT security, lightweight authentication, formal security analysis, and digital forensics. He is currently PI of the KK-stiftelsen-funded CyberGuard Academy project and has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers. He has served as Guest Editor for IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics and Big Data and Cognitive Computing and holds two US patents.

Welcome to our Higher Research Seminar in May

When? May 22, 14.00-16.00
Where? Onsite: D2272 and via zoom
Registration: Please sign up for the seminar via this link, https://forms.gle/6NV1b1tjJ2zUndcn8 by May 20. This is especially important if you plan to attend onsite so we can make sure there is fika for everyone.

Agenda
14.00-14.10 Welcome and practical information
14.10-14.55 Multiscale Mathematics for Complex Systems: From Individuals to Digital Twins – Wolfgang Bock 
14.55 – 15.05 Coffee break
15.05 – 15.50 Multimodal Assessment of Cognitive Load in Technology-Enhanced Learning-Julia Bend
15.50 -16.00 Sum up and plan for our upcoming seminars

Abstracts

Multiscale Mathematics for Complex Systems: From Individuals to Digital Twins – Wolfgang Bock 
Complex systems are often governed by mechanisms acting simultaneously on several spatial, temporal, and organizational scales. In such settings, neither a purely microscopic description nor a purely aggregate model is sufficient on its own. The key difficulty is to relate local interactions, heterogeneity, and stochasticity to robust macroscopic behavior. 

In this talk, I will discuss the mathematics behind multiscale models for complex systems, focusing on the transition from microscopic agent-based or synthetic population descriptions to effective system-level dynamics. This perspective is particularly relevant in applications where one aims to combine structural modeling, uncertainty, and data, for example in the development of digital twins. Synthetic populations serve here as a useful modeling framework in which individual variability and interaction patterns can be represented explicitly, while also raising mathematical questions about emergence, approximation, and the identification of relevant scales. 

The talk is intended as a conceptual introduction to this multiscale viewpoint. Rather than emphasizing technical formalism, I will focus on the key mathematical principles that help make such complex models understandable, interpretable, and computationally tractable. 


Multimodal Assessment of Cognitive Load in Technology-Enhanced Learning-Julia Bend
Technology-enhanced learning (TEL) systems increasingly incorporate adaptive features aimed at improving learning outcomes and supporting individual learners’ needs. However, adaptive learning requires reliable methods for assessing learners’ cognitive states during interaction with digital learning environments.

This presentation focuses on multimodal assessment of cognitive load using eye tracking, EEG, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Drawing on cognitive load theory and load theory of selective attention, the work examines how perceptual load and working memory load influence visual attention and cognitive processing during learning tasks. Eye-tracking metrics, such as fixation duration, fixation rate, and blink-related measures, provide behavioral indicators of attentional allocation and processing effort, while EEG and fNIRS offer complementary insight into neural dynamics and cortical activation associated with attention, working memory, and cognitive load.

The presentation discusses current and ongoing work related to distinguishing different types of cognitive load, investigating individual differences in cognitive processing, and exploring how multimodal measures can contribute to adaptive learning systems. Particular attention is given to the potential of combining behavioral and neural measures to support the development of more personalized and cognitively efficient educational technologies.