Invited Speakers

Block 1: General aspects of Protection of Critical Infrastructure

Victoria JITARI is Head of International Relations Directorate of the Police Academy “Stefan cel Mare”, Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of the Republic of Moldova (RM). Her main activities and responsibilities include: Establishment, consolidation and maintenance of cooperation relations with higher education institutions in Moldova, the European Union, CIS, GUAM and other states.

Vladislav Cojuhari is head of the Department of Policy on preventing and combating crime at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moldova. He was Deputy chief of the Informational Analysis Centre of National Investigation Inspectorate of General Police Inspectorate, Chief of the Tactical analysis section of the Informational analysis centre of National Investigation Inspectorate of General Police Inspectorate, Chief of the informational analysis section - Informational analysis centre, Senior Inspector of the informational analysis section - Informational analysis centre. He participated in many courses: National Academy FBI, Quantico, United States of America, Behavioural Analysis Introductory Course, Criminal Intelligence Analysis (Poland), International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA), Budapest, Hungary. Among his main activities and responsibilities are: defining the policies in the field of preventing crime; offering experience in tactical investigation; sharing best practices in the field of strategic and risk analysis; keeping contact with the international and national experts in the field of prevention and fighting crime.

Zdenek Dvorak in 1986 completed his university education in the field of Military Transport. Until 1987 he worked at the Regional Administration of Military Transport in Hradec Kralove. Since 1988, he worked as a researcher at the Research Institute in Zilina. In 1993 he successfully defended his dissertation and became a PhD. Since 1996 he worked as an assistant professor at the Military Faculty in Zilina. In 2000, after a successful habilitation procedure, he became associate professor. Since 2009 he has been Head of Research Department of Crisis Management. In 2011 he successfully inaugurated and was appointed professor. In 2015-2019 he was dean of the Faculty of Security Engineering, University of Zilina. He is currently professor, guarantor of the study program Security and Protection of Critical Infrastructure.

Martin Hromada in 2008 graduated in master education from Tomas Bata University in Zlin TBU in the study programme Security Technologies, Systems and Management. His Dissertation thesis "Technological aspects of critical infrastructure protection CR" was defended in 2011. In 2017, he discussed his habilitation thesis at the Faculty of Safety Engineering, VŠB - TU in Ostrava, and received the academic title of associate professor in Safety and Fire Protection. In the years 2010 - 2015 he worked as a consultant and leader of the Security Research project for s Deloitte Advisory, Ltd. (Critical Infrastructure Protection in the area of Production, Transmission and Distribution of Electricity, Actual Cyber Threats of Czech Republic and their Solving Methods). He currently works as an associate professor at the Department of Security Engineering, Faculty of Applied Informatics, Tomas Bata University in Zlin, where as a project manager he leads the security research project RESILIENCE 2015 Dynamic Resilience Evaluation of Interrelated Critical Infrastructure Subsystems. Among his scientific-research activities are those actively dedicated to the protection and resilience of critical (information) infrastructure issues and assessment of the physical protection systems functionality. He is a member of significant national expert groups of the Czech and Slovak Republic Ministry of Interior and the European institutions such as ERNCIP and CIWIN. He regularly participates in practical exercises relating to the protection of energy infrastructures (ARGOS project Bucharest, Bulgaria, Slovakia Križovany, Vilnius, Lithuania NATO CoE).

Lucia Figuli is Deputy Head of the Department of Technical Science and Informatics University of Žilina, Faculty of Security Engineering, Slovak Republic, where she chairs the courses oriented to the structural engineering (PhD degree in 2009, born 1982). She was a member of the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme´s Independent Scientific Evaluation Group for the period 2016 – 2018, she is an evaluator of various international projects (Erasmus+, Slovak research and development agency, Croatian science foundation). Co-author of more than 80 peer-reviewed publications. Editor for the open access "International Journal of Structural Glass and Advanced Materials Research" (SGAMR), Soft Target Protection: Theoretical Basis and Practical Measures, Structural and Mechanical Engineering for Security and Prevention, Advancements in Design and Analysis of Protective Structures. She deals in her research activities with the protection of structures and people again the effect of the blast wave from the explosions.

Block 2: Unmanned Systems and sensor network technology for threats monitoring of Critical Infrastructures

Dr. Agoston Restas specializes in fighting against forest fires especially in economical analysis and the application of aerial equipments. He holds mechanical engineering, economist, and disaster manager degrees. In 2008 Restas made his PhD thesis, titled “Research and development of the aerial reconnaissance and extinguishing of forest fires”. In 2013 Restas prepared his other PhD thesis, titled “Decision-making of firefighting managers in emergencies”. Habilitation was also passed in 2015 at the National University of Public Service, Budapest, Hungary. Restas was a helicopter pilot in the Hungarian Air Defense, afterwards worked at the Ministry of Interior, National Directorate General for Disaster Management, Budapest, Hungary. Restas guided research projects at Szendro Fire Department regarding forest fire protection and suppression at the Aggtelek National Park. His fire department took small UAS in service as an everyday’s practice in 2006 definitely first all in the World among fire services. Restas is an associate professor working at the National University of Public Service, Budapest, Hungary, Institute of Disaster Management, Department of Fire Prevention and Rescue Control.

Prof. Pasquale Daponte obtained his bachelor's degree and master's degree "cum laude" in Electrical Engineering in 1981 from University of Naples, Italy. He is a Full Professor of Electronic Measurements at University of Sannio - Benevento. He is the former Chair of the Italian Association of Electrical and Electronic Measurements, and Past President of IMEKO. He is member of: Working Group of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Technical Committee N°10 Subcommittee of the Waveform Measurements and Analysis Committee, IMEKO Technical Committee TC-4 “Measurements of Electrical Quantities”, Editorial Board of Measurement Journal, Acta IMEKO and of Sensors. He is Associate Editor of IET Science Measurement & Technology Journal. He has organised national and international meetings in the field of Electronic Measurements and European co-operation and he was General Chairman of the IEEE instrumentation and Measurement Technical Conference for 2006, Technical Programme Co-Chair for I2MTC 2015. He was a cofounder of the IEEE Symposium on Measurement for Medical Applications MeMeA. He is currently the Chair of the MeMeA Steering Committee, memea2018.ieee-ims.org
He has published more than 300 scientific papers in journals and at national and international conferences on the following subjects: Measurements and Drones, ADC and DAC Modelling and Testing, Digital Signal Processing, Distributed Measurement Systems.
He received:

the award for the research on the digital signal processing of ultrasounds in echo-ophthalmology from the Italian Society of Ophthalmology in 1987; the IEEE Fellowship in 2009; the Laurea Honoris Causa in Electrical Engineering from Technical University “Gheorghe Asachi" of Iasi (Romania) in 2009; the “The Ludwik Finkelstein Medal 2014” from the Institute of Measurement and Control of United Kingdom; the “Career Excellence Award” from the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society in May 2018 “For a lifelong career and outstanding leadership in research and education on instrumentation and measurement, and a passionate and continuous service, international in scope, to the profession”; the IMEKO Distinguished Service Award in September 2018.

Cristian-Emil Moldoveanu graduated from the Military Technical Academy in Bucharest in 2001 as officer engineer in Aircraft Weapon, Missiles, Ammunition and Rescue Systems. He occupied the positions of head of Weapon Systems Laboratory, teaching assistant, assistant professor and since 2011 he has been associate professor, teaching fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, external ballistics and aircraft weapon systems. Between 2004 and 2007 he prepared his PhD thesis at Fluid Mechanics Institute of Toulouse, France. Since 2012 he has been Erasmus Institutional Coordinator, and since 2018 is Vice-rector for Interuniversity Relations, managing student and teacher mobilities with more than 50 military and civil partner universities from France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria. His scientific activity focuses mainly on fluid mechanics, aerodynamics and external ballistics. He was member of NATO STO Modelling and Simulation (NMSG) working group, evaluator within ARACIS and scientific evaluator for national research projects competitions within UEFISCDI, as well as member of the following professional associations: AGIR, ISB (International Ballistics Society), EAEC (European Association of Erasmus Coordinators) and EAIE (European Association for International Education).

LTC Cristian Molder is an associate professor and holds a PhD in the field of digital image processing and pattern recognition. Since his graduation in 2000, he was continuously involved into research, starting as a research assistant at ENSTA, Brest, France, continuing as an assistant professor and lecturer of computer graphics, image processing, artificial intelligence, and currently being involved as an associate professor in the field of embedded systems and robotics. He holds a diploma of applied sciences in communications from the University of Western Brittany, Brest, France. Since 2013 he has founded and managed the accredited master program of Applied Electronics in Robotics for Security and Defense at the Military Technical Academy "Ferdinand I". Since 2016 he is the vice-dean for scientific research at the Faculty of Communications and Electronic System for Defense and founder of the Center of Excellence in Robotics and Autonomous Systems (CERAS). He graduated the robot operation and programming raining for industrial robots and a robot vision training from the Japanese company FANUC, the world leader in industrial robots and CNC manufacturing. He followed a research grant for 3D robotic swarm modelling at the 3DICC Laboratory of MTA Sztaki in Budapest, Hungary. He is a surface-to-air missiles and radar senior officer in the Romanian MoD, and is the Romanian representative member of the NATO SCI Panel (System Concepts & Integration). He is a member of various NATO STO (Science and Technology Organization) task groups and is the chairman of the NATO SCI-334-RTG research task group related to the evaluation of swarm systems. He holds graduation certificates of electronic systems management and electronic systems maintenance from the MTA. He was involved in research projects related to robotics and automation.

Dr. Diego Galar is Full Professor of Condition Monitoring in the Division of Operation and Maintenance Engineering at LTU, Luleå University of Technology where he is coordinating several H2020 projects related to different aspects of cyber physical systems, Industry 4.0, IoT or Industrial AI and Big Data. He was also involved in the SKF UTC centre located in Lulea focused on SMART bearings and also actively involved in national projects with the Swedish industry or funded by Swedish national agencies like Vinnova. He is also principal researcher in Tecnalia (Spain), heading the Maintenance and Reliability research group within the Division of Industry and Transport.He has authored more than five hundred journal and conference papers, books and technical reports in the field of maintenance, working also as member of editorial boards, scientific committees and chairing international journals and conferences and actively participating in national and international committees for standardization and R&D in the topics of reliability and maintenance. In the is Full Professor of Condition Monitoring in the Division of Operation and Maintenance Engineering at LTU, Luleå University of Technology where he is coordinating several H2020 projects related to different aspects of cyber physical systems, Industry 4.0, IoT or Industrial AI and Big Data. He was also involved in the SKF UTC centre located in Lulea focused on SMART bearings and also actively involved in national projects with the Swedish industry or funded by Swedish national agencies like Vinnova. He is also principal researcher in Tecnalia (Spain), heading the Maintenance and Reliability research group within the Division of Industry and Transport.He has authored more than five hundred journal and conference papers, books and technical reports in the field of maintenance, working also as member of editorial boards, scientific committees and chairing international journals and conferences and actively participating in national and international committees for standardization and R&D in the topics of reliability and maintenance. In the

Octavia A. Dobre received the Dipl. Ing. and Ph.D. degrees from Politehnica University of Bucharest (formerly Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest), Romania, in 1991 and 2000, respectively. Between 2002 and 2005, she was with New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA and Politehnica University of Bucharest. In 2005, she joined Memorial University, Canada, where she is currently Professor and Research Chair. She was a Visiting Professor with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA and Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France.
Her research interests include enabling technologies for beyond 5G, blind signal identification and parameter estimation techniques, as well as optical and underwater communications. She authored and co-authored over 250 refereed papers in these areas. Dr. Dobre serves as the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society and Editor of the IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, IEEE Vehicular Technology magazine and IEEE Systems. She was the EiC of the IEEE Communications Letters, as well as Senior Editor, Editor, and Guest Editor for various prestigious journals and magazines. Dr. Dobre was the General Chair, Technical Program Co-Chair, Tutorial Co-Chair, and Technical Co-Chair of symposia at numerous conferences.
Dr. Dobre was a Royal Society Scholar and a Fulbright Scholar. She obtained Best Paper Awards at various conferences, including IEEE ICC, IEEE Globecom and IEEE WCNC. Dr. Dobre is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society. Dr. Dobre is Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada and a Fellow if the IEEE.
She is a member-at-large of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society, has served with the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society, as well as with many other committees in these professional societies.

Bartosz Brzozowski has a Dr Eng. Degree in the field of Mechanics, with specialization in dynamics and control systems of aircrafts for the thesis about developed optimal control algorithm for multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).
He has been working at the Faculty of Mechatronics and Aerospace of the Military University of Technology between 2009 and 2018. He took part in two projects financed from EU founds, four nationally founded research projects and received four institutional grants for Young Scientists. Those grants were a financial support to cultivate his main area of interest: navigation and control of UAVs.
In January 2018 he has joined Breakthrough Technologies Division in JSW Innowacje S.A. where he is a Team Leader of Research and Development Projects in the field of automatic and autonomous UAV system. In 2019 he was supervising development of the Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) system for Polish Air Navigation Services Agency in the HAWK-E sp. z o. o., a subsidiary company of JSW Innowacje. He was involved in NATO SPS ATC’s as speaker in 2018 – G5439: “Critical infrastructure - current legal aspects, methods of modern design as a response to increasing security problems, innovative methods of protection”; as a co-director in 2018- G5427: “UAV systems development and deployment as an emerging security challenge” and as a member of organizing committee in 2019 – G5613: “Modern technologies enabling safe and secure UAV operation in urban airspace”.

Lt. Col. Konrad Wojtowicz is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Mechatronics, Armament and Aerospace of the Military University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland, where he is an Associate Dean for Students and International Affairs. He is a former Laboratory of Avionics and Air Armament Head. He has been taking part in two projects funded by the EU and has been a speaker in three ATC projects funded by NATO in the field of UAVs.
He received an M.Sc. degree in mechatronics, aeronautics and aerospace, air armament from the Military University of Technology, Warsaw in 2006, and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering in the area of HIL simulators for UAV mission and control system computers in 2015.
He has participated in the institute’s research related to developing an aircraft avionics system and simulation environment. He has been assigned to support military commissions as an expert in the Ministry of Defense and Air Force HQ. He conducts research mainly on avionics software development, software engineering, and simulators.

Prof. Hugo Plácido da Silva by the University of Lisbon (UL).Hugo is a researcher at the IT - Instituto de Telecomunicações since 2004 and a Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) since 2019. He is also co-founder of PLUX, an innovative technology-based company operating in the field of medical devices for healthcare and quality of life, where Hugo is currently Chief Innovation Officer. More recently, Hugo has been revolutionizing biomedical engineering with BITalino, an open source software and low-cost hardware toolkit that allows anyone from students to professional app developers, to prototype with physiological sensors. His main interest areas include biomedical engineering, signal processing, and machine learning, and his work has been distinguished with academic and technical awards such as the “alumniIPS” career award or the “Most Innovative Technology” award at the MIT Portugal E3 Forumin 2013.Hugo is an IEEE Senior Member and an executive committee member of the IEEE EMBS Portugal Chapter.

Prof. Ioannis Templalexis is a member of the Hellenic Air Force Academy Academic Staff since 2000. He is Head of the laboratory of Propulsion Systems since 2015 and Head of the Department of Thermodynamics, Propulsion and Power Systems since September 2019. He is a mechanical engineer specialized in propulsion systems and energy management. He holds a B.Sc.degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Technical University of Budapest, an M. Sc. Degree in Power Systems from Cranfield University and a Ph. D. degree in Performance of Aircraft Propulsion Systems from the same university. He has been a visiting research fellow to the School of Aerospace, Transport, and Manufacturing, Cranfield University since 2009.
Over the past twenty years, he has been lecturing modules related to the performance of propulsion systems, compressor design, heat transfer, and energy management systems mainly at the Hellenic Air Force Academy and occasionally as an external associate to other Universities such as Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Cranfield University, etc. His research activities, within the Hellenic Air Force, covering topics related to engine life consumption based on real-time data. Within the NATO frame support project activities, he is focusing on gas turbine engine sub-idle performance, and as far as his research collaboration with Cranfield is concerned, he is conducting research based on through-flow methods for compressor and turbine performance analysis. Dr. Templalexis has also been active in the private sector as an external associate, acting as a technical consultant in laboratories that measure wind potential and in engineering companies that apply energy management systems in buildings and industry. Finally, he is an ISO 17025 system auditor for the Hellenic Accreditation System since 2009.

Janusz Mindykowski was born in Gdansk, Poland, in 1950. He received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Gdansk University of Technology, Poland, in 1974 and 1981, respectively, and the D.Sc. degree from the Warsaw University of Technology, Poland, in 1993. He has been the Head of Marine Electrical Power Engineering Department, Gdynia Maritime University since 1994, where he has been a Full Professor since 2002. His research interests include measurement aspects of technical systems operation and diagnosis,mainly ship’s systems. A key point of his research is focused on power quality problems and analysis of measurement and monitoring systems in ship technology.

Romuald Masnicki was born in Susz, Poland, in 1958. He received the M.Sc.degree in electronics and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Gdansk University of Technology, Poland, ´ in 1982 and 1999, respectively. He received the Maritime Diploma of Marine Electrician Officer from Gdynia Maritime University in 1993, where he is currently a Assistant Professor with the Department of Marine Electrical Power Engineering. His main scientific and research interests include areas related to computer systems and microprocessor measurement and control systems, computer networks, and esigning, modeling, and operation of measurement systems. He is an Appraiser of the Association of Polish Electrical Engineers.

Block 3: Monitoring, data analysis and structural modelling

Prof. Ing. Marián Drusa is the dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering. His major fields of professional interest are foundation engineering, in-situ geotechnical testing, design of geotechnical structures, landslides and its remediation, design of reinforced soil structures by geosynthetics. He is a member of the Polish Academy of Science - section Civil Engineering, member of Slovak Chapter of International Geosynthetic Society, member of Committee of Czech and Slovak International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. He is chairman and member of organizing committee of two World symposiums WMCAUS and WMESS. Member of PhD commissions in University of Turin, University of Parma, and Comenius University in Bratislava. He is also member of editorial board of 6 scientific journals and he was main editor of 10 symposium indexed volumes of Procedia Engineering, Procedia Earth and Planetary science (Elsevier), IOP Earth and Environmental Sciences and IOP Material Science and Engineering. He wrote 4 scientific monographs, 3 books and textbooks. He is author and co-author of more than 90 scientific articles.

Prof. Francesco Romagnoli graduated at the Polytechnic of Turin as Environmental Engineer at the Dept. of Georesources and Geotechnology in the year 2001. In the year 2012 he graduated at the Institute of Energy Systems and Environment (IESE) of the Riga Technical University (RTU) with the thesis: “Model for sustainable bioenergy production and use”. During the period 2002-2008 he worked as Geotechnical and Tunnelling Project Engineer in the Italian design company Rocksoil (Milan, Italy).
Since 2016 he holds the position of Associate Professor at the IESE of the RTU with a specialization in Cleaner Production Processes including teaching, student’s supervision, research and project management activities.
The main research interests of Prof. Romagnoli are: biogas (in specific, Biochemical Methane Potential tests, Substrate characterization and evaluation of its methane production potential, and pre-treatment processes), use of alternative type of biomass for biogas production (i.e. seaweeds and microalgae), LCA and System Dynamics modelling within techno-feasibility and sustainability evaluations for bioenergy pathways, resilience assessment of urban systems exposed to flood, with an emphasis on critical infrastructural systems. At the IESE of RTU is currently leading the subjects of Risk and Resilience, Life Cycle Assessment and Applied geophysics. He has actively contributed and published research articles in various international journals and conferences. He has been involved in several research projects at local and international levels within his fields of interests.

Francesco Abbondati is an Assistant Professor at the Engineering, Department of the "Parthenope" University of Napoli, Italy from 29 July 2019; he qualified as PhD in 2017; member in the SIIV (Italian Society of Roads Infrastructures) scientific academic society; member of AIIT (Italian Association of Traffic and Transport Engineers), and past secretary of the regional section Campania-Molise; participated in the high qualification program POR CAMPANIA FSE 2014-20 in the Asse IV, targets 18 e 21 Automated Design: development of an experimental model of Airport Pavement Management System (APMS) for the management of predictive maintenance of airport superstructures; member of the Joint Committee in the Agreement for Cultural and Scientific Collaboration between the University of Naples Federico II and the University of Belgrade, from 23 February 2018; member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal for Traffic and Transport Engineering (IJTTE); reviewer of: International Journal for Transport and Traffic Engineering, ISSN: 2217-5652, Transport, Print ISSN: 1648-4142 Online ISSN: 1648-3480, Transport Infrastructure and Systems: Proceedings of the AIIT International Congress on Transport Infrastructure and Systems (Rome, Italy, 10-12 April 2017), ISBN: 9781138030091 eBook: ISBN 9781315281889, International Journal of Pavement Engineering, Print ISSN: 1029-8436 Online ISSN: 1477-268X; co-supervisor of more than 20 graduate student thesis; author/co-author of 16 indexed journal/conference publications.

Salvatore Antonio Biancardo is Assistant Professor in “I-BIM: Infrastructure Building Information Modeling” (PhD Programme in Civil Systems Engineering) and in “Highways, Railways and Airports Engineering” (Bachelor’s degree Programme in Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering) at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. Dr. Biancardo earned the Master of Science degree in Civil and Transportation Engineering in 2012 and European Ph.D. in Road Infrastructure and Transportation Systems in 2016. Currently, Dr. Biancardo is Principal Investigator for the University of Naples Federico II’s Research Unit of the funded National Research Project titled "Stone Pavements. History, Conservation, Valorisation and Design”.
In 2018, Dr. Biancardo earned the National Scientific Qualification as Associate Professor. In 2019, Dr. Biancardo held the position as Chairman of the AFB80(1) Standing Subcommittee on Geospatial Control during The Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. Dr. Biancardo presided the Lecture Sessions on “I-BIM Infrastructure Building Information Modeling” during TIS Rome 2017 - The International Congress on Transport Infrastructure and Systems, on “Road safety and human factors” during ICTTE Belgrade 2018 – The International Conferences on Traffic and Transport Engineering, and the Poster Session on “Advancements in Geospatial Technologies for Design and Construction” during The Transportation Research Board 99th Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. Dr. Biancardo is Member of the Trasportation Research Board Standing Committee on “Geospatial Data Acquisition Technologies” (AFB80) and of the Subcommitte on “BIM for Infrastructure” (ABJ95(1)), Young Member of the A.I.I.T. Italian Association for Traffic and Transport Engineering and of the S.I.I.V. Italian Academic Association on Road Infrastructures. Dr. Biancardo serves as Editorial Board Member for several ISI and Scopus indexed journal. Dr. Biancardo is Coordinator of several International Agreements (Politécnico de Viseu, University of Zagreb, the Smart Transportation Applications and Research (STAR) Laboratory at the University of Washington, in Seattle). Dr. Biancardo is the author/co-author of more than 20 refereed journal/conference publications.

Prof. Vincenzo Gattulli is currently Professor of Structural and Solids Mechanics, at Department of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome. Since 1990, Vincenzo’s research has encompassed analytical, numerical and experimental methods in different fields of structural mechanics. Fundamental research themes concern: structural dynamics and stability, structural control and identification, structural reliability, earthquake engineering. In particular, his research output in international journals, book chapters and conferences proceedings, covers these specific themes: Computational Mechanics and Structural Analysis, Structural Control of Induced Vibrations, Nonlinear Dynamics and Stability, Structural Identification and Monitoring, Structural Reliability and Management of Existing Structures. He is author and co-author of more than 200 scientific papers published in international and national journals on different items of applied mechanics and structural engineering by analytical, numerical and experimental methods. At SAPIENZA and UNIVAQ he has served as: PI designer, developer and manager of the Structural Health Monitoring wireless system installed at the earthquake damaged Basilica of S. Maria di Collemaggio, L’Aquila. Structural Engineer Designer, of the innovative structural retrofitting using nonlinear viscous dampers of Edifice A of the Faculty Engineering of University of L’Aquila. He as chaired APESS 2019 and ANCRiSST (250 participants) in Rome on July 15 to August 5, 2019. He has co-chaired: a successful EURODYN 2017 (650 participants) and SICON Marie Curie Final Conference by FP6 EU 2008 (150 participants). He is currently: PI of the European Project DESDEMONA - DEtection of Steel DEfects by Enhanced MONitoring and Automated procedure for self-inspection and maintenance (8 partners); CO-PI for the structural monitoring component of the project INCIPICT - Innovating City Planning through Information and Communication Technologies - Structural Health Monitoring task.

Juraj Mužík is currently an associate professor at the Department of Geotechnical engineering of the University of Žilina. He received his PhD. in 2010, and then he did postdoctoral research from 2013 to 2017 at the Research center of the University of Žilina. He has been working at the University of Žilina since 2006. His research is mostly focused on numerical methods for differential equations, especially meshless and mesh-reduction methods such Boundary Element method (BEM), Singular Boundary method (SBM), meshless Petrov-Galerkin schemes and their use in the fields of groundwater flow and pollution spread modelling, slope stability, and debris flow predictions and analysis. He has authored over 100 scientific publications on numerical methods in geotechnical engineering and geographic information systems (GIS).

Prof. Jovan Trajkovski is assistant professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana and a member of IAPS (International Association of Protective Structures). He has more than 15 years’ experience in numerical modelling of blast response of structures using practically all the available methods. His PhD research was conducted on design optimization of centrally and eccentrically blast loaded plates with different geometries. His research work is published in numerous scientific papers and conferences mainly in the field of numerical evaluation of blast response analysis of plate structures, Light Armoured Vehicles, human injury assessment, design of blast-resistant components and infrastructure.

Prof. Chiara Bedon is assistant Professor at University of Trieste, Department of Engineering and Architecture, Italy, where she chairs the course of 'Structural Analysis' (PhD degree in 2012. Born 1983, since 2009 she is involved in European projects and networks. In April 2017, she achieved the Italian National scientific qualification for the position of Associate Professor in Structural Engineering. Co-author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, she collaborated with >80 international scientists. Since 2017, Editor-in-Chief for the open access "International Journal of Structural Glass and Advanced Materials Research" (SGAMR).

Block 4: Cybersecurity and protection of IT infrastructure

Corrado Aaron Visaggio is associate professor at the Department of Engineering of the University of Sannio, where he teaches “Security of Networks and Software Systems” at the BSc in Computer Engineering. He obtained the BSc in Electronic Engineering (2001) from Politecnico di Bari, and the PhD in Information Engineering (2005) from University of Sannio. He teaches in Master Programs of Cybersecurity of University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and University of Bari, and in PhD Summer Schools. He is director of the Unisannio Chapter of the CINI Cybersecurity National Lab. He is instructor at the International School against the Organized Crime of the Ministry of Interior, and has been instructor at the Department of Intelligence, at the Ministry of Interior. He has authored almost one hundred scientific papers and he serves in several Editorial Boards and Program Committes of International journals and conferences of Cybersecurity. He was among the founders of the academic spin-off SER&Practice.

Luca De Vito is Associate Professor at the Department of Engineering, University of Sannio in electric and electronic measurement. He received the National Academic Qualification as Full Professor in 2018. Since 2015, he collaborates with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva, Switzerland, first as visiting scientist, and then as cooperation associate, working on magnet characterization, with the Magnetic Measurement Section (TE-MSC-MM), on diagnostics of cryogenic processes, with the Controls and Electrical Support Section (TE-CRG-CE), and on the characterization of RF cavities with the Hadron Synchrotrons Coherent effects Section (BE-ABP-HSC). He is Editor of the ELSEVIER Measurement and Measurement:Sensors journals. He is member of the IEEE since 2010, he is member of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society (IMS), of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic System Society, and of the IEEE Standards Association. He is Senior Member of the IEEE since 2012. He is Chapter Chair Liaison of the IEEE IMS and Chairman of the Digital-to-Analog Converter Subcommittee of the IEEE Technical Committee 10 of the IMS.He is member of the AFCEA and is Young President of the AFCEA Naples Charter. He published more than 140 papers on international journals and conference proceedings, mainly dealing with measurements for the telecommunications, data converter testing and biomedical instrumentation.

Galia Marinova graduated as engineer with Master degree in electronics in 1988 in the Faculty of Radioelectronics in Technical University-Sofia andshe received a Ph.D. degree in 1994 She is associate professor in the Faculty of Telecommunications in TU-Sofia.G.Marinova did one year post-doctoral research in CNAM-Paris, France in 1999/2000. She supervises currently4 Ph. D. students. G.Marinova is author and co-author of more than 90 scientific papers in electronics and telecommunications. She got the Certificate of merit at the Int. Conference of Information Security and Internet Engineering,World Congress on Engineering in London, UK in 2007 for the paper "Secure Multicarrier Modem on FPGA", the Best paper award at the Twelfth Advanced International Conference on Telecommunications, AICT 2016, May 22 - 26, 2016 - Valencia, Spain and recently together with her doctoral student the Best paper of a young scientist at ICEST’2019, Sozopol, 28-30 June 2018. She’s coordinator of CEEPUS network project: CIII-BG-1103-03-1819. Modelling, Simulation and Computer-aided Design in Engineering and Management and she is contact person of the CEEPUS network CIII-SI-1313-01-1819 Autonomous Vehicles Universities. She coordinates Erasmus+ projects with program and partner countries. She coordinated 2 NATO CLG projects on “Secure multicarrier modem” and bilateral DRILA project in cooperation with Centrale Supelec, Rennes, France..Galia Marinova teaches at the International Week "Internet Communication management", University of Economics in Katowice, Poland the courses “Threats and security”, “Social media and security” and “Smart Secure Environment”.

Florentin Paladi was appointed vice-rector for research in October 2014. Born in 1971 in Sarata Veche, F.Paladi earned his BA diploma with distinction in Physics from Moldova State University in 1993, PhD in Physics and Mathematics from Moldova State University in 1996, and Doctor of Philosophy diploma in 1997. F.Paladi is doctor habilitat in physico-mathematical sciences (2010) and former dean of the MSU Faculty of Physics and Engineering (Jan 2012–Sept 2014). Dr. Paladi started his academic career as Senior Lecturer at the MSU Department of Theoretical Physics „Prof. Iu.E.Perlin” in 1997, and progressed to the position of Professor at the same Department and Principal Researcher in the Research Laboratory of Physics and Engineering of Nanomaterials and Synergetics „Prof. E.P.Pokatilov” (2012). He supervised 3 approved PhD theses (2015, 2017, 2018). Dr. Paladi held a postdoctoral research position in the period of 1998-2002 at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan. His areas of scientific activity focus on the modeling of complex systems, ABM models and their mathematical foundation, numerical methods etc. For his research results Dr. Paladi became Laureate of State Prize for Outstanding Young Scientists in 1998 and Laureate of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova Award in the nomination “For valuable scientific achievements of scientists” in natural and exact sciences for the identification of new analytical and numerical methods for complex systems research in 2014. Prof. F.Paladi visited the USA in the period of Sept 2010 − May 2011 as Fulbright Research Scholar at the Center for the Study of Complex Systems of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and during Jan − Mar 2017 in Washington DC & University of Missouri in Columbia with certificate from George Mason University, when he participated in the University Administration Support Program (UASP) funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and administered by the International Research and Exchanges Board Inc. (IREX) with a research project „Enhancing technology transfer at the Moldova State University”. Currently, Prof. F.Paladi is also national coordinator of the Erasmus+ CBHE project „Educational for Drone” (eDrone), #574090-EPP-1-2016-1-IT-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP, and Director of the Regional Scientific-Educational Center on Advanced Materials (CaRISMA USM).

Prof. Tatiana BULIMAGA is responsible for development the MSU’s Intellectual Property portfolio. She identifies and registries inventions, utility models, trademarks at the State Agency on Intellectual Property of Moldova. Mrs. Bulimaga is administrator of Technology Transfer Office at the Moldova State University and the MSU’s contact point for implementation of the Human Resource Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R). She participated in the wide range of Joint Research Centre events during the period 2016-2019.
She has experience of participation within projects:

TEMPUS „MERCURY” Project 144855-Tempus-2008-DE-JPHES “Towards research and entrepreneurial university models in the Russian, Ukrainian and Moldavian higher education” – Executive Director of the Intellectual Property Office (2009-2011); EU TEMPUS Project “Technological Transfer Network” (TecTNet, #544197-2013-IT-JPHES) – Administrator, Technology Transfer office (2013-2016); Bilateral Project MD-RO “Managerial and informational instruments for boosting research in universities” – scientific researcher (2016-2018); Technology Transfer Project “Business Solutions for Enterprises” – scientific researcher (2015-2017); Erasmus+ Project No. 574090-EPP-1-2016-1-IT-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP “eDrone – Educational for Drone” – Executive director (2016-present); Reinforce Entrepreneurial and Digital Skills of Students and Teachers to Enhance the Modernization of Higher Education in Moldova – ReSTART, 585353-EPP-1-2017-1- RO-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP, 15.10.2017-14.10.2020 – research/teacher.