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High-Assurance Software

HASLab is focused on the design and implementation of high-assurance software systems: software that is correct by design and resilient to environment faults and malicious attacks. 

To accomplish this mission, HASLab covers three main competences — Cybersecurity, Distributed Systems, and Software Engineering — complemented by other competences such as Human-Computer Interaction, Programming Languages, or the Mathematics of Computing. 

Software Engineering – methods, techniques, and tools for rigorous software development, that can be applied to the internal functionality of a component, its composition with other components, as well as the interaction with the user.

Distributed Systems – improving the reliability and scalability of software, by exploring properties inherent to the distribution and replication of computer systems.

Cybersecurity – minimize the vulnerability of software components to hostile attacks, by deploying structures and cryptographic protocols whose security properties are formally proven.

Through a multidisciplinary approach that is based on solid theoretical foundations, we aim to provide solutions — theory, methods, languages, tools — for the development of complete ICT systems that provide strong guarantees to their owners and users. Prominent application areas of HASLab research include the development of safety and security critical software systems, the operation of secure cloud infrastructures, and the privacy-preserving management and processing of big data.

Latest News
Computer Science and Engineering

INESC TEC technology to ensure digital services’ transparency and privacy reached the podium of the fourth edition of the IN3+ Award

Where do you draw the line between transparency and privacy in digital services? How can a person, as a user of services, validate the correct follow-up of his/her process, without compromising the confidentiality to which the respective providers are obliged to follow? The PeT – Privacy and Transparency project, led by the Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science (INESC TEC) – in collaboration with the University of Minho (UMinho) – won the second place in the fourth edition of the IN3 + Award, One Million for Innovation. This initiative, aimed at ensuring transparency and privacy in digital services, received €250k to support its integration into the market – initially, at the national level, and in public and private services (healthcare, education, and justice).

23rd February 2024

INESC TEC seeks to help companies embrace digital transformation at lower costs

Digital transition, innovation, business empowerment, financing, disruptive technologies; and a certainty: 2024 will be a year of opportunities for companies that are willing to take risks. Close to 100 participants gathered at Palácio do Freixo to get to know ATTRACT project, coordinated by INESC TEC. 

08th February 2024

Robust, efficient and sustainable: INESC TEC researcher creates solutions to improve Android applications

News reports about leaks of information stored by major applications - collected through their use by ordinary citizens - are common, leaving personal data (often sensitive) exposed. In most cases, said leaks stem from software operating errors capable of causing astronomical losses to companies, both financially and in terms of reputation. It is not surprising that more means and efforts are being directed to detect software errors still in the earlier stages of their life cycle, highlighting the importance of using good coding practices. In this sense, INESC TEC researcher Rui Rua has been working to create solutions that improve the performance of Android applications, by changing the source code. 

23rd January 2024

European HPC coordination and support project with Latin America comes to an end

The RISC2 project, which for three years aimed to build bridges in the research and training of High-Performance Computing (HPC) - considered the basis for scientific, industrial, and social advances with an impact on the quality of life of the world's population - has officially come to an end. Among the main results achieved by this consortium composed of 16 partners — 12 from Latin America and four from Europe — the HPC Observatory and the White Paper on HPC R&I Collaboration Opportunities stand out. 

11th January 2024

INESC TEC researchers reached the top-3 at university programming marathon

Luís Pereira, Rui Pedro Oliveira and Tiago Pereira won third place in the Inter-University Programming Marathon, after solving six of the 11 problems presented to them in five hours. Participating in an international competition is the new challenge of CatamorfismUM, the name of the team composed of INESC TEC researchers.

04th December 2023

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Projects

Saude24GB

Linha de Saúde 24h da Guiné-Bissau

2024-2024

EPICURE

High-level specialised application support service in High-Performance Computing (HPC)

2024-2028

TwinEU

Digital Twin for Europe

2024-2026

HANAMI

Hpc AlliaNce for Applications and supercoMputing Innovation: the Europe - Japan collaboration

2024-2026

ENSCOMP3

Ensino de Ciência da Computação nas Escolas 3

2023-2025

AzDIH

Azores Digital Innovation Hub on Tourism and Sustainability

2023-2025

PFAI4_4eD

Programa de Formação Avançada Industria 4 - 4a edição

2023-2023

ATE

Alliance for Energy Transition

2023-2025

Green_Dat_AI

Energy-efficient AI-ready Data Spaces

2023-2025

EuroCC2

National Competence Centres in the framework of EuroHPC Phase 2

2023-2025

fMP

Formação de Introdução à utilização de recursos HPC (Técnicas básicas de Programação Paralela)

2022-2022

AURORA

Deteção de atividade no interior do veículo

2022-2023

NewSpacePortugal

Agenda New Space Portugal

2022-2025

ATTRACT_DIH

Digital Innovation Hub for Artificial Intelligence and High-Performance Computing

2022-2025

BeFlexible

Boosting engagement to increase flexibility

2022-2026

ENERSHARE

European commoN EneRgy dataSpace framework enabling data sHaring-driven Across- and beyond- eneRgy sErvices

2022-2025

Gridsoft

Parecer sobre a implementação de software para redes elétricas inteligentes

2022-2022

PFAI4_3ed

Programa de Formação Avançada Industria 4 - 3a edição

2022-2022

THEIA

Automated Perception Driving

2022-2023

SpecRep

Constraint-based Specification Repair

2022-2023

IBEX

Métodos quantitativos para a programação ciber-física: Uma abordagem precisa para racicionar sobre imprecisões na computação ciber-física

2022-2024

FLEXCOMM

Towards Energy-aware Communications: Connecting the power grid and communication infrastructure

2022-2023

STDCNCS

Desenvolvimento de estudo sobre a comunidade de cibersegurança em Portugal, no âmbito do Observatório de Cibersegurança

2021-2023

Sustainable HPC

Computação de elevado desempenho sustentável

2021-2025

CircThread

Building the Digital Thread for Circular Economy Product, Resource & Service Management

2021-2025

PassCert

Exploring the Impact of Formal Verification on the Adoption of Password Security Software

2021-2022

IoT4Distribuicao

Análise de Requisitos e Especificação Funcional de uma Arquitetura Distribuída baseada em soluções IoT para a Gestão e Controlo da Rede de Distribuição

2021-2023

RISC2

A network for supporting the coordination of High-Performance Computing research between Europe and Latin America

2021-2023

CloudAnalytics4Dams

Gestão de Grandes Quantidades de Dados em Barragens da EDP Produção

2021-2021

PAStor

Programmable and Adaptable Storage for AI-oriented HPC Ecosystems

2020-2021

PFAI4.0

Programa de Formação Avançada Industria 4.0

2020-2021

Collaboration

Collaborative Visual Development

2020-2021

AIDA

Adaptive, Intelligent and Distributed Assurance Platform

2020-2023

BigHPC

A Management Framework for Consolidated Big Data and HPC

2020-2023

SLSNA

Prestação de Serviços no ambito do projeto SKORR

2020-2021

AppOwl

Deteção de Mutações Maliciosas no Browser

2020-2021

InterConnect

Interoperable Solutions Connecting Smart Homes, Buildings and Grids

2019-2024

T4CDTKC

Training 4 Cotec, Digital Transformation Knowledge Challenge - Elaboração de Programa de Formação “CONHECER E COMPREENDER O DESAFIO DAS TECNOLOGIAS DE TRANSFORMAÇÃO DIGITAL”

2019-2021

CLOUD4CANDY

Cloud for CANDY

2019-2019

HADES

HArdware-backed trusted and scalable DEcentralized Systems

2018-2022

MaLPIS

Aprendizagem Automática para Deteção de Ataques e Identificação de Perfis Segurança na Internet

2018-2022

SKORR

Advancing the Frontier of Social Media Management Tools

2018-2021

DaVinci

Distributed architectures: variability and interaction for cyber-physical systems

2018-2022

SAFER

Safery verification for robotic software

2018-2021

KLEE

Coalgebraic modeling and analysis for computational synthetic biology

2018-2021

InteGrid

Demonstration of INTElligent grid technologies for renewables INTEgration and INTEractive consumer participation enabling INTEroperable market solutions and INTErconnected stakeholders

2017-2020

Lightkone

Lightweight Computation for Networks at the Edge

2017-2019

CloudDBAppliance

European Cloud In-Memory Database Appliance with Predictable Performance for Critical Applications

2016-2019

GSL

GreenSoftwareLab: Towards an Engineering Discipline for Green Software

2016-2019

Cloud-Setup

PLATAFORMA DE PREPARAÇÃO DE CONTEÚDOS AUDIOVISUAIS PARA INGEST NA CLOUD

2016-2019

CORAL-TOOLS

CORAL – Sustainable Ocean Exploitation: Tools and Sensors

2016-2018

SafeCloud

Secure and Resilient Cloud Architecture

2015-2018

NanoStima-RL1

NanoSTIMA - Macro-to-Nano Human Sensing Technologies

2015-2019

NanoStima-RL3

NanoSTIMA - Health data infrastructure

2015-2019

SMILES

SMILES - Smart, Mobile, Intelligent and Large scale Sensing and analytics

2015-2019

UPGRID

Real proven solutions to enable active demand and distributed generation flexible integration, through a fully controllable LOW Voltage and medium voltage distribution grid

2015-2017

LeanBigData

Ultra-Scalable and Ultra-Efficient Integrated and Visual Big Data Analytics

2014-2017

Practice

Privacy-Preserving Computation in the Cloud

2013-2016

CoherentPaaS

A Coherent and Rich PaaS with a Common Programming Model

2013-2016

Team
001

Laboratory

CLOUDinha

Publications

HASLab Publications

View all Publications

2024

Performance and explainability of feature selection-boosted tree-based classifiers for COVID-19 detection

Authors
Rufino, J; Ramírez, JM; Aguilar, J; Baquero, C; Champati, J; Frey, D; Lillo, RE; Fernández-Anta, A;

Publication
HELIYON

Abstract
In this paper, we evaluate the performance and analyze the explainability of machine learning models boosted by feature selection in predicting COVID-19-positive cases from self-reported information. In essence, this work describes a methodology to identify COVID-19 infections that considers the large amount of information collected by the University of Maryland Global COVID-19 Trends and Impact Survey (UMD-CTIS). More precisely, this methodology performs a feature selection stage based on the recursive feature elimination (RFE) method to reduce the number of input variables without compromising detection accuracy. A tree-based supervised machine learning model is then optimized with the selected features to detect COVID-19-active cases. In contrast to previous approaches that use a limited set of selected symptoms, the proposed approach builds the detection engine considering a broad range of features including self-reported symptoms, local community information, vaccination acceptance, and isolation measures, among others. To implement the methodology, three different supervised classifiers were used: random forests (RF), light gradient boosting (LGB), and extreme gradient boosting (XGB). Based on data collected from the UMD-CTIS, we evaluated the detection performance of the methodology for four countries (Brazil, Canada, Japan, and South Africa) and two periods (2020 and 2021). The proposed approach was assessed in terms of various quality metrics: F1-score, sensitivity, specificity, precision, receiver operating characteristic (ROC), and area under the ROC curve (AUC). This work also shows the normalized daily incidence curves obtained by the proposed approach for the four countries. Finally, we perform an explainability analysis using Shapley values and feature importance to determine the relevance of each feature and the corresponding contribution for each country and each country/year.

2024

A large-scale empirical study on mobile performance: energy, run-time and memory

Authors
Rua, R; Saraiva, J;

Publication
EMPIRICAL SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Abstract
Software performance concerns have been attracting research interest at an increasing rate, especially regarding energy performance in non-wired computing devices. In the context of mobile devices, several research works have been devoted to assessing the performance of software and its underlying code. One important contribution of such research efforts is sets of programming guidelines aiming at identifying efficient and inefficient programming practices, and consequently to steer software developers to write performance-friendly code.Despite recent efforts in this direction, it is still almost unfeasible to obtain universal and up-to-date knowledge regarding software and respective source code performance. Namely regarding energy performance, where there has been growing interest in optimizing software energy consumption due to the power restrictions of such devices. There are still many difficulties reported by the community in measuring performance, namely in large-scale validation and replication. The Android ecosystem is a particular example, where the great fragmentation of the platform, the constant evolution of the hardware, the software platform, the development libraries themselves, and the fact that most of the platform tools are integrated into the IDE's GUI, makes it extremely difficult to perform performance studies based on large sets of data/applications. In this paper, we analyze the execution of a diversified corpus of applications of significant magnitude. We analyze the source-code performance of 1322 versions of 215 different Android applications, dynamically executed with over than 27900 tested scenarios, using state-of-the-art black-box testing frameworks with different combinations of GUI inputs. Our empirical analysis allowed to observe that semantic program changes such as adding functionality and repairing bugfixes are the changes more associated with relevant impact on energy performance. Furthermore, we also demonstrate that several coding practices previously identified as energy-greedy do not replicate such behavior in our execution context and can have distinct impacts across several performance indicators: runtime, memory and energy consumption. Some of these practices include some performance issues reported by the Android Lint and Android SDK APIs. We also provide evidence that the evaluated performance indicators have little to no correlation with the performance issues' priority detected by Android Lint. Finally, our results allowed us to demonstrate that there are significant differences in terms of performance between the most used libraries suited for implementing common programming tasks, such as HTTP communication, JSON manipulation, image loading/rendering, among others, providing a set of recommendations to select the most efficient library for each performance indicator. Based on the conclusions drawn and in the extension of the developed work, we also synthesized a set of guidelines that can be used by practitioners to replicate energy studies and build more efficient mobile software.

2024

On Quantum Natural Policy Gradients

Authors
Sequeira, A; Santos, LP; Barbosa, LS;

Publication
CoRR

Abstract

2024

A worldwide overview on the information security posture of online public services

Authors
Silva, JM; Ribeiro, D; Ramos, LFM; Fonte, V;

Publication
57th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2024, Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort, Hawaii, USA, January 3-6, 2024

Abstract

2024

Branching pomsets: Design, expressiveness and applications to choreographies

Authors
Edixhoven, L; Jongmans, SS; Proença, J; Castellani, I;

Publication
JOURNAL OF LOGICAL AND ALGEBRAIC METHODS IN PROGRAMMING

Abstract
Choreographic languages describe possible sequences of interactions among a set of agents. Typical models are based on languages or automata over sending and receiving actions. Pomsets provide a more compact alternative by using a partial order to explicitly represent causality and concurrency between these actions. However, pomsets offer no representation of choices, thus a set of pomsets is required to represent branching behaviour. For example, if an agent Alice can send one of two possible messages to Bob three times, one would need a set of 2 x 2 x 2 distinct pomsets to represent all possible branches of Alice's behaviour. This paper proposes an extension of pomsets, named branching pomsets, with a branching structure that can represent Alice's behaviour using 2 + 2 + 2 ordered actions. We compare the expressiveness of branching pomsets with that of several forms of event structures from the literature. We encode choreographies as branching pomsets and show that the pomset semantics of the encoded choreographies are bisimilar to their operational semantics. Furthermore, we define well-formedness conditions on branching pomsets, inspired by multiparty session types, and we prove that the well-formedness of a branching pomset is a sufficient condition for the realisability of the represented com-munication protocol. Finally, we present a prototype tool that implements our theory of branching pomsets, focusing on its applications to choreographies. (c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons .org /licenses /by /4 .0/).

Facts & Figures

21Senior Researchers

2016

16Academic Staff

2020

0Book Chapters

2020

Contacts