Dr. Ioannis Kompatsiaris | University of Thessaloniki

Abstract: Disinformation poses a critical threat to key societal values such as democracy, peace, health, and the economy. The rapid evolution of AI, particularly generative AI, has significantly amplified the creation and spread of disinformation, with deepfakes being a prime example. This talk will explore AI-driven approaches to counter disinformation, focusing on multimodal out-of-context misinformation detection and deepfake detection. We will also discuss the potential of Multimodal Foundation Models for fact-checking and highlight why technology alone is insufficient. Addressing disinformation effectively requires a multidisciplinary approach that considers human behavior, economic incentives, policy, and education.

CV: Dr. Ioannis (Yiannis) Kompatsiaris is the Director of CERTH-ITI and the Head of Multimedia Knowledge and Social Media Analytics Laboratory. His research interests include ΑΙ/ML for Multimedia, Semantics (multimedia ontologies and reasoning), Social Media and Big Data Analytics, Multimodal and Sensors Data Analysis, Human Computer Interfaces, e- Health, Cultural, Media/Journalism and Security applications. He is the co-author of 222 papers in refereed journals, 69 book chapters, 10 patents and 641 papers in international conferences. Dr. Kompatsiaris has participated (as PI and Project Coordinator) in numerous National and European research programs and direct collaborations with the industry. He has been the Co-Chair of various international conferences and workshops including the International Conference on Multimedia Modelling 20025 (MMM2025) and ACM International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval (ACM ICMR) in 2023 and has served as a regular reviewer, associate and guest editor for a number of journals and conferences. He is a member of the National Ethics and Technoethics Committee, of the Scientific Advisory Board of the CHIST-ERA funding programme and was an elected member of the IEEE Image, Video and Multidimensional Signal Processing – Technical Committee (IVMSP – TC). He is an ELLIS Fellow, a Senior Member of IEEE and ACM.  He is the co-founder of two spin-off companies: Infalia focusing on data intensive web services and applications and CDXi, creating AI and Multimodal Data Fusion solutions for Green and Digital Transformation.

More information: https://www.iti.gr/iti/en/people/kompatsiaris-ioannis/

Dr. Kata Sebők | University of Vienna

Abstract: Der Übergang von Schule zur Hochschule bereitet Studierenden im Fach Mathematik unter anderem deshalb Schwierigkeiten, weil für viele plötzlich eine neue Art der Auseinander-setzung mit mathematischen Inhalten erforderlich ist. In einem neuen Lehrveranstaltungs-format werden Studierende der Universität Wien parallel zu der inhaltlichen Einführungs-veranstaltung „lernmethodisch“ begleitet, um von Beginn an produktive Herangehenswei-sen an Tätigkeiten wie das eigenständige Nachvollziehen mathematischer Texte, das Gene-rieren von Vermutungen bzw. Beweisideen, und das Kommunizieren und Formalisieren mathematischer Überlegungen kennenzulernen. Ergänzend bieten Reflexionsanlässe den Studierenden eine Gelegenheit, bislang vertraute Mathematikbilder (und in Relation dazu, Selbstbilder als Mathematiklernende) mit den neuen Eindrücken zu kontrastieren und zu integrieren, um auch den emotionalen Herausforderungen einer solchen Umstellung mög-lichst zielführend zu begegnen.

Dr. Reza Farahani | Department of Information Technology (ITEC)

Abstract: In recent years, the computing continuum has transformed distributed computing by integrating centralized cloud infrastructure with decentralized edge devices, enabling support for computationally intensive and data-driven applications. Serverless computing, with its event-driven resource management, dynamic scalability, and infrastructure abstraction, has emerged recently as a complementary paradigm for such an environment. However, integrating serverless computing into the computing continuum introduces additional challenges in service and system management, such as ensuring seamless service scalability across distributed resources, maintaining low-latency and energy-efficient task execution, and orchestrating dynamic resource provisioning across diverse and heterogeneous infrastructures.
This talk first reviews the key challenges and emerging solutions for serverless service and application management on the edge-cloud continuum. It then explores the broader implications of these schemes, highlighting open questions for achieving high-performance and sustainable service orchestration. The talk further presents our serverless frameworks designed to address these challenges across serverless functions, application workflows, and workflow batches, which leveraged multi-objective scheduling algorithms, adaptive workload allocation strategies, and heuristic-based orchestration techniques to enable fine-grained resource optimization in the computing continuum, balancing energy efficiency, latency, economic cost, and service quality. Through real-world applications and experiments on our designed computing continuum, the talk demonstrates how these frameworks enable sustainable and scalable service management, paving the way for next-generation distributed computing systems.

Bio: Reza Farahani is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer at the Department of Information Technology (ITEC), University of Klagenfurt, Austria. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Klagenfurt, Austria, in 2023, following an M.Sc. in 2019 from the University of Tehran and a B.Sc. in 2014 from the University of Isfahan, both in Iran. From October 2019 to February 2023, Dr. Farahani contributed to the CDG ATHENA project at the University of Klagenfurt, funded by the Christian Doppler Forschungsgesellschaft and industry partner Bitmovin GmbH, where he completed his Ph.D. During this time, he also served as a Visiting Scholar at the 5G & 6G Innovation Centre, Institute for Communication Systems, University of Surrey, U.K., from November 2022 to January 2023. Currently, Dr. Farahani serves as a tool leader and WP5 co-leader in the Horizon Europe Graph-Massivizer project (101140216) on the coordination side. He has authored over 35 scientific publications published in international journals and conferences and played key roles in two EU and three national FFG project proposals as a PI, Scientific Coordinator, and WP leader. Additionally, he has served as a TPC member for several international conferences in multimedia, computer networks, and distributed systems fields. Additionally, with over six years of experience in computer networks and cloud computing, Dr. Farahani has worked in diverse roles, including Network Engineer, Developer, Protocol Designer, and Instructor (R&S, SP). His research interests include distributed systems, network and service management, network softwarization and virtualization, the edge-cloud continuum, multimedia communication, edge AI, serverless computing, performance- and sustainability-aware service orchestration, and multi-objective optimization.

Dr. Sergey Gorinsky | IMDEA Networks Institute, Madrid |

Abstract: While ISPs (Internet service providers) strive to improve QoE (quality of experience) for end users, end-to-end traffic encryption by OTT (over-the-top) providers undermines independent inference of QoE by an ISP. Due to the economic and technological complexity of the modern Internet, ISP-side QoE inference based on OTT assistance or out-of-band signaling sees low adoption. This talk introduces IQN (in-band quality notification), a mechanism for signaling QoE impairments from an automated agent on the end-user device to the server-to-client ISP responsible for QoE-impairing congestion. Compatible with multi-ISP paths, asymmetric routing, and other Internet realities, IQN does not require OTT support and induces the OTT server to emit distinctive packet patterns that encode QoE information, enabling ISPs to infer QoE by monitoring these patterns in network traffic. We develop a prototype system, YouStall, which applies IQN signaling to ISP-side inference of YouTube stalls. Cloud-based experiments with YouStall on YouTube Live streams validate IQN’s feasibility and effectiveness, demonstrating its potential for accurate user-assisted ISP-side QoE inference from encrypted traffic in real Internet environments. The talk also presents iQoE (individualized QoE), a method that leverages user feedback to construct personalized QoE models through active learning and efficient sampling.

Bio: Sergey Gorinsky is a tenured Research Associate Professor at IMDEA Networks Institute in Madrid, Spain. He joined the institute in 2009 and leads the NetEcon (Network Economics) research group there. Dr. Gorinsky received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from the University of Texas at Austin, USA in 2003 and 1999 respectively and Engineer degree from Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology, Zelenograd, Russia in 1994. From 2003 to 2009, he served on the tenure-track faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, USA. In 2010-2014, Dr. Gorinsky was a Ramón y Cajal Fellow funded by the Spanish Government. Sergey Gorinsky graduated four Ph.D. students. The areas of his primary research interests are computer networking, distributed systems, and network economics. His work appeared at top conferences and journals such as SIGCOMM, CoNEXT, INFOCOM, Transactions on Networking, and Journal on Selected Areas in Communications. He served as a TPC chair of ICNP 2017 and other conferences, as well as a TPC member for a much broader conference population. Sergey Gorinsky contributed to conference organization in many roles, such as a general chair of SIGCOMM 2018 and ICNP 2020. He also served as an evaluator of research proposals and projects for the European Research Council (ERC StG), European Commission (Horizon 2020, FP7), COST Association, and numerous other funding agencies.