Detecting Anomalies in Smart Human-Centric Ecosystems

You are cordially invited to attend the PhD Dissertation Defence of Noura El Moussa on Thursday 18 December 2025 at 13:30 in room D0.03.

Abstract:
Smart Human-Centric Ecosystems emerge from the interactions of heterogeneous subsystems and autonomous agents, producing collective behaviors that reflect properties beyond those of their individual components. They underpin mobility services, smart grids, and digital urban platforms where failures create broad societal, economic, and safety consequences. Conventional verification approaches rely on fixed specifications and centralized authority, while Smart Human-Centric Ecosystems operate with decentralized governance and often conflicting requirements. Their dynamics are shaped by human decision-making and by interactions that evolve over time. This dissertation advances several interconnected contributions. It introduces healthiness as a system-level notion of quality for Smart Human-Centric Ecosystems, enabling ecosystem behavior to be assessed as a whole rather than through isolated components. It develops machine-learning approaches that monitor this healthiness and anticipate failure trajectories. It proposes methods for observing evolving and adaptive ecosystems, treating anomaly detection as an emergent property of collective dynamics. It models human participation within Smart Human-Centric Ecosystems, linking personality traits and behavioral patterns to the evolution of system responses over time. In combination, these contributions establish a principled framework for anomaly detection in Smart Human-Centric Ecosystems and create a pathway toward ecosystems that remain robust, adaptive, and attuned to human involvement.

Dissertation Committee:
- Prof. Mauro Pezzè, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland (Research Advisor)
- Prof. Antonio Carzaniga, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland (Internal Member)
- Prof. Monica Landoni, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland (Internal Member)
- Prof. Silvia Abrahão, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain (External Member)
- Prof. Bashar Nuseibeh, Open University, U.K. (External Member)