AXA Chair in Risk and Reliability Engineering

November 4, 2006: 15 million households were affected by the planned shutdown of a power line in northwestern Germany. A blackout throughout the European power grid was triggered when a high-voltage line across the Ems River was turned off to allow a cruise ship to pass, splitting the grid into three separate areas. With the ever-increasing complexity and interdependence of engineering systems come more threats, hazards and a growing risk of failure cascades.
Prof. Sansavini's project will develop innovative modeling and simulation techniques suitable for describing and quantifying the failure behavior of complex engineered systems as a whole, by focusing on their reliability and vulnerability. This will allow early detection not only of hidden failures and vulnerabilities, but also of critical emergent behavior, as well as design optimization and improved management and operation. Research will mainly focus on the following: how to ensure safe and efficient performance of emerging technologies; how to build a new paradigm and modeling framework to analyze complex systems and their interdependencies as a whole; how to integrate modern computer-based control systems into the overall system design and to ensure security against malicious cyber attacks; and how to validate highly sophisticated methods and tools following a system-of-systems approach.
From the telecommunication blackout in Rome to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, from Toyota’s safety issues to the north-eastern US blackout, reliability re-emerges as key.

Pervasive Use of Host Technologies in the Monitoring of Complex Large-Scale Systems: Opportunity or Peril?

Podcast of Prof Sansavini inaugural lecture here.

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Giovanni
SANSAVINI

Institution

ETH Zürich

Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science

Country

Switzerland

Nationality

Italian

ORCID Open Researcher and Contributor ID, a unique and persistent identifier to researchers

Socio-economy & New Tech

Cyber Security

Modeling & Pricing

Joint Research Initiative

France

Cyber insurance risks: evaluating the cyber costs of cyber risks

To adequately price a risk – or in other words, to set the premium (the amount to be paid for... Read more

Olivier
LOPEZ

Sorbonne University

Caroline
HILLAIRET

Ensae-ParisTech

Socio-economy & New Tech

Cyber Security

Post-Doctoral Fellowship

Switzerland

Making cyber fraud detection methods quicker and more reliable

Optimal stopping theory: applying probability and statistics to fraud detection "In current methods, the normal card user pattern of expenditures... Read more