Research Topics
Current topics
In my current Research Assistant position I am studying distributed systems runtime properties; in particular, characterizing the behavior of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. The proposed framework consists of combining a whole-network discrete event simulation approach (supporting a realistic scale in terms of quantity of nodes) with a timing-precise network emulation based approach (with virtual nodes running the actual software client). The goal is to provide and integrated environment for distributed system analysis, using emulation techniques to extract realistic parameters and determine expected behaviors for larger-scale simulation runs.
PhD studies
My PhD field of study was concurrent programming and, in particular, providing software tools for automatic, correct-by-construction parallel code generation. In this context, my work consisted in defining the Producers, Consumers and Reducers parallel pattern using the FXML formal language and studying its concurrency properties and limitations. To complete the contribution, a C++ template-based code generation tool was developed with the Intel Concurrent Collections framework as a code generation target; the task included the definition of a formal mapping between the FXML-based pattern definition and the Concurrent Collections formal model in order to demonstrate code generation correctness.
Undergraduate studies
For my Master's thesis the field of study was timed model checking in the Zeus model checker, and specifically optimizing the space complexity of a tree data structure representing the state of clock valuations. In these structures performance is critical as most of the time is spent computing the intersection and union of clock valuations in order to progress in the forward/backward reachability verification process.
Other activities in my undergraduate time include computer science contributions in the optical physics field, specifically aiding optics researchers in using the Zernike Polynomial base for characterization of aberrations in optical systems, in particular in human vision.
