Narges Khakpour

I am a Senior Lecturer (Tenured Assistant Professor) at the Department of Computer Science and Media Technology, Linnaeus University.

Teaching

I'm the course coordinator of the master thesis course from 2015 until 2018 and in Spring 2020. I've had the pleasure to work with students and help them choose and formulate a scientific topic, prepare a project plan and guide them through a procedure designed to assure good quality master thesis reports.

I also teach the Formal Methods course that discusses model checking techniques, program verification using Hoar Logic and information flow control in Object-oriented programs. The students use Dafny to develop and verify safe programs, UPPAAL to verify models and a static analysis tool to analyse information flow.

I am the course coordinator of Language and Logic course.

I was also involved in Scientific Methods in Computer Science (Fall 2016, Fall 2017), Algorithms and Advanced Data Structure (Fall 2015), Compiler Construction I (Fall 2015) and Operating Systems (Fall 2014).

Research

My research interests lie in formal verification and synthesis, interactive theorem proving and security. In particular, I've focused on synthesis and verification of self-protecting systems and machine code verification.

In the context of PROSSES, we are working on developing scalable tools and techniques to control information flow in Java applications. Self-protection using security games, information flow control, self-adaptive software design techniques, threat modeling and verification is another direction that we have recently focused on.

I am currently supervising one PhD student in addition to a few master/bachelor students.

My research groups and projects

Publications

Article in journal (Refereed)

Skandylas, C., Khakpour, N. (2021). Design and Implementation of Self-Protecting Systems : A Formal Approach. Future generations computer systems. 115. 421-437.
Caporuscio, M., Flammini, F., Khakpour, N., Singh, P., Thornadtsson, J. (2020). Smart-troubleshooting connected devices : Concept, challenges and opportunities. Future generations computer systems. 111. 681-697.
Bagheri, M., Sirjani, M., Khamespanah, E., Khakpour, N., Akkaya, I., et al. (2018). Coordinated actor model of self-adaptive track-based traffic control systems. Journal of Systems and Software. 143. 116-139.
Khakpour, N., Arbab, F., Rutten, E. (2016). Synthesizing structural and behavioral control for reconfigurations in component-based systems. Formal Aspects of Computing. 28. 21-43.
Khakpour, N., Jalili, S., Sirjani, M., Goltz, U., Abolhasanzadeh:, B. (2012). HPobSAM for modeling and analyzing IT Ecosystems : Through a case study. Journal of Systems and Software. 85. 2770-2784.
Khakpour, N., Jalili, S., Talcott, C., Sirjani, M., Mousavi, M. (2012). Formal modeling of evolving self-adaptive systems. Science of Computer Programming. 78. 3-26.
Khakpour, N., Jalili, S., Talcott, C., Sirjani, M., Mousavi, M. (2010). PobSAM : Policy-based Managing of Actors in Self-Adaptive Systems. Electronical Notes in Theoretical Computer Science. 263. 129-143.
Khakpour, N., Jalili, S. (2009). Verification of Distributed Firewalls Configuration vs. Security Policies Using ALCQI(d). Applied Artificial Intelligence. 23. 945-975.

Conference paper (Refereed)

Zeller, S., Khakpour, N., Weyns, D., Deogun, D. (2020). Self-protection against business logic vulnerabilities. 15th International Symposium on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems (SEAMS@ICSE 2020). 174-180.
Skandylas, C., Khakpour, N., Andersson, J. (2020). Adaptive Trust-Aware Decentralized Information Flow Control. 2020 IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing and Self-Organizing Systems (ACSOS) : Virtual Conference 17-21 August 2020. 92-101.
Khakpour, N., Skandylas, C., Goran, S.N., Weyns, D. (2019). Towards secure architecture-based adaptations. 2019 IEEE/ACM 14th International Symposium on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems (SEAMS). 114-125.
Khakpour, N., Skandylas, C. (2018). Synthesis of a Permissive Security Monitor. Computer Security - 23rd European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, ESORICS 2018, Barcelona, Spain, September 3-7, 2018, Proceedings, Part I. 48-65.
Khakpour, N. (2017). Control of Self-adaptation Under Partial Observation : A Modular Approach. Software Architecture : 11th European Conference, ECSA 2017, Canterbury, UK, September 11-15, 2017, Proceedings. 112-119.
Bagheri, M., Akkaya, I., Khamespanah, E., Khakpour, N., Sirjani, M., et al. (2017). Coordinated actors for reliable self-adaptive systems. FACS 2016 : Formal Aspects of Component Software : International Workshop on Formal Aspects of Component Software. 241-259.
Khakpour, N., Mousavi, M.R. (2015). Notions of Conformance Testing for Cyber-Physical Systems : Overview and Roadmap. 26th International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2015). 18-40.
Khakpour, N., Arbab, F., Rutten, E. (2014). Supervisory Controller Synthesis for Safe Software Adaptation. 12th IFAC International Workshop on Discrete Event Systems (2014). 39-45.
Dam, M., Guanciale, R., Khakpour, N., Nemati, H., Schwartz, O. (2013). Formal verification of information flow security for a simple arm-based separation kernel. Proceedings of the 2013 ACM SIGSAC conference on Computer & communications security. 223-234.
Khakpour, N., Sirjani, M., Goltz, U. (2011). Context-Based Behavioral Equivalence of Components in Self-Adaptive Systems. Formal Methods and Software Engineering. 13th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods (ICREM 2011). Durham, UK, 20111026. 16-32.
Khakpour, N., Khosravi, R., Sirjani, M., Jalili, S. (2010). Formal analysis of policy-based self-adaptive systems. Proceedings of the 2010 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC'10. 2536-2543.
Khakpour, N., Jalili, S. (2009). Using Supervised and Transductive Learning Techniques to Extract Network Attack Scenarios. 14th International CSI, Computer Conference, CSICC 2009. 71-76.
Khakpour, N., Sirjani, M., Jalili, S. (2009). Formal Analysis of Smart Home Policies using Compositional Verification. . 220-233.
Khaksar, M., Jalili, S., Khakpour, N., Shaban Jokhio, S. (2009). Monitoring safety properties of composite web services at runtime using CSP. 13th Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference Workshops, 2009. EDOCW 2009. 107-113.
Khakpour, N. (2009). A Formal Model to Develop and Verify Self-Adaptive Systems. Proceedings of Formal Methods 2009 Doctoral Symposium : November 6, 2009. 20-25.
Khakpour, N., Jalili, S. (2007). A Formal Approach for Analysis of Distributed Firewalls Congurations. .
Jalili, S., Khakpour, N. (2006). Verication of Service Access Control Policies : A Description Logic Approach. .

Chapter in book (Refereed)

Khakpour, N., Klein, J., Sirjani, M. (2019). A formal model to integrate behavioral and structural adaptations in self-adaptive systems. Fundamentals of software engineering : 8th International conference, FSEN 2019, Tehran, Iran, May 1-3, 2019, Revised selected papers. Springer. 3-19.
Khakpour, N., Schwartz, O., Dam, M. (2013). Machine Assisted Proof of ARMv7 Instruction Level Isolation Properties.. Certified Programs and Proofs : Third International Conference, CPP 2013, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, December 11-13, 2013, Proceedings. Springer. 276-291.

Report (Other academic)

Skandylas, C., Khakpour, N., Andersson, J. (2020). Self-Adaptive Trust-aware Decentralized Information Flow Control, extended version. 18.
Khakpour, N., Jalili, S., Sirjani, M. (2011). Assuring the Correctness of Large-scale Adaptive Systems. TU Braunschweig. 36.
Goltz, U., Khakpour, N., Knieke, C., Martin, L. (2010). Behavioral Modeling of IT Ecosystems. NTH School for IT Ecosystems. 32.