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4-anomaly-detection

The document outlines a PhD opportunity focused on detecting anomalies in temporal networks, particularly for defense applications, under the SEED1 program. It highlights the scientific challenges, methodologies, and interdisciplinary aspects of the research, which involves collaboration with Airbus Defence and Space and academic partners. Applications are open until March 20, 2025, and the project aims to enhance anomaly detection and understanding through explainable AI and multi-criteria decision aiding.

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14 views

4-anomaly-detection

The document outlines a PhD opportunity focused on detecting anomalies in temporal networks, particularly for defense applications, under the SEED1 program. It highlights the scientific challenges, methodologies, and interdisciplinary aspects of the research, which involves collaboration with Airbus Defence and Space and academic partners. Applications are open until March 20, 2025, and the project aims to enhance anomaly detection and understanding through explainable AI and multi-criteria decision aiding.

Uploaded by

yaddarabullah
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Detecting anomalies in temporal networks,

providing explanations and supporting multi-criteria


decision in defence applications
The SEED1 program (industry track)
www.imt-atlantique.fr/seed
PhD topic open for applications until March 20, 2025

1 Definition 1
1.1 Domain and scientific/technical context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Scientific/technical challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Considered methods, targeted results and impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4 Environment (partners, places, specific tools and hardware) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.5 Interdisciplinarity aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.6 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2 Partners and study periods 4


2.1 Supervisors and study periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Hosting organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2.1 IMT Atlantique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2.2 Airbus Space and Defence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

1 Definition
Keywords: Complex Networks, Graphs Autoencoders, Anomaly Detection, Explainable AI
(XAI), Multi-Criteria Decision Aiding (MCDA)

1.1 Domain and scientific/technical context


Temporal graphs, representing interactions over time, are crucial for analyzing datasets
in areas like Industry 4.0, finance, transportation, biology, social networks, cybersecurity,
and defence and intelligence. Detecting anomalies in temporal networks reveals unusual
patterns and events, thus providing deep insights into the system behavior over time. Such
graphs or networks typically grow every second and gather millions of attributed nodes and
edges. Relevant behaviors are grounded in the nodes and edges characteristics as well as
in higher-level patterns (local neighborhood, temporal similarities). Operational needs are
based on constant monitoring (anomaly detection, alerts), for which there is a very strong
need for tools: for the detection in itself, but also for the understanding of the detected
anomalies in order to enable quick and relevant responses and preventive measures. Notions
of traceability and actionability of the alert are also key to the adoption of the technology.
1
Co-funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement no. 101126644
1.2 Scientific/technical challenges
This thesis focuses on anomaly detection, understanding, and labeling in complex networks
for socially impactful applications such as social networks, financial exchange, health, de-
fence, energy, etc. The two main challenges are: (i) the limited access to labeled data for
anomaly detection, (ii) and when labels are obtained, they are often incorrect or unusable
due to errors made by domain experts in labeling anomalies. To address these challenges,
we propose to take advantage of three research areas: anomaly detection (for graphs),
explainable AI (XAI), multi-criteria decision aiding (MCDA).
In order to detect anomalies, we will study the GNNs (Graph Neural Networks), and
the use of auto-encoders de-signed for semi-supervised tasks with a small training set even
if it contains labeling errors [1]. Several graph explanations methods have been proposed
in the literature [2] that focus on different graph elements (nodes, edges, features). Both
graph elements describing anomalies and explanations are criteria that experts can use to
label anomalies. However, this may not provide actionable insights as experts may focus
on intuitions derived from previous expertise. The challenge here is to provide experts with
intuitive graph elements and explanations allowing to understand the anomalies.

1.3 Considered methods, targeted results and impacts


We propose a new adaptive and hybrid explanation method that incorporates interactions
with experts. This can be done using preference models from the MCDA field, which allow
the representation of decision strategies and human behaviour [3]. We expect to:

• Provide explanations generated from traditional XAI methods [8] and a combination
of dedicated eval-uation metrics.

• Enrich and adapt explanations with multiple criteria related to multiple domain ex-
perts. Such criteria include the experts’ decision strategies, their behaviours, and
insights into their prior expertise.

• Iteratively involve experts in the loop, i.e., the interaction between the explanation
method and the experts can be performed iteratively in such a way that at the end
the experts are given the intuitive graph elements and explanations they need to
understand the anomalies well and to label them correctly.

In this project, we plan to develop an experimental protocol on both synthetic and


real-world impact datasets. This work will be an important step forward in the field of
anomaly detection and understanding, and will open important perspectives related to the
intersection of our different research domains.

1.4 Environment (partners, places, specific tools and hardware)


The academic partners are members of the DECIDE team at Lab-STICC (CNRS) and
IMT Atlantique’s Data Science Department (DSD) in Brest, where interdisciplinary re-
search exploit synergies between decision support and data science to address scientific,
industrial and societal issues arising from decision-making problems in complex sys- tems
(environment, transport, energy, social networks, health, defence).

2
The industrial partner, Airbus Defence and Space, is participating through its team of
Artificial Intelligence for De- fence Digital. The team, based in Elancourt near Paris, is
constituted of 20 data scientists, and contributes on re- search, technology development
and deployment of AI assets within Airbus products, mainly in the Defence & In- telligence
areas.
Airbus provides 3 use cases with datasets and interaction with business experts related
to the use cases, all dir- ectly related to the Intelligence business. A) detecting coordinated
behaviour in social networks for Cyber Inform- ation Warfare. B) highlighting patterns and
edges of interest in communication interceptions (COMINT), most likely through simulated
data. C) Smart assistant for investigation analyst on Knowledge Graphs: the product
Massive Intelligence extracts & generates high-level data under the form of entities and
relations, through the IKDB software. The tool would help the end-user to raise alerts on
the extracted knowledge itself, highlighting suspicious cases and connections.

1.5 Interdisciplinarity aspects


The work combines 3 research domains: anomaly detection (for graphs), explainable AI
(XAI), and multi-criteria decision aiding (MCDA). This thesis involves both theoretical,
experimental and technical research to to serve the industrial interests and applications of
Airbus Defence&Space.

1.6 References
[1] GILES, Bastien, JEUDY, Baptiste, LARGERON, Christine, et al. Suspicious: a Re-
silient Semi-Supervised Framework for Graph Fraud Detection. IEEE 35th International
Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI), 2023.
[2] YUAN, Hao, YU, Haiyang, GUI, Shurui, et al. Explainability in graph neural
networks: A taxonomic survey. IEEE transactions on pattern analysis and machine intel-
ligence, 2022.
[3] KHANNOUSSI, Arwa, OLTEANU, Alexandru-Liviu, MEYER, Patrick, et al. A
metaheuristic for inferring a ranking model based on multiple reference profiles. Annals of
Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, 2024.
[4] GADEK, Guillaume. "From community detection to topical, interactive group de-
tection in Online Social Networks." IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web
Intelligence-Companion Volume. 2019.
[5] PRIEUR, Maxime, et al. "Shadowfax: Harnessing textual knowledge base popu-
lation." Proceedings of the 47th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and
Development in Information Retrieval. 2024.
[6] BAUTISTA, Esteban, BRISSON, Laurent, BOTHOREL, Cécile, SMITS, Grégory.
“MAD: Multi-Scale Anomaly Detection in Link Streams”. The 17th ACM International
Conference on Web Search and Data Mining, Mar 2024, Mérida (Yucatan), Mexico.
[7] DAO, Vinh-Loc, BOTHOREL, Cécile, LENCA, Philippe. Community structure: A
comparative evaluation of community detection methods. Network Science, 2020, 8 (1),
pp.1-41.
[8] CHRAIBI-KAADOUD, Ikram , FAHED, Lina, LENCA, Philippe. Explainable AI:
a narrative review at the crossroad of Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Representation and

3
Representation Learning. MRC@IJCAI 2021: Twelfth International Workshop Modelling
and Reasoning in Context, 2021, pp.28-40.

2 Partners and study periods


2.1 Supervisors and study periods
• IMT Atlantique: Prof.Cécile Bothorel, Assoc.-Prof. Lina Fahed and Assoc.-Prof.
Arwa Khannoussi, IMT Atlantique, Brest, France.

• Industrial partner: Dr. Guillaume Gadek, Airbus Defence and Space, Versailles,
France
The PhD student will stay 9 months at Airbus Defence and Space.

• Academic international partner(s): The PhD student will also spent 3 months
at an international academic partner, probably LUT University, Finland (to be con-
firmed).

2.2 Hosting organizations


2.2.1 IMT Atlantique
IMT Atlantique, internationally recognized for the quality of its research, is a leading
French technological university under the supervision of the Ministry of Industry and Digital
Technology. IMT Atlantique maintains privileged relationships with major national and
international industrial partners, as well as with a dense network of SMEs, start-ups, and
innovation networks. With 290 permanent staff, 2,200 students, including 300 doctoral
students, IMT Atlantique produces 1,000 publications each year and raises 18€ million in
research funds.

2.2.2 Airbus Space and Defence


Airbus Space and Defence purpose is to improve life on Earth and beyond through our
cutting-edge space technologies. From in-orbit delivery of satellites and spacecraft equip-
ment to the smallest electronic components, Airbus provides products and services to cus-
tomers around the world. We deliver telecommunications and navigation satellites that
enable people to connect everywhere and navigate safely on Earth. The data from Airbus-
built Earth observation satellites, such as Sentinel-2 or MetOp, bring insight that helps us
to better understand and protect our planet.

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