Technical Sessions

Computational Intelligence Applications in Health and Smart Cities

Website:

http://neuronelab.unisa.it/research-and-technologies-for-society-and-industry/

Session Chairs:

Sergio Cerutti (Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy) and Chair of IEEE EMB Italy Chapter
Roberto Tagliaferri (Department of Science - Management & Innovation Systems/DISA-MIS, University of Salerno, Fisciano (Sa), Italy) and Chair of IEEE CI Italy Chapter

Description:

Over the years, Computational Intelligence has become the main and strategic way of treating real world problems with huge quantities of data generated by large-scale scientific experiments (biomedical, “omic”, imaging, astronomical, etc.), big industrial companies and on the web. In order to exploit this level of complexity, new machine learning and computational intelligence methodologies such as neural networks and graph mining, amongst others, have been proposed to analyze and/or visualize these datasets in an attempt to better exploit the information they contain. Furthermore, embedded systems, robots and smart city solutions have been designed to include Computational Intelligence models. The aim of the workshop is to solicit new approaches to real world.

Session Technical Committee:

Prof. Anna Maria Bianchi, Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano
Prof. Fabrizio Esposito, Dipartimento di Medicina e Chirurgia, Università di Salerno, Fisciano (Sa), Italy
Prof. Francesco Masulli, Dipartimento di Informatica, Bioingegneria, Robotica e Ingegneria dei Sistemi/DIBRIS Universita' di Genova, Genova, Italy
Prof. Carlo Francesco Morabito, Dipartimento DICEAM, Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, Italy
Prof. Maria Gabriella Signorini, Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano
Prof. Mauro Ursino, Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Energia Elettrica e dell'Informazione "Guglielmo Marconi", Università di Bologna

Invited Talks:

Dr. Pietro Lio', Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
Prof. Silvestro Micera, The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy

Technical Sponsor:

IEEE Computational Intelligence Italy Chapter and IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Italy Chapter

5G Communications: from the Radio Access to the Transport Network

Session Chairs:

Daniele Tarchi (University of Bologna)
Walter Cerroni (University of Bologna)

Description:
Future 5G Communication systems aim at realizing an ubiquitous ultra-broadband network that will provide highly efficient, ultra-reliable, dependable, secure, privacy preserving and delay critical services to everyone. There are many challenges that 5G networks shall address, in terms of key performance indicators, e.g., a large throughput increase (1000x in aggregate and 10x at link level), low service level latency (e.g., 1 ms for tactile Internet), an extremely high energy efficiency, global and seamless connectivity, completely redesign architectures and services, etc. Furthermore, 5G infrastructures will also need to be extremely flexible in both the Radio Access and in the Transport Network so as to meet both foreseen and unknown requirements and to align with stakeholders’ expectations. To this aim at the Radio Access level, the main focus will be on Enhanced Mobile Broadband, Massive Machine Type Communications and Ultra-reliable and Low Latency Communications. As for the Transport Network, the main focus will be on both software evolution of networking, with paradigms such as Software Defined Networking and Network Function Virtualization, and technological advances of optical communications and networking.

Session Technical Committee:

Dr. Marina Barbiroli, University of Bologna
Dr. Tiziano Bianchi, Politecnico di Torino
Prof. Matteo Cesana, Politecnico di Milano
Dr. Francesco Chiti, Università degli Studi di Firenze
Dr. Matteo Collina, University of Bologna
Dr. Flavio Esposito, Exegy Inc.
Dr. Josep Fabrega, Centre Tecnologic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya
Dr. Franco Fuschini, University of Bologna
Dr. Laura Galluccio, University fo Catania
Mr. Carlo Augusto Grazia, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
Mr. Vincenzo Icolari, University of Bologna
Prof. Athanasios Panagopoulos, National Technical University of Athens
Dr. Alessandro Piva, University of Florence
Mr. Jean-Luc Polleux, ESYCOM-ESIEE
Dr. Yuki Yoshida, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology

New Frontiers in Adaptive Computing Systems

Session Chair:

Marco Santambrogio (Politecnico of Milano)

Description:

As the push for parallelism and adaptability continues to increase the complexity of computing systems, system design has become incredibly complex; optimizing for performance and power efficiency is now nearly impossible for the application programmer. To assist the programmer, a variety of techniques for optimizing performance and power at runtime have been developed, but many employ the use of speculative threads or performance counters. These approaches result in stolen cycles, or the use of an extra core, and such expensive penalties can greatly reduce the potential gains.

Within this context imagine a revolutionary computing system that can observe its own execution and optimize its behavior around a user's or application's needs. Imagine a programming capability by which users can specify their desired goals rather than how to perform a task, along with constraints in terms of an energy budget, a time constraint, or simply a preference for an approximate answer over an exact answer. Imagine further a computing system that performs better according to a user's preferred goal the longer it runs an application. Such an architecture will enable, for example, a handheld radio or a cell phone that can run cooler the longer the connection time. Or, a system that can perform reliably and continuously in a range of environments by tolerating hard and transient failures through self healing.

Adaptive computing systems are the key technology to succeed in doing this. They will be able to configure, heal, optimize, improve interaction and protect themselves without the need for human intervention, exploiting abilities that allow them to automatically find the best way to accomplish a given goal with the resources at hand. Within this context, imagine a revolutionary computing system that can observe its own execution and optimize its behaviour around the external environment, user's and application's needs. Research in adaptive computing systems leverages the new balance of resources to improve performance, utilization, reliability and programmability. Within this context, the proposed session is intended to present innovative works in this challenging area.

Session Technical Committee:

Ana Lucia Varbanescu (University of Amsterdam, UVA)
Andreas Brokalakis (Synelixis)
Diana Goehringer (University of Bochum)
Jose Ayala (UCM)
Dionisis Pnevmatikatos (FORTH)
Dirk Stroobandt (University of Ghent)
Catalin Ciobanu (University of Amsterdam, UVA)
Michael Huebner (University of Bochum)

Invited Talk:

Dirk Stroobandt, Ghent University (Belgium)

Security and Privacy in Emerging Scenarios

Session Chair:

Sara Foresti (University of Milano, Chair IEEE Computer Italy Chapter)

Description:
The recent evolution of ICT enables people to perform tasks and access data/services anywhere at any time, since people (and things) can always be connected to the Internet. These emerging scenarios provide unprecedented advantages for final users, which however come at the price of novel security and privacy risks. Today, more and more data are stored and elaborated in the cloud (under the control of a third party), home and personal appliances are accessible form outside (making them more vulnerable to attacks), sensors track users' locations and activities (and exchange data). These are only a few examples of how emerging scenarios are changing the security and privacy risks to which we are exposed.

This technical session aims to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in discussing and finding solutions to the security and privacy issues characterizing emerging scenarios.

Session Technical Committee:

Carlo Blundo (Universita' di Salerno)
Javier Lopez (University of Malaga)
Fabio Martinelli (CNR, Italy)
Melek Onen (EURECOM, France)
Gerardo Pelosi (Politecnico di Milano)
Marco Prandini (University of Bologna)

Smart Grids and Smart Mobility for Smart Cities

Session Chairs:

Luciano Bononi (University of Bologna)
Alberto Borghetti (University of Bologna)
Carlo Alberto Nucci (University of Bologna, GUSEE)

Description:

Recently several smart grid techniques have been proposed and demonstrated in pilot project in order to increase the hosting capability of the power distribution network with respect to the integration of embedded generation particularly from renewables. The forecasted increase of the use of electric vehicles provides another motivation for the design and application of new procedures for the planning, operation and protection of distribution networks in urban areas. The session aims at providing an occasion for the presentation of the results of the most recent research activities in the field.

Session Technical Committee:

Goran Andersson (ETH, Zurich)
Brigitta Back Jensen (Aalborg University)
Luciano Bononi (University of Bologna)
Alberto Borghetti (University of Bologna)
Mario Paolone (EOFL)
Joao Pecas Lopes (INESC)
Carlo Alberto Nucci (University of Bologna)
Marc Petit (Supelec)
Tullio Salmon Cinotti (University of Bologna)

Invited Talk:

Joao Pecas Lopes (INESC, Porto)
Nouredine Hadjsaid (G2ELAB, Grenoble-France)

Technical Sponsor:
IEEE TCSIM and GUSEE

Cultural Heritage, Smart City, and Participatory Process

Session Chairs:

Fabrizio I. Apollonio (University of Bologna)
Francesca Rizzo (University of Bologna)

Description:
The section collects, presents and discusses projects (services, products, processes) that aims to support the interaction between the Cultural Heritage, the cities and the end users in the forms of the co-creation and co-production of new services. In particular the section will offer an overview of cases where:

Networks of stakeholders co-produce new services and new value chains around Cultural Heritage in cities
Citizens and municipalities co-produce new Cultural Heritage
Museums lead co-creation processes to engage citizens with Cultural Heritage
Networks of stakeholders co-produce new services able to create Smart Cultural Objects (SCO), meant as sources and recipients of advanced information applied to 'Wide-spread Built Cultural Heritage'

Invited Talk:
Luigina Ciolfi, Sheffield Hallam University

IoT and Big Data: Efficient Management of Sensor/Cloud Integration

Session Chairs:

Antonio Corradi (University of Bologna)
Paolo Bellavista (University of Bologna)

Description:

It is manifest that the concepts of big data and the Internet of Things (IoT) are converging, also due to the decreased economic costs of connecting virtualized cloud resources and physically distributed IoT devices with networking capabilities. However, several related technical challenges are far to be solved and are attracting both academic research activities and industrial research&innovation. The session plans to provide a fresh overview of some interesting recent research on hard technical challenges, such as efficient IoT-cloud integration, (mobile) edge computing, integration of heterogeneous IoT devices and federated cloud resources, online stream processing of IoT data, scalability, and cost-effective Quality of Service.

Session Technical Committee:

Giuseppe Anastasi (University of Pisa)
Gianpaolo Cugola (Politecnico di Milano)
Antonio Puliafito (University of Messina)
Giorgio Ventre (University of Naples “Federico II”)

Invited Talks:

Paolo Prinetto (CINI, PoliTo, Italy)
Roberto Baldoni (CINI, Uni Roma La Sapienza, Italy)

Smart Emerging Technologies for Industry 4.0

Session Chair:

Maurizio Fiasché (Politecnico di Milano)
Marco Taisch (Politecnico di Milano)

Description:

The Industry 4.0 paradigm facilitates the vision of the factory of the future concept, it is a confluence of novel trends and technologies to change the way products and services are made. The ability of Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) to connect everything (human, things and smart factories) via the internet of things (IoT) and internet of services, in a possible virtualized environment, with decentralized architectures and with real-time capability to analyse enormous quantity of data (Big Data & Big analytics technologies) in a modular way, play a key role both as enablers for new production and business processes and contributing as actual component of products’ value chain.

Session Technical Committee:

Dr. Maurizio Fiasché, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Prof. Sergio Terzi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Dr. Anna Valente, SUPSI, Switzerland
Dr. Stefano Gualandi, AntOptima, Switzerland
Prof. Luca Maria Gambardella, IDSIA, Switzerland
Dr. George Caridakis, NTUA, Greece
Dr. Fabio Floreani, Intellimech, Italy
Prof. Fabio Previdi, University of Bergamo, Italy
Dr. Alberto Cologni, University of Bergamo, Italy
Dr. Stefan Schliebs, AUT, New Zealand
Prof. Frank Owen, California State Polytechnic, USA

Invited Talks:

Diego Liberati (CNR- PoliMi)

Enabling technologies for measurement challenges in dual-use scenarios

Session Chair:

Leopoldo Angrisani (Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology – University of Napoli Federico II, Italy) and IEEE IM Italy Chapter Chair
Domenico Accardo (Dept. of Industrial Engineering – University of Napoli Federico II, Italy)
Bernardo Tellini (Dept. of Energy, Systems, Territory and Structures Engineering - University of Pisa, Italy)

Description:

Manufacturers of advanced technology systems are facing a cumbersome scenario. While raw material and labour costs are increasing, the worldwide overall budget to fund the development of cutting-edge defence technologies is sluggish. Moreover, the trend of current industrial production strategies is to enhance the benefit of economies of scale. A way to overcome the worries determined by the above reported scenario is to design and manufacture dual use technologies. This strategy has not only the trivial advantage to increase the opportunities for selling a specific item. It also aims at a twofold scope such as reducing the time-to-market of innovations and meeting the need of high grade of qualification that is currently requested by the standard commercial users. Examples of systems that can benefit from a dual use approach include mobile communication systems, advanced transport systems, drones, and advanced energy storage and distribution units. The dual use approach could have also several potential drawbacks that must be properly handled. First of all, the fear of military users that dual use technologies could determine a limitation in terms of confidentiality and classification; thus resulting in a potential security threat. Furthermore, the typical extreme environmental requirement of military application could determine unnecessary ruggedness and costs in non-military applications. In the specific field of measurement systems, a dual use strategy can be adopted in several issues such as sensor development, data acquisition, self-calibration, automation, test equipment, analysis of uncertainty, throughput management. A possible solution to accommodate both advantages and concerns is to provide a system level approach to dual use technology. Indeed, a standardization of the dual use approach could provide similar benefits as the ones determined in the past by other standardization processes, such as the one experienced in the quality management field. Papers and presentations discussing advanced topics related to the above reported issues are sought for the session.

Session Technical Committee:

Raviraj Adve, University of Toronto, Canada
Mauro D'Arco, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
Marco D’Errico, Second University of Naples, Aversa, Italy
Luigi Ferrigno, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Italy
Wail Gueaieb, University of Ottawa, Canada
Lingjiang Kong, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC)
Hongbin Li, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA
Annalisa Liccardo, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
Gianfranco Miele, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Italy
Antonio Pietrosanto, University of Salerno, Italy
Anatolji Platonow, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland
Rosario Schiano Lo Moriello, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
John Soraghan, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Paolo Tortora, University of Bologna “Alma Mater Studiorum”, Italy
Michael C. Wicks, University of Dayton Research Institute, OH, USA

Technical Sponsor:

IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Italy Chapter and GMEE

Biologically inspired models for innovation in Medicine

Session Chairs:

Sergio Cerutti (Politecnico of Milano)
Mauro Ursino (University of Bologna)

Description:

Biomedical system models have a relevant role in research and technology today, to improve the basic knowledge of clinical aspects, to contribute to the improvement of modern biomedical instruments and therapies, and to inspire advanced solutions for engineering problems. Objective of this session is to collect advanced models, inspired by biology and physiology, which can have applications in clinics and in biomedical research and/or can represent a stimulus for engineering solutions in different domains, including robotics, signal processing, artificial intelligence. The physiological aspects may incorporate (but are not limited to) cardiorespiratory dynamics, biomechanics, cellular bioengineering, and biologically inspired neural networks.

Session Technical Committee:

Sergio Cerutti (Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano)
Mauro Ursino (Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering,

University of Bologna, Italy)

Elisa Magosso (Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering,

University of Bologna, Italy)

Invited Talk:

Laura Astolfi (Uni. Roma La Sapienza)

Technical Sponsor:
IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Italy Chapter

Biorobotics and Rehabilitation

Session Chair:

Anna M. Bianchi (Dep. of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, ITALY)
Silvestro Micera (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, ITALY)

Description:

Acquired brain lesions (ABI), especially the ones due to cerebral ictus or brain injuries represent one of the most important causes of disability and affect in Italy about 100.000 new patients per year of any ages. Rehabilitation process is often extremely difficult and complex; it requires continuous, specific and selective therapeutic exercises and, up to now, traditional rehabilitation approaches managed by the physiotherapist or by the patient himself are considered to be poorly effective or not completely satisfying. The disability burden might be significantly reduced by using innovative techniques that are able to bring to practice new multidisciplinary researches, including neurophysiology, psychology, medical instrumentation, signal processing, robotics, etc. Thus, for the innovation of the neuro-rehabilitation therapies a strong multi-disciplinary approach is required and also a strong coordination, in human resources and in research laboratories (both in research institutes and in companies) as well, in order to provide industries and companies the knowledge required to develop new technologies, new devices and new paradigms for the improvement of the rehabilitation procedures.

Session Technical Committee:

Anna M. Bianchi (Dep. of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
Silvestro Micera (Scula Universitaria Superiore S. Anna, Pisa, Italy)
Alessandra Pedrocchi (Dep. of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
Eugenio Guglielmelli (Campus Biomedico, Roma, Italy)

Technical Sponsor:
IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Italy Chapter

Algorithms, techniques, and architectures for Big-Data-Analytics-as-a-Service

Website:

http://sesar.di.unimi.it/RTSI2016-BDAaaS/

Session Chair:

Ernesto Damiani (University of Milano)
Claudio A. Ardagna (University of Milano)

Description:

n the past few years, many organizations in all domains have discovered that – to become or remain competitive – they have to deal with business cases where the volume of data reaches terabytes and even petabytes. As the volume of data keeps growing, the data types to be considered have also become much richer than before. Many IT companies propose to their customers to manage Big Data challenges using a mix of technologies going from NoSQL (“notonlySQL”) databases like Cassandra or HBase, data preparation utilities like Paxata, and distributed, parallel computing systems like Hadoop or Stark. However, one of the main obstacles forbidding the widespread adoption of big data approaches in many businesses and enterprises is the lack of competences. In particular, this scenario substantially limits the market for Big Data analytics for non IT-savvy organizations and SMEs. An increasing request is therefore posed on solutions for Big Data Analytics as a service, which will support customers lacking Big Data expertise in configuring and managing their analytics. The workshop seeks submissions from both academia and industry presenting novel research in the context of big data analytics as a service, presenting theoretical and practical algorithms, techniques, and architecture for big data analytics management.

Session Technical Committee:

Massimo Banzi (Telecom Italia)
Rong Chang (IBM US)
Rob Claxton (British Telecom)
Wil Van der Aalst (TUE NL)
Koij Zettsu (NICT, Japan)
Roberto V. Zicari (Goethe University Frankfurt)
Lars-Peter Meyer (University of Leipzig)

Invited Talk:

Lionel Brunie, (INSA, Lyon, France)

Technical Sponsor:
AICA

Nanoelectronics and Nanoelectromagnetics for a Smarter Technology in Everyday Life

Session Chairs:

Stefano Bellucci (INFN-LNF, Frascati)
Antonio Maffucci (University of Cassino)
Carmelina Ruggiero (University of Genova, Chair IEEE NANO Italy Chapter)

Description:
The session aims to provide a forum for scientists and technologists to discuss nanoelectronics and nanoelectromagnetics product design and realization, with high societal impact and great commercial potential. Fundamental or applied research works are welcome, targeting applications in fields such as green electronics, smart computing, energy production and managing, diagnostics, safety and security.

Session Technical Committee:

Stefano Bellucci (INFN-LNF, Frascati)
Dirk M. Guldi (University of Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany)
Antonio Maffucci (University of Cassino and Southern Lazio)
James Morris (Portland University, USA)
Carmelina Ruggiero (University of Genova)

Invited Talk:

prof. James Morris, Portland University, USA

Technical Sponsor:
IEEE Nanotechnology Council Italy Chapter

Wireless Power Transfer: modelling and applications

Session Chairs:

Marco Raugi (University of Pisa)
Sami Barmada (University of Pisa)

Description:

Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) is a relatively new technology which is attracting nowadays the attention of many researchers and industry due to the numerous potential applications that can be foreseen in the near future. While wireless chargers for mobile phones are already a reality, other applications such as battery charging for hybrid or electric vehicles are still subject or research and prototyping. The scope of this session is to show the state of the art and identify new trends and applications encouraging cooperation and transfer of knowledge between researchers.

Session Technical Committee:

Apostolos Georgiadis (Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya - Spain)
Manos M. Tentzeris (Georgia Institute of Technology - Atlanta USA)
Antonino Musolino (University of Pisa - Italy)

Invited Talk:

Paul Mitcheson (Imperial College - London)

New Materials and applications in magnetics

Session Chair:

Antonio Faba (University of Perugia - IEEE MAG Chapter)

Description: The requirements of high performances for magnetic materials are increasing in the field of information technology and industry. New magnetic materials and new applications have been introduced during the recent years. Advanced experimental characterization and numerical modelling of these new technologies are needed. The scope of this session is to encourage exchange experiences and knowledge between researchers active on these scientific aspects.

Invited Talks:

Gabriele Maria Lozito (Univ. of Roma Tre, Italy)
Rocco Rizzo (Univ. of Pisa, Italy)

Technical Sponsor:
IEEE Magnetics Italy Chapter