|
Network
of Excellence
|
CARiMan
|
The
Internet Portal for Computer Aided Risk Management
|
Responsible: TUC
& IPA
& ICS
Assistance:
all partners
The list of the full names and employing organisations of the researchers and
students who want to participate in the network is attached as NameList.pdf. The integrated persons are marked red.
The aim of
the CARiMan Network of Excellence is
to create the framework for the development of next-generation Risk Management
Systems, by integrating IST technologies in all aspects of user-computer
communications from direct personal communication to emergency handling. More
specifically, the scientific and
technical objectives of CARiMan
are research activities for a new concept of Risk Management Systems for
emergency management and monitoring of situations. The CARiMan systems are
designed around the concept of Computer Aided Risk Management Systems (CARiManS)
and Computer Aided Teaching Systems (CATS), all integrating Knowledge Management
(KMS) functionalities.
In such a
way, CARiMan contributes directly in realising European policies for the
creation of a ‘knowledge society’, as agreed at the Lisbon and Stockholm
Councils. Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) are specifically targeted for the
recognition of monitored signals and of possible risk situations; web
technologies are used for the communication and distribution of the knowledge.
Network and distributed computational technologies are used for communication
between remote sensors and pre-processing units, CARiManS and Knowledge
Management Systems, and for communication among users, emergency situations,
Risk Managers and researchers. "Risk management is one of those things that
people don't know they need until they need it."
Topics covered in
CARiMan:
·
Understanding potential
problem areas
·
Managing your issues
·
Formulating a strategy
·
Developing a crisis and risk
plan
·
Selecting and training
crisis teams
·
Controlling a crisis
·
Monitoring future
preparedness
·
Risk Management as
prevention of damage.
·
Risk Management as a theme
of corporate governance.
The CARiMan NoE will aim at fundamentally redefining the approach that
the Office of Environmental Management uses to conduct cleanup. This new
approach would change the current approach, one that’s based on compliance
with hundreds or thousands of individual and independent requirements and
actions, to one that is based on risk based end states, and a clearly defined
and coordinated path forward. This approach, “begin with the end in mind”,
will result in a new way of assessing and undertaking cleanup activities and how
we plan and prioritise our actions. Development and implementation of this
approach will require extensive interactions with local and national
stakeholders, regulators and the National, European Departments.
In the past,
many strategies and devices for the risk management have been developed.
Exploiting this previous experience, the research work in CARiMan will focus on
technologies to support the process of acquiring, organizing, modelling,
navigating, retrieving, representing, visualising, interpreting and sharing
knowledge. These functions will be integrated in new semantic-based and
context-aware systems including cognitive and agent-based tools. Work will
address extensible knowledge resources and will enable next-generation of
semantic-web applications. Utilizing the advances in sensor technology, the
project explores the use and efficiency of microsystems and mobile intelligent
sensory devices with appropriate signal conditioning and remote pre-processing.
A novel concept to be explored is the incorporation of qualitative knowledge of
experienced users captured by means of regular voice communication and
translated into low-level data, features and attributes by the KMS. Towards this
functionality the KMS is trained on a large number of cases with the supervision
of the Risk Managers, utilizing the developments on semantic knowledge
interpretation and human-computer interfaces. In this way, the KMS aims to
support all levels of information extraction, analysis, mining and
interpretation from abstract knowledge to features and raw data or signals.
Moreover, it aims to spread high level knowledge among Risk Managers, to
increase the European common level of expertise, and (if possible) to set up new
practices of web collaboration among users, Risk Managers, researchers in
analysing, evaluating and taking decisions about risk situations, while
respecting privacy policies and trusting everyone’s confidence in new
technologies based instruments.
Crisis
Management means the managing of operations during the actual crisis in the
midst of the event to the degree that the events can be managed. However, it may
also mean the management of the organisation before, during, and after the
crisis. Crisis Management is not a mechanistic action of rules, procedures and
physical action by an organisation. It consists of a full range of thoughtful
processes and steps to anticipate the complex nature of crisis - real and
perceived.
The research
work is also important in validating the expected socio-economical benefits of
the initiative, to promote the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based
economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and
better jobs and a greater social cohesion. A cost-effective strategy of the NoE
is to prevent extensive application of IST by means of a better evaluation of
the risk situations. This can result in enabling the authorities to prevent
scenarios, before a risk situation appears.
Another area
of research that will actually be conducted within the project is on user
acceptance of the technology, examining factors like ease of functionality and
the question of trust. Such research is valuable for the IST programme,
particularly regarding the task of identifying socio-economic barriers for application of the new technology. It is also important
in validating the expected socio-economic benefits of the initiative.
Current EC
policy encourages actions to exploit Europe’s strengths in sectors like mobile
communications, embedded software and micro electronics as part of a strategy
“to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the
world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and
greater social cohesion”. One objective of CARiMan is to develop the
application and promotion of new-generation mobile and wireless embedded systems
in health care. The new technology will positively affect the quality of life of
the patients without jeopardizing their health. Health care technology is
currently driven by a strong impetus for improving the cost and efficiency of
the health care system from both public and government. There is an environment
of increasing political pressure for cuts in health expenditure while at the
same time the public demands the best available health care. The CARiMan project
addresses both demands by implementing a strategy to prevent or reduce
unnecessary hospitalisation, while providing the means for better health
evaluation on an outpatient basis by careful and permanent monitoring.
The particular objectives of the CARiMan project are summarized in the
following.
·
To network researchers and
practitioners together, with the objective of contributing to the definition of
a new generation of CARiManS and KMS, capable of assisting in the prevention,
earliest individualisation, diagnoses and treatment of risk situations. The
adoption of more powerful and flexible knowledge technologies that are
semantic-based and context-aware should prepare for the next generation web that
give access to more effective and creative digital contents.
·
To develop of strategies,
DB&KMS and tools for the integration of all participants involved in the
production (researchers, general public), processing (analysts, consultants),
circulation (educators) and use (decision makers, industry) of information on
sustainable development.
·
To descript of gaps in the
European environmental and educational law system, and evaluation of the
possibility to implement the best experiences from national level.
·
To create databases &
Knowledge Management Systems for
the following purpose:
-
to aid decision makers at
national and European level in grounding sustainable development strategies;
-
to aid researches in
achieving knowledge and scientific
information needed and feed back to the utility of supplied information.
·
To facilitate and expand the
use of IST technologies in monitoring, preventing and treating major health
risks (e.g. cancer, environmental health, genetic research, etc), environmental
issues (e.g natural disasters, pollution, etc), civil protection (e.g.
de-mining, traffic accidents, etc), emergency management and monitoring of
high-risk groups.
·
To assist professionals in
coping with some major challenges, as well as with risk situations management.
Overall, the integration into practices of advances and higher standards in
knowledge and treatment is a noteworthy objective.
·
To improve risk provisions
in prevention and management of the activities concerned in CARiMan, by ensuring
improved control and monitoring of the systems.
·
To develop the framework for
the design and evaluation of a Computer Aided Risk Management System (CARiManS)
that enables ubiquitous management of the status of the monitored systems, by
efficiently integrating advances in knowledge. The concept of CARiManS with its
user friendly interfaces and secure communication design aims to improve the
decision making process by integrating expert’s knowledge and experience from
the local or remote KMS with all available heterogeneous information and
monitoring systems.
·
To support the development
of a new strategy in going from signals, signal acquisition, classification and
recognition into knowledge administered by the KMS, designed as communicative system able to acquiring knowledge
from the leading scientists and practitioners in Europe.
·
To enable research towards
integrating microsystems and mobile intelligent devices into a user friendly
information management and processing system.
·
To stimulate experts to
share their own expertise to colleagues, students, researchers by means of web
based e-teaching techniques. The Knowledge Management System (KMS), designed as
a communicative system acquiring knowledge from the leading experts in Europe,
aims to realize this purpose.
·
To teach professionals,
students and researchers how to make full use of (and how to get confidence
with) technology and CATS to improve their own competence acquiring the better
knowledge available in their fields of expertise.
·
To improve social cohesion
and quality of life through the use of the remote monitoring approach that
involves the monitored system directly to the process of management, increasing
its awareness and confidence to the system itself, reduces lost time, salary
compensation and travel costs..
·
To enable sustainable growth
of small and medium IST companies dealing with the management and secure
communication of information for risk management.
·
Educational objectives
-
the network allows the correlation between work
market needs and the capacity of specialists formation from European educational
system;
-
avoid overlapping and disagreement between the
industry needs and the offer of educational system;
-
identification of research priorities at national,
regional and European level and financing orientation towards priority
directions;
-
creation (in collaboration with programs type
Leonardo) of rapid education and perfection forms which should correspond to
random and strategic requirements;
-
Opportunities for adopting European Transferable
Credits (ECTS) at all European countries and all educational levels.
·
Environmental
and sustainable development objectives
-
inventory and monitoring of polluted area or high
risk areas (in accordance with EU Directives);
-
creation of an informational database which can be
upgraded for BAT (Best Available Technologies);
-
standardizing in an increasing way of Environmental
Impact Studies methodologies at European level;
-
developing strategy substantiation after sustainable
development principles and opportunity for the controlling the engagements taken
by the adherent states while enlargement negotiation;
-
Enlarging the DB&KMSfor the European recyclable
material market. In the same time it is assured the application of BAT in the
field of waste recycling;
·
Technologic
and information objectives
-
creation of an DB&KMS in which the creators and
users of information and technology have access equally;
-
favoring the creation of new networks in which the
researchers from the adjacent domains can exchange their experience and
technology;
-
interconnection between technological and
informational education networks which exist already.
-
Encouraging the appearance and development of
regional centres of creation and soft usage.
CARiMan
envisions serving simultaneously “anybody” from “anywhere” encompassing
maximum standards with an emphasis on multilingual facilities and multicultural
benefits.