|
Network of Excellence |
CARiMan |
The Internet Portal for Computer Aided Risk Management |
B.3
Potential impact
Responsible: TUC
& IPA
& ICS
Assistance: all
Partners
Why CARiMan?
The European Union has chosen to take a
leading role in promoting sustainable
development on a global scale, and has been at the forefront in setting up the
international agenda in recent years. At global level, important decisions were
taken in 2002 through the launch of the Doha Development Agenda, the Monterrey
Conference on Development Assistance and the World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg last August. But decisions must now turn into
delivery.
In June 2001, the Göteborg European
Council agreed a strategy for sustainable development that completed the
Union’s political commitment to economic and social renewal, added an
environmental dimension to the Lisbon strategy and established a new approach to
policy-making. It highlighted unsustainable trends posing a threat to the
Union’s quality of life. These included concrete issues like environmental and
educational ones.
As European citizens become accustomed
to information society services which offer flexible, individualised interaction
independent of place and time, they will place new demands on services offered
by the public sector and on their participation in decision process. That means
that they will demand immediate response of the public sector to a crisis
situation.
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.
Decision makers use the scientific information only occasionally. In the
moment of crisis, the selection of experts is done who activate, usually, in
closed groups. The quality of provided conclusions is limited to the competence,
the experience and subjectivism of the team members. The access to the
information of decision makers is very limited. Even if after the decision was
made, the opinion of the experts is made public, the eventual expert critics are
belated, therefore less handy. Decision makers don’t have access to a “real
time” data base. There is no feedback of scientific
strategy; it means that this is made by political criteria, without science to
influence actively the political decision at the time of its preparation.
In the past,
many strategies and devices for 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.
Thus, CARiMan research work is 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
government to prevent scenarios, before a risk situation appears.
Natural
and industrial disasters are a dramatic example of people living in conflict
with the environment. Sustainable development can help prevent acts of nature or
industry from becoming disasters. In order to reduce
the cost and maximize the efficiency
of the efforts made for handling such situations, the creation of a common
platform and a Knowledge Database System is a necessity. Having one common platform for handling all
crisis situations will lead to the most effective management of these events. Trough
CARiMan we propose a world expertise
network, necessary for risk prevention and management.
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 successful implementation of CARiMan will make
Europe an international leader in
risk management.
Technological
Impact
The
NoE CARiMan aims at the determination and development of a common risk
management system at European level, which will be able to handle a wide range
of applications. In order to achieve this goal effective system architecture has
to be developed. The CARiMan System CARiManS is depicted in the Fig. B.3-1.
Figure B.3.1. Computer Aided Risk Management System (CARiManS)
Communications
(C) can be considered as the most critical aspect in CARiMan’s structure.
Every component of the system relies on fast, accurate and secure communication
links. In order to better handle the Communications tasks, they have been
divided into several meaningful entities, as follows:
C1: Communication Monitored System – Risk Manager
C2:
Communication Risk Manager – CARiManS for acquisition of the knowledge of
experts
C3: Microsystems
and Sensors Communication with CARiManS
C4:
Communication CARiManS – CARiManS for distributed operation
C5:
Communication Risk Manager – Risk Manager / student
C6:
Communication Monitored System – CARiManS on the user ineface UI
These communications aspects are handled by different
components of CARiManS as described in the following. More specifically, the
Communications component of CARiManS involve:
·
UI: The User Interface
considers the communication with the Risk Manager (C2), aiming at transferring
the expert’s knowledge to CARiManS and the Monitored system with the CARiManS
(C6). It also enables the communication between the Risk Manager and the
Monitored system (C1) as to enable control of the former to the operation of the
latter. Thus, the UI unit handles the communications aspects of C1, C2 and C6.
In building the UI CARiManS will utilize results from research in cognitive
science. As it deems appropriate.
·
MS: The unit Microsystems and
Sensors handles the communication (C3) between each sensor/actuator used in
monitoring with the CARiMan System
·
SA: The System Architecture
essentially handles all issues for the distributed operation of CARiManS systems
(C4). This operation is necessary as to allow the Communication network to be web based, scalable,
platform independent and easy to use. In
addition, peer-to-peer architectures will be appraised, in order to allow inter-operability of
the distributed CARiManS units.
·
Finally,
the Risk Manager/Student communication (C5) is essential for training and
dissemination, as analysed and used in B4.3
Further
components in CARiManS are
·
KM: Data Base & Knowledge Management System;
·
PD: Portable Devices, signal
conditioning and conversion;
·
TI: Transmission and
Interfaces, security of data transmission;
·
SP: Signal Processing,
classification, recognition and evaluation.
In this Network of Excellence, responding to the related
Call, we identify central design issues and architectural concepts for an
integrated disaster management system, providing an infrastructure that allows
for horizontal and vertical information flow from the risk situation - the
patient in risk or the fire-fighters on the scene - up to the Risk Manager by
means of a multi-level wireless signal and data transmission and communication
infrastructure, as well as integrated applications that reflect the currently
organizational structure adequate to the rescue effort. At all levels, we must
provide for recording and analysis of the current situation, Computer Aided data
aggregation and de-aggregation, resource scheduling, and access to services,
Database & Knowledge Management Systems (KM or DB&KMS).
Signal
Transmission and Interfaces (TI) include terrestrial trucked radio or satellite
technology for wide area communication, wireless LAN ad-hoc
networks for disaster site hot spots, and personal or body area networks for
frontline personnel, allowing them to act as data sources and synchronise by
means of smart connected devices, e.g. robust mobile terminals and sensors.
Applications
are to be designed around flexible information and work flow concepts based on
templates for fast adaptation to modifications of the organizational structure
due to situation changes. Distributed, redundant, and mobility adequate
DB&KMS provide for access even in unreliable or low bandwidth environments
through pre-fetching and caching; service discovery and auto-configuration
schemes reduce the need for manual administration in hectic situations. GIS and
cooperative command environments aid operations staff in their facilities or
vehicles. We devise “information environment portability” for added
flexibility and mobile operations.
Teaching
Through the
concepts of direct communications among monitored systems, risk managers,
student, researcher and computer, the CARiMan project develops applications for
teaching and knowledge dissemination, for training and mentoring purposes, or
simply for knowledge transfer, accessible from every region, Europe and
elsewhere. There are two scenarios: the case that a risk manager pushes his/her
newly acquired knowledge/experience towards his/her colleagues (teaching); and
the opposite case, where a risk manager/student/researcher asks for
state-of-the-art knowledge input from other senior risk managers/researchers
(learning). The project involves all these issues and, through the modular,
consistent, multidisciplinary and robust design of its components, it is
expected to have a significant impact on areas including skill-profiling of
every professional accessing the CATS (Computer-Aided Teaching System),
accessing the KMSs (Knowledge Management Systems) via web based friendly
interfaces, automatic notification of important knowledge as soon as new
knowledge becomes available at various CARiManSs (Computer Aided Risk Monitoring
Systems) in the NoE, providing training for young practitioners/students
employed by the NoE, ensuring protected access to sensible data subject to
privacy regulations belonging to individuals patients and/or other participants
to the network. Figure B.3-2 illustrates the utility of CARiManS as a teaching
CATS platform.
Spread
of Knowledge
The integration of European
research is strongly based on tight personal relations among partners from
different countries. When the number of partners is large, as in CARiMan,
effective methods for providing personal contacts among researchers are
required.
Figure
B.3.2. Development
and Application of CARiManS as Computer Aided Teaching System CATS
In order to
facilitate the exchange of researchers, students, and experts among the partners
of CARiMan, a Researcher Marketplace (RM) Web site will be set up. RM will
provide a shared area where available positions in the various CARiMan NoE
institutions can be advertised as well as researchers interest in participating
in projects at other institutions anywhere in the world (comment: The goal being
the transfer of knowledge not to engage in his/her interest in traviling)
RM will facilitate the matching between the exigencies of institutions
and the interests of researchers in a cooperation framework that enhances the
mobility and the European experience and technological transfer. RM will also
provide an alert service and a mailing list to keep the partners actively
informed about the different possibilities of people exchanging. Typical users
of RM will be post-doc students seeking for a period of specialization and
training in foreign universities, institutions, and companies. Another class of
typical users are the students about to complete their graduation programs and
who want to carry on (part of) their master or PhD curriculum or theses in
another university. In this last case, via the student exchange among CARiMan
partners will be part of more general European initiatives, such as the Socrates
student exchange program. The exchange of graduate students is a well-known
practice for Universities but should be extended also to companies.. Financial
support for such activities should be provided. (Comment: I do not think that
mentioning the standard of living is necessary here)
The
researcher exchanges promoted by RM will enhance the different activities of the
CARiMan NoE. Via face to face meetings and discussions the knowledge of adoption
of standards, the demonstration of software components, the training in using of
the software tools, and the survey works improve and inspire more of the same.
More precisely, the following specific exchange activates emerge as required by
the CARiMan partners.
·
Exchange of specialists in
order to improve the quality of the developed algorithms. The development of
reliable classification procedures and models that can effectively support the
expert (comment: we are not only talking about health care are we?)decisions
strongly requires knowledge that grasp all possible situations and clinical
cases and that must collected from different partners.
·
Exchange of specialists
among partners for developing different methods that allow comparison of the
methods and the obtained results with the aim of improving decision support
systems.
·
Exchange of specialists for
testing and validation of the developed systems and for the dissemination of
results.
As a more
concrete example of how the exchange of researchers can promote the integration
of European research, the I6 programme on a new system for better diagnosis and
successful remediation of dyslexia requires the following specific researcher
exchanges.
·
During the elaboration of
the conceptual model, mutual visits between researchers from scientific
laboratories are necessary to define most promising approaches to dyslexia
problem. Moreover, visits to technical partners aiming at recognising technical
resources of CARiMan NoE are foreseen.
·
During the development of
the system, visits in both directions (from scientific laboratories to technical
partners and from technical institutions to scientific laboratories) are
planned.
·
During the experimental
validation of the system technical experts will provide their professional
advice to scientists.
·
The adjustment of the new
tools to specific clinical purposes (diagnose and support of dyslexia) requires
mutual contacts between scientists, clinicians (educators), and technical
experts.
·
Participation of all
(technical, scientific and clinical) partners will be required at the stage of
spreading the achieved potential to the end users by organisation of workshops
and practical trainings
Besides the
above-mentioned forms of researcher exchange among the CARiMan partners, more
informal ways for knowledge transfer can be adopted. For example, researchers
can spend some days or few weeks in another institutions in order to complete a
very short and detailed research activity, to provide professional advice or to
write a paper summarizing the results obtained during a joint activity, and so
on. These short informal visits will arise as a spontaneous form of cooperation
among the partners and will not be regulated in order to fully exploit their
innovative and creative potential.
Finally, it
will be important to evaluate how the researchers exchange solutions in CARiMan
could be integrated with corresponding solutions adopted in other Networks of
Excellence. This will favour "horizontal" meetings among different
NoEs in order to focus on the exchange of ideas for possible collaborations or
publications in the light of the integration of the European research. For
example, activities B4.3, D1, D2, and D3 of CARiMan could all benefit from these
"horizontal" meetings.
Dissemination
The main objectives of the D3 are to secure that all direct
as well as indirect results generated from the complete set of CARiMan
activities are made available in an appropriate form for all relevant
organisations, companies and persons. Furthermore all project results which can
be regarded as marketable products or parts of products shall be prepared for
the parallel marketing process.
The dissemination will target risk manager environment,
product manufacturer and system integrators to enlarge the commercial
possibilities and the monitored system environment and the users to create a
demand for excellencies like CARiMan’s in substitution of the current Risk
Management set up. In the scientific world the target will be researchers
focusing on technologies that are complementary or comparable to CARiMan, D1.
Dissemination is always fundamental for a European Research
Project since the awareness about the results of EU funded projects is one of
the major concerns of This is especially importand in the NoE instrument where
the research community is addressed. The dissemination concerns the developed
applications, the distribution of methods, the results of the analyses and all
other results created inside CARiMan.
By the 4 major dissemination angles; articles, web,
workshops/conferences and involvement in education the CARiMan network will have
a formal structure for spreading of excellencies. The D3 will ensure the
messages and liaison activities are covered as described in the B4.3.
The creation of consensus on project undertakings is a
fundamental factor that can increase market penetration and facilitate creation
of alliances and partnerships. In addition, third-party developers and
manufacturers can decide to increase their interest in carrying out relevant
applications that exploit project results and services.
Dissemination activities are foreseen during the early phases of the
project to provide to the community the first results and they are
oriented in the following directions:
·
Dissemination through the CARiMan portal,
electronic newsletters and mailing lists / dissemination through the websites,
newsletters and mailing lists of the project’s partners. Through these
dissemination channels, information on CARiMan events will be published, all IST
Information Day proceedings, etc. The WEB-site will be
published in the beginning of the project phase and will continuously be updated
with relevant information (M2) and material used for presentations.
·
A large number of
publications is expected both in conferences but also in journals based on the
concept, vision, design and evaluation results of the CARiMan. Due to the size
of the consortium and the complexity of the workplan a publication strategy will
be derived early in the project in order to protect IPR.
·
Dissemination through CARiMan events: workshops,
conferences, seminars, demonstrations and other activities leading to the
involvement of different spectra of audiences from different domains.
·
Participation in externally organised events
conferences, seminars, workshops and exhibitions at
the national and international level. The information
exchange will be also facilitated through the participation to EC concentration
meetings and IST conferences, and forums. CARiMan will use these events as an opportunity to include experts and
users in the process toward dissemination of the results.
Exploitation
The project’s outcome is expected to be implemented and
commercialised in risk management environments. The results are expected to be
exploited through the partners in the Consortium and according to the decision
of the Consortium. Other commercial channels can be employed as well. A draft
plan will be produced already in the early phase of the project. The information
obtained during the realisation of the project will be used in the synthesis of
the final plan.
The exploitation plan will precise the possible scenarios
for further evolution and exploitation of the project results, during or after
the end of the project. It will also describe activities promoting the
exploitation of the results, including whenever appropriate development of a
plan for the use and dissemination of the knowledge produced, feasibility
studies for the creation of spin-offs companies managed by the EEIG, etc. The
exploitation plan will also include the assessment, trial and validation of
promising, but not fully established technologies and solutions. Moreover it
will provide information about best practices as far as the early use and
exploitation of technologies is concerned.
The CARiMan NoE will encourage partners for further
commercial cooperation and will use a fund based on 10% of income of the CARiMan
activities to support partners in development and scientific activities that
brings products to the market. The outline for this construction is illustrated
below.
Figure B.4.3. Exploitation pf CARiMan results
The exploitation activities may be affected by e.g. IPR,
legislation and regulatory issues (e.g. privacy for location based services and
surveillance, and copyright issues for content provision).
The work on exploitation will contain:
·
Identification of patents and
IPR, with the following management of rights and licenses;
·
product identification and
interdependencies among the expertises;
·
consortium interoperability and
co-relation of interests in the technology;
·
legal contract forms;
·
update and the future for
developed IPRs and the expertise;
·
an element of learning and
update to follow the rapid growing market for intellectual properties.
NoE
continuation
In order to ensure the
continuation of CARiMan several actions will be performed:
·
All Partners agree on a deep and durable
integration continuing beyond the period of Community financial support
·
Partners agree to the joint ownership of any I.P.
Rights and knowledge resulting from the NoE CARiMan research activities.
·
Partners agree to form a consortium to jointly
exploit and commercialise the results in Europe and internationally, with
proportional participation based on their respective share of the project
budget.
·
Partner who holds a patent or any other I.P.R.
forming a basis for any subsequently developed application patent/I.P.R.
undertakes to grant a free, exclusive license to the Partners before bringing
them into the NoE in order to exploit the result of CARiMan.
·
The responsibility of protection,
registration and maintenance of any resulting I.P.R. stands
upon each Activity Responsible Partner under which the research results has been
developed. Formalized in IPR Agreement with the consortium.
·
10% of the overall commercial
success of partners (turnover), based on CARiMan activities, will be integrated
in a CARiMan fund for financial support.