Category: News

A scientific paper entitled “Propelling SMEs Business Intelligence through Linked Data Production and Consumption” has been presented by UBITECH at the 10th OTM/IFAC International Workshop on Enterprise Integration, Interoperability and Networking (EI2N’2015) that is part of the OnTheMove Federated Conferences & Workshops 2015 (OTM 2015). OTM 2015 is being held in Rhodes, Greece at October 26-29, 2015. At this paper, Eleni Fotopoulou and Anastasios Zafeiropoulos – along with other co-authors – propose an approach for the production of added-value business analytics through the consumption of interlinked versions of data and the exploitation of linked data principles. Furthermore, the paper includes the findings that were realised through the execution of the Business Intelligence Analytics pilot operation of the LinDA project, which concerns the examination of the effects of Over-The-Counter (OTC) medicines liberalisation in the OTC market pool and business opportunities in Europe. The analysis aims at identifying correlations between pharmaceutical, healthcare, socio-economic and political parameters and tackles several research questions that were identified at the initial steps of the analysis.

Source: http://onthemove-conferences.org/index.php/otm-program-2015/program-ei2n-2015

UBITECH attends the “ICT 2015 – Innovate, Connect, Transform”, in Lisbon, Portugal on 20-22 October 2015, organised by the European Commission, together with the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. The event, which focuses on Horizon 2020 – the EU’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation for 2014-2020 and gathers more than 5,000 registered participants and delegates from the academia, the research community and the industry, comprises a conference presenting the new European Commission’s initiatives on Research & Innovation in ICT for 2016-2017; an interactive exhibition showcasing over 100 best results and impact of most recent European ICT Research Projects; and many networking opportunities to enhance quality partnerships, help participants find partners, connect Research and Innovation and trigger collaboration.

Source: http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/ict2015-innovate-connect-transform-lisbon-20-22-october-2015

UBITECH is happy to invite you to network and connect with us at the ICT 2015 conference in Lisbon, Portugal at the networking session “No More Dark Clouds: A Privacy Preserving Framework for the Cloud” that we are co-organizing with CAS, ICCS and SICS. This networking session introduces a forward-looking design for secure cryptographic cloud storage (co-funded by the European Commission in the context of the PaaSword H2020 project). The focal points of the proposed design are Searchable Encryption and Context-aware Access Control Mechanisms. Together, they enable secure and privacy preserving cloud services that will protect users’ data and, in consequence, will help to accelerate the adoption of cloud computing.

Source: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/events/cf/ict2015/item-display.cfm?id=15492

UBITECH has actively participated in the kick-off meeting, in Nieuwegein, Netherlands (October 8-9, 2015) of the SUBSOL research project, officially started on September 1st, 2015. The project is funded by European Commission under Horizon 2020 Programme (Grant Agreement No. 642228) and spans on the period September 2015 – August 2018. SUBSOL targets at introducing a new way of thinking in terms of water resources management, promoting the sustainable development of coastal areas worldwide.

Coastal areas are the most productive and economically dominant regions of the world. The high water demand in these regions, however, puts tremendous pressure on their freshwater resources and ecosystems. This leads to problems like seasonal water shortage, saltwater intrusion, and disappearance of wetlands. Building on national, regional and European research and innovation programs, in the past five years, a set of innovative, practical concepts have been developed for protection, enlargement and utilization of freshwater resources in coastal areas. These subsurface water solutions (SWS) combine innovations in water well design and configuration, allowing for advanced groundwater management, and maximum control over freshwater resources. SWS have been successfully piloted by public-private partnerships. These full-scale pilots have demonstrated SWS capacity to support sustainable freshwater supply in coastal areas, energy reduction, food production, and financial savings.

In SUBSOL, UBITECH is responsible for designing and deploying the IT infrastructure in the Greek Pilot at the coastal site of the Schinias Natural Park as well as contributing in the development of the SUBSOL online platform targeted for sharing experiences and outcomes with stakeholder groups, that will be linked to existing networks, including EIP on Water.

Source: http://www.kwrwater.nl/page.aspx?id=11473

UBITECH participated at the Cloud Forward 2015 Conference that took place in Pisa, Italy at 6-8 of October 2015. The Cloud Forward 2015 Conference brought together experts from industry and academia to consider the future of and beyond Cloud Computing. The conference reviewed experiences and discussed future directions to overcome problems and provide new opportunities for the utilisation of leading edge Cloud Computing by industry and academia and for ICT developers providing innovative solutions. Dr. Constantinos Vassilakis participated on behalf of the ARCADIA and INPUT Horizon 2020 projects on the clustering activities organized within the conference and mainly the “Software Engineering for Services and Applications” cluster and the “New Approaches for Infrastructure Services” cluster. A set of presentations were provided concerning the overall objectives and approach followed in the ARCADIA project, as well as the current status of the white paper that is under preparation within the “Software Engineering for Services and Applications” cluster for describing current challenges and trends in the software engineering world.

Source: http://cf2015.holacloud.eu/programme

UBITECH participated at the Critical Infrastructure Protection workshop at PCI 2015 that took place in Athens, Greece at 2nd of October 2015. In the workshop, several research initiatives were presented with regards to risk mitigation for Critical Infrastructure protection, Critical Infrastructure security and resilience, software defined security mechanisms along with applied tools for supporting ports security and assessing the risks for ports’ supply chain services. On behalf of UBITECH, Dr. Anastasios Zafeiropoulos presented a novel approach for designing and implementing software defined security mechanisms taking into account the opportunities that exist based on the evolvement of novel technologies such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies. Main security threats, challenges and opportunities for the design of advanced security solutions were presented taking into account different NFV deployment models. For more information, please contact us or find the presentation here.

UBITECH participated at the “State of the art technologies in next generation data networks” workshop at PCI 2015 that took place in Athens, Greece at 2nd of October 2015. The workshop explored the challenges faced towards the transition to the Future Internet and the adoption of novel technologies such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies. On behalf of UBITECH, Dr. Constantinos Vassilakis presented a novel infrastructure and paradigm to support Future Internet personal cloud services in a more scalable and sustainable way and with innovative added-value capabilities, as it is designed and being developed within the framework of the INPUT Horizon 2020 project. The INPUT technologies will enable next-generation cloud applications to go beyond classical service models, and even to replace physical Smart Devices, usually placed in users’ homes (e.g., set-top-boxes, etc.) or deployed around for monitoring purposes (e.g., sensors), with their virtual images, providing them to users “as a Service.” For more information, please contact us or find the presentation here.

Source: http://pci2015.teiath.gr/research-project-results-track

LinkedDesign, a four-year initiative financed by the European Union under the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, today announced significant results achieved by developing and manufacturing administration leaders such as SAP, COMAU, Volkswagen Group, TRIMEK, Aker Solutions and HOLONIX, a subsidiary of the Milan Polytechnic and leading technology combination of the Internet of Things to Life Cycle Management of Products.

The project objective was to develop a flexible architecture and modular software that allows the use of product information in a strategic way. In addition, the specific initiative has increased the productivity of the engineering activity through an integrated and holistic use of the data, people and the complete life-cycle processes of Products. Thus, the specific results have made it possible today, to talk of a new, integrated approach to optimize the entire value chain of the manufacturing industry.

Continue reading EL MUNDO praises LinkedDesign in its Innovators column: Industry 4.0 – A European consortium launches the most powerful platform for digitizing industry

UBITECH has actively participated in the kick-off meeting, in Murcia, Spain (September 22-23, 2015) of the ENTROPY research project, officially started on September 1st, 2015. The project is funded by European Commission under Horizon 2020 Programme (Grant Agreement No. 649849) and spans on the period September 2015 – August 2018. The focus of ENTROPY is the design and development of an innovative IT ecosystem for motivating end-users’ behavioural changes towards the adoption of energy efficient lifestyles, building upon the evolvements in the Internet of Things, Data Modeling and Analysis and Recommendtion and Gamification eras.

Internet of Things technologies are exploited for the proper and energy efficient interconnection of a heterogeneous set of sensor nodes, the collection of data based on Mobile Crowd Sensing Mechanisms exploiting the power of the collection of data from a critical mass of interested people and the application of proper communication networking schemes with regards to data collection. Advanced Data Modeling and Analysis techniques are applied for the modeling of the collected data and the extraction of advanced knowledge by exploiting the power of Linked Data and Data Analytics. Focus is given on the development of personalised mobile applications and games targeted at providing energy related information to end users, triggering social interaction with relevant users, increasing their awareness with regards to ways to achieve energy consumption savings in their daily activities and adopt energy efficient lifestyles based on a set of recommendations and motives targeted to their culture.

In ENTROPY, UBITECH is responsible for the architectural and technical lead of the project and for the specification of the ENTROPY semantic models that will enable the modeling, aggregation and fusion of the sensory and crowdsourcing data, as well as for the implementation of Linked Data transformation, enrichment, linkage, generation, mining and analytics mechanisms and the overall coordination of the integration activities of the project.

A poster entitled “Linked Data Analytics for Business Intelligence SMEs: A Pilot Case in the Pharmaceutical Sector” along with a relevant demo have been presented by LinDA consortium partners at the SEMANTiCS 2015 conference that was held in Vienna, Austria, on September 16-17, 2015. At this publication, Eleni Fotopoulou and Anastasios Zafeiropoulos – along with other co-authors – present the initial findings of the Business Intelligence Analytics (BIA) pilot operation of the LinDA project, which concerns the Over-The-Counter (OTC) medicines liberalisation in Europe. The pilot aims at examining the association among the usage of OTC medicines and pharmaceutical parameters, with other healthcare, socio-economic and political ones. Focus is given on the added value emerged, through the consumption and production of linked data for analysis purposes, as well as the challenges faced for the execution of such a pilot. For more information, you can download our poster here.

Source: http://www.semantics.cc/programme