The results of the second year of implementation of the LinDA* FP7-610565 project have been successfully demonstrated during the final project review on January 21st, 2016 at the European Commission in Luxembourg. These results include the final release of the LinDA workbench along with the performance evaluation of the LinDA tools, as well as the results from the operation of the LinDA pilots (fostering Business Intelligence Analytics, Environmental Analytics, Media Analytics) along with a set of suggestions for LinDA adopters.

UBITECH’s contribution to the project regards mainly the design and development of the Linked Data Analytics and Data Mining Component of the LinDA workbench as well as the leadership of WP4 that regards the LinDA pilots. In more detail, the Linked Data Analytics and Data Mining Component supports the realisation of analysis based on the consumption and production of Linked Data. A library of basic and robust data analytic functionality is provided through the support of a set of algorithms, enabling SMEs to utilise and share analytic methods on Linked Data for the discovery and communication of meaningful new patterns that were unattainable or hidden in the previous isolated data structures.

Continue reading Excellent final review for the LinDA FP7 research project

A scientific paper entitled “Information Driven Cyber Security Management through LinDA” has been edited by UBITECH and accepted for publication at the book entitled “The success of European projects using new Information and Communication Technologies” that is going to be published by SCITEPRESS. This book aims at disseminating information about the projects presented at the European Project Space in the DATA 2015 conference. At this paper, Panagiotis Gouvas, Eleni Fotopoulou and Anastasios Zafeiropoulos – along with other co-authors – propose an approach for supporting information driven cyber security management through exploitation of linked data analytics technologies, as they are developed within the framework of the LinDA FP7 project. A cyber security data model is designed for cyber-attacks data representation, while a set of insights are produced upon data analysis over data collected in a small enterprise environment.

A scientific paper entitled “Linked Data Analytics in Interdisciplinary Studies: the Health Impact of Air Pollution in Urban Areas” has been edited by UBITECH and published at the IEEE Access Journal* in the Special Section for Smart Cities. At this paper, Eleni Fotopoulou, Anastasios Zafeiropoulos, Panagiotis Hasapis, George Tsiolis and Thanassis Bouras – along with other co-authors – propose a novel approach towards the production and consumption of linked data analytics in urban environments. The approach is based on the exploitation of linked data principles, enhancing the ability of managing and processing of data, in ways not available before. In addition to the description of the overall technical approach, the application of the proposed solution into a real-life scenario for examining the health impact of outdoor air pollution in urban areas within an international, national and regional perspective is detailed. A set of interesting results are produced along with their interpretation towards the provision of suggestions for policy making purposes. The paper has been prepared based on UBITECH’s work within the LinDA FP7 and ENTROPY Horizon 2020 project and is publicly available here.

* IEEE Access is an award-winning, multidisciplinary, all-electronic archival journal continuously presenting the results of original research or development across all of IEEE’s fields of interest. IEEE Access received the 2015 PROSE Award for Best New Journal in STM (science, technology, and medicine) and one of its articles was awarded the 2015 Donald G. Fink Prized Paper Award, while it has been accepted into the Thomson Reuters Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science) and anticipates its impact factor to be announced in June 2016.

The “Linked Data and Analytics for SMEs” Workshop & Hackathon 2015 is organised in the context of LinDA (http://www.linda-project.eu) FP7 research project by UBITECH in collaboration with the project partners NTUA and CP. The Workshop & Hackathon are going to take place at Innovathens at 20/11/2015.

The purpose of the Workshop & Hackathon is to explore and showcase the added value of Open and Linked Data for the business sector, in terms of effort and cost reductions, new business values introduction and increase in efficiency and flexibility of data-driven SMEs. In the workshop, the project results are going to be demonstrated, focusing at the LinDA workbench that has been developed as a complete toolsuite for SMEs to manipulate linked data simply, while boosting the data management to higher levels of competitiveness, through advanced analytics and visualizations. The presentation of the project’s results, in issues pertaining to healthcare, energy and media industries, will lay the foundations for deliberation among representatives of SMEs, entrepreneurial groups, public entities, NGO members, data analysts and researchers.

As already mentioned, the event is comprised of two sections; the Workshop (10:00 – 14:30), where business representatives will have the chance to discuss, over real-life scenarios, the opportunities and challenges of the exploitation of linked data tools and their impact on business operations, and the Hackathon (10:00 – 17:00), where developers will work together towards utilizing the LinDA workbench to develop proof-of-concept applications.

You can find the agenda of the event here. To participate to the Workshop event please register here.

The vision of the MARK1 project is to address the need for early and accurate detection of malignant melanoma, through the intelligent and automatic scanning of the entire human body, facilitating the automatic focus on areas suspicious for skin cancer, while coupling the automation process with human experts supervision and guidance, as well as to enable the follow up and monitoring for further analysis or treatment whenever and wherever necessary, through a screening solution that will be easily accessible to the general public and location-independent. In the context of the project, the consortium partners led by MEDISP organized a scientific workshop. The goals of the MARK1 workshop were to increase the level of public awareness regarding melanoma early detection, increase the overall visibility of the MARK1 project to the scientific community and present the scientific results following the application of MARK1 to real world data. Two radio interviews were performed during the day of the event. The first interview was given at radio station PROTO PROGRAMMA (http://www.ert.gr/proto), whereas the second at radio station ATHINA 984 (http://www.athina984.gr). In addition to the radio interviews, the organisation of the workshop kickstarted a series of publications of the project scope and results in several web media, the complete list of which (in Greek) can be found here.

The vision of the MARK1 project is to address the need for early and accurate detection of malignant melanoma, through the intelligent and automatic scanning of the entire human body, facilitating the automatic focus on areas suspicious for skin cancer, while coupling the automation process with human experts supervision and guidance, as well as to enable the follow up and monitoring for further analysis or treatment whenever and wherever necessary, through a screening solution that will be easily accessible to the general public and location-independent. The proposed solution shall provide painless, effortless and efficient self-screening of skin lesions, for early, accurate detection of melanoma, independent of the patient’s location, safeguard sensitive patient data and maintain patient-doctor confidentiality, as well as ensure accurate diagnosis delivered by the specialist (physician), independent of the physician’s and patient’s physical locations.

In the context of the project, the consortium partners led by MEDISP organized a scientific workshop on Wednesday, 11 November 2015. The goals of the MARK1 workshop were to increase the level of public awareness regarding melanoma early detection, increase the overall visibility of the MARK1 project to the scientific community and present the scientific results following the application of MARK1 to real world data. The workshop was held at the premises of the Biomedical Engineering Department of TEI of Athens. The target audience of the workshop comprised of individual scientists and researchers, research organizations & research groups, higher education institutes, health care centers and organizations, experts & professionals and general public. About 100 people participated at the workshop, including students, academics, researchers, physicians and representatives from private sector companies. The workshop main website can be found here. The program included three keynote speeches, a round table discussion and a demonstrator stand. A program brochure was composed and distributed digitally and as a hard copy to target audience and can be found here.

The LinkedDesign FP7 project completed successfully in August 2015, and achieved a positive final review that took place in Brussels in October 30, 2015. The LinkedDesign LEAP platform, implemented within the project lifetime, enables user-centric lifecycle information management and provides context-driven access to federated information and knowledge, such that each user is equipped with all information required for his/her specific role and engineering task – preventing from information overload leading to long search times. Furthermore, the LEAP platform fosters cross-discipline collaborations between users by novel approaches for collaborative engineering. The LEAP front-end has been developed as a Virtual Obeya, constituting a virtual control center where all information confluence and are shared at desks for each involved participant, independent of location and context.

Within the context of the project, UBITECH has heavily contributed to the technical design and implementation of the LinkedDesign Conceptual Model (LD Ontology). Additionally, UBITECH has led the implementation of the LinkedDesign Instance Importer that offers a set of reasoning services over HTTP protocol, thus it provides a simpler and easier integration approach to start facilitating the utilization of highly complex functionalities similar to the ones offered by a reasoner. The specific component exposes reasoning services over a HTTP API, which can be easily deployed and configured on a Cloud environment. It may also support arbitrary ontologies and rules expressed in SWRL. Based on the fashion by which it was implemented, the LinkedDesign Instance Importer may easily achieve high availability and scalability.

For more information, please visit the project’s website or contact us.

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