ERCIM News 121

Cover of ERCIM News 121

ERCIM News 121

April 2020

Special theme The Climate Action: Mathematics, Informatics and Socio-Economics Accelerating the Sustainability

Guest editors Sobah Abbas Petersen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and Phoebe Koundouri (Athens University of Economics and Business and Athena RC)

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Foreword from the President

Details: Category: Keynote; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 3840

by Björn Levin

I always find it inspiring to talk to people from the ERCIM member organisations. These are highly skilled people with solid experience who both create advanced theoretical knowledge and come up with practical and immediate ways to address challenges. Right now, the coronavirus pandemic is on all our minds. We all need to adapt and do our best to help. As ERCIM members we can share knowledge and solutions and we can use ERCIM as a channel for this.

The Climate Action: Mathematics, Informatics and Socio-Economics Accelerating the Sustainability - Introduction to the Special Theme

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 5873

by Sobah Abbas Petersen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and Phoebe Koundouri (Athens University of Economics and Business and Athena RC)

The 2018 IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty [L1], idicates clearly that climate change is an existential threat. Anthropogenic emissions continue to cause further long-term changes in the climate system, such as sea level rise, increased frequency in extreme weather conditions and biodiversity and ecosystems services loss, are evident around the world. These significantly increase the risks for catastrophic events and loss of food security for the world’s growing population. According to the IPCC’s report, we have 10 years to limit climate change catastrophe and keep global warming to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

Urban Vitality: Re-Evaluating the Availability of Urban Parks

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 6240

by Corine Laan (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences) and Nanda Piersma (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and CWI)

Parks are necessary for sustainable urban vitality. We studied the optimal availability of parks by combining open data sets with polygons and classification frameworks from urban planning literature. Both distance and population density should be considered as measures of availability when planning urban parks.

A Living Lab Approach for Sustainable Forest Management

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 8880

by Christophe Ponsard and Bérengère Nihoul (CETIC)

Humans and forests share a longstanding common history, largely driven, from the human side, by economics. The consequence is ever-increasing degradation, despite progress in forest science and public awareness. We took a “living lab” approach to support the evolution of the Greater Luxembourg forest. The aim was to restore a more sustainable balance across various forest functions, in part by adopting a multiple-use management approach.

Can Smart Charging Balance the Urban Energy Grid?

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 5977

by Pieter Bons, Robert van den Hoed (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences) and Nanda Piersma (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and CWI)

Smart charging protocols for electric vehicles can help avoid overload and instability in the electrical distribution network and can increase the proportion of locally generated solar energy used for charging. Our results show that the impact of smart charging depends heavily on the technical charging characteristics of the target vehicle.

Grid-friendly Sustainable Local Energy Communities

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 5726

by Michael Kaisers (CWI), Matthias Klein and Alexander Klauer (Fraunhofer ITWM)

New software and algorithms are being developed to help communities become less dependent on the electricity grid and less of a burden on it. This decoupling is an important step towards improving sustainability without compromising on affordability, comfort and efficiency of the overall system. Experience from pilot projects provides key insights into the management of the challenges that arise.

Coastal Ocean Modelling: Uncertainty Representation and Forecast

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 4686

by Arthur Vidard (Inria)

Ocean model developers from Inria teams, together with external partners from Shom, Brgm and Ifremer, are coming together to develop and improve ocean modelling capabilities from regional to nearshore.

Tackling the Multiscale Challenge of Climate Modelling

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 5221

by Daan Crommelin (CWI; Korteweg-de Vries Institute for Mathematics, University of Amsterdam), Wouter Edeling (CWI) and Fredrik Jansson (CWI)

The atmosphere and oceans are key components of the climate system, each involving a wide range of space and time scales. Resolving all relevant scales in numerical simulations with atmosphere/ocean models is computationally not feasible. At CWI, we are tackling this longstanding multiscale challenge by developing new algorithms, including data-based and stochastic methods, to represent small, unresolved scales.

A State of the Art Technology in Large-Scale Underwater Monitoring

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 6276

by Gaia Pavoni, Massimiliano Corsini and Paolo Cignoni (ISTI-CNR)

In recent decades, benthic populations have been subjected to recurrent episodes of mass mortality. These events have been blamed in part on declining water quality and elevated water temperatures (see Figure 1) correlated to global climate change. Ecosystems are enhanced by the presence of species with three-dimensional growth. The study of the growth, resilience, and recovery capability of those species provides valuable information on the conservation status of entire habitats. We discuss here a state-of-the art solution to speed up the monitoring of benthic population through the automatic or assisted analysis of underwater visual data.

Biogas Residues in the Battle for Terrestrial Carbon Sequestration

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 5888

by Bella Tsachidou, Christophe Hissler (Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology) and Philippe Delfosse (University of Luxembourg)

A team from the Environmental Research and Innovation Department of the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) is investigating the contribution of biogas residues (BRs) to climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration in agricultural soils.

Circular Intelligence: Digital Services to Facilitate Industrial Symbiosis

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 6133

by Theodore Dalamagas, Antonis Kokossis and Thanasis Gentimis (SymbioLabs)

SymbioLabs is working on the innovative concept of circular intelligence. Circular intelligence involves the application of business intelligence and big data technologies to drive profitable business actions in the circular economy. We provide digital solutions to collect and analyse data related to industrial facilities, waste production and supply chain economics, and detect geographic areas and industrial sectors to establish collaborative partnerships (networks of industrial symbiosis) to exchange materials, waste and energy for economic, environmental and social benefit.

Smart Water Distribution Networks to Reduce Water Loss

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 7148

by George Tzagkarakis (FORTH-ICS), Maria N. Anastasiadou and Demetrios G. Eliades (KIOS, University of Cyprus)

“Lost water” in drinking water distribution systems is the water that enters the distribution network but never reaches the consumer, owing either to leakages or because it is not metered by the water utilities. SmartWater2020 is a research project that is working to develop a smart platform for real-time condition monitoring and autonomous pressure control in urban distribution networks, with the goal of reducing telemetry costs and water losses.

Analysis of Extreme Climatic Indexes over Greece for the Period 1979 - 2019

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 5923

by Athanasios Karavoulias and Athanassios A. Argiriou

A study analysing World Meteorological Organization (WMO) extreme climatic indexes in Greece for the period 1979-2019 to better understand the impact and the significance of extreme phenomena on the environment and humans.

Fostering Smart Cities based on an Enterprise Architecture Approach

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 8143

by Bokolo Anthony Jnr. (NTNU), Sobah Abbas Petersen (NTNU) and Markus Helfert (Maynooth University)

The concept of smart cities means using data and information communication technology (ICT) to manage a city’s resources to create a sustainable environment, benefit the economy and improve quality of life. Unfortunately, the rapid population increase in urban areas has reduced the quality of life for many city-dwellers. Therefore, in the Positive Energy Exchange (+CityxChange) project [L1], we have adopted an enterprise architecture framework to support sustainable smart cities.

Close-The-Loop Model: Social Acceptance of Technology for Sustainability

Details: Category: Special Theme; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 7179

by Emanuela Tangari, Carmela Occhipinti and Luigi Briguglio (CyberEthics Lab.)

The CyberEthics Lab. is developing a model to assess the social acceptance of disruptive technologies, and specifically 5G, with the goal of enabling and accelerating innovation and sustainability.

MOSAICrOWN - Data Protection in the Data Market Scenario

Details: Category: Research and Innovation; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 4001

by Pierangela Samarati, (Università degli Studi di Milano)

MOSAICrOWN - Multi-Owner data Sharing for Analytics and Integration respecting Confidentiality and OWNer control - is a Horizon 2020 project that aims at enabling data sharing and collaborative analytics in multi-owner scenarios in a privacy-preserving way, ensuring proper protection of private, sensitive, and confidential information. MOSAICrOWN will provide effective and deployable solutions allowing data owners to maintain control on the data sharing process, enabling selective and sanitized disclosure providing for efficient and scalable privacy-aware collaborative computations.

Worried about Data Privacy in Big Data? Don’t Be!

Details: Category: Research and Innovation; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 4078

by Sabrina Kirrane, and adapted for ERCIM News by Jessica Michel

The SPECIAL project (Scalable Policy-aware Linked Data Architecture For Privacy, Transparency and Compliance) addresses the contradiction between Big Data innovation and data protection compliance requirements by proposing a technical solution that makes the achievement of both of these goals realistic. SPECIAL allows citizens and organisations to share more data, while guaranteeing compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), thus enabling both trust and the creation of valuable new insights from shared data.

Cyber-Ranges as a Mean of Security Culture Establishment

Details: Category: Research and Innovation; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 4550

by George Hatzivasilis (FORTH), Kostas Fysarakis (Sphynx) and Sotiris Ioannidis (FORTH)

Modern educational tools and computer technologies are now getting adapted in the cyber-ranges field. Simulation, emulation, as well as serious gaming, provide an enhanced training experience under realistic conditions and accurate operational environments. The THREAT-ARREST Horizon-2020 project is developing a model-driven platform for professional cyber-security training and the raising of awareness for individuals and organizations.

Cultural and Heritage Site Defect Detection via 3D Saliency Map Extraction

Details: Category: Research and Innovation; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 4434

by Christos Anagnostopoulos, Aris Lalos, George Pavlidis, Christos Koulamas, Athanasios Kalogeras (ISI, Athena R.C), Ana Garcia Lopez (University of Granada) and Giacomo Di Benedetto (Enginelife-Engineering Solutions)

The WARMEST project is developing an intelligent decision support system that will result in a low impact tool to suggest improvements in maintenance and risk management procedures in cultural and heritage sites (CHSs).

Various Approaches to Statistical Calibration of Ensemble Weather Forecasts

Details: Category: Research and Innovation; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 5149

by Sándor Baran and Annette Möller (Faculty of Informatics, University of Debrecen and Institute of Mathematics, Technical University of Clausthal)

Statistical calibration of ensemble weather forecasts is a rapidly developing research area of statistics as well as atmospheric and water sciences. We are developing and implementing multivariate approaches explicitly accounting for dependencies between weather observation locations and/or between weather variables, including temperature, precipitation and pressure.

Enabling the European Business Knowledge Graph for Innovative Data-Driven Products and Services

Details: Category: Research and Innovation; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 5154

by Dumitru Roman and Ahmet Soylu (SINTEF)

Corporate information, ranging from basic company information such as company name(s) and incorporation date to complex balance sheets and personal data about directors and shareholders, are the foundation that many data value chains depend upon in various sectors. However, collecting and aggregating information about a business entity from relevant public and private sources and especially across borders and languages is a tedious and very expensive task rendering many potential business models non-feasible.

ALerT – Learning about Privacy at the Time of Data Sharing Everywhere

Details: Category: Research and Innovation; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 4486

by Patrick Jost (NTNU), Gisela Böhm (University of Bergen), Monica Divitini (NTNU) and Ingvar Tjostheim (Norwegian Computing Center)

Data is being collected everywhere, and people are often unaware of what information they share, with whom and what it is used for. Games have the potential to increase people’s awareness about privacy and, at the same time, help researchers to better understand decision-making processes around data sharing. This is the challenge addressed by ALerT, a multi-disciplinary project aiming at developing serious games and research tools for privacy awareness.

Roadmaps for AI Integration in the Rail Sector - RAILS

Details: Category: Research and Innovation; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 8077

by Francesco Flammini (Mälardalen University and Linnaeus University, Sweden), Valeria Vittorini (CINI and University of Naples Federico II, Italy) and Zhiyuan Lin (University of Leeds, UK)

The European RAILS research project is investigating the potential applications of artificial intelligence (AI) within the rail sector, and helping define roadmaps for future research in next generation signalling systems, operational intelligence, and network management.

A Formal Methods Demonstrator for Railways

Details: Category: Research and Innovation; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 4632

by Franco Mazzanti and Davide Basile (ISTI-CNR)

The 4SECURail project – funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking – has two overall objectives: to design a Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) for joint EU-Rail cybersecurity, and the setup of a Formal Methods Demonstrator for the evaluation, in terms of cost, benefits and required learning curve, of the impact of the use of Formal Methods for the rigorous specification of the components of a railway signalling infrastructure.

Dagstuhl Seminars and Perspectives Workshops

Details: Category: In Brief; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 3792

Call for Proposals

Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik is accepting proposals for scientific seminars/workshops in all areas of computer science, in particular also in connection with other fields.

DMS Accelerator Opens its Second Call to Promote Data-Centric Startups and SMEs

Details: Category: In Brief; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 4279

Announcement

DMS Accelerator aims at overcoming the barriers of data-centrics SMEs and start-ups in Europe in data skills, entrepreneurial opportunities, legal issues and standardisation. To that end, all startups seeking a new boost in the European market are encouraged to apply to this new DMS Accelerator open call.

Artificial Intelligence by CWI and Amsterdam UMC Proposes the Best Radiation Treatment Plans in Clinical Practice for the First Time

Details: Category: In Brief; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 3588

CWI researchers, together with the department of radiation oncology of Amsterdam UMC, have developed software based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) that quickly proposes multiple radiation treatment plans for each patient. The software functions as a type of ‘route planner’ for the doctor: it presents multiple plans based on the data of the patient that represent trade-offs between giving sufficient radiation dose to the tumor with as little damage possible to the surrounding organs. This not only helps the doctors to make plans faster, it will also improve plan quality. Amsterdam UMC has treated the first patient with a plan proposed by the new AI on March 17, 2020. The innovative technique will be used for the treatment of prostate cancer with internal radiation.

Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing

Details: Category: In Brief; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 3929

Announcement

ERCIM members Inria and Fraunhofer (Fraunhofer AISEC, Fraunhofer HHI and Fraunhofer IIS) are participating in the Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) initiative, launched by European scientists to create mobile apps useful in tracking the spread of COVID-19. PEPP-PT will focus on the development of applications that can trace contact and potential COVID-19 spreads across populations, not just now, but also potentially in the future. PEPP-PT will provide standards, technology, and services to countries and developers. PEPP-PT says they embrace a fully privacy-preserving approach and build on well-tested, fully implemented proximity measurement and scalable backend service. Researchers and institutions are invited to join. PEPP-PT is establishing a partner management team to help partners to get going quickly.
https://www.pepp-pt.org/

Three Awards for CWI Researchers

Details: Category: In Brief; Published: 13 April 2020; Hits: 3301

Announcement

Daniel Dadush received Van Dantzig Prize
Researcher Daniel Dadush from CWI has been awarded the Van Dantzig Prize, together with Marloes Maathuis from ETH Zurich. This prize is considered the highest Dutch award in statistics and operations research and is awarded once every five years. Dadush and Maathuis were given recognition for the award on 12 March, at the annual meeting of the VVSOR, the Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, which took place in Utrecht.