The SPARK project aims at realizing a responsive and intuitive ICT platform that exploit the potential of Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR) to show designers and customers real-like solutions in the form of mixed prototypes (partially virtual and partially physical) during brainstorming sessions. The SPARK platform allows designers and customers to freely work together within the paradigm of open-innovation so as to support and foster creative thinking with an enriched flow of ideas in the design process. The platform, by means of adequate content management and real-like interaction with the mixed prototype, will enhance the innovation capabilities of creative industries through the facilitation of brainstorming and the early assessment of design solutions in a Co-Design environment. It will enable designers and customers to cooperate since the very beginning to create the most suitable solutions according to the prompt evaluation of customers. The SPARK platform addresses the need of the creative industries of the consortium to reduce the effects of poor communication with their customers and the inefficiencies due to the asynchronous process of ideation and validation, which results in longer design cycles and a slower pace for time-to-market. The platform will be validated, against an appropriate metrics, with control groups in relevant operational and real life environments, where creativity plays a paramount role. The groups will include also customers and other user communities. The tests will aim at demonstrating the effectiveness of the platform in: (1) reducing the time needed for generating ideas, (2) reducing the amount of creative SME’s human resources on a single project (so as to allow them to manage more projects), (3) reducing the workload of the people involved in the brainstorming sessions and (4) increasing the efficiency of the whole design process, by enhancing the direct feedback by the customers on the solution of the design task.

Technology has advanced to the point that computer systems are embedded in almost any physical system from cars, trains, airplanes, robots, medical devices. Embedded systems become ever more complex and safety-critical, asserting their correctness is thus crucial. Today's embedded systems are validated by creating a (finite) number of input stimulis for which the system behaviours are validated via simulation and testing. This is inadequate for safety-critical embedded systems that operate inside some changing and unpredictable environment, and rigorous validation methods should go beyond ``value-based'' analysis and should be able to cope with large sets of unspecified, uncertain behaviors. Model checking is a technique that can replace infinitely-many simulation runs in order to check if all the executions of a system satisfies a given property, and it has been successfully used for software verification. Embedded systems combine challenges in modelling continuous dynamics and distributed computing systems. The theory of hybrid systems offers a rigorous mathematical framework suitable for reasoning about the interaction between different types of dynamics (discrete and continuous, logical and numerical). For such systems, model checking faces the fundamental problem that almost all interesting properties are formally undecidable. Hence the focus is not on exact verification of properties, but more on approximations of reachable states, for validating safety and liveness properties. However, with modern embedded systems becoming more complex, limitations of the existing model checking tools are showing, due to increasing computational complexity. In this arms race, the most crucial factor for further success of model checking is to have efficient basic data structures and algorithms. The main objective of this proposal is to advance the state of the art of real-time and hybrid model checking by applying advanced algebraic methods and tools from linear algebra, mathematical programming (convex and semi-algebraic optimization) and tropical geometry. These include new data structures (tropical polyhedra, zonotopes, and ellipsoids) and new algorithms (based on policy iteration or cone programming). To achieve this objective, we propose to investigate three types of algebraic methods: - Tropical methods, to handle more efficiently disjunctive invariants which arise in model checking, in particular of timed systems. - Sub-polyhedral abstract domains, with a view of greatly improving the efficiency of model checking of hybrid systems. - Convex semi-algebraic methods, to provide more expressive set representation methods allowing more accurate analysis verification of hybrid systems. The data structures and algorithms resulting from the project will be integrated in the libraries (APRON) and our tools for real-time and hybrid model checking (pyECDAR, HybridFluctuat and SpaceEx) to increase their scope and efficiency. Furthermore, another important objective of this project is to demonstrate that model checking can be exported to industry and contribute to increase confidence in safety-critical embedded systems design. To this end, we will apply our results to verification of medical devices, through the case studies of infusion pumps provided by the partner Object Direct. This choice of application is motivated by the recent interest in safety of medical devices which are often based on embedded architecture. To ensure their safety, the complex interactions between the devices and the patient physiology should be accurately captured, and for this purpose hybrid systems provide an appropriate modelling framework.

Electronic Medical Record (EMR) contains information data that are crucial for biomedical research studies. In the recent years there has an exponential increase of scientific publications about using textual processing of medical data in fields as diverse as medical decision support, epidemiological studies or data and semantic mining. The ALADIN project (ANR TecSan - n° ANR-08-TECS-001),) demonstrated the feasibility and good performances of this type of approach via the development of a semantic analysis tool to detect Hospital Acquired Infections. This project has also highlighted some scientific and technological challenges that SYNODOS will address. The project SYNODOS brings together two academic structures, one expert in medical terminology (CISMeF) and the other in the field of epidemiology (LBBE) and two industrial, one specializing in software development and language resources (CELI ) and the other in the integration of business intelligence solutions and web technologies (VISEO). The purpose of our project is to develop a generic solution for extracting semantics out of medical data and organize this medical information in such a way that it could be used to support epidemiological studies or medical decisions. The genericity of the resulting solution will be supported by the fact that medical staff will be able to write their own expert rules independently of their domain of specialties; The project will also evaluate the quality of extracted information in the context of epidemiological studies. System performance will be evaluated in two domains: hospital acquired Infections and cancer. . From a technological standpoint, project objectives are: development of fine grained linguistic rules to extract temporal expressions, interface between the semantic analyzer and multi-terminology server upstream during the extraction phase as well as interface between linguistic engine and knowledge representation. For the generation of expert system rules, Synodos proposes a general modular architecture that makes a clear distinction between linguistic rules and expert systems rules allowing the medical user to generate its own decision rule and enabling semantic queries on information extracted. Project outcomes will be an operational system integrating the various technological modules described above.

The underlyingassumption of the project proposal, in line with the UN Security Council recommendations (Resolution n. 2178, September 2014) and the Commission “European Agenda on Security”2015-2020(28.4.2015, COM(2015) 185 final), is that in order to contrast successfully violent extremism,what is neededis a more balanced response to terrorism,combining repressive (protective) measures with preventive measures, in a comprehensive approach in collaboration withactors of civil society and the communitiesof reference, based on a firm commitment to respecting fundamental rights, promoting integration, cultural dialogue and fighting discrimination. To this end, a better understanding of factors constituting violent radicalisation in Europe is needed, which aims,through a multidisciplinary analysis,to a comprehensive view of the phenomenon, investigatingits root causes, in order to develop appropriate countermeasures, ranging from early detection methodologies to strategies, ways and techniques of counter-narrative, involving LEAs together with experts and civil society actors at local, national and European level. In addition, it is necessary to acknowledge that violent radicalization,especially in the case of jihadist extremism,goesmainly through narratives that: have specific characteristics and contents; use specific communication codes;are addressed to specific audiences; and spread in a multitude of ways, over the Internet, as well as by means of in-person communication exchanges that take place in families, schools, places of worship, local communities, etc. These narratives havebeen proven effective towards vulnerable groups such as young people, detainees, and people craving for revenge after having experienced what they perceive as injustices, either at personal or group level. Furthermore, due to this multifarious background, such extremism is characterised by single or group terrorist acts also reflecting a variety of influences and motivational dr