Poste Italiane has always recognised the importance of research as a driver of innovation and for improving services and customer relations.
The mission of the Poste Italiane Research Centre is to introduce new methods and tools to support the Company’s activities and business. For this purpose, it conducts research projects in collaboration with universities, research centres and local institutions, experimenting with and implementing the new solutions.
The Centre is divided into two areas:
The main activities are:
The mission of the Poste Italiane Research Centre is to introduce new methods and tools to support the Company’s activities and business. For this purpose, it conducts research projects in collaboration with universities, research centres and local institutions, experimenting with and implementing the new solutions.
The Centre is divided into two areas:
- the Project Financing Area, which deals with project financing for scientific and industrial research programmes focused on ICT, including socially-oriented projects. The projects are chosen in keeping with Poste Italiane’s corporate strategies following a thorough analysis of the financing proposals available at an italian and international level;
- the Prototype Projects Area , which develops experimental prototypes for innovative products and services. This is followed by a pre-industrialisation stage in which checks are performed to verify the feasibility of integrating the prototypes into the Company’s systems.
The main activities are:
- searching for new financing opportunities in innovative fields for Poste Italiane’s business;
- design and development of innovative solutions based on the new financing opportunities;
- application of scientific research results to new prototype projects;
- collaboration with internal structures to launch the developed projects.
Application areas of research
The Internet is an important sales channel as well as a key tool for improving all the Company’s activities.
It can be used to:
It can be used to:
- improve the quality of pre- and after-sales customer support;
- improve the effectiveness of company communication as a means of disseminating information and creating dialogue with the Company’s partners (existing and potential customers, suppliers, branches across the country, sales-chains and agents);
- redefine internal company processes and integrate workflows on a single platform (order and transaction automation, real-time coordination of customer requests, production logistics and warehouse availability).
As a result of technological progress and the gradual adoption of technology in people’s day-to-day lives, the Government now has a unique opportunity to improve the quality of its services.
The term “eGovernment” refers to the use of ICT technologies in the provision of public services.
Two of the most important benefits are the savings that can be made in terms of time and cost for citizens and public bodies, and the development of a Public Administration that is results-oriented, focused on citizens and based on the laws of the market.
The term “eGovernment” refers to the use of ICT technologies in the provision of public services.
Two of the most important benefits are the savings that can be made in terms of time and cost for citizens and public bodies, and the development of a Public Administration that is results-oriented, focused on citizens and based on the laws of the market.
The term “eTourism” refers to the process of digitalisation of the tourist industry.
Following the global development of the Internet, most businesses operating in the tourism industry have now migrated to the Web. Blogs and social networks are the ideal platform for exchanging opinions and information and for sharing a wide range of materials such as photos and videos.
The keywords of the Web 2.0 Era are collaboration and sharing. In this context, users take on an active role as researchers, commentators and content generators.
Following the global development of the Internet, most businesses operating in the tourism industry have now migrated to the Web. Blogs and social networks are the ideal platform for exchanging opinions and information and for sharing a wide range of materials such as photos and videos.
The keywords of the Web 2.0 Era are collaboration and sharing. In this context, users take on an active role as researchers, commentators and content generators.
The term “eWorking” refers to the application of new organisational models based on widespread involvement, collaboration, knowledge sharing and the development of social networks inside and outside the organisation.
For this purpose companies use: the typical tools of the Web 2.0 Era (blogs, wiki, RSS, etc.); technological approaches such as BPM (Business Process Management) for optimising, monitoring and integrating company processes; RIA (Rich Internet Applications), which deliver the same functions as desktop applications without the need for a hard disk; SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture), a software architecture that supports Web services and guarantees interoperability between different systems, allowing for integrated and transparent use of individual applications.
For this purpose companies use: the typical tools of the Web 2.0 Era (blogs, wiki, RSS, etc.); technological approaches such as BPM (Business Process Management) for optimising, monitoring and integrating company processes; RIA (Rich Internet Applications), which deliver the same functions as desktop applications without the need for a hard disk; SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture), a software architecture that supports Web services and guarantees interoperability between different systems, allowing for integrated and transparent use of individual applications.
Funded Projects
The SERMAS Project – Socially accettable Extended Reality Models And Systems
Funding Entity: European Commission
Program: HORIZON.2.4 - Digital, Industry and Space
Status: on going
Web Site: https://www.sermasproject.eu/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sermas_eu
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sermas-eu/about/
CONTEXT
SERMAS is part of the HORIZON.2.4 - Digital, Industry and Space program , specifically in the HORIZON-CL4-2021-HUMAN-01-13 - eXtended Reality Modelling (RIA) topic
The pandemic further highlighted the importance of digitalization in all areas of our lives, from public services to healthcare, to education. This digital revolution must be sustainable and inclusive, granting the same rights to all citizens and ensuring that no one is left behind. Innovation and digitalization must meet the needs and characteristics of each individual and must be built around people taking into account a human-centric approach allowing users to gain access to information and services in a simple way and at the right time.
The current generations of static and dynamic virtual assistants and more generally the XR Systems (avatars, robots, cobots, augmented reality web-based solutions, etc.) fail to provide the truly Extended Reality (XR) experience that they were envisioned for.
The XR systems must be considered as socio-technical systems, of which better understand how the two components, the technical one (e.g., communication and control processes) and the social one (e.g., user interaction processes and user behavior), interoperate to achieve a truly XR experience.
The revolutionary opportunities opened by XR technologies will only materialize if concepts, techniques, and tools are provisioned to ensure the social acceptance of XR systems, defining it as the capability of a technology to be used in diverse social contexts (such as a post office or a newsroom office) in such a way that it does not make users feel uncomfortable or out of place. The user should be comfortable in interacting with the XR system and should perceive the interaction as pleasant, useful and understandable, thus leading to acceptance.
In other words, XR systems will truly be accepted, and thus become widely adopted, not if they “look or act like a human”, but rather if they behave in a way that humans find appropriate and understandable.
The lack of social acceptance is a barrier as it will lead all or some categories of users to refrain from using the technology, preventing them from accessing the services and information offered, and thus increasing social inequality rather than fulfilling the aims of the digital revolution. However, state-of-the-art models and technologies of XR systems are not up to the task of ensuring full-fledged social acceptance.
SERMAS will lay the foundations of next-generation XR systems, looking at social acceptance where it depends, both on the technology and on people who relate and interact with the technology. Will be developed innovative, formal and systematic, methodologies and technologies to model, develop, analyze, test and user-study socially acceptable XR systems.
OBJECTIVES
The goal of the project is to develop "disruptive" methodologies and tools, to simplify the design, development, implementation and management of eXtended Reality systems.
At the same time, the project will pay attention to the fundamental aspects to make these systems socially acceptable for end users, who will have to feel comfortable in interacting with the XR system.
The new models for XR systems will have the ability to adapt to a large variety of forms of expression, interaction, languages, domains, styles and intents and will allow the development of solutions capable of realizing an authentic human-like interaction capable of overcoming the mistrust and the limits in the interactions between human beings and machines.
The objective will be reached thanks to an approach that is both:
THE ROLE OF POSTE ITALIANE
Poste Italiane participates in the project by providing its technical skills for the development of methodologies, coordinating the implementation of the case studies and participating in the experimentation and validation of the created solutions.
Two of the three case studies envisaged by the project will be carried out by Poste Italiane for the experimentation of XR solutions in assistance services. Through tactile and vocal interactions, the Receptionist Agent will welcome visitors to the Poste Italiane headquarters with the aim of providing information and physical access services to the buildings. On the other hand, a Post Office Agent will be active in Post Offices, with user-friendly communication skills for providing information and offering services to users.
In this context, participation in the project has the objective of interest for Poste Italiane to experiment with new models of human-machine interaction.
CONSORTIUM PARTNERs
The project coordinator is UNIMORE - UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MODENA E REGGIO EMILIA, (Italia), in cooperation with the following partners:
Funding Entity: European Commission
Program: HORIZON.2.4 - Digital, Industry and Space
Status: on going
Web Site: https://www.sermasproject.eu/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sermas_eu
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sermas-eu/about/
CONTEXT
SERMAS is part of the HORIZON.2.4 - Digital, Industry and Space program , specifically in the HORIZON-CL4-2021-HUMAN-01-13 - eXtended Reality Modelling (RIA) topic
The pandemic further highlighted the importance of digitalization in all areas of our lives, from public services to healthcare, to education. This digital revolution must be sustainable and inclusive, granting the same rights to all citizens and ensuring that no one is left behind. Innovation and digitalization must meet the needs and characteristics of each individual and must be built around people taking into account a human-centric approach allowing users to gain access to information and services in a simple way and at the right time.
The current generations of static and dynamic virtual assistants and more generally the XR Systems (avatars, robots, cobots, augmented reality web-based solutions, etc.) fail to provide the truly Extended Reality (XR) experience that they were envisioned for.
The XR systems must be considered as socio-technical systems, of which better understand how the two components, the technical one (e.g., communication and control processes) and the social one (e.g., user interaction processes and user behavior), interoperate to achieve a truly XR experience.
The revolutionary opportunities opened by XR technologies will only materialize if concepts, techniques, and tools are provisioned to ensure the social acceptance of XR systems, defining it as the capability of a technology to be used in diverse social contexts (such as a post office or a newsroom office) in such a way that it does not make users feel uncomfortable or out of place. The user should be comfortable in interacting with the XR system and should perceive the interaction as pleasant, useful and understandable, thus leading to acceptance.
In other words, XR systems will truly be accepted, and thus become widely adopted, not if they “look or act like a human”, but rather if they behave in a way that humans find appropriate and understandable.
The lack of social acceptance is a barrier as it will lead all or some categories of users to refrain from using the technology, preventing them from accessing the services and information offered, and thus increasing social inequality rather than fulfilling the aims of the digital revolution. However, state-of-the-art models and technologies of XR systems are not up to the task of ensuring full-fledged social acceptance.
SERMAS will lay the foundations of next-generation XR systems, looking at social acceptance where it depends, both on the technology and on people who relate and interact with the technology. Will be developed innovative, formal and systematic, methodologies and technologies to model, develop, analyze, test and user-study socially acceptable XR systems.
OBJECTIVES
The goal of the project is to develop "disruptive" methodologies and tools, to simplify the design, development, implementation and management of eXtended Reality systems.
At the same time, the project will pay attention to the fundamental aspects to make these systems socially acceptable for end users, who will have to feel comfortable in interacting with the XR system.
The new models for XR systems will have the ability to adapt to a large variety of forms of expression, interaction, languages, domains, styles and intents and will allow the development of solutions capable of realizing an authentic human-like interaction capable of overcoming the mistrust and the limits in the interactions between human beings and machines.
The objective will be reached thanks to an approach that is both:
- inter-disciplinary, bringing together computer scientists, engineers and psychologists in order to provide the heterogeneous scientific expertise necessary to capture and reason about the social and technical components of XR systems, and
- multi-sectorial, bringing together academic and industrial beneficiaries that are key players in the modeling, development, deployment, analysis and testing of XR systems.
THE ROLE OF POSTE ITALIANE
Poste Italiane participates in the project by providing its technical skills for the development of methodologies, coordinating the implementation of the case studies and participating in the experimentation and validation of the created solutions.
Two of the three case studies envisaged by the project will be carried out by Poste Italiane for the experimentation of XR solutions in assistance services. Through tactile and vocal interactions, the Receptionist Agent will welcome visitors to the Poste Italiane headquarters with the aim of providing information and physical access services to the buildings. On the other hand, a Post Office Agent will be active in Post Offices, with user-friendly communication skills for providing information and offering services to users.
In this context, participation in the project has the objective of interest for Poste Italiane to experiment with new models of human-machine interaction.
CONSORTIUM PARTNERs
The project coordinator is UNIMORE - UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MODENA E REGGIO EMILIA, (Italia), in cooperation with the following partners:
| TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT DARMSTADT (TUDa) | Germany |
| DEUTSCHE WELLE (DW) | Germany |
| F6S NETWORK IRELAND LIMITED (F6S) | Irland |
| SPINDOX LABS SRL (SPXL) | Italy |
| Associated partners: | |
| KING'S COLLEGE LONDON (KCL) - coordinatore scientifico | United Kingdom |
| SCUOLA UNIVERSITARIA PROFESSIONALE DELLA SVIZZERA ITALIANA (SUPSI) | Switzerland |
The INDIMO Project – INclusive DIgital MObility solutions
Funding Entity: European Commission
Program: H2020-EU.2.1.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
Status: Completed
Web Site: https://www.indimoproject.eu/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/INDIMO_H2020
Pagina Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/indimo-h2020/about/
CONTEXT
INDIMO is part of the H2020-EU.3.4. - SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport program, specifically in the MG-4-5-2019 - An inclusive digitally interconnected transport system meeting citizens' needs topic.
The rapid expansion of digital solutions for the management of mobility and logistics systems, together with the digital information provision, have allowed the emergence of the "connected traveler", who can independently make decisions on travel routes, modes and departure times based on multimodal route planning and provide immediate feedback on service quality or problems via connected mobile devices. Furthermore, the digitization and proliferation of information and communication technologies (ICT) have stimulated the emergence of disruptive technologies and business models such as on-demand mobility and logistics solutions.
Connected smartphones have also enabled new on-demand logistics services, which offer customers the possibility to order, track and receive goods when and how it is convenient for them. At the same time, crowdsourcing delivery services have also opened up many possibilities for social innovation and new business models in which people can easily become part of the logistics chain.
NDIMO aims to provide, through innovative services, an answer to address the key challenges of logistics in environmental, organizational and social cohesion terms.
The project aims to create a user-centered digital transport system, in which the needs of all parts of society are taken into consideration, the services are inclusive and universally accessible, and safety is guaranteed.
OBJECTIVES
INDIMO underlines the need for researchers, operators, developers and policy makers to take into account the point of view of the different user groups during the process of developing digital mobility solutions and, in particular, aims to analyze and support the mobility needs of citizens vulnerable to exclusion (elderly, children, disabled, poor, poorly educated).
The general objective is therefore to extend the benefits of the new and emerging interconnected digital transport system to people who currently face obstacles to the use of these systems due to limited physical or cognitive accessibility to digital interfaces or socio-economic barriers.
The project aims to outline models and guidelines to support a 'universal design' approach for digital mobility. It develops through the phases of mobility needs main characteristics identification, tools co-design and their effectiveness co-evaluation, re-design, transfer and diffusion, to always keep in adequate consideration the user groups’ needs.
The methodology is supported by a series of pilots, each one oriented to verify the identified solutions validity to favor the spatial and economic inclusion of the residents in the reference areas. The creation of 5 pilots, in different logistic areas, is expected to be implemented in 5 different countries: Madrid (Spain), Antwerp (Belgium), Emilia Romagna (Italy), Berlin (Germany) and Galilee (Israel).
THE ROLE OF POSTE ITALIANE
Poste Italiane contributes to the development of an innovative logistics model in rural areas by participating to one of the 5 Pilots in collaboration with ITL - Foundation Institute for Transport and Logistics in Bologna (Pilot 1 - Introduction of digital technology to allow e-commerce in rural areas ), installing one or more digital lockers in a chosen location in the Rhine Valley in order to provide residents with a personalized service for sending /receiving parcels and for accessing digital services such as payments, facilitating (reducing) the need for mobility and thus improving:
CONSORTIUM PARTNERs
The project coordinator is VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL (Belgium), in cooperation with the following partners:
RESULTS
INDIMO Inclusive Digital Mobility Toolbox - https://www.indimoproject.eu/indimo-digital-mobility-toolbox/
What is it
It is an interactive set of 5 online tools, intended for a practical use and available in six different languages. It offers access to the INDIMO methodologies and the research documentation, including templates and examples of their use.
Who is it for
It has been developed to help developers, policy makers and service operators to design and implement accessible and inclusive mobility solutions for all kinds of digital mobility and delivery services.
It provides recommendations and advice to:
Each tool provides access to project results such as research insights, methodologies, surveys, exercises, documents, templates and a list of recommendations. All provided materials are open access and they can be used to analyse, evaluate and re-design all kinds of digital mobility services.
Funding Entity: European Commission
Program: H2020-EU.2.1.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
Status: Completed
Web Site: https://www.indimoproject.eu/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/INDIMO_H2020
Pagina Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/indimo-h2020/about/
CONTEXT
INDIMO is part of the H2020-EU.3.4. - SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport program, specifically in the MG-4-5-2019 - An inclusive digitally interconnected transport system meeting citizens' needs topic.
The rapid expansion of digital solutions for the management of mobility and logistics systems, together with the digital information provision, have allowed the emergence of the "connected traveler", who can independently make decisions on travel routes, modes and departure times based on multimodal route planning and provide immediate feedback on service quality or problems via connected mobile devices. Furthermore, the digitization and proliferation of information and communication technologies (ICT) have stimulated the emergence of disruptive technologies and business models such as on-demand mobility and logistics solutions.
Connected smartphones have also enabled new on-demand logistics services, which offer customers the possibility to order, track and receive goods when and how it is convenient for them. At the same time, crowdsourcing delivery services have also opened up many possibilities for social innovation and new business models in which people can easily become part of the logistics chain.
NDIMO aims to provide, through innovative services, an answer to address the key challenges of logistics in environmental, organizational and social cohesion terms.
The project aims to create a user-centered digital transport system, in which the needs of all parts of society are taken into consideration, the services are inclusive and universally accessible, and safety is guaranteed.
OBJECTIVES
INDIMO underlines the need for researchers, operators, developers and policy makers to take into account the point of view of the different user groups during the process of developing digital mobility solutions and, in particular, aims to analyze and support the mobility needs of citizens vulnerable to exclusion (elderly, children, disabled, poor, poorly educated).
The general objective is therefore to extend the benefits of the new and emerging interconnected digital transport system to people who currently face obstacles to the use of these systems due to limited physical or cognitive accessibility to digital interfaces or socio-economic barriers.
The project aims to outline models and guidelines to support a 'universal design' approach for digital mobility. It develops through the phases of mobility needs main characteristics identification, tools co-design and their effectiveness co-evaluation, re-design, transfer and diffusion, to always keep in adequate consideration the user groups’ needs.
The methodology is supported by a series of pilots, each one oriented to verify the identified solutions validity to favor the spatial and economic inclusion of the residents in the reference areas. The creation of 5 pilots, in different logistic areas, is expected to be implemented in 5 different countries: Madrid (Spain), Antwerp (Belgium), Emilia Romagna (Italy), Berlin (Germany) and Galilee (Israel).
THE ROLE OF POSTE ITALIANE
Poste Italiane contributes to the development of an innovative logistics model in rural areas by participating to one of the 5 Pilots in collaboration with ITL - Foundation Institute for Transport and Logistics in Bologna (Pilot 1 - Introduction of digital technology to allow e-commerce in rural areas ), installing one or more digital lockers in a chosen location in the Rhine Valley in order to provide residents with a personalized service for sending /receiving parcels and for accessing digital services such as payments, facilitating (reducing) the need for mobility and thus improving:
- the level of tailored parcel delivery services through digital tools to respond to the needs of users in sparsely populated, rural areas.
- the social inclusion of those citizens that for several reasons cannot have access to the same services compared to the cities and specifically: elderly people, migrants or communities of foreign people living in low level economic conditions, people with low level of digital knowledge and education.
- the digital education of people that live in areas characterized by an elevated digital divide, hoping to develop a digital culture.
CONSORTIUM PARTNERs
The project coordinator is VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL (Belgium), in cooperation with the following partners:
| VDI/VDE Innovation und Technik GmbH | Belgium |
| INTERUNIVERSITAIR MICRO-ELECTRONICA CENTRUM | Belgium |
| cambiaMO S.C.M. | Spain |
| DEEP BLUE SRL | Italy |
| TECHNION - ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | Israel |
| MOZGASSERULTEK BUDAPESTI EGYESULETE | Hungary |
| FUNDACION ZARAGOZA LOGISTICS CENTER | Spain |
| POLIS – Promotion of Operational Links with Integrated Service | Belgium |
| EUROPEAN PASSENGERS' FEDERATION IVZW | Belgium |
| Door2Door GmbH | Germany |
| Vivero de Iniciativas Ciudadanas | Spain |
| CoopCycle | France |
| Fondazione Istituto Sui Trasporti e la Logistica | Italy |
RESULTS
INDIMO Inclusive Digital Mobility Toolbox - https://www.indimoproject.eu/indimo-digital-mobility-toolbox/
What is it
It is an interactive set of 5 online tools, intended for a practical use and available in six different languages. It offers access to the INDIMO methodologies and the research documentation, including templates and examples of their use.
Who is it for
It has been developed to help developers, policy makers and service operators to design and implement accessible and inclusive mobility solutions for all kinds of digital mobility and delivery services.
It provides recommendations and advice to:
- Design digital transport solutions that are better tailored to citizens’ needs, especially those of users who experience barriers in using digital services, by means of the UDM – Universal Design Manual.
- Design universally understandable interfaces between transport end-users and the digital mobility system, through the UIL – Universal interface language manual.
- Ensure data protection and cybersecurity in digital transport solutions, by means of the CSG – Cybersecurity and privacy assessment guidelines.
- Evaluate the compliance of digital mobility solutions and services with the universal design principles, through the online SET – Service evaluation tool.
- Identify, select and filter a list of recommendations derived from our research with end users in the INDIMO Recommendations browsable list.
Each tool provides access to project results such as research insights, methodologies, surveys, exercises, documents, templates and a list of recommendations. All provided materials are open access and they can be used to analyse, evaluate and re-design all kinds of digital mobility services.
THE PROJECT PLATOON – Digital PLAtform and analytical TOOls for eNergy
Funding Entity: European CommissionProgram: H2020-EU.2.1.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
Status: Active
Web Site: https://platoon-project.eu
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PLATOON_EU
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/platoon-h2020
During the last few years the electricity sector is experiencing its most dramatic transformation since its creation. Nowadays electricity covers almost 20% of global energy consumption and it is expected to rise exponentially during the next decades both in absolute and relative terms. This growth is mainly driven by three factors: 1) world population increase, 2) need for greener energy sources to fight global warming 3) the disruption of new technologies such as electric transportation and digital technologies.
At the same time the digitalization of the energy sector is rapidly increasing through the adoption of "disrupting" technologies in all components of the energy network which capture huge amounts of data and allow higher levels of operational excellence. The Big Data infrastructure of modern 'Smart' electricity networks provides an ideal ecosystem for exploiting the knowledge inherent in the data.
The PLATOON project intends to create a secure cyber digital platform which, by using distributed processing and data analysis technologies for optimized real-time management of the energy system, provides effective support to industry experts.
A reference architecture will be developed and used to build and implement replicable energy management solutions that will help to increase energy consumption from renewable sources, manage Smart electricity grids, increase energy efficiency and optimize the energy resource management.
The project includes 7 pilots, for different energy spheres, implemented in 4 different countries that provide real energy 'Big Data' situations: Italy, Belgium, Spain and Serbia.
The project will strengthen European efforts for the modernization of electricity grids, as it focuses attention on innovative 'smart' network services through the exploitation of the knowledge inherent in data, and will offer consumers access to cheaper and more sustainable energy, maximizing social well-being.
CONTEXT
PLATOON si colloca nell’ambito del Programma H2020-EU.2.1.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), specificatamente nel topic DT-ICT-11-2019 - Big data solutions for energy.
THE ROLE OF POSTE ITALIANE
Poste Italiane participates in the project by contributing to the writing of the requirements for the development of the Big Data platform and tools for analyzing data and defining the model related to activities in the energy system.Poste Italiane also participates in one of the 7 "End use of energy" drivers in collaboration with 'Roma Capitale', evaluating the results of the designed solution applied to a set of buildings with relevant characteristics and datasets.
OBJECTIVES
The project aims to improve energy system efficiency strategies through the creation of an innovative and flexible platform, COSMAG (Comprehensive Architecture for Smart Grid) compliant, which is:• Interoperable: to manage a wide spectrum and heterogeneous data sources, formats, interfaces;
• Compatible: with legacy systems and applicable European standards;
• Secure: to allow governance and secure management of stakeholder information;
• Easy to use: for those operating in the energy sector.
ATTACHMENTS
PARTNERS
| ENGIE | France |
| FUNDACION TECNALIA RESEARCH & INNOVATION | Spain |
| RHEINISCHE FRIEDRICH-WILHELMS-UNIVERSITAT BONN | Germany |
| FRAUNHOFER GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.V. | Germany |
| ENGINEERING - INGEGNERIA INFORMATICA SPA | Italy |
| VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL | Belgium |
| INSTITUT MIHAJLO PUPIN | Serbia |
| GIROA SOCIEDAD ANONIMA | Spain |
| SISTEPLANT SL | Spain |
| SAMPOL INGENIERIA Y OBRAS S.A. | Spain |
| TECHNISCHE INFORMATIONSBIBLIOTHEK (TIB) | Germany |
| POLITECNICO DI MILANO | Italy |
| ROMA CAPITALE | Italy |
| POSTE ITALIANE | Italy |
| MANDAT INTERNATIONAL ALIAS FONDATION POUR LA COOPERATION INTERNATIONALE | Switzerland |
| FUNDINGBOX ACCELERATOR SP ZOO | Poland |
| INDRA SOLUCIONES TECNOLOGIAS DE LA INFORMACION SL | Spain |
| COMSENSUS, KOMUNIKACIJE IN SENZORIKA, DOO | Slovenia |
| CLUSTER DE ENERGIA | Spain |
| UDG ALLIANCE | Switzerland |
DIODE: D- FLIGHT INTERNET OF DRONES ENVIRONMENT
Funding Entity: European Commission
Agency: SESAR JU
Status: Active
Contact: info@diodeproject.eu
Site: http://www.diodeproject.eu/
The drone market is growing rapidly and the fields of application have significantly increased. It is also an opportunity for economic expansion and for the development of new and innovative services.
The project, providing a complete set of basic and advanced U-Space services, aims to demonstrate, through real-world missions performed with drones of different sizes and features, that the implementation of U-Space services (U1, U2 and U3) guarantees an adequate level of safety and performance both in the air andat ground level. This will be achieved through the evaluation of safety and regulatory compliance, live tests and demonstrations conducted in different scenarios (including urban and airport environment and BVLOS flights) with simultaneous missions, operating to pursue specific business or recreational objectives, completely integrated with traditional aeronautics.
CONTEXT
U-space
DIODE is part of the European Network of U-space Demonstrators, launched by the European Commission on 19 October 2018.
THE ROLE OF POSTE ITALIANE
Poste Italiane participates in the project with an active role in defining the study plan, coordinating communication and dissemination activities and performing one of the 11 demonstration missions, which provides the delivery of "goods" by drones in an emergency scenario or adverse logistics conditions.
OBJECTIVES
Through the D-flight platform (service delivery platform for U-Space management), DIODE will demonstratethe achievement of an adequate level of security for UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and the operation of UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems), supporting their integration within traditional crewed traffic and making Italy an European leader in the process of development, use and provision of airspace reserved for DRONES (U-Space).
ATTACHMENTS PARTNERSEnav
Techno sky
Leonardo
Telespazio
e-geos
IDS Ingegneria dei Sistemi
Poste Italiane
AIVIEWGROUP
NAIS
EUROUSC Italia
The Modular Logistics Units in Shared Co-Modal Networks project
- Funding Entity: European Commission
- Status: Active
The aim of this project is to make a concrete contribution to supply-chain development with interconnected modular logistical units modelled on Internet data package transmission functionality. The basic idea is to subdivide each container into further modules so as to reduce shipments of partial loads, optimise costs and reduce CO2 emissions using techniques that can easily be replicated on existing infrastructures.
Citizen Reinforcing Open Smart Synergies
- Funding Entity: European Commission - Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) - Pilot actions - Type B
- Title: Citizen Reinforcing Open Smart Synergies
- Acronymus: CROSS
- Project number: CIP IST PSP 325141
- Status: Active
The aim of the CROSS project is to support volunteer activities by creating a digital platform bringing together Public Administrations, volunteer organisations and end users.
The goal of the CROSS platform is to support the provision of non-monetary economic services as part of a programme of social support for European citizens belonging to specific social categories.
Stakeholders include: citizens, voluntary organisations and volunteers, municipalities and state/regional offices funding voluntary organisations for the provision of services to eligible citizens.
The project is divided into four areas of action:
- Mutual service communities for assistance to elderly people;
- Communities for social inclusion of unemployed, new poverty, immigrates;
- Learning communities for support to school dropouts and low culture people;
- Communities of volunteers assisting persons with disabilities.
Horizon 2020 - The Framework Programme for Research and Innovation
- Funding Entity: European Commission
- Status: Active
Horizon 2020 is a new European Community Integrated Programme devoted to financing Research and Innovation. It was launched on 1 January 2014 and will run until 31 December 2020. Its goal is to offer research scientists the tools they need to carry through their projects, thus creating jobs, sustainable growth and social progress. The innovative aspect is that funds will be provided not only for research activities but also for the pre-sales stages of new products and services.
InViMall (Intelligent Virtual Mall)
- Funding Entity: MiSE - Ministry of Economic Development
- Status: Active
- Contact info: info.ricercaeinnovazione@posteitaliane.it
The SAPI (Automatic System for the Visually Impaired) project
- Funding Entity: MIUR - Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research
- Executive Decree: no. 1642 of 2 August 2006
- Status: Completed
The SIPAC Project (Innovative solutions for Public Administrations and Citizens)
- Funding Entity: MiSE - Ministry of Economic Development
- Ministerial Decree: no. 01758 of 3 September 2012
- Status: Completed
- Contact info: info.ricercaeinnovazione@posteitaliane.it
- central and local Public Administrations;
- companies and public and private organisations which need to send documents and streamline their operating procedures;
- citizens, the primary users of the eGOV platform.
The DiGiCult project (Promotion of Widespread Cultural Resources)
- Funding Entity: MIUR - Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research
- Status: Completed
- Contact info: info.ricercaeinnovazione@posteitaliane.it
Building on its experience as an intermediary between the Public Administration, citizens and service providers, Poste Italiane has chosen to invest in the cultural sector so as to mediate between cultural heritage management authorities and tourists. DiGiCult was set up to support business activities connected with the use of cultural heritage. The project is aimed at public authorities, institutional tourism websites and end users.
The FIBAC project (Innovative Fruition of Cultural Heritage Assets)
- Funding Entity: MIUR - Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research
- Title: Innovative Fruition of Cultural Heritage Assets
- Acronymus: FIBAC
- Project number: PON 01 02705
- Status: Completed
- Contact info: info.ricercaeinnovazione@posteitaliane.it
The aim of this project is to update the processes for promoting and using cultural heritage, adopting Web 2.0 tools and re-mediation techniques in order to support visitors during the lifecycle of their museum experience.
The project is focused on the definition of a system for the dynamic generation of customized routes in museums and art galleries (both real and virtual) in order to deliver context-aware information which will allow a better understanding of the artworks on the base of a narrative structure.
Experimentation at Museum of Capodimonte in Naples proves the feasibility of the proposed innovative services.
The MODERN project (Architectural Models for the Definition, Execution and Reconfiguration of User-Centric Processes in Enterprise 2.0)
- Funding Entity: MIUR - Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research
- Title: Architectural Models for the Definition, Execution and Reconfiguration of User-Centric Processes in Enterprise 2.0
- Acronym: MODERN
- Project number: PON 01 01949
- Status: Completed
- Contact info: info.ricercaeinnovazione@posteitaliane.it
In order to adapt to the rapid changes of the market and stay competitive, modern enterprises must take into account the management of intellectual assets by leveraging technologies like Social Networks and Semantic Web, in order to promote human interactions and between people and effective sharing of information through systems. This was the starting point for the MODERN project.
Electronic Payment System and Value Added Multichannel Services
- Funding Entity: MIUR - Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research
- Status: Completed
This project aims to support the diffusion of an innovative model in the field of electronic payments and in the provision of digital services. In particular, it studies the development of a platform for handling electronic currency transactions based on the use of Multifunctional Payment Cards capable of integrating electronic meal vouchers, loyalty systems, utilities and mobility services in a single device. The next step will be to transfer the Card’s basic technological infrastructure onto latest generation smartphones and tablets so as to encourage the reduction of cash usage in micropayments.
Publications
The product bundling problem is a challenging task in the e-Commerce domain. We propose a generative engine in order to find the bundle of products that best satisfies user requirements and, at the same time, seller needs such as the minimization of the dead stocks and the maximization of net income. The proposed system named Intelligent Bundle Suggestion and Generation (IBSAG) is designed in order to satisfy these requirements. Market Basket Analysis supports the system in user requirement elicitation task. Experimental results prove the ability of system in finding the optimal trade-off between different and conflicting constraints.
Agent-Based Model (ABM) denotes a class of models which, simulating the behavior of multiple agents (i.e., independent actions, interactions and adaptation), aims to emulate and/or predict complex phenomena. The “emergence” of such complex phenomena is often computation intensive and requires tools, libraries and frameworks that speed up and make easier to manage complex simulations. In this paper we present new developments on D-Mason, that is a distributed version of Mason, a well-known and popular library for writing and running Agent-based simulations. The new developments are: a) a tool that allow the parallel exploration of the behavior parameter space; b) an infrastructure that improves the management of distributed simulations in terms of easy deployment of new simulations, automatic update, visioning control and distributed logging.
Identifying customers with a higher probability to leave a merchant (churn customers) is a challenging task for sellers. In this paper, we propose a system able to detect churner behavior and to assist merchants in delivering special offers to their churn customers. Two main goals lead our work: on the one hand, the definition of a classifier in order to perform churn analysis and, on the other hand, the definition of a framework that can be enriched with social information supporting the merchant in performing marketing actions which can reduce the probability of losing those customers. Experimental results of an artificial and a real datasets show an increased value of accuracy of the classification when random forest or decision tree are considered.
Agent-based simulation models are an increasingly popular tool for research and management in many fields. In executing such simulations “speed” is one of the most general and important issues because of the size and complexity of simulations. But another important issue is the effectiveness of the solution, which consists of how easily usable and portable the solutions are for the users, i.e. the programmers of the distributed simulation. Our study, then, is aimed at efficient and effective distribute simulations by adopting a framewor-level approach, with our design and implementation of a framework, D-Mason, which is a parallel version of the Mason library for writing and running simulations of agent-based simulation models. In particular, besides the efficiency due to workload distribution with small overhead, D-Mason at a framework level proves itself effective since it enables the scientists that use the framework (domain expert but with limited knowledge of distributed programming) only minimally aware of the fact that the simulation is running on a distributed environment. Then, we present tests that compare D-Mason against Mason in order to assess the improved scalability and D-Mason capability to exploit heterogeneous distributed hardware. Our tests also show that several massive simulations that are impossible to execute on Mason (e.g. because of CPU and/or memory requirements) can be easily performed using D-Mason.
Agent-Based Models (ABMs) are a class of models which, by simulating the behavior of multiple agents (i.e., independent actions, interactions and adaptation), aim to emulate and/or predict complex phenomena. One of the general features of ABM simulations is their experimental capacity, that requires a viable and reliable infrastructure to interact with a running simulation, monitoring its behaviour, as it proceeds, and applying changes to the configurations at run time, (the computational steering) in order to study "what if" scenarios.A common approach for improving the efficiency and the effectiveness of ABMs as a research tool is to distribute the overall computation on a number of machines, which makes the computational steering of the simulation particularly challenging.In this paper, we present the principles and the architecture design of the management and control infrastructure that is available in D-Mason, a framework for implementing distributed ABM simulations. Together with an efficient parallel distribution of the simulation tasks, D-Mason offers a number of facilities to support the computational steering of a simulation, i.e. monitoring and interacting with a running distributed simulation.ù
Identifying a customer profile of interest is a challenging task for sellers. Preferences and profile features can range during the time in accordance with current trends. In this paper we investigate the application of different model-based Collaborative Filtering (CF) techniques and in particular propose a trusted approach to user-based clustering CF. We propose a Trust-aware Clustering Collaborative Filtering and we compare several approaches by means of Epinions, which contains explicit trust statements, and MovieLens dataset, where we have implicitly defined a trust information. Experimental results show an increased value of coverage of the recommendations provided by our approach without affecting recommendation quality. To conclude, we introduce a tool, based on recommender systems, able to assist merchants in delivering special offers or in discovering potential interests of their customers. This tool allows each merchant to identify the products to suggest to the target customer in order to best fit his profile of interests.
Social mining, recommenders and data semantics are moving the focus of enterprise systems towards context-awareness and personalization. However, the design of these software systems needs specific architectures to support intelligent behaviors, still ensuring important non-functional properties, such as flexibility, efficiency and scalability. This paper proposes an architectural pattern that helps designers to easily identify the subsystems that characterize intelligent enterprise systems. By decoupling transactional behavior from batch processing, the pattern avoids the interference of knowledge extraction and reasoning processes with the state and the performance of the transactional subsystem. The pattern has been experimented in e-Commerce by designing an intelligent and scalable virtual mall.
Time required to access data and query knowledge base is one of the most important parameter in designing information system. When the size increases, the complexity of an ontology makes reasoning and querying processes less efficient and very time consuming. Although performances are crucial, other features, such as the type of license, the availability of a related community support or the ease of adoption of a particular technology are often key elements in a decision-process of an industrial designer. This paper proposes an evaluation of main semantic technologies in terms of different metrics at varying ontology sizes. The evaluation aims at building a concrete framework for supporting industrial designers of ontology-based software systems to make proper decisions, taking into account the scale of their knowledge base and the main metrics.
In this paper, we investigated the application of trust in an e-Commerce system. In a B2C scenario of an e-Commerce system, a game model is proposed in order to investigate the best strategies for merchants and customers. Preliminary investigation outlines the benefits of trust information in the proposed game and preliminary results, conducted on a transactional database, shows an increased value of sensitivity of provided recommendations to the customers, entailing an higher customer loyalty. Future works are aimed at validating this findings by means of a larger real dataset.
Predicting user preferences is a challenging task. Different approaches for recommending products to the users are proposed in literature and collaborative filtering has been proved to be one of the most successful techniques. Some issues related to the quality of recommendation and to computational aspects still arise (e.g., scalability and cold-start recommendations). In this paper, we propose an Item-based Fuzzy Clustering Collaborative Filtering (IFCCF) in order to ensure the benefits of a model-based technique improving the quality of suggestions. Experimentation led by predicting ratings of MovieLens and Jester users makes this promising and worth to be further investigated in a cross-domain dataset.
The product bundling problem is addressed by a Genetic Algorithm. We propose a generative approach in order to find the bundle of products that best satisfies user preferences and requirements and, at the same time, to guarantee the satisfaction of merchant needs such as the minimization of the dead stocks. The proposed approach succeeds in finding the optimal trade-off between different and conflicting constraints. Experimentation investigates algorithm convergence under several conditions, such as a different number of products in the bundle, increasing number of constraints, and different user requirements.
Recommendation systems are commonly used for suggesting products or services. Among different existing techniques, Model-Based Collaborative Filtering (MBCF) approaches have been proven to address scalability and cold-starting problems that often arise. In this paper we investigate two MBCF algorithms: Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) for Collaborative Filtering and Item-based Fuzzy Clustering Collaborative Filtering (IFCCF). These two techniques have been selected because preliminary results have proven that when applied to the clustering of users or items the quality of the recommendation system increases with respect to the k-means. Within recommendation systems, no comparison of these two techniques exists. Therefore, our experimentation is aimed at comparing these two techniques by means of MovieLens and Jester dataset in order to provide a guideline for their implementation in the e-Commerce domain.
The paper investigates the optimization of ATM cash by means of genetic algorithm in order to produce optimal upload strategies able to minimize the daily amount of stocked money, still assuring cash dispensing service. We provide experimental evidence of benefits obtained by the proposed approach in terms of lower financial costs and more rational cash management. In particular we considered as test bench a pool of 30 ATMs with different characteristics in terms of location, position, cash capacity and usage, representative of the whole set of ATMs operated by Poste Italiane S.p.A.
Certification Services
Poste Italiane’s CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) is part of the European CERT network’s Trusted Introducer service and a member of ENISA, the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security. It is also FIRST’s member, the global Forum for Incident Response and Security Teams.
