RICERCA ITALIANA     

Media Integration and Communication Center

Università degli Studi di Firenze

Abstract

The recent advancement and spread of information and telecommunication technologies, the development of Internet as a global network infrastructure, create competitive opportunities in development of new services and products based on multimedia information and on its communication and broadcast. Notable examples include e-commerce, education instruction and training, television, editing and publishing, management of cultural heritage, personal communication and info-mobility services. This process is expected to rapidly evolve. Directing the exploitation of these opportunities according to the general interest requires a joint evolution of institutional juridical instruments, at different territorial levels of regulation, which takes into account constraints and perspectives of technological evolution.



The novelty of Internet, its rapid growth, the complexity of technological juridical and social issues that it raises, its international scale, the different interests that it involves, require an inter-disciplinary investigation approach. In this context , the actual technological transfer from research to enterprise passes through convergence and integration of multiple areas of know-how, addressing not only technological-scientific aspects (related with telecommunication networks and applications for processing and presentation of multimedia information) but also the methods for the evaluation of the actual impact of technologies on individuals and on the collectivity, and the of institutional juridical framework which permits to position technological advancements in a large-scale context.



This requires the creation of sites of convergence of knowledge and research, where the different know-hows can be compared, integrated and applied. We thus propose the creation of an inter-disciplinary research center which will comprise a national and international reference on new information technologies and their relation with the juridical institutional framework, at the Italian and European level in the perspective of the establishment of common rules.



The Center will perform technological transfer to the enterprise and more generally to the society through the development of advanced projects for the experimentation of new technological solutions, for the evaluation of their impact, and for the study of juridical normative references that are consistent with technological advancement and which can drive and stimulate its evolution.



The projects will involve people from industrial enterprise along with people from Italian and international academic institutions, which operate in the fields of juridical-economical, humanistic, and scientific-technological research. <<<

Principal Investigator

Vito CAPPELLINI Università degli Studi di FIRENZE

International Relationship

The Center will cooperate in the development of research activity with national research centers, enterprises and institutions, as well as with international research centers. This will include the exchange of researchers, the joint development of research projects and finalized studies, the cooperation in the development of prototypes and pre-competitive applicative solutions.



In particular, the cooperation will involve those institutions that have since now an established contact or agreement with the individual groups of research leaded by the Center proposers. These presently include:



1/7) Centers of the University of Florence

- Centro Studi Telecomunicazioni presso il Dipartimento di Diritto Pubblico. Rif: Prof.Paolo Barile;

- Master in Multimedia, Università degli Studi di Firenze, RAI, Mediateca Regionale Toscana, Firenze. Rif: Prof.Alberto Del Bimbo.



2/7) National Research Centers

- CRE - Centro Ricerche in Ergonomia (Università degli Studi di Firenze, Università degli Studi di Siena, ASL Empoli, ASL Firenze, ASL Siena, Regione Toscana, Firenze, Italia. Rif: Dott. R. Tartaglia.

- ITIM - Istituto per le Tecnologie Informatiche e Multimediali, CNR, Milano, Italia. Rif: Dott. A. Della Ventura.

- CNIT Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni, Parma, Italia. Rif: Prof. Giancarlo Prati.

- CSELT, Torino. Rif: Cesare Mossotto.

- IST Centro Interuniversitario Firenze-Pavia-Roma Scienza e Tecnologia delle Immagini, Pavia, Italia. Rif.: Prof.Virginio Cantoni.

- Consorzio Pisa Ricerche - META. Rif: Roberto Gagliardi.

- Centro Centro e Innovazione Tecnologica RAI, Torino. Rif.:Ing. Alberto Morello.



3/7) International Research Centers:

- Univ.of California at San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA. Rif.: Prof. Ramesh Jain; Prof. Simone Santini;

- IIT - Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India.Rif.: Prof. S. Chauduri

- Università di Amsterdam, WINS, The Netherlands. Rif.: Prof. Arnold Smeulders;

- IBM Almaden Research Center. Rif.: Dr. Dragutin Petkovic;

- Univ.Hiroshima. Rif.: Prof. Masahito Hirakawa e Tadao Ichikawa.

- Univ. of Surrey, UK. Rif.: Prof. Josef Kittler;

- Columbia University, New York, USA. Rif.: Prof. Shi Fu Chang;

- University of Beograd, IFAC. Rif.: Prof.Veljko Milutinovich

- University of Toronto (CANADA). Rif: Prof. A. N. Venetsanopoulos.

- University of Illinois (USA). Rif: Prof. T. S. Huang.

- Nagoya University (JAPAN). Rif: Prof. M. Tanimoto.

- University of Southern California, Integrated Media Systems Center. Rif.: Prof. Chrysostomos L.Nikias.

- DLR, Deutches Zentrum fur Luft-und Raumfarhrt, German Aerospace Center.Rif:Prof. Eric Lutz.

- ENST, Ecole NationaleSupérieure des Télécommunications. Rif.: Prof.Gerard Maral.



4/7) Productive structures of the local area:

- Bassilichi Spa, Firenze.

- Infogroup SpA, Firenze.

- Editech.

- Marconi.

- Alcatel.



5/7) National productive structures:

- RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana.

- RAInet.

- Alenia Spazio.

- Telespazio.

- ACS Advanced Computer Systems, Roma.





6/7) International productive structuures:

- SONY JP.

- BBC UK.

- NOKIA FL.

- Philips NL.

- Thomson Multimedia FR.

- British Telecom UK.

- MCOS UK.

- Telia Infomedia SE.

- Netimage FR.



7/7) Institutions:

- Provincia di Firenze.

- Regione Toscana.

- Galleria degli Uffizi.

- Istituto Centrale per la Catalogazione e Documentazione (ICCD). <<<

Research Objectives

The activity of the Center is coordinated by a Scientific Committee, with a Scientific President, a Director, and a Control Committee.

1/4) The Scientific Committee steers the major directions on which the Center develops its research and fosters for specific project proposals. Every year, the Committee selects a number of specific projects that will be funded in the subsequent year.

The Committee is formed by experts with recognized competence in the different disciplines of activity of the Center, coming from the academia and from the enterprise context. Specifically, the Committee is comprised of six academic members coming in equal number from the three areas of Telecommunications, Information Engineering, and Juridical Studies, and of an equal number of members coming from productive structures and institutions that will formally join the center. Members last three years and can be re-appointed.

2/4) The President of the Scientific Committee is elected among the members of the Committee, with the charge of calling the meetings and coordinating the activity of the Committee. The President lasts three years and cannot be re-appointed. For each project funded by the Center, the Director appoints a Project Director among the experts in the disciplines addressed, with the delegation of managing the personnel allocated to the project and with the responsibility to carry out the project according to planned objectives and time and budget limits.

3/4) The Director has the responsibility of the implementation of research projects, the direction of the Center personnel, and economic and financial management.

The Director is elected among the members of the Scientific Committee, lasts two years, and cannot be re-appointed.

4/4) A Control Committee, formed by two members of the University of Florence appointed by the University Rector, and by an external member, is charged to verify the quality of the activity of the Center on an yearly basis.



The Center, through suitable formal agreements, will operate in strict conjunction with four institutions of the University of Florence:

1/4) The Center for Telecommunications Studies: instituted at the Department of Diritto Pubblico of the University of Florence, which carries out qualified research on the area of Information Jurisprudence.

2/4) The Master in Multimedia: instituted in 1998 at the Department of Sistemi e Informatica of the University of Florence with the aim of preparing qualified professional subjects for the area of new media, with two distinct directions on contents and technologies, offered to people with any laurea degree.

3/4) The Didactic Television Center (Centro Didattico Televisivo) of the University of Florence, which was instituted with the aim of supporting the production and distribution of audio-visual didactic supports.

4/4) The Center for Telematic and Multimedia Services (Centro Servizi Informatici Telematici e Multimediale - CESIT) of the University of Florence, which coordinates networking and telematic services of the University of Florence.



The cooperation of the Center with these institutions will be finalized to the exchange of research experience, to their transfer into high education activities, and to the combination of scientific and technologic know-how in the production of multimedia application and telematic services. In particular, students of the Master in Multimedia and Researcher from the Center for telecommunication Studies will have the opportunity to carry out stages at the Center and take part to its specific projects.



The Center, through suitable agreements, also cooperates with the Ph.D courses run at the Departments of the University of Florence that are directly involved in the activity of the Center. In particular:

1/3) Ph.D. in Informatics and Telecommunication Engineering (Dottorato in Ingegneria Informatica e delle Telecomunicazioni);

2/3) Ph.D. in Public and Consitutional Jurisprudence (Dottorato in Diritto Pubblico e Costituzionale);

3/3) Ph.D. in Telematics and Information Society (Dottorato in Telematica e Società dell'Informazione).



The Center will also cooperate in research and education activities of the National Inter-Universitary Consortium for Telecommunications (Consorzio Nazionale Inter-universitario per le Telecomunicazioni - CNIT), in which the University of Florence was one of the founders and which presently collects 21 Italian Universities.





The Center will have at its disposal a premise of at about 300 mq at the Regional Center of RAI in Florence, at Largo A. De Gasperi 1. This will be positioned in close contact with the premise of the Master in Multimedia, which will initially support the organization of the Center, by sharing computing resources and technical and secretary support.



For organization functions, the Center will have two units of personnel, one with administrative and the other with technical functions, engaged through contracts with finite determined duration.

In research activity, beside proposers and participants enlisted in this document, the Center will rely on a number, approximately 10 per year, of post-laurea researchers engaged through contracts with finite determined duration. <<<