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Record Control Number: 55056

Quality Validation Date: 2002-02-06

Update Date: 2002-02-21

Project Acronym: CULTIVATE-EU

Title: Cultural Heritage Applications Network (Part 1)

Subject Index : Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Social Aspects

Objective: CULTIVATE is an answer to the need for a newly structured network supporting the co-operation of archives, libraries and museums under the 5th Framework Programme. It is a pan-European network for the Digital Heritage Community including IT staff, information professionals, researchers, managers, policy makers, galleries, non-profit making organisations etc. This network will have two sub-sections: one for the western part of Europe and another for the 10 accession countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CULTIVATE CEE). Both activities were planned together and will work in a close co-operation.

Objectives:
The accompanying measure CULTIVATE-EU will establish a European Digital Cultural Heritage Network consisting of 16 partners based in 11 European countries and Israel. In addition there are also National Nodes in Denmark, Netherlands, Iceland and Sweden who are associated partners.

This network will continue the successful and fruitful work carried out by the National Focal Points for the Telematics for Libraries Programme under the 3rd and 4th Framework Programme and will expand to include all memory institutions, namely archives, museums and galleries.

The network intends:
* to raise the awareness of the IST Programme for the development and the use of cultural heritage applications in all memory institutions in Europe;
* to enhance the quantity and quality of submitted proposals under the IST programme by various means like electronic information services, information days and individual advice for proposers and intends;
* to link European institutions with national administrative bodies and professional organisations and institutions in order to bring European activities and directives faster to the citizens and vice versa.

Some activities will be performed by each partner, others will be fairly shared between all participating partners and countries.

Work description:
After setting up CULTIVATE-EU national nodes with representatives from all relevant memory institutions and organisations (in particular from archives, libraries, museums, publishers and the multimedia and book-trade) in each participating country (WP 1) these nodes and their presence in the World-Wide-Web will be interlinked by a common gateway (WP 2).
The dissemination of information will be supported by an electronic information service at European level (WP2 T3) and by the production of sector specific information material in printed and electronic form (WP2 T4).
To reflect the state-of-the art of cultural heritage applications in Europe as well as to present and to discuss the results achieved by CULTIVATE-EU an electronic web based magazine will be developed (WP 3).
All partners will be responsible for (EU non-costed) sector specific information days and consultancy tasks for (potential) proposers (WP 4).
Activities linking European Cultural heritage policy and directives to administrative and professional bodies at national level will bridge the gap between the thematic work on European and on national level (WP 5).
A close co-operation with national nodes of Western European countries not participating in the CULTIVATE-EU consortium and institutions of the 10 CEE countries is an essential part of the measure (WP 6).
The accompanying measure will be managed by the EDBI (German Libraries Institute, Berlin) as the co-ordinating partner (WP 6).

Milestones:
The first milestone will be reached, when all national cultural heritage networks are established. The next milestone will be marked by the completion of setting up the infrastructure for all electronic information services. During the operational phase of CULTIVATE-EU project milestones will always occur after the completion of each Call for Proposals relevant to the archives, libraries and museums sector.

It is expected that:
* awareness about the opportunities of the IST programme among professionals and users of cultural memory institutions will rise considerably;
* knowledge among (potential) proposers of "how to make a proposal" will be improved substantially; and
* involvement in the development of innovative cultural heritage applications will be strengthened in each participating country.

Start Date: 2000-02-01

End Date: 2003-01-31

Duration: 36 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 478921.00 euro

Project Funding: 478921.00 euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Interactive publishing, digital content and cultural heritage - Access to scientific and cultural heritage

Project Reference: IST-1999-11133

Contract Type: ACM (Preparatory, accompanying and support measures)

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Record Control Number: 55067

Quality Validation Date: 2001-05-08

Update Date: 2002-07-02

Project Acronym: CHARISMATIC

Title: Cultural Heritage Attractions Featuring Real-time Interactive Scenes And Multi-functional Avatars As Theatrical Intelligent Agents

Subject Index : Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Social Aspects

Objective: Aimed at, but not limited to, the development of new forms of Cultural Heritage Visitor Attraction, CHARISMATIC introduces drama, story-telling and live interactive dialogue capability into Virtual Environments Acquisition of Performing Arts and transition of the digitised results into smart, multi-functional high fidelity Avatars or Virtual Humans, means that VR based simulations will acquire many of the current entertainment capabilities of theatre, film and television, but with the added values interactivity and immersive experience.
The CHARISMATIC consortium combines the talents of researchers, innovators and practitioners in the fields of Computing Science, Theatre, Film and TV, Computer Image Generation Graphic Design, Multi-Media Content Creation, Video Gaming, Historic Preservation , Archeology and Virtual Reality. CHARISMATIC's ambitions to create a new paradigm for 21st Century Entertainment and Infotainment, reflects the fact that European Cultural Heritage Values lie as much in the language, and artistic creations of its diverse peoples, as in its multiplicity of historic buildings and sites or antiquity.

Objectives:
CHARISMATIC will develop essential technologies enabling theatrical (audience group) enjoyment of high fidelity virtual environments, populated by intelligent virtual humans. The project aims to boost introduction of advanced image and display technology in Europe's cultural heritage and associated tourist industries, and thereby stimulate growth in those industries.
Through introduction of traditional speech and movement-based Performing Arts into Virtual Environments, via advanced forms of Avatass and Synthespians, CHARISMATIC will create entirely new interactive entertainment forms as a paradigm for 21st Century drama. Although initially targeted at Cultural Heritage Visitor Centres, the paradigm is by no means limited to such subjects, but encompasses all types of future Location-Based Entertainments and E-visitor Attractions.

Work description:
The Objectives demand Research into, and Development of:
.Virtual environments powerful enough to provide high fidelity walk-through VR simulations of European historic towns and Cities, together with new cost-effective tools and methods, with which to create them.
.Advanced Avatars or Virtual Citizens, capable of speech.
.Expression and conducting drama scenes for historic portrayal or re-enactment.
.Intelligent Virtual Agents, capable of conducting interactive dialogue with human audience elements or e-sitors.
Artificial Intelligence elements enabling autonamous, spatially-aware virtual guides, able to understand spoken instructions and respond via a combination of natural language and database memory.
.A powerful new form of software image render ad multiple entity controller, able to execute complex populated virtual scenes at the required Fidelity and Frame rate.
.A variety of new model virtual theatres (or Reality Centres) custom-designs and proven specifications to cater for both new forms of audience, and new forms of entertainment.
.Additional user interfaces and devices to allow individual intranet-based access to the new VR entertainment material Single-user access includes Augmented Reality options.

Start Date: 2000-01-01

End Date: 2002-06-30

Duration: 30 months

Project Status: Completed

Project Cost: 4.98 million euro

Project Funding: 3.20 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Interactive publishing, digital content and cultural heritage - Authoring and design systems

Project Reference: IST-1999-11090

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)

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Record Control Number: 57202

Quality Validation Date: 2001-08-02

Update Date: 2002-06-26

Project Acronym: REGNET

Title: Cultural Heritage in Regional Networks

Subject Index : Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Social Aspects

Objective: REGNET aims to set up a functional network of service centres in Europe, which provides IT-services dedicated to Cultural Heritage organisations and will be an enabler of eBusiness activities for CH organizations. Multi media industries enabling the production of electronic publications will be integrated. It will provide access and use of digital data (scientific and cultural) as well as of physical goods as provided by museum shops. The four players within the network are the content providers, the service centre operators, the system developers and end users. The content providers (museums, libraries, archives etc.) will provide access (via wired and wireless communication) to their digital contents, services and products and offer them to their clients (B2C). In return they can use the REGNET facilities for multimedia productions and data base management, or cooperate with other REGNET partners during the creation of data bases, generation of multimedia products or creation of a virtual exhibition (B2B). The service centre operators will generate income by providing the technical infrastructure (software/hardware) to content providers and other partners within the REGNET network. They offer additional IT-services and consultancies. And the system developers are selling the REGNET system to other cultural service centres and content providers. They implement additional components for the REGNET software system (additional "nodes" like an "exhibition creator", etc), and will generate income via licence fees for the REGNET system. For the end user the system will offer easy and wide access to cultural heritage data information and the purchase of CH related goods and services at one point, with stress on the production of personalized goods (e.g. CDROM) and services.

Objectives:
Main objectives of REGNET are:
· Development of a service infrastructure which enables business to business (B2B) transactions as well as business to consumer (B2C) transactions
· Development and use of existing - locally held - electronic catalogues (OPACS: Online Public Access Catalogues) referring to cultural & scientific objects contained in libraries, museums, archives, and galleries, as well as to goods and services.
· Integration of a distributed search and retrieval system to achieve a "virtual union" catalogue of all OPACS and product/service catalogues held locally
· Definition of Information Products and Services including necessary "supply chains" and the connected business processes and functions to deliver digital and physical goods (to provide high quality services an editorial committee will be installed)
· Setup of a legal framework necessary for all business transaction on the B2B and B2C level (containing payment features, copyright systems, authentication control, etc)
· Integration and test of existing components, standards, and methods in the field of distributed search and retrieval and e-commerce
· Access to the REGNET-WEB services with mobile devices via de facto standard protocols (such as wireless application protocol, WAP etc).
· Run a trial service (demonstration phase) which should be followed by a regular service.


Work description:
The technical (research and development) objectives of REGNET are:
· Development of the "REGNET building blocks (nodes)" which are necessary to build up an appropriate infrastructure to access to catalogues (containing cultural & scientific data, product & service descriptions, etc) in the Cultural Heritage domain.
Access to the "REGNET System" via wired communication lines as well as via wireless mode (e.g. using the wireless application protocol WAP).
The building blocks (nodes) of the REGNET system consist of:
· REGNET - Portal (access to remote data entry, distributed search, e-business)
· REGNET - Cultural Heritage Data Management (search over distributed meta data repositories connected to stores containing digital content)
· REGNET - eBusiness Data Management (e-commerce system allowing access to distributed product/service catalogues)
· REGNET - Ontology (Metadata) Subsystem (containing the specifications of all metadata needed in the Cultural Heritage domain as well as in the e-business domain; this subsystem also stores specifications of workflows and process related metadata)
· REGNET - Electronic Publishing Subsystem (allowing the production of personalised digital products based on standardised meta data and workflows)

The demonstration objectives of REGNET are:
· Test the technical (hardware/software) infrastructure of the REGNET system
· Validate the developed services offered to end users and content providers
· Test the operation of at least three Cultural Service Centres

Milestones:
M1: State of the Art, Results: documentation plans (preparation of content); infrastructure to run the trial service; legal framework
M2: System implementation, Results: Content and products ready; System is tested; contracts and agreements are signed; start of market activities; Training of REGNET administrators
M3: End of system validation, Results: infrastructure at service centres ready
M4: Trial Service ends, Results: Regular service network
M5: REGNET established.

Start Date: 2001-04-01

End Date: 2003-03-31

Duration: 24 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 5.04 million euro

Project Funding: 2.45 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Interactive publishing, digital content and cultural heritage - Access to digital collections of cultural and scientific content

Project Reference: IST-2000-26336

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)

Project URL: http://www.regnet.org/

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Record Control Number: 60756

Quality Validation Date: 2002-02-07

Update Date: 2002-02-21

Project Acronym: CULTOS

Title: Cultural Units of Learning - Tools and Services

Subject Index : Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Social Aspects

Start Date: 2001-09-01

End Date: 2003-08-31

Duration: 24 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 3.90 million euro

Project Funding: 2.50 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Interactive publishing, digital content and cultural heritage - Authoring interactive Web content

Project Reference: IST-2000-28134

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)

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Record Control Number: 60831

Quality Validation Date: 2002-02-07

Update Date: 2002-07-02

Project Acronym: ARCHEOGUIDE

Title: Augmented Reality-based Cultural Heritage On-site Guide

Subject Index : Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Social Aspects

Start Date: 2000-01-01

End Date: 2002-06-30

Duration: 30 months

Project Status: Completed

Project Cost: 4.85 million euro

Project Funding: 2.60 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Interactive publishing, digital content and cultural heritage - Access to scientific and cultural heritage

Project Reference: IST-1999-11306

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)

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Record Control Number: 60882

Quality Validation Date: 2002-02-07

Update Date: 2002-02-21

Project Acronym: DIGEX

Title: New Excursionism - the development of technologies for a digital tourist environment which integrates VR, e-commerce, web marketing and a virtual town / tourist / cultural site.

Subject Index : Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Social Aspects

Start Date: 2001-05-01

End Date: 2001-10-31

Duration: 6 months

Project Status: Completed

Project Cost: 29537.00 euro

Project Funding: 22152.00 euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Key action Multimedia Content and Tools - RTD spanning key action 3

Project Reference: IST-1999-57413

Contract Type: EAW (Exploratory awards)

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Record Control Number: 60931

Quality Validation Date: 2002-02-07

Update Date: 2002-02-21

Project Acronym: SEED

Title: Seeding cultural change in the school system through the generation of communities engaged in integrated educational and technological innovation

Subject Index : Education, Training; Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems

Start Date: 2001-04-01

End Date: 2004-03-31

Duration: 36 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 2.84 million euro

Project Funding: 1.86 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Education and training - School of tomorrow

Project Reference: IST-2000-25214

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)

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Record Control Number: 61039

Quality Validation Date: 2002-02-07

Update Date: 2002-06-26

Project Acronym: INDIC@TOR

Title: A cross-cultural study on the measurement and enhancement of employability in small and medium sized ICT companies

Subject Index : Economic Aspects; Information Processing, Information Systems; Social Aspects

Start Date: 2001-11-01

End Date: 2004-10-31

Duration: 36 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 1.24 million euro

Project Funding: 1.24 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: CPA7: Socio-Economic Analysis for the Information Society

Project Reference: IST-2000-31070

Contract Type: ACM (Preparatory, accompanying and support measures)

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Record Control Number: 61823

Quality Validation Date: 2002-04-22

Update Date: 2002-04-30

Project Acronym: COINE

Title: Cultural Objects in Networked Environments

Subject Index : Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Social Aspects

Objective: Empowering European citizens to tell their own stories lies at the heart of the COINE (Cultural Objects in Networked Environments) Project. It will provide the tools needed to create structured, World Wide Web-based environments which are hospitable to local cultural activity but which allow content to be shared locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. The COINE software will provide facilities for rendering everyday objects - texts, images, sound files and so on - digitally. It will provide a framework for the creation and maintenance of descriptions (metadata) and dynamic links to other collections. The Project's findings will assist the development of standards for structured deployment and retrieval of digital resources in distributed networked environments. Demonstrations will test the application in different cultural settings across Europe, including among schoolchildren and citizens' groups.

Objectives:
Overall Objective:To create a generalised infrastructure for managed digital cultural domains which is exploitable as both a personal and a community space.

Specific Objectives:
1. To research the requirements of different groups and individuals for managed digital spaces for cultural purposes;
2. To develop a software infrastructure to enable cultural digital objects to be captured, stored, described, located, linked and maintained;
3. To develop a toolkit of software tools and techniques to enable such domains to be created, populated and maintained;
4. To validate and test the package in a number of challenging environments and in so doing to assess the environments required to ensure adequate quality control of content and description;
5. To develop a realisable exploitation plan and mechanisms for the COINE concept and product;
6. To disseminate the results of the Project across Europe and more widely;
7. To contribute to the development and acceptance of appropriate standards.

Work description:
The central concept of Cultural Objects in Networked Environments (COINE) Project is the creation of local web-based environments which are hospitable to local cultural activity, but which can be searched and otherwise manipulated in a regional, national and international setting. The cultural domain is not pre-determined, and could include text (e.g. poetry), art (e.g. paintings), music (e.g. local ethnic minority traditions), family history (genealogical records and objects of significance) and so on.

Objects within a COINE domain are representative of the chosen local culture and are controlled locally. In effect, COINE domains act as local art galleries, local archives, local museums, local history centres, and so on. The objects themselves may be in any kind of medium - for example: text, audio, 3D representations or photographs. The COINE system will provide a structured environment for these objects, including the core architecture and a toolkit of techniques and supporting software (e.g. for the creation of metadata). COINE demonstrators will be undertaken in a carefully-chosed, Europe-wide series of relevant and challenging implementations, including a project involving schoolchildren from across a member state (later expanding beyond that state to provide cross-Europe experiences) which, in its current non-ICT environment, has won national and European prizes for innovation, enabling children to select, store, describe and share physical artefacts of personal, usually family or community, significance.

In addition to its "showcase" functions, a COINE domain will optionally provide: access to experts; links to related domains; and a web-based discussion forum. COINE domains will also be capable of integration with organisations' existing web resources.

Milestones:
M1 (month 3) User Requirements Definition;
M2 (month 6) Functional Specification, Architecture Design, Organisational and Legal Environment;
M3 (month 15) Prototype SystemM5 (month 30) Completed Project.

Start Date: 2002-03-01

End Date: 2004-08-31

Duration: 30 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 1.74 million euro

Project Funding: 1.11 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Interactive publishing, digital content and cultural heritage - Heritage for all

Project Reference: IST-2001-32258

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)

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Record Control Number: 62733

Quality Validation Date: 2002-05-07

Update Date: 2002-05-17

Project Acronym: DHX

Title: Digital Artistic and Ecological Heritage Exchange transcontinental Guidance and Exploration in globally shared cultural heritage

Subject Index : Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Social Aspects

Objective: Intuitive access to information in everyday environments is becoming a central concern of new information society technologies. Cultural heritage content has been developed during recent years but is yet not made available in public shared spaces in an immersive and emotional way. Virtual Reality technology provides means to interactively and individually explore cultural and natural content thus as offering personalized sight-seeings and guided journeys thru landscapes, architecture, literature and music. Content authoring and production is exploiting more automative techniques from computer vision for reducing costs. High-speed networks like GEANT and TEIN interconnect citizens from various cultural origin for a global information exchange. Thus, the new generation of digital collections will allow citizens all over the world to commonly share existing and future cultural heritage archives by immersive telepresence.

Objectives:
The DHX project aims to establish a networked virtual reality infrastructure and content development for museums and cyber theatres for mutual exchange of digital cultural and natural heritage. European and Asian partners are participating for transcontinental shared immersive experience in a global scale using high bandwidth trans Euro-Asian networks.

The objectives are as follows:
- providing a distributed IT infrastructure for globally shared immersive experience;
- improving the authoring tools for digital storytelling by computer vision methods in cultural and natural heritage;
- developing distributed cultural heritage experiences as next generation of digital collections;
- accessing existing multi media knowledge bases and digital libraries for detailed information and education;
- presentation and demonstration of human heritage to large scale networked audience for interactive exploration, edutainment and education;
- launching new business areas for cultural heritage exhange.

Work description:
Existing high bandwidth European networking infrastructure (GEANT) is used to interconnect virtual reality type large screen presentation facilities in museums, research institutes and in public spaces for virtually shared exploration of cultural content, remotely guided virtual sightseeing tours and remote education in history. It is intended to expand this European infrastructure to a global scale and to connect to Asian high bandwidth networks such as TEIN accessible for the anticipated applications. For large heritage content exchange, content production and development is significantly improved by adding automatic techniques to current production chains, such as computer vision based 3D reconstruction and data base generation methods as well as motion modelling of animals.

Cultural and natural content of various type from different European and one Asian region is generated by making use of advanced techniques in digital storytelling, new paradigms in digital dramaturgy and collaborative interaction to offer educational content in a highly interesting and exciting immersive way. These demonstrators will also show a range of technical and scientific complexity - starting from avatar-like remotely guided shared sightseeing tours to multi-site multi-user interactive explorative and collaborative experiences. Furthermore, multi media data bases are accessible from immersive sessions out of the virtual reality presentation.

Finally, public presentations and installations of the content developed so far is undertaken: at first in 2-site distributed locations, later in transcontinental multi site installations between the European partners and the Asian partner. The display systems used for these demonstrations will vary from single channel large screen stereo displays to multi channel surround displays and will allow individuals as well as groups to virtually share an cultural heritage experience.

Milestones:
DHX will establish, demonstrate and use a stable application based high bandwidth interconnectivity between the project partners. Digital natural and cultural heritage content for distributed immersively share experience will be developed and the computer vision tools for content production and the virtual reality tools for content presentation will be extended. Finally, the content is installed in museums and cyber theatres and publicly used over high speed networks by citizens.

Start Date: 2002-04-01

End Date: 2005-03-31

Duration: 36 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 5.23 million euro

Project Funding: 2.40 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Interactive publishing, digital content and cultural heritage - Heritage for all

Project Reference: IST-2001-33476

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)

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Record Control Number: 53692

Quality Validation Date: 2001-03-09

Update Date: 2001-11-05

Project Acronym: MESMUSES

Title: Metaphor for Science Museums

Subject Index : Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Social Aspects

Objective: MESMUSES aims at designing and experimenting a "geographic" metaphor for organising, structuring and presenting the scientific and technical knowledge offered to the public by scientific museums. The metaphor is the one of knowledge maps, which all together create and offer a cartography of connected or neighbouring knowledge domains. These maps will enable the creation of semantic portals through which users will easily locate information relevant to their current interest, and from which they will navigate either on predefined itineraries, or on new routes that they will choose freely on the map. The same knowledge structure will also facilitate management and reuse of information assets by producers, e.g. museum staff preparing supporting content for a temporary exhibition.

Objectives:
MESMUSES aims at designing and experimenting a "geographic" metaphor for organising, structuring and presenting the scientific and technical knowledge offered to the public by scientific museums. The metaphor is the one of knowledge maps, which all together create and offer a cartography of connected or neighbouring knowledge domains. These maps will enable the creation of semantic portals through which users will easily locate information relevant to their current interest, and from which they will navigate either on predefined itineraries, or on new routes that they will choose freely on the map. The same knowledge structure will also facilitate management and reuse of information assets by producers, e.g. museum staff preparing supporting content for a temporary exhibition.

Work description:
A first objective will be to establish and validate a methodology and related tools for Scientific Knowledge Cartography (SKC). Our methodology will be based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF), a W3C standard, hence enabling knowledge exchange between various organisations, and cooperative development of ontologies. A second objective is to choose and experiment tools for creating "itineraries" on the knowledge landscape, to orient museum visitors through a real physical exhibition or a virtual one. An itinerary is basically a web of information resources, which are described by the concepts of the knowledge map, and are connected by typed links which are themselves properties linking these concepts at the abstract level. One of the major challenges addressed in the project is to imagine the graphical user interface and browsing method that will make this itinerary on a knowledge map understandable by a museum visitor. A third objective, tightly linked to the previous one, is to design personalisation methods which will offer different itineraries on the same knowledge domains to the different categories of visitors, from the very young or elderly people, to university scholars. We will experiment dynamic re-routing of the visitor from an itinerary to another according to his queries or requests. The last major objective of the project will be to design various tools for managing and reusing information assets. Managing information resources implies notably to index them in the terms of the conceptual schema, whatever may be the format and media of these resources, from a section in a book chapter, physically available in the museum library and represented by a digital surrogate such as a UNIMARC record, to a multimedia online content.

Milestones:
First milestone at month 12 is reached when the MESMUSES system is integrated and fully tested in laboratory. Second milestone occurs at month 18 when the system is installed and operational at the science museum of Florence, and at the Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie in Paris. The second half of the project is devoted to on-site experimentation, evaluation, system improvements, and dissemination of results.

Start Date: 2001-02-01

End Date: 2003-07-31

Duration: 30 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 2.38 million euro

Project Funding: 1.30 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Interactive publishing, digital content and cultural heritage - Access to digital collections of cultural and scientific content

Project Reference: IST-2000-26074

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)

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Record Control Number: 55030

Quality Validation Date: 2001-05-08

Update Date: 2002-07-02

Project Acronym: TOURBOT

Title: Interactive Museum Tele-presence Through Robotic Avatars

Subject Index : Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Social Aspects

Objective: The current project aims at the development of an interactive tour-guide robot (TOURBOT) able to provide individual access to museums' exhibits and cultural heritage over the Internet. TOURBOT operates as the user's avatar in the museum by accepting commands over the web that directs it to move in its workspace and visit specific exhibits. The imaged scene is communicated over the Internet to the user. As a result the user enjoys personalized telepresence in the museum, being able to choose the exhibits to visit, as well as the preferred viewing conditions. At the same time TOURBOT will be able to guide on-site museum visitors. TOURBOT has several advantages for both the museum visitor and the museum itself.

More specifically, the objectives of the project are the following:
(1) develop a robotic avatar with advanced navigation capabilities that will be able to move (semi)autonomously in the museum's premises,
(2) develop appropriate web interfaces to the robotic avatar that will realize distant-user's telepresence, i.e. facilitate scene observation through the avatar's eyes,
(3) facilitate personalized and realistic observation of the museum exhibits, and
(4) enable on-site, interactive museum tour-guides.

Work description:
The execution of the TOURBOT project will proceed in nine concrete steps:
(1) Management; technical and administrative project management that will ensure the smooth cooperation of project partners towards the achievement of the goals of the project.
(2) Dissemination and Implementation; compilation of early dissemination and exploitation plans and end-of project provision of actual achievements in dissemination and realistic exploitation possibilities.
(3) Application specification; definition of application requirements from a technological and user's point of view.
(4) Site information; investigation of technological issues regarding the internal robot representation of its workspace and construction of the maps and information repositories of the two museums.
(5) Hardware configuration; development of the mobile robotic platform, the base workstation for off-board processing and the communication modules for their interconnection.
(6) Avatar navigation; development of the navigational capabilities required by the robotic avatar.
(7) Interfaces; development of web and on-board interfaces that will enable distant and on-site users to be guided by the robot in the museum premises.
(8) Integration; hardware and software integration of the developed modules that will result in a fully operational system (TOURBOT); extensive laboratory experimentation.
(9) Assessment and Evaluation; Validation of the TOURBOT system in real-world conditions (i.e. museum premises) and assessment of its performance.

Milestones:
The expected result of this project is the development of an interactive tour-guide robot (TOURBOT), able to provide individual access to the exhibits of a museum over the internet.
The project milestones are:
M1 (month 6): Release of Dissemination and Use Plan; Application specification completed.
M2 (month 15): Hardware and software modules developed, multimedia site information acquired.
M3 (month 20): System integration completed.
M4 (month 24): System validated and assessed, end of project.

Start Date: 2000-01-01

End Date: 2001-12-31

Duration: 24 months

Project Status: Completed

Project Cost: 1.72 million euro

Project Funding: 1.09 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Interactive publishing, digital content and cultural heritage - Access to scientific and cultural heritage

Project Reference: IST-1999-12643

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)

Project URL: http://www.ics.forth.gr/tourbot

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Record Control Number: 58103

Quality Validation Date: 2001-11-06

Update Date: 2002-07-02

Project Acronym: E-ISLAM

Title: A Virtual Environment for the Dissemination of a Real Islamic Museum

Subject Index : Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Innovation, Technology Transfer; Social Aspects

Objective: The proposed take-up action has two different aspects:
First, it intends to use the results (Info-Kiosk and CD-ROM) as promotional vehicles for the opening of a new Islamic branch of the Benaki museum, highlighting, by means of the new technologies, the exhibited items and making them accessible to a large number of citizens and specialists across the EU.
Second, and in order to make this pluralist access vision possible, it will contribute to the long standing policy objectives (as these have defined by the IST framework) concerning the digitisation of archaeological and cultural items, especially to the regularisation of the relevant standards.

Objectives:

The E- ISLAM project has the following objectives:
Social / Scientific:
(a) Use its results as a promotional vehicle towards the opening of the new branch of the Benaki museum.
(b) Contribute to the EU Social objective of a society which shows mutual respect and appreciation of different cultures, ethnic and religious minority groups.
(c) Contribute to the expansion of Islamic studies across the EU, and Greece especially

Technological
(d) Contribute to the long - standing policy objectives (as defined by the IST policy framework) of digitisation of cultural and archaeological items.
(e) Contribute to the policy objectives of regularization of the specifications, formats and standards for the 3- dimensional digitisation of archaeological and cultural items (as defined by the IST policy framework).
(f) Contribute to the solution of the standing problems concerning information retrieval, metadata structural specifications, and other fields related to I&K handling.

Work description:
The presence of a limited number of partners (in close physical proximity to each other) should guarantee a frictionless co-operation between the technological experts and the content providers. This is one of the major strengths of the consortium, given the fact that the two partners have already had successful co-operation in the relevant fields.

Throughout the development process, user interfaces, 3D digitisation of items, and the practical aspects of the operation of the Info - Kiosk will be commented by Professional and Consumer user representatives and corrective actions will be taken in order to optimise user - friendliness and user acceptance level and speed. This will lay the foundations of a user - friendly technology approach, in accordance to the IST framework policy priorities.

The project is structured based on the experience of large scale software engineering projects, including three iterative cycles within its development process.

Four Work plan milestones are sequentially defined to monitor the succinct adherence to the contribution objectives:
(a) Initially the system is specified and a conceptual design is drawn.
(b) The project adopts a rapid prototype development scheme, starting the development work with a visual prototype, resembling graphical design and application structure, however without functionality. This will allow for early user feedback about the application and for having available an environment for integration and testing of functional components from the very beginning of the development process \ (Milestone M1, Prototype Validation\).
(c) Once the structure of E-ISLAM has been consolidated through the visual prototype evaluation, the core work of the project, system development and implementation starts. Since highly specialised tasks are necessary in order to develop the full functionality of E-ISLAM, a focusing of single partners on single tasks has been enforced as much as possible.

Milestones:
(1) Consistent, Complete and Flexible Management
(2) Expecting concrete dissemination, clustering and Business planning.
(3) User Requirements, Profiling, Clustering & Metadata Final Report
(4) Database specification of historic people groups and characters
(5) M1: Prototype Validation
(6) M2: System Validation
(7) A consolidated Textual Reference Database\
(8\) M3: Evaluated System

Start Date: 2001-07-01

End Date: 2002-06-30

Duration: 12 months

Project Status: Completed

Project Cost: 212335.00 euro

Project Funding: 145136.00 euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Interactive publishing, digital content and cultural heritage - Trials on new access modes to cultural and scientific content

Project Reference: IST-2000-29582

Contract Type: ACM (Preparatory, accompanying and support measures)

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Record Control Number: 63044

Quality Validation Date: 2002-05-07

Update Date: 2002-07-02

Project Acronym: PULMAN-XT

Title: Extending the European Research Network for PUblic Libraries, Museums and Archives

Subject Index : Coordination, Cooperation; Information Processing, Information Systems

Objective: PULMAN-XT is a proposal to extend the benefits of the PULMAN Network, funded under IST FP5 (26 EU member/candidate states). Priority is given to Russia and Turkey represented as full partners. PULMAN-XT will also make available the benefits of PULMAN to 8 additional countries: Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Ukraine, Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) by stimulating take-up of PULMAN results and supporting development of a strategic agenda for public libraries and local cultural institutions. PULMAN-XT will integrate representatives from these countries in the PULMAN Network through: support for policy development including workshops at national level and enabling participation in the PULMAN Policy Conference in Portugal during March 2003; training and awareness raising attachments in European Centres of Excellence; mentoring/twinning between libraries; support for a core IST research group in each country; and translated PULMAN Digital Guideline Manuals (DGMs).

Objectives:
The actions are targeted to both policy makers and service managers. The goals are to strengthen the performance and help achieve the potential of public libraries in the digital era by: disseminating information on innovation in public libraries and encouraging the transfer of good practice in policy making, service and development, delivery and access; providing a platform for future integrated activity involving public libraries, museums and archives.

Work description:
To achieve its objectives PULMAN-XT will integrate representatives from countries in the PULMAN Network by providing:
- support for policy development through work package workshops at the national level to launch and build on the newly translated PULMAN Digital Guidelines Manuals, build consensus and develop scenarios on inter-operation between public libraries, museums and archives;
- the participation of top-level political and professional representatives in the PULMAN Policy Conference to be held in Portugal in March 2003;
- access for senior practitioners and decision-makers to training and awareness raising;
- arrangements of several kinds for mentoring and twinning between libraries to enable knowledge exchange and for sustainable twinning arrangements at European level;
- support for the establishment of a core group of people in each country primed to participate in future IST research programmes;
- translated version of the PULMAN Digital Guidelines Manuals;
- and access to PULMANweb to give greater prominence to conditions affecting public libraries in each country.
The workplan is structured as 4 work packages:
1) Developing policies for the digital public library;
2) Creating professional capacity for the digital era;
3) Extending the European Research area;
4) Management, co-ordination and self assessment, each led by a key partner from the PULMAN Network itself.

Milestones:
Expected results include heightened awareness at professional and policy level of the digital agenda for public libraries and cultural services delivered at local level across countries neighbouring the EU/NAS and the extension of the European Research area in this field. A greatly expanded network for professional knowledge exchange within the PULMAN-XT countries and the rest of Europe, with mechanisms in place for full alignment of the PULMAN-XT group with current and future planning for the PULMAN Network.

Start Date: 2002-07-01

End Date: 2003-08-31

Duration: 14 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 251887.00 euro

Project Funding: 251887.00 euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: IST support activities - Networks of Excellence and working groups in IST

Project Reference: IST-2001-38759

Contract Type: THN (Thematic network contracts)

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Record Control Number: 52653

Quality Validation Date: 2000-11-27

Update Date: 2002-06-26

Project Acronym: PAST

Title: exPeriencing Archaeology across Space and Time

Subject Index : Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Social Aspects

Objective: PAST aims to develop an innovative ICT system supporting visitors of Archaeological Sites. Visitors will use handheld PCs (operated via voice commands, touch screens and text-to-speech) connected to a local Server via wireless networks.The Server will include an Archaeological Repository, storing data and information relevant to PAST, and a Legacy System Integration Layer, exporting relevant data from legacy archaeological multimedia databases to the PAST system. Servers installed at remote sites will be networked via Internet: each PAST instance will be able to seamlessly access information residing in any other instance, therefore creating a distributed information space.The PAST Server will also include: a Visitors Profiler, collecting static and dynamic information about visitors, tracking interactions with the PAST system, and building and dynamically revising profiles; a Visit Organiser, which, based upon the visitors' profiles, the current context of the visit and the information available, plans personalised visits, dynamically revises the plans and delivers, at any time during the visit, context-dependent information, personalised in both thier content and their presentation.

Objectives:
The key objectives of PAST are:- To revitalise archaeological sites, especially smaller ones, by making visits significantly more attractive and enjoyable, leveraging upon an approach which is information-intensive, active, interactive (two-ways), personalised, reactive and dynamic.- Thanks to that, to attract 30% more visitors and to increase ticket-prices by 20%, thus funding through self-generated income (no additional costs for the society) further excavation, research, etc.- To capitalise on investments made in digital preservation of cultural heritage and on existing multimedia archaeological databases, by providing tools to enable remote access and effective fruition of their content by visitors of archaeological sites, i.e. to the direct and immediate benefit of all EU citizens (and not only of scientists and researchers).- To enhance the ability of visitors to understand the cultural heritage a site represent, not only in a narrow local perspective, but also in a global European one, crossing the boundaries of space and time.

Work description:
Development of an innovative PAST system, whose key components are:- The PAST HCI, running on handheld PCs and supporting Voice-based, Pen-based, and Speech-based interaction and displaying images, drawings, text, animation and short movies.- A communication infrastructure, including a wireless network (between handheld PCs and a local PAST Server) and an Internet network (across Servers installed at remote sites).- The PAST Server. It includes the PAST Archaeological Repository (a XML-enabled O-ODB storing relevant data extracted from legacy multimedia DBs) and the Legacy Systems Integration Layer (to export relevant data from existing DBs). The Repositories of various remote PAST instances, will form together a distributed archaeological information web-space; PAST leverages upon XML technologies, to provide a uniform interface across the PAST Archaeological Repositories and between them and the other components of the system.The Server includes also the Visitor Profiler, which gathers information about visitors, autonomously and dynamically profile them, based upon visitors' behaviour during the visit. It exploits Fuzzy Logic and Conceptual Clustering techniques to classify individuals into homogeneous clusters at various level of granularity. The Server also includes the Visit Organiser, which dynamically schedules a visit and pro-actively suggests the best route through the physical site and through the PAST distributed information space, by establishing relevant time and space relationships. It has the ability to personalise content and presentation of information delivered to visitors, based upon the visitors' profile and upon the current location and context of the visit.Development of a PAST Methodology Framework, underlying the PAST system, covering:- A set of PAST-related attributes to classify and describe the content of an archaeological database and of an archaeological site (the XML-Schema of the Archaeological Repository).- A set of PAST-related criteria and attributes which will be used to classify and profile visitors.-A set of rules and criteria to dynamically create relationships between archaeological sites and/or information items in the PAST Repository, and to dynamically generate context-sensitive and personalised visit schedules and presentations.

Milestones:
The Project will deliver at Month 6 the PAST Specifications & Design, and a 1st version of the Methodology Framework; at Month 12 a 1st release of the PAST Prototype; at Month 15 a 2nd version of the Methodology Framework, together with revised Specifications & Design and results of field-testing & evaluation; at Month 21 the Final PAST Prototype, ready to be extensively field-tested and evaluated; at Month 27 a refined version of the PAST Prototype and of the Methodology Framework, based upon the outcome of the testing and evaluation process.

Start Date: 2000-10-01

End Date: 2003-03-31

Duration: 30 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 2.29 million euro

Project Funding: 1.40 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Interactive publishing, digital content and cultural heritage - Digital preservation of cultural heritage

Project Reference: IST-1999-20805

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)

Record Control Number: 57854

Quality Validation Date: 2001-09-07

Update Date: 2002-07-02

Project Acronym: COASTBASE

Title: The Virtual European Coastal and Marine Data Warehouse -CoastBase- An open system architecture for integrated, distributed coastal and marine information search and access

Subject Index : Environmental Protection; Information Processing, Information Systems

Objective: Coastal areas are important for a wide variety of human and natural uses. Authorities need sound information concerning these uses and the interactions between actors developing and implementing policy for integrated coastal zone management. At different policy levels within Europe, the need for tailor-made information, which is essential for sustainable marine and coastal management, has been recognised. The search and access to aggregated and interpreted information is essential, but is costly and time consuming. Mechanisms for accessing information on the European coastal zone are lacking, notably in the area of maintenance of metadata/data links to search and access data, as well as tools for filling information gaps within organisations and for facilitating information sharing. Coastbase will develop an automatically updated electronic system architecture providing multilingual search and access facilities to distributed information sources and a European coastal database "CoastBase", holding European level products as indicators, maps and reports. Different innovative technical modules will be built to convert the content, check on quality, secure user access and aggregate the information. An essential aspect of Coastbase is the design and implementation of a Communication and Feedback mechanism among European authorities. This will automatically provide information sources with details of resulting products coming from their information and allow them to comment on the data handling, enhancing the European involvement of authorities at local up to European level.

Objectives:
To develop a Virtual European Coastal and Marine Data Warehouse, using innovative techniques to improve marine and coastal environmental assessments and policy making, as well as to ensure effective, continuing pan-European co-operation on information flow.

Specific objectives include:
Improve information search and exchange capabilities at different aggregation levels by development of one virtual interface (CoastBase) connecting different information sources.
Establish communication and feedback mechanisms to enhance capacity of local and regional authorities to learn from how other bodies use and apply their data.
Provide authorities, research institutes, universities, private sector and public with easy internet access to CoastBase.
Achieve broad acceptance and Europe-wide participation through user friendliness and a multilingual architecture.
Achieve accessibility that permits interconnectivity of meta-databases and ability to query meta- and real data, while maintaining access control with the information sources.

Work description:
The work involves development of technological architecture, establishment of communication and feedback mechanisms, development of user interfaces for those using and providing aggregated information on the CoastBase Server.
Main elements are information search and access, aggregation and interpretation at European Level. The technical architecture development draws on recent technological developments. Development of a broad supported architecture, involving organisations at all European levels. Realising innovative architecture that provides search facilities (multilingual catalogue, index and geographical) and access to the CoastBase-server and connected information sources. A generic system will be developed to connect and automatically update local metadata and CoastBase metadata into one CDS (Catalogue of Data Sources)-based virtual frame. This allows dynamic querying of real information. Separate modules will be developed that provides automatic feedback of the information source, permitting information custodians to check and recommend improvements to information handling. Through 8 workpackages over a 2-year period, the Consortium will scope Coastbase information needs and functionality; prepare and implement a system design; test and improve the system in co-operation with the end-users; make the system publicly available. CoastBase consists of a working conceptual system architecture linking representative information sources. Europe-wide collaboration is fundamental, information is to be accessed at local, regional and national organisations. The CoastBase-server provides the virtual "door" to information sources through interfaces for querying and displaying results. Information will be accessed either by:
1) Dispersed information sources via metadata and data links;
2) European level aggregated Marine and Coastal in formation from the CoastBase-server itself via an internet accesible Database

Milestones:
A virtual, multilingual, multi-platform, internet-accessible architecture for searching and querying distributed coastal and marine information sources, supporting aggregation, quality control, security, access authorisation and conversions systems.
CoastBase-server holding aggregated European level information.
A virtual unified CoastBase search system for dispersed sources and CoastBase-server.
A feedback module for information custodians to check and comment on information handling of information from local up to European level. CostBase provides a system and related working structure enhancing on several levels European coastal management and information sharing.

Start Date: 2000-01-01

End Date: 2001-12-31

Duration: 24 months

Project Status: Completed

Project Cost: 2.20 million euro

Project Funding: 1.10 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Environment - Intelligent environmental monitoring and management systems

Project Reference: IST-1999-11406

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)

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Record Control Number: 58091

Quality Validation Date: 2002-02-06

Update Date: 2002-02-21

Project Acronym: CYCLADES

Title: An Open Collaborative Virtual Archive Environment

Subject Index : Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Social Aspects

Objective: CYCLADES is part of a collaborative EU-US research proposal aimed at developing an open collaborative e-print archive environment to support virtual scholarly communities. From the architectural viewpoint, this environment will comprise two interacting components: the archives and the services. The former consists of heterogeneous multidisciplinary archives and supports interoperability between them. The latter is composed of a number of independent but interoperable mediator services to support both single scholars and communities of scholars in their work. The CYCLADES proposal focuses on the service environment development. The twin US proposal will be responsible for the archive environment development. Technically, CYCLADES builds on the on-going US Open Archives initiative (OAi), currently involving several large archives. CYCLADES will support information access, personalization, recommendation and collaboration services.

Objectives:
The main objective of CYCLADES is to develop advanced Internet accessible mediator services to support scholars both individually and as members of networked communities when interacting with large interdisciplinary electronic (e-print) archives. Such archives are important vehicles for the dissemination of preliminary results and non-peer reviewed "grey literature". Most focus on information dissemination within disciplinary or institutional communities. However, scientific research is now oriented towards an interdisciplinary approach. Scientists thus need to easily retrieve information from diverse sources, and to communicate and collaborate across traditional community boundaries. CYCLADES aims at supporting the transition of e-print systems into genuine building blocks of a transformed scholarly communication model by developing a set of leading edge technologies providing innovative methods for information access, dissemination, sharing and collaborative work.

Work description:
The proposed open archives environment consists of two components: the archives and the services. The implementation of the former will be carried out by the US partners in the context of the Open Archives initiative (OAI), which aims at guaranteeing interoperability among e-print archives. The OAI has established a set of simple but potentially powerful interoperability specifications that facilitate the development of third party services. CYCLADES will base the development of the service environment on these specifications. In particular, a core set of cross-archive value-added services will be developed to constitute a federation of independent but interoperable services. According to this approach, a service provides functionality and can either work independently or can communicate and collaborate with other services to offer a new value-added service. The Service Environment will provide OAi compliant functionality.

Here below we list the main CYCLADES services:
Access: supports harvest-based information gathering, plus indexing and storage of gathered information in a local database.
Query and Browse: develops plans for the execution of user queries. An ad-hoc or a profile-based user query will be decomposed into more simple sub-queries to be sent to the Access service for execution. The results of the sub-queries are fused and returned to the user. A browse facility is also supported.
Collection: provides mechanisms for dynamically building meaningful collections.
Personalisation: supports information personalization on the basis of single user profiles, and of an individual's behaviour as a member of a community.
Recommendation: provides recommendations to satisfy information needs of a user by exploiting both user and community profiles.
Collaborative Work: supports collaboration between members of virtual communities. Community working areas are created to use the OAi content in collaborative work. There will be extensive experimentation.

Milestones:
An Open Archives Service Environment Architecture;
Access Service Working prototype;
Collection Service Working prototype;
Personalization Service Working prototype;
Recommendation Service Working prototype;
Collaborative Work Service Working prototype;
Query and Browse Service Working prototype;
A Working Open Archives Service Environment;
A System Evaluation Report;
A System Experimentation Report;
An Exploitation Plan;
A Dissemination Plan.

Start Date: 2001-02-01

End Date: 2003-07-31

Duration: 30 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 2.15 million euro

Project Funding: 1.20 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Interactive publishing, digital content and cultural heritage - Access to digital collections of cultural and scientific content

Project Reference: IST-2000-25456

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)

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Record Control Number: 61518

Quality Validation Date: 2002-03-22

Update Date: 2002-04-16

Project Acronym: AMDREL

Title: Architectures and Methodologies for Dynamic Reconfigurable Logic

Subject Index : Electronics, Microelectronics; Information Processing, Information Systems; Innovation, Technology Transfer

Objective: The main objective of the proposed project is to develop methodologies, tools and intellectual property blocks to be integrated in a mixed granularity dynamically reconfigurable SOC implementation platform for the efficient realization of wireless communications systems. The proposed methodology, tools, reusable intellectual property blocks and the mixed granularity reconfigurable implementation platform will be used for the development of systems from the wireless telecom domain including critical parts of a wireless LAN system. Thus the project targets potential system design users from wireless telecom domain, where a good balance between "flexibility" and implementation efficiency is needed during product's life-time.

Objectives:
AMDREL's main objectives are:
(a) Development of systematic methodologies for high level design tasks (such as behavioural optimisation wrt different implementation related factors and especially wrt power consumption, partitioning of targeted functionality to different types of reconfigurable hardware);
(b) Development of reusable intellectual properties (including coarse granularity dynamically reconfigurable hardware blocks, low power fine-granularity configurable logic blocks);
(c) Instantiation of tools for implementation tasks;
(d) Establishment of a dynamically reconfigurable SOC platform with mixed granularity components (fine and coarse grain);
(f) Validation through demonstrators and;
(g) Dissemination and use of results.

Work description:
AMDREL project will adopt an eight workpackages (WPs) workplan to achieve its objectives.

The workpackages will:
- explore target application domain to identify needs for behavioural optimisation and reconfigurability requirements;
- explore reconfigurable platforms to identify requirements for high level implementation oriented optimisation;
- refine the target mixed granularity reconfigurable architecture template;
- select appropriate implementation technology (WP1);
- develop methodology for domain and platform dependent behavioural optimisation;
- develop prototype design support software for behavioural optimisation;
- develop strategy for functionality partitioning between reconfigurable hardware blocks of different granularity;
- develop prototype software for the core of the partitioning approach;
- develop reusable soft intellectual properties for critical modules of the target application domain (WP2);
- design coarse grain reconfigurable hardware blocks and supporting implementation approach (WP3);
- design fine grain reconfigurable hardware blocks and supporting implementation tools (WP4);
- design of interconnect network suitable for reconfigurable platforms and supporting tools (WP5);
- develop demonstrators from the wireless LANs domain (WP6);
- disseminate and use the project results through internet, conferences (WP7);
- manage the project internally and towards the EC (WP8)

Milestones:
- Mixed granularity dynamically reconfigurable SOC architecture template by M9;
- Systematic methodologies for behavioural optimisation and partitioning by M18;
- High level tools and reusable IPs by M28;
- Fine and coarse fain reconfigurable SOC components/interconnect network by M28;
- Real life applications/demonstrators by M36;
- Exploitation/dissemination concluding activities by M36.

Start Date: 2002-03-01

End Date: 2005-02-28

Duration: 36 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 4.02 million euro

Project Funding: 2.25 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Microelectronics - optoelectronics - Microelectronics design and test & application specific microelectronics

Project Reference: IST-2001-34379

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)