To see related records in other databases, click on the icons below (if any are shown) or on the links highlighted within the body of this record (if any are present).

Record Control Number: 55030

Quality Validation Date: 2001-05-08

Update Date: 2001-11-05

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: Execution

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

To see related records in other databases, click on the icons below (if any are shown) or on the links highlighted within the body of this record (if any are present).

Record Control Number: 56771

Quality Validation Date: 2001-06-22

Update Date: 2001-11-05

Project Acronym: CINTRANET

Title: Using Intranet Technologies To Support Continuous Improvement In SME's

Subject Index : Economic Aspects; Information Processing, Information Systems; Innovation, Technology Transfer; Telecommunications

Objective: CIntranet will support company-wide continuous improvement (CI) in small and medium size companies. The project aims to provide a practical software system with embedded methodology to support company-wide application, coordination, monitoring and measurement improvement activities in SMEs. By using this software system the project aims to improve the major business performance indicators (cost, product and delivery reliability, speed) in the participating companies by at least 10 per cent in the first six months from the implementation of the CIntranet results. Another aim is to encourage a continuous improvement culture in smaller companies by providing the assistance they need for a self-help approach to continuous improvement. An indirect benefit will also be the support for the improvement of the competencies of the SME personnel.

Objectives:
.To examine the needs (and obstacles) concerning the improvement of the performance of the European SME companies through the company-wide application of CI activities.
.To develop a practical methodology to support company-wide CI (vertical and horizontal) in SMEs. The key of the methodology is its contribution to the gradual improvement of bottom-up communication (reporting of the contribution of CI to company performance) and horizontal communication (dissemination of CI experiences and results), in addition to top-down communication on company strategy and improvement goals. The methodology will be embedded into an intranet-based software system that assists the company-wide alignment, co-ordination and dissemination of CI experiences and results in SMEs.
.To use the CIntranet software system to increase and show the contribution of CI to the significant improvement (> 10%) of major business performance indicators in the participating SMEs (cost, product quality, delivery reliability and/or speed, depending or their specific needs) within six months of the implementation of the CIntranet results.
.To exploit and disseminate, using this evidence, the CIntranet software system.

The CIntranet results will be disseminated through:
User Interest Groups in Greece and The Netherlands.
Workshops (two in each country) with the participation of local SMEs.
The World Wide Web facility.
Exhibitions.
Associations.
Papers.

Work description:
The project will make use of methodologies for Continuous Improvement and state-of-the-art ICT tools to develop a practical software system with embedded methodology to support the company-wide application of CI activities in SMEs.

Selected results from two other European projects, namely EuroCINet and CUTE will be assessed in terms of their potential contribution to the CIntranet project. The ESPRIT project CUTE (EP-25123) has produced a top-down approach to the implementation of CI, supported by a software system. The CUTE methodology has been shown to be very useful during the initial attempts of companies to learn about CI and become a mature CI company and will therefore be incorporated in the CIntranet tool, possibly in an adapted form. CUTE does not support the bottom-up nor the horizontal communication required to disseminate CI experiences and results. CIntranet is aimed at filling this gap. Furthermore, CUTE and also the EuroCINet (European Continuous Improvement Network; EU-1222) have produced surveys on the current situation of CI in industrial companies and on their needs in terms of CI support. Having already unambiguously shown the need for vertical and horizontal alignment, co-ordination and dissemination, the results of these surveys will be very useful for the successful design of the CIntranet system.

In parallel, the users and user groups will be asked for their requirements in terms of CI and ICT support for company-wide CI. A European survey (with assistance from the EuroCINet) will be used to check whether these requirements are more generally valid for European SMEs. The full specification for the CIntranet requirements will be generated by the SME proposers, and the RTD performers will transform this in a methodology, which is then validated by the users and the user groups. The methodology will be embedded within the software system and the first prototype produced. This software system will then be fully validated by the users (earlier versions will have been briefly tested and validated). The results of the project will be widely disseminated using intermediary bodies, workshops and the Internet, and commercialised in the form of an off-the-shelf application.

Start Date: 2001-01-01

End Date: 2002-06-30

Duration: 18 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 662624.00 euro

Project Funding: 328000.00 euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Flexible, mobile and remote working methods and tools - Dynamic networked organisations

Project Reference: IST-1999-55011

Contract Type: CRS (Cooperative research contracts)

Project URL: http://www.i2s.gr/cintranet/cintranet.html

To see related records in other databases, click on the icons below (if any are shown) or on the links highlighted within the body of this record (if any are present).

Record Control Number: 56849

Quality Validation Date: 2001-06-22

Update Date: 2001-11-05

Project Acronym: GUIDEFREE

Title: Guide by Telematics to Enable Tourist Freedom at Sites

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

Objective: GUIDEFREE seeks to bring customised site information to the independent tourist traveller, every time and at every location, focusing on visits of tourist sites. The user will access the information prior to or during a trip, at any geographical location, to receive immediate description of a site during a visit or decide on a total tourist visit-mobility schedule, i.e., how and when to visit a site and each station/exhibit, or not to visit at all. By supporting intelligent searching and integration of information from different sources, the project maximises individual freedom, increases the effectiveness of all types of tourist visits, promote rationalisation of tourist travel, and allows the reduction of negative effects from structured guidance or lack of information on tourist freedom.

Objectives:
The objectives of GUIDEFREE are to:
- integrate tourism, access, geographical, multimedia and other data for use by tourists prior to and during visits at sites,
- adjust and transform the integrated data to suitable format for flexible use by tourists,
- assist tourists in using the integrated data,
- develop customised data mining methods to aid searching by tourists at sites, and
- test and assess the new interactive methods on site, based on mobile and fixed access.

Work description:
The project will develop and test off-line or on-line:
- Integrated databases for use prior to and during site visits by tourists, to improve the effectiveness of tourist information and management systems as indicated by the richness of the project archive and other tourist measures of performance.
- Improved customised data mining methods to aid searching by tourists at sites.
- Integration of tourist information and management strategies, which, aided by personalised support methods that allow service interaction, could lead to more-extended, operational integration of tourist services.
- Interoperable components to be adapted to an evolving federation of interconnected services. Such components will be integral parts of services of specific scope in content and quality, and will lead to increased potential for commercialisation.
The project will assess its product at four sites, two in Greece, one in Italy, and one in Austria.

Milestones:
The project will develop data integration disciplines, data transformation schemes, methods for guiding users in the use of the integrated data, customised data mining methods, and mobile-access and fixed-access methods for integrating the new personalised, interactive services for advanced tourist information and management. Further, the project will develop the open architecture that includes the above methods and tools, design a prototype, and conduct testing and evaluation of the prototype with off-line and on-line field data. Preliminary results, including preliminary versions of the testing method and the prototype under development, will be available at the end of the first year of the project.

Start Date: 2000-10-01

End Date: 2002-03-31

Duration: 18 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 2.05 million euro

Project Funding: 1.10 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Transport and tourism - Systems and services for tourism

Project Reference: IST-1999-21055

Contract Type: CSC (Cost-sharing contracts)

To see related records in other databases, click on the icons below (if any are shown) or on the links highlighted within the body of this record (if any are present).

Record Control Number: 58375

Quality Validation Date: 2001-09-01

Update Date: 2001-11-15

Project Acronym: AMRADS

Title: Accompanying Measure to R&D in statistics

Subject Index : Policies; Legislation, Regulations; Information Processing, Information Systems; Electronics, Microelectronics

Other Indexes: JRC - IPSC

Objective: AMRADS accompanies EPROS. It is designed to create the conditions for facilitating technology and know-how transfer within the European Statistical System. It promotes a networked take-up culture as well as actual exploitation of specific R&D statistical products and prototypes. For these purposes, it will undertake baseline user studies and best practice identification and test the outcome through a large kick-off conference involving all IST stakeholders. Further networking and awareness will be built through Working groups and workshops.
At the heart of the project is the creation of a common infrastructure using latest information society technologies, viza.
Training and Software Demonstration Centre (TSDC), a repository of technical documentation in various fields, a website and a helpdesk. Evaluation is central to AMRADS.

Objectives:
The objectives of this project are:
(a) to strengthen the conditions for ensuring that established statistical R&D products, with embedded know-how, reach the "market";
(b) actually to encourage the transfer of identified best practice from centres of excellence to needy National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) within the European Statistical System, with particular emphasis on the needs of Candidate countries;
(c) therefore to set up the physical and virtual common infrastructure to enable (a) and (b) to happen, and
(d) to create the networks for servicing that common infrastructure on a sustainable basis.

AMRADS accompanies the European Plan for Research and Development in Official Statistics (EPROS), CPA 8 in 2000 and CPA4 in 1999.
Benefits will accrue to the making and monitoring of decisions by European governments, European businesses and the European citizen.
The project is a direct follow up of the Communication from the Commission to the Parliament and the Council of the 8 January 2000: "Towards a European Research Area". The Communication stressed how research should be coordinated at the European level, thereby creating networks between national centres of excellence, academia and the private sector. AMRADS aims at the creation of such a Research Area in Official Statistics.

Work description:
At the heart of the project is the common infrastructure of the European Statistical Laboratory (ESL). The primary objective of the ESL is to organise and facilitate the transfer of technology and know-how (TTK) between NSIs. The common infrastructure comprises a Training and Software Demonstration Centre (SODECE), a repository of technical documentation in various fields, a website and a helpdesk. SODECE will impart the long-term sustainability to TTK.
In order to realise the aims of the ESL, there will be two major awareness-building conferences. The first conference, TTK1, is scheduled for month 4 and the second, TTK2, for September 2003. For TTK1, the aim is forward-looking.
Each consortium partner is a recognised centre of excellence on a number of areas, such as Enterprise Demography. In the first 4 months of the project, each partner will form a network that would undertake studies on best practice identification and users' needs on a selection of themes. Based on these studies, reports will be produced for discussion at TTK1.
As an outcome of TTK1, 6 themes will be selected for more intensive investigations through Working Groups (WGs).
These Working groups will come up with proposals on dissemination strategies, training/roadshows to be launched during the project and on servicing the common infrastructure. Between months 11 and 18, Workshops, (with wider participation than the WGs), will be convened to examine these proposals and recommend actions. These actions will be taken mainly through the common infrastructure, through, to a lesser extent, international information days and through concentrations, including project clustering.
There will be peer reviews of deliverables and 6 ex post evaluation studies.
The latter will feed into TTK2, with a view to learning the lessons for the design of support measures in the Sixth Framework Programme. The whole project will be managed by the Management Steering Committee consisting of consortium partners.

Milestones:
Milestone 1. Outline of the common infrastructure (month 4): The outline of a self-sustaining system for networking.
Milestone 2. Kick-off conference (month 4) and definition of 6 Working Groups.
Milestone 3. 1-6 Thematic workshops (months 11-18): Dissemination and training strategies, thematic networks.
Milestone 4. 1-6 Training and dissemination events (months 18-25): Transfer of know-how and skills upgrading.
Milestone 5. 1-3 Concentration events (months 9,18 and 27): Enhanced exploitation, topics for clustering.
Milestone 6. Evaluative conference (month 33): Lessons for FP6.

Start Date: 2001-01-01

End Date: 2003-12-31

Duration: 36 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 1.34 million euro

Project Funding: 1.34 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: CPA8: Statistical tools, methods & applications for the Info Society

Project Reference: IST-2000-26125

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

Project URL: http://amrads.jrc.it

To see related records in other databases, click on the icons below (if any are shown) or on the links highlighted within the body of this record (if any are present).

Record Control Number: 58601

Quality Validation Date: 2001-11-20

Update Date: 2001-11-29

Project Acronym: CEBOS

Title: Cost Effective e-Business Operating Services for SMEs

Subject Index : Economic Aspects; Information, Media; Information Processing, Information Systems; Regional Development

Objective: CEBOS will establish and evaluate e-Market Places (Mediation Sites) that will progressively minimize the gap between SMEs and the International on-line Market. CEBOS will provide cost-effective e-business solutions customized according to regional requirements for those SMEs targeted in the proposed Best Practice pilots. Furthermore, CEBOS will offer to the SMEs involved the opportunity to go digital under a concentrated market perspective. The Consortium includes catalyst organisations with maturity in e-Business and the necessary organizational structure to co-operate with SME associations, to prove the added-value benefits and viability of CEBOS marketplaces.

Objectives:
The main objective of CEBOS is the establishment and evaluation of e-Market Places (Mediation Sites) that will progressively minimize the gap between SMEs and the International on line market.

Through the project, CEBOS partners aim at:
- Analysing European regional markets in order to identify business opportunities for on line SMEs and depict the business environment where CEBOS BPPs will operate;
- Analysing SME business models in order to identify their strategic business objectives and their requirements for cost efficient and effective e-Business activities;
- Delivering Best Practice Models for Electronic Market Places in regional and European level, through their demonstration with active participation of e-Business Catalysts, SME Associations and SMEs;
- Operating and validating the value added benefits of CEBOS mediator platform for cost efficient and supportive e-Business;
- Measuring the impact of such a customized model in regional SME markets and identifying transition and re-engineering requirements;
- Widely disseminating the CEBOS Business Cases in order to provide SMEs with a strategic competitive advantage in the digital economy.

CEBOS will provide a self sustained electronic Market Place remotely administrated by its SME users. A light CEBOS tool that will facilitate remote site & product management by individual users will be also validated during the project in order to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage and facilitate its market penetration.
The tool will be able to visualize the ASP model locally in order to provide SMEs with a comprehensive view of their catalogue and process model and enhance internal e-Business maturity.
The CEBOS sites will also provide the necessary mechanisms for online training of corporate and individual users in order to position themselves more efficiently.

Work description:
The rationale of the proposed work structure follows to a certain extent a hybrid methodology combining technology and business development activities. As a Best Practice project, the CEBOS consortium strongly believes that a large part of the work should address the alignment of the project technology evolutions with detailed user requirements where SME strategic business objectives are met in a cost efficient way.
However, e-Business projects, especially those that deal with electronic market places, should also address organizational transformation, co-operation and business planning issues in order for an SME effectively step and exploit the desired state.
To this end our methodology, involves the requirements elicitation and gathering both from user associations, end-users (SMEs), domain experts, and regional surveys on particular aspects of marketing, sales and replenishment processes and regional e-Business status (work package 1). To this end, a mock up demo of CEBOS operation will be presented to the user associations and specifically to a selected set of their members, during focused working seminars, in order to validate the technology choices and demonstrate the preliminary functionality of the overall e-Business platform.
Then, follows the specification and planning of the Best Practice pilot operation, where user requirements are transformed into viable business scenarios, along with the specification of open inter-organizational business processes, standard information flows and tele-working practices (work package 2).
Then follows the actual deployment phase where all user application scenarios are validated and refined (work package 3).
The initial steps for the deployment of the results, such as demonstrations and information dissemination, are already planned to take place during the project lifetime (work package 4).
However, the consortium is conscious that the exploitation of a Best Practice project must cope with a number of constraints such as finance, legislation, marketing, logistics and distribution, in order to be successfully exploited by the majority of SMEs in the respective regions (and European wide).
To this end best practice guides will be developed and disseminated to the wider SME community and European / regional decision makers. These guides will clearly present the CEBOS business case and indicate all required transformation and culture building activities on behalf of the SMEs, user associations and regional authorities.
Analytical description of the dissemination activities is provided in section C.8.

Milestones:
Milestone 1 [Month 4]: Concrete User Requirements for CEBOS sustainability and value added benefits;
Milestone 2 [Month 8]: Delivery of CEBOS market place according to user requirements and establishment of all pilot operation prerequisites / conditions;
Milestone 3 [Month 14]: Successful Completion of CEBOS implementation phase;
Milestone 4 [Month 18]: Delivery of CEBOS Business Plan & Best Practice Guides / Successful completion of the project.

Start Date: 2001-07-01

End Date: 2002-12-31

Duration: 18 months

Project Status: Execution

Project Cost: 1.98 million euro

Project Funding: 1.15 million euro

Programme Type: 5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)

Programme Acronym : IST

Subprogramme Area: Work spanning KA2 - Promoting Broad Adoption of eCommerce/eWork in Regions/Sectors

Project Reference: IST-2000-29585

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

To see related records in other databases, click on the icons below (if any are shown) or on the links highlighted within the body of this record (if any are present).

Record Control Number: 60831

Quality Validation Date: 2002-02-07

Update Date: 2002-02-21

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: Execution

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)