Alberto Sanna

A context-related authorization and access control method based on RBAC:

This paper describes an application of authorization and access control based on the Role Based Access Control (RBAC) method and integrated in a comprehensive trust infrastructure of a health care application. The method is applied to a health care business process that involves multiple actors accessing data and resources needed for performing clinical and logistics tasks in the application. The notion of trust constituency is introduced as a concept for describing the context of authorisation. In addition, the applied RBAC covers time constraints, hierarchies and multi-level authorization rules for coping with the multi-actor nature and the complexity of the application domain. The DRIVE RBAC model clearly distinguishes between static role assignment to users and dynamic allocation of roles at session time. The paper, while focusing on the authorization and access control approach, also describes how the RBAC functions have been integrated in a trust infrastructure including smart cards.

Children's adaptation in multi-session interaction with a humanoid robot

This work presents preliminary observations from a study of children (N=19, age 5-12) interacting in multiple sessions with a humanoid robot in a scenario involving game activities. The main purpose of the study was to see how their perception of the robot, their engagement, and their enjoyment of the robot as a companion evolve across multiple interactions, separated by one-two weeks. However, an interesting phenomenon was observed during the experiment: most of the children soon adapted to the behaviors of the robot, in terms of speech timing, speed and tone, verbal input formulation, nodding, gestures, etc. We describe the experimental setup and the system, and our observations and preliminary analysis results, which open interesting questions for further research.

The huggable: a platform for research in robotic companions for pediatric care

Robotic companions offer a unique combination of embodiment and computation which open many new interesting opportunities in the field of pediatric care. As these new technologies are developed, we must consider the central research questions of how such systems should be designed and what the appropriate applications for such systems are. In this paper we present the Huggable, a robotic companion in the form factor of a teddy bear and outline a series of studies we are planning to run using the Huggable in a pediatric care unit.

Process and risk analysis to reduce errors in clinical laboratories

Abstract Background: An important point in improving laboratory quality is the definition of some indicators to be monitored as measures of a laboratory trend. The continuous observation of these indicators can help to reduce errors and risk of errors, thus enhancing the laboratory outcome. In addition, the standardization of risk evaluation techniques and the definition of a set of indicators can eventually contribute to a benchmarking process in clinical laboratories. Methods: Five Italian hospital laboratories cooperated in a project in which methodologies for process and risk analysis, usually applied in fields other than healthcare (typically aeronautical and transport industries), were adapted and applied to laboratory medicine. The collaboration of a board of experts played a key role in underlining the limits of the proposed techniques and adapting them to the laboratory situation. A detailed process analysis performed in each center was the starting point, followed by risk analysis to evaluate risks and facilitate benchmarking among the participants. Results and conclusions: The techniques applied allowed the formulation of a list of non-conformities that represented risks of errors. The level of risk related to each was quantified and graphically represented for each laboratory to identify the risk area characteristic for each of the centers involved. Clin Chem Lab Med 2007;45:742–8.

Towards long-term social child-robot interaction: using multi-activity switching to engage young users

Social robots have the potential to provide support in a number of practical domains, such as learning and behaviour change. This potential is particularly relevant for children, who have proven receptive to interactions with social robots. To reach learning and therapeutic goals, a number of issues need to be investigated, notably the design of an effective child-robot interaction (cHRI) to ensure the child remains engaged in the relationship and that educational goals are met. Typically, current cHRI research experiments focus on a single type of interaction activity (e.g. a game). However, these can suffer from a lack of adaptation to the child, or from an increasingly repetitive nature of the activity and interaction. In this paper, we motivate and propose a practicable solution to this issue: an adaptive robot able to switch between multiple activities within single interactions. We describe a system that embodies this idea, and present a case study in which diabetic children collaboratively learn with the robot about various aspects of managing their condition. We demonstrate the ability of our system to induce a varied interaction and show the potential of this approach both as an educational tool and as a research method for long-term cHRI.

Development of a Cognitive Robotic System for Simple Surgical Tasks

The introduction of robotic surgery within the operating rooms has significantly improved the quality of many surgical procedures. Recently, the research on medical robotic systems focused on increasing the level of autonomy in order to give them the possibility to carry out simple surgical actions autonomously. This paper reports on the development of technologies for introducing automation within the surgical workflow. The results have been obtained during the ongoing FP7 European funded project Intelligent Surgical Robotics (I-SUR). The main goal of the project is to demonstrate that autonomous robotic surgical systems can carry out simple surgical tasks effectively and without major intervention by surgeons. To fulfil this goal, we have developed innovative solutions (both in terms of technologies and algorithms) for the following aspects: fabrication of soft organ models starting from CT images, surgical planning and execution of movement of robot arms in contact with a deformable environment, designing a surgical interface minimizing the cognitive load of the surgeon supervising the actions, intra-operative sensing and reasoning to detect normal transitions and unexpected events. All these technologies have been integrated using a component-based software architecture to control a novel robot designed to perform the surgical actions under study. In this work we provide an overview of our system and report on preliminary results of the automatic execution of needle insertion for the cryoablation of kidney tumours.

What a robotic companion could do for a diabetic child

Being a child with diabetes is challenging: apart from the emotional difficulties of dealing with the disease, there are multiple physical aspects that need to be dealt with on a daily basis. Furthermore, as the children grow older, it becomes necessary to self-manage their condition without the explicit supervision of parents or carers. This process requires that the children overcome a steep learning curve. Previous work hypothesized that a robot could provide a supporting role in this process. In this paper, we characterise this potential support in greater detail through a structured collection of perspectives from all stakeholders, namely the diabetic children, their siblings and parents, and the healthcare professionals involved in their diabetes education and care. A series of brain-storming sessions were conducted with 22 families with a diabetic child (32 children and 38 adults in total) to explore areas in which they expected that a robot could provide support and/or assistance. These perspectives were then reviewed, validated and extended by healthcare professionals to provide a medical grounding. The results of these analyses suggested a number of specific functions that a companion robot could fulfil to support diabetic children in their daily lives.

An internet of things enabled interactive totem for children in a living lab setting

Hospitalization can be an extremely distressful experience, especially for children. Healthcare institutions are striving to create hospital environments that respond to patient needs and promote their well-being and recovery. The San Raffaele Scientific Institute of Milan has embraced this challenge and through its eServices for Life and Health unit is striving to ideate, develop and deploy eServices in its City of the Future Living Lab, which truly meet user needs and foster innovation. In such a context, an Interactive Totem has been placed in a paediatric ward offering services aimed at educating, entertaining and empowering hospitalized children. This Totem is part of an Internet of Things platform and is being used to understand the impact of these services, achieve their fine-tuning with the collaboration of children, and at the same time to explore the role of an Internet of Things System in the Living Lab process.

Trustworthy middleware services in the cloud

Establishing trust in systems is a difficult problem to tackle. In the Cloud, establishing trust is even more complicated considering its dynamic nature and distributed resources. One of the Clouds potential feature is providing transparent management of resources at Clouds infrastructure. This would hide technical complexities from Clouds customers, which could be provided using middleware services. Establishing trustworthy middleware services would help in moving in the direction of establishing trust in the Cloud. In this paper we mainly focus on identifying the functions for establishing trustworthy middleware services for supporting home healthcare application. Specifically, we focus on the ones that are required to address the security, privacy, and resilience properties of home healthcare application.

User-Driven Service Innovation in a Smarter City Living Lab

This paper presents the case for San Raffaele Scientific Institutes (FCSR) City of the Future Living Lab in Milan as both a virtual and real research environment and community, through which to explore and discuss how a Co-Creation methodology in a Living Lab setting can be applied to the innovation of services and the potential of Internet of Things technologies in this process. The paper is explorative and induced from an ongoing development and practical implementation of the Living Lab in FCSR. The paper presents an overview of the methodology and tools implemented in all the phases of the Co-Creation process and presents the case of Living Labs as user- driven open innovation ecosystems for services for future Smarter Cities.