Franco Pirri

Practical experiences in interconnecting LANs via satellite

We present an experiment in interconnecting LANs via a satellite link and describe the individual components involved in the experiment. The project was developed in two phases: a) design and realisation of a satellite access scheme that supports real-time and non real-time traffic with a signal fading countermeasure, called FODA/IBEA-TDMA; b) interconnection of LANs where real-time and non real-time applications run. The experiment was presented the first time in June 1994 as a demo in which the Eutelsat satellite was used (in the 12/14 GHz band) to exchange data between two LANs in Pisa and Florence, while video and audio applications running on PCs connected the two sites. The demo was repeated a few weeks later and the Intelsat satellite was used in the 20/30 GHz band.

Towards a web of sensors built with linked data and REST

The technological advances in hardware and software communication technologies are speeding up the path towards the actualization of the Internet of Things. Nonetheless, novel requirements are emerging for the effective and efficient usage of the huge amount of available sensor information and functional capabilities. Several approaches have been proposed for leveraging the Web to this purpose (i.e. Web of Things). In this work, we propose an information-centric approach to enable a Web of Sensors. We combine the principles of Linked Data and Representational State Transfer (REST) architectural style to represent sensors as graphs of URI-addressable information nodes, which can be easily combined and reused for developing novel applications and creating software-based sensors (Virtual Sensors). Our approach relies on the adoption of a web-oriented middleware and information model, called InterDataNet.

Telematics integrated system to perform drugs prescription and administration reducing adverse drug events

In this paper we present PHARMA 2.0 a telematics integrated system aimed at reducing Adverse Drug Events (ADEs) in the phases of drug prescription, transcription, distribution and administration. The proposed system is grounded on three sub-systems: a CPOE (Computerized Prescription Order Entry), an RFID-based drug container and dispenser and a middleware system. The visualization and management of prescription and administration data are handled through a web application designed to comply with international usability regulation.

An Overlay Infrastructural Approach for a Web-Wide Trustworthy Identity and Profile Management

Scalability and trust-enabling capabilities in Web-wide Profile Management are two challenges addressed in this paper. An infrastructural theoretical framework is proposed and discussed, based on the InterDataNet (IDN) architecture aimed at supporting seamless data interoperability to facilitate sharing and exploitation of distributed and heterogeneous user profile information. This paper presents the grounding issues of a more detailed analysis in progress on this problem, to highlight the prospected advantages and the technical viability of the proposed approach. It is possible to apply the framework in cross-domains scenarios such as e.g. e-gov and e-health, in which the trusted management of identities and profiles is required. The present study provides a starting-point for further research and development of the IDN as the technological system underlying the e-Profile Management Systems towards a trust-enabling Web-wide service.

InterDataNet: A Scalable Middleware Infrastructure for Smart Data Integration

At the core of the Internet/Web of Things lays the issue of large-scale interoperability of heterogeneous Things/Objects networks. Going beyond limited-scale interoperability, middleware requires dealing with a number of issues targeting, among others, the Web-wide Object addressability and Objects capabilities orchestration for the development of different applications. Such a goal requires not only addressing “internetworking things” at a communication level but also “interdataworking of things” i.e., providing interoperability among Objects smart data. Indeed, the smarter and the most interoperable are the data, the easier will be sharing, linking, and processing between distributed IoT applications. This chapter discusses the architectural requirements of the InterDataNet (IDN) framework. IDN approach provides scalable integration, management, and reuse of large numbers of Objects networks in the Web of Data, thus enabling Web of Things applications. The core of the IDN is provided through three main views: the IDN-Information Model, the IDN-Service Architecture, and the IDN-Applications.

Orchestra!: An Internet Service for Distributed Musical Sessions and Collaborative Music Development and Engineering

This paper proposes a platform for musical sessions distributed over the Internet and for music development and engineering. The system is based on a distributed software architecture and it’s universally accessible through a simple http-client (a browser). Orchestra! is a service that offers a common working environment and tools to the users, as well as a platform that provides a layer of common functionality for existing musical and groupware tools and for the development of new ones.

e-Profile Management as a Basic Horizontal Service for the Creation of Specialized e-Services

Integrating raw data with the Web, i.e. making a Web of Data, has the intrinsic power to create maximum utility for the Netizens. However current technical approaches in this direction fail in handling properties such as data provenance and licensing, thus increasing the chasm between the trend to “open data for maximum reuse” and the security and privacy needs related to users’ personal data (e-Profile) treatment. In such a context a specific challenge is the development of innovative and alternative approaches for e-Profiles creation and management. The InterDataNet architecture is herewith considered as infrastructural solution aiming at providing a Web-based trust-enabling management of e-Profiles to third party generic e-Service Providers to support access and delivery of trusted and personalized e-Services. This paper presents some flashes of a more detailed analysis in progress on this problem, made according to the multiplicity of the Service Science, Management and Engineering perspectives, to highlight the prospected advantages and the viability involved by the proposed approach.

Interdatanet naming system: a scalable architecture for managing URIs of heterogeneous and distributed data with rich semantics

Establishing equivalence links between (semantic) resources, as it is the case in the Linked Data approach, implies permanent search, analysis and alignment of new (semantic) data in a rapidly changing environment. Moreover the distributed management of data brings not negligible requirements as regards their authorship, update, versioning and replica management. Instead of providing solutions for the above issues at the application level, our approach relies on the adoption of a common layered infrastructure: InterDataNet (IDN). The core of the IDN architecture is the Naming System aimed at providing a scalable and open service to support consistent reuse of entities and their identifiers, enabling a global reference and addressing mechanism for convenient retrieval of resources. The IDN architecture also provides basic collaboration-oriented functions for (semantic) data, featuring authorship control, versioning and replica management through its stack layers.

InterDataNet: Interoperability Framework to Support Collaborative Creation and Management of Official Documents in e-Government Processes

At present e-Government procedures for creation and management of official documents pose specific problems with collaborative information authoring, data distribution and storage, use of a unique name for resource addressing, attribution of the entity responsible for the documents. Many benefits can be obtained through the informatization of the procedures. To this end we propose InterDataNet (IDN) as a distributed framework that can solve many of the issues present in e-Government contexts through collaborative information management, data distribution and storage, workflow processes. To evaluate the IDN approach validity, in this paper we describe the hypothetical scenario related to the management of Italian administrative acts.