HIIT Update 1/2002

- NEW RESEARCH PROJECTS: THE WELFARE OF NATIONS, DIGITAL ECONOMY CORE, FUEGO CORE, SEMANTIC WEB
- HIIT'S BASIC RESEARCH UNIT COMMENCES OPERATION
- HIIT BRU TO COORDINATE THE PROACTIVE COMPUTING PROGRAMME
- PAI JOINS THE MEDIA CONVERGENCE PROGRAMME
- HIIT JOINS TWO THEMATIC NETWORK PROPOSALS TO CEC
- MC CORE DISCONTINUED, "SON OF MC CORE" IN PREPARATION
- SENIOR PERSONNEL NEWS
- FUTURE EVENTS

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NEW RESEARCH PROJECTS: THE WELFARE OF NATIONS, DIGITAL ECONOMY CORE, FUEGO CORE, SEMANTIC WEB

Four new projects have started at HIIT during early 2002:

THE WELFARE OF NATIONS

The project "The Welfare of Nations: The Interaction of Technology, Economy and Society through the Cases of Silicon Valley, Finland/EU and Singapore/China" (http://www.hiit.fi/de/wofn) constitutes the extension of HIIT's Digital Economy in information society research. Under the supervision of Dr. Jukka Kemppinen, the project team consists of Dr. Pekka Himanen, Matti Kalliokoski and Risto Sullström. The project's Scientific Board will be led by Professor Manuel Castells from the University of California at Berkeley. Other members include Professor Olli Rehn from the University of Helsinki. The project will be carried out in close co-operation with Professors Nelson Morgan and Jerry Feldman at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI, http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu), a research institute closely affiliated with UC Berkeley.

The general objective of the project is to study and understand the nature and interaction of the various forces that shape the evolution of information societies by studying in parallel the cases of Finland, Silicon Valley and Singapore. While each of these societies can be considered success, they work in quite different circumstances shaped by various constraints and the cultural/political/economical climate. While the aimed results of the work are interesting in their own right, they will also constitute a solid background for other research activities in the Digital Economy program.

Inquiries on the project can be directed to its Project Manager Matti Kalliokoski, Matti.Kalliokoski(a)hiit.fi, Dr. Pekka Himanen, phimanen(a)icsi.berkeley.edu, or program coordinator Olli Pitkänen, Olli.Pitkanen(a)hiit.fi.

FUEGO CORE: MOBILE INTERNET MIDDLEWARE

The Fuego Core project is focused on the middleware issues raised by the mobile Internet. Its aims include the definition and prototype-level implementation of selected middleware components and proof of concept demonstrations of services benefiting from the components, possibly in cooperation with other Fuego projects. The project will also pursue actively Internet standardization on forums such as IETF and W3C. The project includes co-operation with the research group of professor Randy Katz (www.cs.berkeley.edu/~randy/) at the University of California at Berkeley. Industrial partners of the project are Nokia, Sonera, Elisa, and More Magic Software.

Inquiries on the project can be directed to Research Director, Professor Kimmo Raatikainen, Kimmo.Raatikainen(a)cs.helsinki.fi or program coordinator Mikko Mäkelä, Mikko.Makela(a)hiit.fi.

SEMANTIC WEB

The Semantic Web project investigates next generation Internet technology aiming at raising the intelligence of Internet contents on the basis of ontology-based semantic metadata. The project will focus on two prime applications: semantic service catalogues and topic maps. The project belongs to the Media Convergence program. Its partners are Nokia, TietoEnator and Espoo City Museum.

Inquiries on the project can be directed to Professor Eero Hyvönen, Eero.Hyvonen(a)cs.helsinki.fi, or program coordinator Anton Puolakka, Anton.Puolakka(a)hiit.fi.

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HIIT'S BASIC RESEARCH UNIT COMMENCES OPERATION

The Basic Research Unit (http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/hiit_bru/) of HIIT is a recently established part of HIIT concentrating on long term research in selected areas of information technology. Its operation commenced officially on January 1, 2002.

The unit works in close cooperation with the departments of computer science of both universities. The unit aims to provide a stimulating research environment, with excellent facilities and connections to many application groups in sciences and in industry. Post-doc positions are available for qualified candidates; see http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/hiit_bru/bru_postdoc.html.

The first research programmes will focus on data analysis and data mining for biological sciences, energy-aware computation, and ubiquitous computing.

Inquiries on BRU can be directed to the Research Director of BRU, Professor Heikki Mannila, heikki.mannila(a)cs.Helsinki.fi or BRU amanuensis Teija Kujala, Teija.Kujala(a)cs.helsinki.fi.

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HIIT BRU TO COORDINATE THE PROACTIVE COMPUTING PROGRAMME

The Academy of Finland has decided to launch the Proactive Information Technology Research Programme aimed at multi-disciplinary basic research relevant for future ubiquitous and mobile computing environments. The programme will run for 2002-2005 and its total volume will be 5,7 MEURO.

The research programme is carried out in cooperation between the Academy of Finland, the Finnish National Technology Agency and the French Ministry of Research. Cooperation between Finnish and French researchers will therefore be of importance.

The Academy of Finland has chosen the HIIT Basic Research Unit to coordinate the programme. Prof. Heikki Mannila, director of BRU, will act as the programme director and Dr. Greger Lindén as its coordinator.

The programme will be opened for applications in March 2002. Applications will be processed in two stages: plans of intent (deadline 29 April 2002) and full proposals (deadline 9 August 2002). Further information about the contents of the programme and the application procedures will be given in the publication seminar of the programme to be held on Thursday, March 14 at the Academy of Finland (Vilhovuorenkatu 6, Helsinki), starting at 10.00 am. The information will also be published on the web pages of the Academy of Finland, http://www.aka.fi.

Inquiries on the Proactive Computing Programme can be directed to the Programme Coordinator, Dr. Greger Lindén, greger.linden(a)cs.Helsinki.fi.

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PAI JOINS THE MEDIA CONVERGENCE PROGRAMME

Personalized Adaptive Interfaces (PAI, http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/research/cosco/Projects/PAI/) is a 3-year research project started in 2000 as a part of the on User-Oriented Information Technology (USIX) program of TEKES. Its aim is to develop methods for applying probabilistic modelling techniques, such as Bayesian network models, in building and using personalized, adaptive user interfaces mainly for Internet-based applications. The industrial partners of the project are Alma Media Corporation, Ekahau Ltd and BayesIT Ltd. It is executed in co-operation with the Department of Education of the University of Helsinki. For its last year of operation, the project joins the Media Convergence program of HIIT.

Inquiries on the project can be directed to Research Director, Professor Henry Tirri, henry.tirri(a)cs.Helsinki.fi or program coordinator Anton Puolakka, Anton.Puolakka(a)hiit.fi.

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HIIT JOINS TWO THEMATIC NETWORK PROPOSALS TO CEC

Two Thematic Network proposals including HIIT were submitted to the European Commission in response to the final Call of Proposals of the Fifth Framework Programme.

The "Network of Excellence on Reconfigurable mobile communications and adaptable services" (READAPT) thematic network focuses in cross-fertilisation, dissemination and identification of integrated research results and ideas related to the area of re-configurability, adaptability, flexible service provision and the introduction of 3G and 4G systems. Other partners of the network include University of Athens (prime contractor); Ecole National Superieure des Telecommunications; Kings College London, United Kingdom; University of Cyprus; Telecommunications Research Centre University of Limerick; Telecommunications Technological Center of Catalonia; and THALES Communications. HIIT will act as the Technical Coordinator in the network. Inquiries on READAPT can be directed to Research Director, Professor Kimmo Raatikainen, Kimmo.Raatikainen(a)cs.helsinki.fi or program coordinator Mikko Mäkelä, Mikko.Makela(a)hiit.fi.

The "Adaptive Methods for Ubiquitous Intelligence" (ADMIT) thematic network aims to delineate to what extent and in what way adaptive systems technology can best address the problem of enabling users to make effective use of the enormous digital resources that are increasingly freely accessible to citizens of Europe and the World. The network membership consists of 21 research partners throughout Europe, including two Israeli universities. Inquiries on ADMIT can be directed to Research Director, Professor Henry Tirri, henry.tirri(a)cs.Helsinki.fi or program coordinator Anton Puolakka, Anton.Puolakka(a)hiit.fi.

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MC CORE DISCONTINUED, "SON OF MC CORE" IN PREPARATION

TEKES has decided to discontinue the funding of the Core project of the Media Convergence program as of January 1, 2002. This decision was caused mainly by the tight economic situation that was reflected in the level of industrial interest to the project. While lamentable, this decision is therefore understandable.

HIIT's commitment to the Media Convergence program is unchanged, however. Therefore, HIIT has commenced the preparation of a new "Son of MC Core" project that will replace the prematurely finished one, and upgrade its research agenda. Tentatively, the new project will focus on Horizontal Service Management of digital content services.

The preparation effort will be coordinated by the new MC program coordinator Anton Puolakka, Anton.Puolakka(a)hiit.fi, who joined HIIT from March 1, 2002. Inquiries on the progress of the preparation can be directed to him.

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SENIOR PERSONNEL NEWS

Several senior researchers have joined the ranks of HIIT since the previous issue of HIIT Update.

Dr. Jorma Rissanen is best known for his fundamental work on arithmetic coding and the Minimum Description Length (MDL) principle. For this research, which in effect places statistics as a chapter in information theory, he has received a number of awards, including the IEEE Information Society Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation in 1998. This is one of 16 Golden Jubilee Awards, which represent the most significant innovations made during the 50-year existence of information theory. He is also the recipient of the IEEE 1993 Richard W. Hamming medal "For fundamental contributions to information theory, statistical inference, control theory, and the theory of complexity and stochastic complexity" and IBM Outstanding Innovation Award in 1988 for work in statistical inference, information theory, and the theory of complexity. Although living in Los Gatos, California, Dr. Rissanen will be spending 3 months a year at HIIT premises working together with the CoSCo research group. Dr. Rissanen’s interests lie in information theory and coding and their applications to modelling in statistics and computer science. Upon joining HIIT, Dr. Rissanen was nominated as HIIT Fellow, the most prestigious academic rank of HIIT, by the HIIT Board on November 7, 2001.

Dr. Pekka Nikander (http://www.tml.hut.fi/~pnr/) is Chief Scientist at the Ericsson Research NomadicLab located in Jorvas, Kirkkonummi and also Adjunct Professor (docent) in the Telecom Software and Multimedia Laboratory at the Helsinki University of Technology. In December, 2001, he joined HIIT as an Ericsson Visiting Senior Research Scientist. His technical interests include Security and economics; Security in distributed and mobile systems; Security architectures; Security in wearable and ubiquitous computing applications; Security and Human Factors; Distributed Object Oriented Programming; and Cryptographic protocols. At HIIT, he plans to contribute to Fuego and Digital Economy programs.

Dr. Wray Buntine moved in February, 2002 to Finland from United States to join the CoSCo research group at HIIT. A former researcher at UC Berkeley and NASA, he is internationally well-known for his theoretical and practical work in Bayesian graphical modelling (e.g., he has the most cited article "Operations for Learning with Graphical Models" in the prestigious Journal of Artificial Intelligence). In addition to his academic career, he has a strong industrial background and was a lead architect and developer responsible for complete product life-cycle: conception, development, beta testing, quality assurance and maintenance of PSE, an enterprise class 24/7-uptime, scalable, client-server internet product delivering personalization currently being used at Cisco.

Dr. Pekka Himanen, b. 1973, received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Helsinki at the age of 20. He is the author of very successful book "Hacker Ethic" where he - together with Linus Torvalds and professor Manuel Castells - articulates how hackers represent a new, opposing ethos for the information age. Underlying hackers' technical creations - such as the Internet and the personal computer, which have become symbols of our time - are the hacker values that produced them and that challenge us all. These values promoted passionate and freely rhythmed work; the belief that individuals can create great things by joining forces in imaginative ways; and the need to maintain our existing ethical ideals, such as privacy and equality, in our new, increasingly technologised society. Dr. Himanen joined HIIT in February, 2002, to co-lead the recently started Welfare of Nations project.

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FUTURE EVENTS

March 22, 2002: Dr. George Metakides, Director of Directorate E "Essential Information Society Technologies and Infrastructures" of the Information Society Directorate-General of the European Commission visits HIIT at 10:30-13:00. An invitation seminar will be organised at HIIT. Inquiries: Martti.Mantyla(a)hiit.fi.

April 3 through 5: The Fuego program of HIIT will organise a Retreat meeting in the Tvärminne Biological Station of the University of Helsinki. Intended for Fuego program researchers and industrial partners, the meeting aims to facilitate information exchange and future planning of the program. Inquiries: Mikko.Makela(a)hiit.fi.

May 22 to 25: Professor Hal Varian, Dean of the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California at Berkeley, will visit Finland to receive an honorary doctoral degree at the University of Oulu. Tentatively, he will also visit HIIT on May 23; details of the program are being worked out. Inquiries: Martti.Mantyla(a)hiit.fi.

June 4 through 7: The second joint Summer School on Telecommunications Software Architectures organized by HIIT and by the University of California at Berkeley will take place in Berkeley, California. Main organisers of the Summer School are Professor Kimmo Raatikainen and Professor Randy Katz. Attendance by applications only; they MUST be sent to Prof. Martti Mäntylä (martti.mantyla(a)hiit.fi) and Prof. Kimmo Raatikainen (kimmo.raatikainen(a)hiit.fi) as well as to Program Coordinator Mikko Mäkelä (mikko.makela(a)hiit.fi) by March 15, 2002.