Service Télématique et Communication
Newsletter n°28

May 2003

Les Nouveaux Chemins de la Connaissance
The New Paths of Knowledge

Editorial

Dear Readers,
Once more, this Newsletter presents our typical blend of information about, on the one hand our technology-oriented projects (related to the Next Generation Internet and to GRID computing) and on the other hand, the various “e-” activities that we are developing, in line with the eEurope initiative. Such articles present our projects in e-Government, e-Learning and e-Work, including telemedicine.
Together with this mailing, you will also find the announcement of the major events we are organising in the week of September 22-26 in Brussels, in collaboration with the European Commission, ETSI (the European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and the IPv6 Forum. Be sure to mark those dates in your agendas! I can assure you that the technical programme, as well as the social events, will be “up to standards”!
Happy reading,

Paul VAN BINST

 Our view of the United Nations...

Since our last Newsletter, the world has debated quite a bit about the United Nations; we are always happy to show our own vision, as the picture of our Group presents people originating from Belgium (Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia), China, Congo, France, Italy, Marocco, Spain and Poland! (and 7 women for 3 men!).

BRUMAMMO – A New Telemedicine Project

The Government of the Brussels region has granted a research contract to BRUMAMMO, the association dedicated to breast cancer detection and prevention (grouping representatives of the university hospitals and medical institutes from the Brussels region).
Professor André-Robert GRIVEGNEE of the Bordet Institute heads the project, in collaboration with CIRB/CIBG (Brussels Region IT Center), ULB (Prof. P. Van Binst) and VUB (Mrs. R. Vandenbroucke).
The main aim of the project is to develop, implement and deploy digital mammography and tele-mammography, making use of the broadband IRISNET network.
The picture shows Mr. François-Xavier de DONNEA, Minister-President of the Brussels region, during the press conference that took place at the Bordet Institute.

MEMBERS of SERVICE TELEMATIQUE ET COMMUNICATION
 Antal BULANZA, Ali HACHAMI, Ines MARTINEZ MORENO, Nadia PARONI, Manuela PROFILI, Krzysztof SOCHA, Clémentine VALAYER, Paul VAN BINST, Fuhua YIN.

Our VUB collaborator:
Rosette VANDENBROUCKE
(for all of the above, e-mail is: surname@helios.iihe.ac.be)

Secretariat: 
Daisy PIRNAY (IIHE/VUB-ULB) (pirnay@hep.iihe.ac.be)

Other regular collaborators:
André-Robert GRIVEGNEE (Institut Bordet), Joël CANNAU (ULB), Georges ROUSSEAU, Edwin TORISAEN (ULB-VUB /IIHE), Bridie NATHANSON.

Contact:
Service Télématique et Communication - Professor Paul VAN BINST
ULB - CP230 - Boulevard du Triomphe - 1050 Brussels – Belgium
Tel.: + 32 2 629 3211 or 3209 - Fax: + 32 2 629 3816

Rosette VANDENBROUCKE
VUB- ELEM - Pleinlaan 2 - 1050 Brussels – Belgium
Tel.: + 32 2 629 3210 - Fax: + 32 2 629 3816

World Wide Web Address:
http://www.iihe.ac.be

RePoRsTaG-e

The RePoRsTaG-e project, with a mixed partnership of 10 institutions of different types, is developed within the framework of the European Commission LEONARDO programme. The project is coordinated by Text & Color in Athens.
The International Federation of Journalists, part of the consortium running this project in which ULB/STC is a partner, plans to establish a virtual training centre for journalists needing to improve their new technology skills. 
The objective is to introduce, incorporate and adapt new technological tools in order to achieve ADDED-VALUE JOURNALISM.
A series of updateable multimedia based training packages, with rich audiovisual content, designed to cover various disciplines will be provided to carry out that purpose. 
To encounter the needs and expectations of the target people, a questionnaire has been built up to identify the current skills and training needs of European Journalists. This will provide essential information for developing the training modules of the virtual training centre.
Now, the questionnaire is being delivered to the target group and the deadline for returning it is June 2003.
After that, the guide of users requirement, based on the analysis of the survey answers, will be elaborated.

6NET Consortium Meeting


A meeting of the whole 6NET consortium was held in Lisbon from 5th-7th March, organized by Cisco’s Portugal office. Individual workpackage progress meetings also took place, including an audioconference on multicast issues with the appropriate Cisco team in the US. 
Key points from the consortium Plenary meeting were:
- Connectivity has recently been provided to: Hungarnet, CESNET and NTT (via UK)
- 6NET will operate in accordance with a simple AUP, to encourage the usage of the network for experimental purposes. Production and test traffic can be routed as appropriate via GÉANT or 6NET
- Tests have been defined at the network service level (QoS, routing, multicast, security, mobile IP, firewalls, netflow, …) and at the application level. The testing teams will be given write access to all core routers for 10-day slots. The 6NOC will then re-install the original configuration
- Early in the project, about 10 common topics of interest were identified between Euro6IX and 6NET. Responsibles have been allocated and they will liaise with their counterparts in Euro6IX in order to define and perform the specific collaborative activities
- 6NET is organizing its 1st open workshop in Zagreb, Croatia, in May
6NET will collaborate with other IPv6 projects demonstrating at both the IST Conference in Milan (October) and a high profile “Global IPv6 Service Launch” event in November.
See http://www.6net.org for more information on this project.

 

 

Research on propagation, conditions and implications of telework: case studies

 

In the scope of the telework study financed by DWTC/SSTC of the federal Belgian government (http://www.belspo.be) and carried out in collaboration with the HIVA (Hoger Instituut voor de Arbeid) of the department of Sociology at KUL, a certain number of case studies have been completed which will allow the elaboration of a qualitative research report by STC on telework in Belgium. 
We have chosen four economic sectors where telework is already a more or less established practice and where different forms of telework are present. The group expected to select enough cases that were trendsetters in the area of teleworking and have implemented forms of telework with a high degree of maturity. Six cases were selected in sectors where big companies are dominant (banking and healthcare), and six cases in two sectors characterized by the large number of SME’s (graphic design and computer software and services). All twelve cases were equally divided over the three regions: Brussels, Flanders, Wallonia.

The case studies delivered deepening insights about different aspects of telework, such as reasons and rationality, barriers and bottlenecks for introducing telework, ‘teleworkability’ of functions, motivation of the employees accepting or demanding telework etc…The qualitative research can therefore provide more in-depth data about the application possibilities of telework, the organisational conditions to be met, possible barriers and obstacles at its implementation and solution strategies. Qualitative data about the effects of telework on labour organisation for teleworkers (such as their welfare, labour conditions) and for the society (mobility issues, tuning labour and family) can also be enlightenened by this research. This qualitative information will also enable proposals about the development of telework indicators.

 ABE – IT-SCAN
 

ABE, “Agence Bruxelloise pour l’Entreprise”, is the new name of Technopol, the public organization based in Brussels with the purpose of helping SMEs in their development needs, especially in the ICT field.
In January 2003 our contract with ABE has been renewed for the third time, thanks to the success of the activity handled by STC: a periodical Newsletter called IT-SCAN, sent to hundreds of enterprises, containing up-to-date information on ICT news and events, constituting a dedicated Technology Watch activity.

The content is organised in several sections: “Topical interest”, “Regulation”, “Products and services”, “Security” and “Solutions and management”; short summaries are published in the Newsletter and the companies may request, free of charge, more detailedinformation on selected topics. Summaries and background information are entirely provided by STC. The Newsletter contains also sections managed directly by ABE, informing SMEs on future events (meetings, conferences, etc.) as well as international calls for partnership on specific ICT projects.


 Eurov6 – NGN-LAB: an impressive range of activities

 

The Eurov6 (www.eurov6.org) and NGN-LAB (www.ngnlab.org) projects, in the scope of the EC IST programme, are in full swing and delivering an impressive range of results : tests, demonstrations, and the preparation of a major series of events in September in Brussels, after a successful presence in the Swiss IPv6 Task Force meeting in Zürich in April, and in the Madrid Global IPv6 Summit in May.

Recent public deliverables, as well as STC reports, are available which describe the various achievements in full detail. Demonstrated products (in Basel, Brussels and Madrid) include hardware and software from ALCATEL, APPLE, BT, CISCO, 3COM, DS2, ERICSSON, FreeBSD, HITACHI, HP/COMPAQ, ISABEL, LINUX, MICROSOFT, MOBISTAR, MPEG4IP, NEC, Spitfire, Sylpheed, TELSCOM, UCL, VideoLAN, VTT and 6WIND!

There is very good collaboration with a range of other IST projects, and also worldwide synergy through the IPv6 Forum and the European IPv6 Task Forces.
Cooperation agreements have been signed between the Eurov6 project and IPv6 promotion groups in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The pictures illustrate the visit of a European delegation, led by the EC in Japan, and the signing ceremony in Taiwan.

EuroDemo always under high demand

Our EuroDemo facility is busily used by the NGN-LAB and Eurov6 projects, and we are always ready to welcome other parties. In early 2003, the EC IST INTERMON project, coordinated by Salzburg Research ANC, asked us to host their technical review meeting, and we were once more thanked and congratulated for the quality of our infrastructure and of the technical support.

In March, we successfully participated in the worldwide NGNI virtual workshop, entirely based on multimedia conferencing. EuroDemo was used by speakers from the European Commission and from Sweden who participated in the virtual workshop from Brussels.

 The handbook of best practices in e-Government across Europe at the regional and local levels.

The Committee of the Regions (http://www.cor.eu.int/) has chosen the consortium composed of the company OGM (http://www.ogm.be/) and of STC to carry out a study on e-Government throughout Europe.This project aims to present and evaluate relevant examples of best practices in the implementation of the “eEurope” action plan by the local and regional authorities, which contribute through their e-Government programs.

Based on the results of the best practice analysis, the project will illustrate the role the regions and the cities of the European Union must play in this field, and will bring proposals to encourage the deployment of e-Government and, at a larger scale, the development of telecommunication infrastructures and their use by everyone.

The conclusions of this study will be published in a handbook of best practices and will be presented in the form of case studies. The handbook will be translated in the eleven languages of the European Union. The handbook will also include a brief summary of the development of e-Government measures at the European level as well as programmes and initiatives supporting these measures. Moreover, the handbook will give an overview of existing networks promoting e-Government at the local and regional levels. A glossary will facilitate the comprehension of the technical terms used in this field in order to make this handbook accessible to all.


 The BELNET Grid Initiative

BELNET has recently announced a new project, the BELNET Grid Initiative BEgrid, that will make full usage of the powerful infrastructure that BELNET has recently deployed: the multi-gigabit national backbone network GigaNet. The announcement meeting attracted more than eighty people coming from institutions that are connected to BELNET.
Grid computing has become a hot item in the whole IT world. Several grid projects have been started up in the context of the 5th Framework Programme of the European Commission and a lot of countries have already set up a national computational grid.
The BELNET Grid Initiative is aimed at establishing a first building block for a Belgian Research Grid. Sponsors of the Initiative are delivering the first computers and a few partners are ready to hook up their equipment to the BELNET machines. The first tests should be finished before the start of the summer holidays. In addition, BELNET has undertaken the required steps to become the Certification Authority for access to the European DataGrid testbed for concerned Belgian researchers and will use the same procedure for access to BEgrid.
Rosette Vandenbroucke is the BELNET project manager of BEgrid; Ines Martinez will install grid middleware.