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\begin{document}
\title{External Projects and Technology Transfer}
\author{C. Vistoli$^1$, B. Martelli$^1$}
\address{$^1$ INFN-CNAF, Bologna, IT} 


\ead{barbara.martelli@cnaf.infn.it}

\begin{abstract}
External Projects and Technology Transfer Unit (PETT) main mission is the coordination of CNAF activities funded by external organizations (Region, Italian Ministry of Education, EU) and CNAF Technology Transfer actions. PETT Unit coordinates the INFN Technology Transfer Laboratory in Emilia Romagna (TTLab), accredited to the Emilia Romagna High Technology Network (HTN) since 2015. 
In 2018 TTLab submitted 4 proposals to the POR-FESR Emilia Romagna call, and at the beginning of 2019 three of them were approved and funded: FORTRESS, WE-LIGHT and SmartChain.
In the meantime, the TROPIC project, approved in the former POR-FESR call, continued to run smoothly and the Harmony project started to move from a Proof of Concept phase to the production one.
In its first year of life, the ISO 27001 Information Security Management System (ISMS) had to manage the critical situation originated by the datacenter flood happened at the end of 2017 and it did it successfully, passing the ISO 27001 external audit without any non-conformity. 

\end{abstract}

\section{Introduction}
During 2018 the External Projects and Technology Transfer (PETT) Organizational Unit has
contributed to various projects in the field of computing, communication of science, technology
transfer and education. Some of the most relevant ones are: FiloBlu (POR-FESR Regione
Marche), Opus Facere (MIUR) \cite{opusfacere}, Emilia Romagna Plan for high
competencies in Research Technology Transfer and Entrepreneurship \cite{altecompetenze}, OPEN-NEXT and TROPIC(POR-FESR
2014-2020), Harmony \cite{harmony}. Great effort has been dedicated to the
consolidation of the Technology Transfer Laboratory (INFN-TTLab) \cite{ttlab} which puts together heterogeneous
competencies (physics, computing, mechanics and electronics) from Emilia Romagna INFN
Sections and Centers (Bologna, Ferrara and CNAF) in order to promote the transfer of INFN
know-how toward regional enterprises. In 2018 we operated the first year of life of the ISO-27001 ISMS consisting of a subset of INFN Tier 1 resources. This was required in order
to store and manage private and sensitive personal data and could open new opportunities of
exploitation of the Tier 1 resources in the near future.

\section{The TROPIC project}
TTLab is coordinating the TROPIC project (Target for Radioisotope Production via anti-Channelling) \cite{tropic} in a consortium with COMECER and Biomeccanica Srl.
The project is part of the European Regional Development Plan POR-FESR Axis 1, Research and Innovation 2014-2020 of the Emilia-Romagna region.  Axis 1 aims at strengthening the regional network of research and technology transfer to companies with the purpose of increasing the ability to bring innovative solutions and products to the market. Through collaborations with researchers, it promotes innovation paths in the strategic areas of the regional production system and strengthens the high-tech network.
The TROPIC project intends to explore a new radioisotope production method through the irradiation of solid targets in which a quantum effect called anti-channelling is exploited. Thanks to this effect, the probability of impact of the particle emitted by the accelerator on a crystalline matrix is much higher than the same dynamic but with a traditional amorphous solid target. This leads to an increase in the yield of nuclear bombardment and thus produces the desired isotope in larger quantities. The project intends to evaluate how much it is possible to save in terms of cost of the enriched material and how much the reaction yield grows in this particular configuration of the target. The ultimate goal is to make the production of these isotopes, extremely interesting from a diagnostic and therapeutic point of view, easier and less expensive.
The theoretical research activity has already produced various results published in the past years.  The next step will be the experimental test and the realization of the first prototype.

\section{The HARMONY Alliance}
The HARMONY project (Healthcare alliance for resourceful medicines offensive against neoplasms in hematology) \cite{harmony} is part of IMI2 Big Data for Better Outcomes programme, which aims to facilitate the use of diverse data sources to deliver results that reflect health outcomes of treatments that are meaningful for patients, clinicians, regulators, researchers, healthcare decision-makers, and others.

Blood cancers, or haematologic cancers (e.g. leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma), affect the production and function of blood cells and account for about one third of cancer cases in children and about one third of cancer deaths. As many blood cancers are rare, and healthcare practice varies across EU, a lack of data on relevant outcomes represents a challenge for clinicians, researchers, and decision-makers alike. The HARMONY project aims to use big data to deliver information that will help to improve the care of patients with these diseases. Specifically, the project will gather together, integrate and analyze anonymous patient data from a number of high quality sources. This will help the team to define clinical endpoints and outcomes for these diseases that are recognized by all key stakeholders. Meanwhile the project data sharing platform will facilitate and improve decision making for policy makers and clinicians alike to help them to give the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. More broadly, the project will result in a pan-European network of stakeholders with expertise in this disease area.
TTLab is involved as Linked Third Party of University of Bologna and is in charge of providing and managing the Harmony Big Data Platform Hosting in compliance with the ISO/IEC-27001 certification.

\section{Other regional and national activities}
In 2018, as industrial research lab of the Emilia Romagna High Technology Network \cite{htn}, TTLab carried out a number of activities in order to strengthen the link between research and industry sector. 

In 2018 TTLab kept on contributing in the following Emilia Romagna Clust-ERs \cite{clusters}: 
\begin{itemize}
\item[--]INNOVATE (ICT): focused on the role of digital technologies as a means for innovate services in a global context and to emphasize their transformative power of the economy and society.
\item[--]AGRIFOOD: covers the whole “from farm to fork” value chain, starting from the farmed produce all the way to the consumers’ plates, it includes ICT systems, equipment and machineries, transformation and packaging plants, logistics and food by-products and waste valorization.
\item[--]CREATE: aims to improve the innovation in the culture and creative industries sector
\item[--]HEALTH: focused on health related topics like biomed, pharmaceutical and omics sciences, smart and active living. In Emilia-Romagna there is the most important medtech district in Europe and regional policies encourage local research actors to team-up with private companies in order to maximize innovation. 
\item[--]MECH: focused on the mech
nics and motor sector. A number of worldwide famous brands both in the automotive and in the mechanical sector are located in the region. These companies are at the cutting edge of a corporate system and can take advantage of technologies developed by our research teams. 
\item[--] BUILD: supports the innovation system in the building and construction field.
\end{itemize}
Clust-ERs are recognized Associations, formed in accordance with articles 14-42 of the Italian Civil Code. Clust-ER Associations are communities of public and private bodies (research centers, businesses, training bodies) that share ideas, skills, tools, and resources to support the competitiveness of the most important production systems in Emilia-Romagna. Thanks to Clust-ERs, research laboratories and centers for innovation belonging to the High Technology Network team up with the business system and the higher education system to make up the inter-disciplinary critical mass necessary to multiply opportunities and develop strategic projects with a high regional impact. Main objectives of Clust-ERs are: to maximize the opportunities for participating in European programs and international research and innovation networks, to forge synergies and set up coordinated and stable networks and connections with other public/private agglomerations operating in the same sectors at national and European level, to encourage and support the development and creation of initiatives in higher education and the development of human resources and to support the development of new research infrastructures.

INFN is part of the National Cluster ``Intelligent Factories'' \cite{cfi}: an association that includes large and medium-small companies, universities and research centers, company associations and other stakeholders active in the advanced manufacturing sector. The association is recognized by MIUR as a driver of sustainable economic growth in all the regions of the national economic system, as it fosters the innovation and specialization of Italian manufacturing systems. The mission of CFI is to increase the competitiveness of the Italian manufacturing industry through the design and implementation of a number of research projects for the development of new enabling technologies; to maintain and develop advanced skill in Italian manufacturing; to increase Italian companies access to national and international funds; to support entrepreneurship and company growth through the involvement of private investors. The INFN participates in this National Cluster through INFN personnel. 

TTLab participates in the Opus Facere project (Lab for Employability) \cite{opusfacere} with a course about Cosmic Rays Data Analysis, on the EEE \cite{eee} experiment data, where students of the fifth year of secondary school can understand and practice the job of data scientist and physicist. For more details, see dedicated contribution in this report. 

In 2018 TTLab started the activities founded by the Regional Plan for High Competencies for Research, Technology Transfer and Entrepreneurship \cite{altecompetenze} (5 research grants) for industrial research activities in different areas: models and algorithms for genome sequencing analysis, geospatial data access and processing services, big data analysis of physical, astrophysical and aerospatial data, big data analysis for smart cities. In particular, the research grants activated are: 

\begin{itemize}
\item[--]Big Data Analysis: algorithms and models for the analysis of nucleic acid sequencing data  - partner CIG/Unibo
\item[--]Big Data management: services for accessing and processing geospatial data in the era of Big Data – Industrial  partner MEEO s.r.l \cite{meeo} Meteorological Enviromental Earth Observation 
\item[--]Big Data management: the analysis of data in the field of physics, astrophysics and space science industrial partner VEM Sistemi  S.p.A \cite{vem}
\item[--]Big Data management: Big Data in Smart Cities Industrial partner Filippetti S.p.A \cite{filippetti}
\end{itemize}
  
Three out of four proposals to Emilia Romagna POR-FESR 2018 call were funded: 
\begin{itemize}
\item[--] FORTRESS: coordinated by INFN-TTLab, targets the innovative use of thin film transistors as direct radiation detectors integrated into large area flexible patches for two innovative applications. Two demos will be developed: SAFEINJECT and BEAMGUARD.
Two advanced material platforms: organic  and perovskite thin films. They share the unique capability of realizing simple, thin and flexible transistors able to directly detect ionizing radiation and apt to be fabricated as thin, lightweight, low-power operated, large-area 2D pixelated matrices.

\item[--] WE-LIGHT (WEarable LIGHTing for smart accessories and apparels): coordinated by UniMoRe with participation of INFN-TTLab, proposes the creation of prototypes of sportswear integrated with different technological systems of electronic, optical and sensorial type, able to connect whoever wear to the external environment.
\item[--] SmartChain: coordinated by UniMoRe with participation of INFN-TTLab, proposes the creation of a set of solutions based on
blockchain technologies to identify and implement innovative platforms useful to businesses of the Emilia Romagna territory. The project will analyze the current production, certification and tracking scenarios supply chains, proposing and implementing software systems that can improve the efficiency of production chains.
\end{itemize}

Finally, PETT coordinated the participation of INFN to the BI-REX (Big data Innovation and Research Excellence) Competence Center and actively contributed to the proposal. The BI-REX Competence Center is a project funded by the Ministry of Economic Development in the scope of Industry-4.0 plan. It is composed by a pilot plant which aims to reconstruct an entire digital manufacturing process for mechanical components, which can demonstrate the potential of new technologies for production, while allowing the realization of finished products that can be used directly as demonstrators for different supply chains such as the automotive, mechatronics and biomedical industries.

The pilot will be assisted by ICT systems for dynamic monitoring and reconfiguration of the various islands,
both separately and in integration, and elastic cloud / edge platforms for data collection and analytics from
sensors.
The Bi-Rex Competence Center involves 49 companies, 7 universities and 5 research institutions and it is cofounded by Ministry of Economic Development and private partners. The total amount of the founding is about 20 MEuro.

Bi-Rex main area of research are:

\begin{itemize}
\item[--] Additive Manufacturing
\item[--] ICT and automation in manufacturing industries
\item[--] Big Data and new digital business models
\item[--] Logistics
\item[--] Environmental and economical sustainability
\end{itemize}

CNAF will contribute to the Competence Center with its expertise on Big Data management and on Cloud integration with HPC, IoT and Edge technologies. 

\section{SUPER}
INFN-TTLab worked on the proposal preparation and participates in the SUPER Supercomputing infrastructure and Big Data Analytics for advanced applications in the field of life sciences, advanced materials and innovative production systems. The partnership is composed of 12 subjects and includes the major regional players for the following areas:
\begin{itemize}
\item[--] Supercomputing and big data: CINECA, INFN, which have world-class infrastructures, CMCC, and
ENEA, which have national Tier 1 class systems; CNR, INAF and INGV that have departmental systems
and qualifying databases within their institutional contexts.
\item[--] Genomics, regenerative medicine, and biobanks: University of Bologna, University of Modena and
Reggio Emilia, Rizzoli Orthopedic Institutes, University of Ferrara and University of Parma.
\item[--] Innovative industrial materials and systems: University of Bologna, University of Modena and Reggio
Emilia, CNR, University of Ferrara, University of Parma, ENEA.
\end{itemize}


\section{Outreach}
INFN CNAF Knowledge Transfer strategy roots in its connections with the INFN central structures related to this purpose (INFN External funds unit and INFN National Technology Transfer Committee) and takes advantage of its relationships with local economy and regional administration. The PETT Unit is coordinating the actions needed to translate this strategy into reality. CNAF and the PETT Unit are strongly committed to leverage the virtuous relationship between the datacenter personnel's big-data competencies and the R\&amp;D activities, both at the forefront of technology, in order to bring back to society this innovation force. In fact, thanks to the experience gained running the LHC computing infrastructures, CNAF personnel is probably within the most skilled staffs in Italy in the field of big data management and HPC computing. Moreover, in the field of Cloud Computing CNAF has a primary role as R\&amp;D actor and integrator of Cloud technologies with Internet of Things, Low Power computing and Edge computing systems.
All of them (big data, HPC and cloud computing) are some of the key technologies mentioned by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development National Plan Impresa 4.0 (formerly Industria 4.0) as a driver to improve competitiveness in the industrial sector, making CNAF one of the most promising actors in the technology transfer field.
INFN mission includes, in addition to research, the transfer to the society of the acquired knowledge. This definition means both the transfer of know-how in the form of training and technology transfer, and the dissemination of scientific culture. In order to make its intervention more effective, in 2016 the INFN was equipped with a Coordination Committee for the Third Mission (CC3M). The primary objective of this Committee is to coordinate local initiatives for the dissemination of scientific culture with national impact to strengthen its effectiveness. CNAF is linked to CC3M through a local representative (from the PETT Unit) whom reports local activities to the Committee. 

Main outreach activities performed by CNAF personnel are:

\begin{itemize}
\item[--] Training internships (summer students, curricular internships) \cite{summerstudents}
\item[--] Guided tours in the Tier 1 datacenter premises
\item[--] Coordination and holding of University and PhD courses on the topic of Infrastructure for Big
Data processing
\item[--] Outreach events like The European Researchers' Night 2017 an initiative promoted by the European Commission since 2005 (Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions) which involves thousands of researchers and research institutions in all European countries every year. It takes place every year throughout Europe on the last Friday of September. The goal is to create opportunities for researchers and citizens to meet to spread the scientific culture and knowledge of research professions in an informal and stimulating context. CNAF contributes to events such as live scientific experiments and demonstrations, exhibitions and guided tours, conferences and informative seminars, shows, concerts and artistic performances.
\item[--] School-work alternation within the OpusFacere Territorial Laboratory for Employability \cite{opusfacere}an innovative educational project that comes from a network composed by educational institutes of the Metropolitan City of Bologna and public and private partners of the territory. In this context,
CNAF designed and hold a course named Cosmic Rays Data Analysis based on data collected by the Extreme Energy Events project and aimed at teach high school students the job of physicist \cite{eee-opusfacere}. 
\end{itemize}

\section{Conclusions}
In 2018 the External Projects and Technology Transfer group consolidated its collaboration with the research and innovation regional system participating and contributing to many initiatives aimed at creating a strong partnership between the research and industry sectors. 


\section*{References}
\begin{thebibliography}{9}
\bibitem{altecompetenze} \url{https://formazionelavoro.regione.emilia-romagna.it/alta-formazione-ricerca/approfondimenti/piano-alte-competenze}, site visited on June 2019.
\bibitem{harmony}  \url{https://www.harmony-alliance.eu/},site visited on June 2019.
\bibitem{ttlab} \url{https://ttlab.infn.it/}, site visited on June 2019.
\bibitem{tropic} \url{https://agenda.infn.it/event/15101/contributions/28472/attachments/20303/23011/TROPIC_20190213_ebagli.pdf},  site visited on June 2019.
\bibitem{htn}  \url{https://www.retealtatecnologia.it/en}, site visited on June 2019.
\bibitem{clusters} \url{https://www.retealtatecnologia.it/en/clust-er site}, visited on June 2019.
\bibitem{cfi} \url{https://www.fabbricaintelligente.it/}, site visited on June 2019.
\bibitem{meeo} \url{http://www.meeo.it/wp/}, site visited on June 2019.
\bibitem{vem} \url{https://vem.com/en/},  site visited on June 2019.
\bibitem{filippetti} \url{https://www.filippetti.it/en/},  site visited on June 2019.
\bibitem{opusfacere} \url{http://www.opusfacere.it/}, site visited on June 2019.
\bibitem{eee} \url{https://eee.centrofermi.it/}, site visited on June 2019.
\bibitem{eee-opusfacere} Martelli B, Noferini F, Pellegrino C, Ronchieri E, Vistoli C, Seminar \emph{Cosmic Rays Data Analysis: insegnando Python con un Jupyter Notebook} \url{https://agenda.infn.it/event/19607/}, site visited on June 2019.
\bibitem{summerstudents} \url{https://agenda.infn.it/event/17430/}, site visited on June 2019.
\end{thebibliography}
\end{document}
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