Universita' degli Studi di GENOVA - Dip. INFORMATICA, SISTEMISTICA E TELEMATICA (DIST)
DIST was born in 1984 by the impulse of a group of teachers of electronic area with similar scientific interests; they had the same intent of partecipation and cultural opening practised in the previous years under Giuseppe Biorci's guide (he then migrated to National Research Council as a Vicepresident).
Nowadays DIST has about fifty members (2/3 teachers and researchers, 1/3 technicians and administratives) and a yearly financial statement of about one million euros (coming from agreements with European agencies of research): it's one of the most important and dynamic reality of University of Genoa .
DIST works at Information Engineering frontier: new methodologies are increased using integration between control and transmission systems, in multimedia environments at different levels of interaction with human operator.
In order to operate in this direction DIST has a differenced installed base that is constantly being updated (both hardware and software) with adequate local and geographic network, with different operating systems and advanced technological services common to the Department's various operative units.
For a long time DIST has been inserted in international research community by several collaborations with remarkable foreign universities and institutions (as M.I.T., Univ. of California , Oxford University , INRIA, etc.) DIST's Educational sectors are Automatics, Bio-engineering, Computer Science, Operative Research and Telecommunications. In these sectors DIST is involved in international and national research projects, stimulated and financed by European Union (UE), by Ministry of University, Scientific and Technological Research (MURST) and by National Research Council (CNR).
DIST has permanent cooperation with the company Aitek S.r.l., born in 1986 as University spin-off, in several EU projects in the area of vision and image understanding and, for what concerning to the technical contents of the current proposal, in the EU bioinformatic projects SRS (Sequence Retrieval System) in the BIOMED program during the 3rd FP (1992-1995) specifically for the aspects of data base management and related user-interface. Starting to 2001, DIST begun a permanent cooperation with INFN - Unit of Padua (Dr. Mirco Mazzucato), in relationship to GRID technology applied to the biological and medical domain, in the context of the Italian FIRB project ("Grid.it") and of the EU project EGEE (VI FP DG INFSO Research Infrastructure).
Application areas towards which DIST's research is addressed include both information technologies and methodologies, as well as their use in different sectors of production and services, from industrial robotics to cultural and 'free time' activities. DIST has about 80 master thesis a year, 50 courses, didactical laboratories (automatic controls, computer sciences, real time systems, telecommunications) and teledidactic systems; it therefore contributes to Masters of Biomedical, Electronic, Managerial, Computer Science and Telecommunication Engineering.
The main research activities of the Bioengineering and Bioimages Laboratory (BIO-LAB) are related with the acquisition, processing and rendering of bioimages with the aim of exploring the links between structure and function of biological systems (laser optical confocal microscopy) and for diagnostic and therapeutical processes (images of the human body with MR, CT, US, etc.). Among the equipment of the BIO-LAB is of particular interest the optical confocal microscopy with laser scanner, a "virtual reality"-like platform for human-computer interaction and data base management systems and their user interfaces for biostructures (DNA, RNA, proteins).
Team leader: Prof. Francesco Beltrame
curriculumVisiting Scientist at Temple University , Philadelphia , from 1977 to 1979. From 1987 to 2000 associate professor of Bioengineering at School of Engineering of the University of Genoa . Italian delegate of MIUR in the R&D program of the EC - DG XIII "Telematics Applications" on Healthcare and Disabled and Elderly during the 3rd and 4th FP; evaluator of research proposals for DG XII and DG XIII; partner of R&D European projects in the AIM, BIOMED, TIDE e TELEMATICS APPLICATIONS programs during the 5th and 6th FP. Since 1996, evaluator of research proposals for MIUR (FAR) and for MAP (FIT). Since 1996, delegate of MIUR at the OECD for the Megascience Forum, in the WG on Biological Informatics and since 1998 at the OECD for the Global Science Forum, in the WG on Neuroinformatics. Since 2000 full Professor of Bioengineering. Since 2002 Italian Representative for the IST area in the VIth FP and member for the Italian National Research Program. Author of more than 170 scientific pubblications
