CNR/IEIIT
The Institute of Electronics, Computer and Telecommunication Engineering (IEIIT) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) performs research activity in the fields related to the information and communication technology, achieving levels of national and international excellence testified by the wide production of scientific papers and by the ability of attracting both public and private funding.
At the IEIIT work about seventy researchers, 46 of which belong to the permanent staff of CNR. To give an idea of the relevance of the research activity performed it is sufficient to note that in 2002 more than 300 international publications have been produced, among which 72 papers on journals listed by JCR. In the same year the IEIIT has drawn up contracts for about 1,800,000 euros with public and private corporations.
Its strict cohesion with university Departments, located in the neighborhood of the Seat of IEIIT in Turin and of its four Branches, placed in Bologna , Genoa , Milan and Pisa , allows a fruitful exchange of ideas, knowledge and abilities. This cooperation is confirmed by the educational activity performed by the staff of CNR at different levels and by the participation of the university personnel to the activities of IEIIT, through research assignments and associations.
There exist also strong interactions between IEIIT and other public and private corporations, which leads to the activation of contracts and common projects oriented to a real technologic transfer of research results toward various application fields. This is the case of the multi-year collaboration with the National Institute for Cancer Research (IST) in Genoa , oriented to the realization of proper software tools for assisting the research activity on tumors. Even in the realization of the present project the contribution of some researchers of IST will play an important role, both in gathering and homogenizing data needed to train learning systems and in analyzing the results obtained through the application of the generated models to new experimental cases.
The IST is a Scientific Institute for Admission and Care, devoted to the study and treatment of tumors, having the specific role of providing a better cancer treatment and prevention through basic and clinical research. The fast evolving of scientific knowledge supported the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches and is the basis of an intensive educational-training activity that includes workshops, congresses, training courses. Due to the work of more than 300 researchers, the IST is able to perform research activity in different strategic fields for the progress in the health sector, attracting both public and private funds, which in 2001 amounted to more than 23 millions euros, without counting funds devoted to clinical activities.
For several years inside the IST bioinformatic methodologies have been considered a valid support instrument for the research in the health field. To this aim collaborations with research groups in information technology have been established to supplement the abilities already available among the IST researchers. In particular, the novel algorithms for the extraction of information from real world data, developed by the machine learning research group working at the Genoa Branch of the IEIIT, have been employed in several problems of Bioinformatics: in the automatic prognosis of tumors, in the detection of functional signals in genomic sequences, in the analysis of gene expression data produced by a DNA microarray, in the determination of the genes involved in a given pathology.
Team leader: Dott. Marco Muselli
curriculumMarco Muselli received the M. Sc. degree in electronic engineering from the University of Genoa, Italy, in 1985. In 1988 he joined the Institute for Electronic Circuits (now Genoa Branch of the Institute of Electronics, Computer and Telecommunication Engineering) of the Italian National Research Council, where he is currently Principal Scientist.
His research interests include machine learning, neural networks, bioinformatics, global optimization, mathematical statistics, and probability theory.
His activity is mainly centered on the development of new efficient methods for machine learning, also able to generate a set of intelligible rules, and on the theoretical analysis of their convergence properties.
Marco Muselli is author or co-author of more than 70 scientific publications, many of which on international journals.
