In the last years, the European Commission adopted an energy policy for Europe with several documents including an action plan to meet the major energy challenges Europe has to face. A farsighted diversified yearly mix of energies was suggested to countries, aiming at increasing security of supply and efficiency, but a systemic view of energy exchanges between states is still missing. Energy import/export exchanges between European States suggest that economic/political relations between countries cause unpredictable behaviours for the European energy exchange network. This network is herein investigated from a modeling point of view. European annual exchanges of energy appear to present Small World phenomena, when supposing that connections between States are characterized by probability values depending on economic/political relations between countries.

In each institution, company or enterprise identity authentication systems are currently either knowledge-based systems or token-based ones; both of them are time-consuming and expensive. Moreover, these devices respond only in the working context of the specific organization and can sometimes be dangerously neglected. In this paper, individual’s Retinal Feature Points (RFPs) and personal electronic IDentification code (e-ID) are contemporary considered and an integrated model is proposed in order to offer a new approach to identity authentication with two levels of security in related databases: the first level of security deals with each individual’s e-ID code, whereas the second level relates to personal RFPs. More in detail, the herein proposed e-identity integrated model suggests a multiple approach to authentication by the inclusion of both individual’s RFPs and personal electronic data in connected centralized databases.

Distributed systems are concerned with how to organize a set of computing and distributed resources for specific applications. They promote forms of collaboration among different kinds of autonomous computers that appear to its users as a single coherent system. This paper is a short report of R&D activities and applications in the field of distributed system carried out by the research group. Compute-intensive applications for mass screening programs will be discussed. Moreover, a digital device for remote patient control with a look to the pervasive distributed sensor networks for personal safety applications is described. SFINGE, a research project on collaborative distributed systems based on virtual organizations is under development to innovate the production process in e-learning. At the purpose, is involved the Computer Center for Science at the INFN-Bari. It is a high-throughput computing facility connected to the European Grid Infrastructure and Worldwide LHC Grid.

LAMRECOR project, funded by MiUR with Poste Italiane as prime contractor, aims at demonstrating an innovative integrated system for advanced logistics targeted at minimizing the environmental impact of the fleet of vehicles, optimizing the productive processes, improving the safety of the postal workers, and developing new logistics procedures for mail delivery. For enhancing the safety of the workers, an integrated sensors system has been designed. The system includes an on-board unit to control the appropriate use of personal protective equipment, improving protection of the postmen also through the activation of an emergency call in case of accident, and to monitor functional performances of the vehicles. A prototype of the sensors system has been developed confirming the design results. Some mathematical models for studying the driving behaviour have been also analysed. A Decision Support System for the management of the logistics infrastructure has been developed and tested and data mining algorithms have been studied

European energy policy pursues the objective of a sustainable, competitive and reliable supply of energy. In 2007, the European Commission adopted a proper energy policy for Europe supported by several documents and included an action plan to meet the major energy challenges Europe has to face. A farsighted diversified yearly mix of energies was suggested to countries, aiming at increasing security of supply and efficiency, but a wide and systemic view of energy interchanges between states was missing. In this paper, a Small-World methodology of analysis of Interchange Energy-Networks (IENs) is presented, with the aim of providing a useful tool for planning sustainable energy policies. A proof case is presented to validate the methodology by considering the European IEN behaviour in the period of economical crisis. This network is approached as a Small World Net from a modelling point of view, by supposing that connections between States are characterised by a probability value depending on economic/political relations between countries.

European energy policy pursues the objective of a sustainable, competitive and secure supply of energy. In 2007, the European Commission adopted an energy policy for Europe, which was supported by several documents on different aspects of energy and included an action plan to meet the major energy chal- lenges Europe has to face. A farsighted diversified yearly mix of energies was suggested to countries, aiming at increasing security of supply and efficiency, but a wide and contemporary view of energy interchanges between states was not available. In a previous work of the same authors, energy import/ export interchanges between European States were used to develop a geographic overview at one- glance. In this paper, the enhanced Interchange Energy Network (IEN) is investigated from a model- ling point of view, as a Small-World Net, by supposing that connections can exist between States with a probability depending also on economic/political relations between countries.