Proprietary rights statement

10.5 Key Quotes

Sheffield Hallam University is one of the largest universities in the UK with almost 30,000 students and 4,000 staff, offering approximately 400 different courses. Sheffield Hallam University has confirmed its place as the most successful post-1992 University in securing £12.46 million of research funding for the year 2007-08. It seeks to couple fundamental research to the exploration of commercial opportunities associated with areas of research of international standing. Since becoming a university in 1992, Sheffield Hallam University has held its position as one of the top new Universities in the UK.

The Communication and Computing Research Centre (CCRC) of Sheffield Hallam University resides within the Cultural, Communication and Computing Research Institute (C3RI) - the largest and strongest Research Institute within SHU. The CCRC is an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary unit dedicated to analyzing and evaluating the design, production, use, and consumption of ICT. A central goal for the CCRC is that of developing ICT through an understanding of ICT in their social and technical contexts. Contemporary social and technical problems can rarely be solved without input from a range of disciplines. The CCRC manages the research activity of over 50 staff at Sheffield Hallam University. The Informatics Research Group is part of CCRC which focus on discovering, understanding, creating, processing, evaluating and the deployment of information and knowledge based systems in a multi-disciplinary environment. The group has close links with industry and it has strong orientation on the following application domains: multimedia based information systems deployment, Semantic Web (specifically Ontology and Knowledge Engineering), security including Identity and Trust Management, Security and NGN (Next Generation of Networks), Web Services and SOA with specific focus on deployment methodologies and HCI.

West Midlands Police

West Midlands Police (WMP) is the lead force for the National Ballistics Intelligence Service (NABIS), which is mandated by the Association of Chief Police Officers and the UK Home Office to introduce a complete system of work to ensure law enforcement agencies work together to combat the threat posed, by gun crime. The National Ballistics Intelligence Service has introduced standard operating procedures, dedicated firearm forensic units and a national database to ensure all the information requirements are met in this critical area of business. WMP, Greater Manchester Police and the Metropolitan Police Service have played a key role in developing regional centres of excellence for the examination of firearms and to develop our understanding of relevant situational factors.

WMP believes the benefits of working together and sharing gun crime knowledge extend into EU and International jurisdictions. Odyssey will clearly enhance the ability of UK police forces to track and investigate the use of criminal firearms throughout the European Union. WMP are therefore proud to be representing the views of UK police forces in the development of this key European intelligence system.

"UK police forces are committed to tackling serious and organised crime wherever it occurs. To that end it is essential we work closely with our European Union colleagues. Odyssey is helping us to develop better ways of working together to reduce and detect gun crime, and keep our shared communities safer."

 XLAB

XLAB is an SME, with internal organisation aiming for harvesting the best of the knowledge originating from academia and putting that knowledge into practice. The focus of the company is on distributed systems, ranging from the actual architectures, security, etc. to the use of semantics and machine learning. The core activities within the Odyssey project are thus the system architecture and semantic knowledge engine and database, aiming for a simple, fast, reliable and dependable architecture and providing an in-depth drilling methodology for crime-fighting use of the intelligence data through semantic technologies. The latter is being hybridized with use of machine learning technologies, where we closely cooperate with SAS.

DAC

The chance to improve a common ballistic database related not only to ballistic items but even to case specific investigation data could be an important starting point for a deep crime analysis through the European Community.

Odyssey project could be the right platform where to build up this database giving moreover the chance to correlate all ballistics items in all European countries with a complete European Software System.

The “Servizio Polizia Scientifica” is part of “Direzione Centrale Anticrimine” the main investigative bureau of Italian Police. All national investigations concerning common crimes, organized crime and serial crimes are coordinated by D.C.A.

“Servizio Polizia Scientifica” is the forensic Service of National Italian Police and provides biological-chemical and physics analysis for forensic and investigative aims. Also data analysis related to crime scene is part of the main activities of S.P.S.

Ballistic skills are strong and present in all national territory. They concern not only with ballistic items comparison (i.e. bullets and cartridges) but also dynamic of crime events, blood pattern analysis, gun shot residues analysis and toolmarks. Ballistic comparative and crime data analysis experts are involved in Odyssey project.

Since 1979 MIP, the Business School of Milan Polytechnic University has been one of the most prestigious European schools offering business and management training to graduates from all disciplines. MIP is both a teaching and research institution whose vision is to focus on technology as tool to be closely integrated with the management and organisational dimensions of institutions. The distinguishing asset of MIP is to do research and help introduce disruptive innovations that, combining introduction of new technologies with organisational changes, enable to increase the quality of services while at the same time optimising use of resources and containing costs.

MIP has a vast experience of European Projects across several disciplines, where the involvement has spanned over User Requirement Analysis, Business and Dissemination strategies, Taxonomy Building, and also Project Management and Coordination. For the Odyssey project, MIP will leverage on these experiences and provide its expertise on both User Requirements and Exploitation.

“The Odyssey Project will further enrich the applied ICT research activities currently ongoing at MIP. It will give our institution the opportunity to attain additional experience in secured processes, sensitive information exchange, and interoperability, and additionally strengthen the competitive edge of MIP as an organization firmly dedicated to innovation, especially in the field of ICT.”

Atos Origin is an international information technology services company. Its business is turning client vision into results through the application of consulting, systems integration and managed operations. The company’s annual revenues are EUR 5.5 billion and it employs 50,000 people in 40 countries. Atos Origin is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic Games and has a client base of international blue-chip companies across all sectors. Because of its international dimension and size, Atos Origin covers a wide range of technologies and application domains and helps organisations gain an important competitive advantage through the use of industry best practices. Our services and solutions add value across many industry sectors including CPG/Retail, Manufacturing, Financial Services, Process Industries, the Public Sector, Telecom, Utilities and Media.

Atos Research & Innovation (ARI), R&D arm of Atos Origin is focused in projects combining the most advanced technological developments and the industrial exploitation of R&D results. Our aim is to lead our knowledge and experience acquired to concrete projects with clients. Atos Research & Innovation concentrates on the realisation of international projects within the since 1989, combining the most up-to-date technological developments with a high awareness of the human factors (education sciences, disability-related issues, cultural diversity and multi-linguality). Atos Research & Innovation consists of 14 research units wrapped into 4 technology areas covering a range of technologies including Service Oriented Middleware & Infrastructures, Semantic & Services Engineering, Open Source & Software Engineering, Biotechnologies & Healthcare, Space & Satellite Communications, GIS, e-learning, Information Management, Innovative Government and Security.

“The Odyssey project will give us the opportunity to contribute, with our wide knowledge and experience in IT systems, to increase the safety and security of all EU citizens whereas it is helping us to better understand the real needs of our current and future clients.”