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Content archived on 2024-05-07

Algorithms and complexity in information technology

Objective

The main objective of the ALCOM-IT project is to develop technologies and methods for the design of efficient algorithms, and to transfer them to the industrial domain. In particular, we plan to:

- Deliver correct, efficient, and easy-to-use libraries of combinatorial software of general applicability and embodying the best algorithms and data structures;
- Provide solutions to efficiency-critical algorithmic and optimisation problems arising in particular IT application domains, e.g. management of large computer and communication networks, advanced graphical software engineering environments, logistics, and resource management;
- Transfer to application developers, in industry and elsewhere, new paradigms, methodologies, tools for algorithm design and analysis, and best-practice criteria;
- Develop new algorithms and new methods for their analysis and design, and improve the understanding of efficient computing.

As our past experience shows, libraries can be used as a basis of fast and cost-effective industrial software development. Furthermore, providing efficient solutions to more specialised tasks will produce results of immediate applicability for industrial users. We believe that our work reacts to the industrial needs arising in the strategic domains of Software Technologies (e.g. the need of libraries and graph drawing tools in software systems), High Performance Computing and Networking (e.g. efficient solutions for the management of communication networks), and Integration in Manufacturing (e.g. the development of frameworks for logistics and resource management).

Our objective of providing high-quality software that meets the standards of front-line algorithmic research will be met by having fundamental research and software development tightly coupled (in our consortium these two competencies can often be united in the same person). We believe that this is a key factor for the success of an ambitious project of this kind, since it ensures that research advances flow directly into application-driven deliverables, and it will considerably shorten the time lag for technology transfers. We plan intensive industrial collaboration in order to pursue more application-oriented research and to transfer know-how more effectively from the project to users in industry.

ALCOM-IT builds upon the successful research and organisational structure of ALCOM and ALCOM II. However, it differs from its precursors in significant ways. More expertise was added in the directions of operations research algorithms and symbolic computation (e.g. by adding Cologne and Zürich as new partners). The new structure will increase our overall expertise in combinatorial optimisation, implementation of algorithms, and software systems. Furthermore, on the one hand we have strengthened the connections between basic and applied research, and on the other we have put considerably more emphasis on applied research. This is made explicit in the fact that a considerable portion of the requested funding (approximately 67%) will be devoted to software development and technology transfer.

Call for proposal

Data not available

Coordinator

Dipartimento diInformatica E Sistemistica "La Sapienza" - Roma
EU contribution
No data
Address
Via Eudossiana 18
00184 Roma
Italy

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Total cost
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Participants (11)