Digital Innovation Hubs

DIH Profile

Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DASAI)

Hub Information

Hub Name
Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DASAI)
Local Name
Centro de Innovación Digital en Ciencia de Datos e Inteligencia Artificial (DASAI)
Evolutionary Stage
Fully operational
Geographical Scope
Regional

Description

Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DASAI) is a Digital Innovation Hub (DIH) focused on performing cutting-edge research, knowledge transference and postgraduate teaching in Artificial Intelligence with outstanding lines of research in Data Science and Computational Intelligence. Our main objective is to offer services to facilitate the integration of the Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Computation Intelligence technologies in industry and SMEs across all sectors, in order to help in the process of adoption of digital technologies in the entire value chain, from research and technology developers to end-users.

DASAI offers services from raising awareness about the importance of the inclusion of the Data Science techniques to revalorize any sector business to supporting the development of best practices in demonstrators and pilots. DASAI provides access to research results, existing technologies, mentoring, specialized workshops, training, technology assessments, access to funding sources, etc. Among others, DASAI offers services to support the inclusion of ICT technologies, mainly Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, including Computational Intelligence, Big Data, Machine Learning and Pre-processing and data prediction, as technologies to contribute to the digitalization of the industry (Virtual Market Agents).

DASAI is promoted and coordinated by the DaSCI Andalusian Research Institute (non-profit academic organization), and it counts with the participation of outstanding partners, both public and private entities, strongly committed to the digitalization of companies, but above all, to the incorporation of the Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Computation Intelligence to help companies to transform, grow and enhance their business possibilities in the digital world. It has been created unifying some of the most relevant organizations in Artificial Intelligence in the region of Andalusia, with the aim of transforming the Andalusian industry ecosystem in a reference of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Science around the world.

To do that, the hub also has the support of some of the most outstanding researchers in our region, seven of them are included in the Highly Cited Researchers list (Clarivate Analytics, see 2018 list in https://hcr.clarivate.com/). These researchers are:

  • Francisco Herrera, Universidad de Granada (director of DaSCI Institute, https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HULIk-QAAAAJ&hl=en)
  • Enrique Herrera-Viedma, Universidad de Granada
  • Luís Martínez, Universidad de Jaén
  • Salvador García, Universidad de Granada
  • Julián Luengo, Universidad de Granada
  • Sergio Alonso, Universidad de Granada
  • Javier Cabrerizo, Universidad de Granada
  • Francisco Chiclana, visiting professor, Universidad de Granada

El Centro de Innovación Digital (CID) en Ciencia de Datos e Inteligencia Artificial (DASAI) está centrado en la realización de investigaciones de vanguardia, transferencia de conocimiento y enseñanza de posgrado en Inteligencia Artificial con líneas de investigación destacadas en Ciencia de Datos e Inteligencia Computacional. Nuestro principal objetivo es ofrecer servicios para facilitar la integración de las tecnologías de Inteligencia Artificial, Ciencia de Datos e Inteligencia de Computación en la industria y las PYME en todos los sectores, a fin de ayudar en el proceso de adopción de tecnologías digitales en toda la cadena de valor, desde la investigación y desarrolladores de tecnología para usuarios finales.

DASAI ofrece servicios desde la sensibilización sobre la importancia de la inclusión de las técnicas de Data Science para revalorizar cualquier negocio del sector hasta apoyar el desarrollo de las mejores prácticas en demostradores y pilotos. DASAI proporciona acceso a resultados de investigación, tecnologías existentes, tutoría, talleres especializados, capacitación, evaluaciones de tecnología, acceso a fuentes de financiamiento, etc. Entre otras, DASAI ofrece servicios para respaldar la inclusión de tecnologías TIC, principalmente Inteligencia Artificial y Ciencia de Datos, incluyendo Inteligencia Computacional, Big Data, Aprendizaje Avanzado y preprocesamiento y predicción de datos, como tecnologías para contribuir a la digitalización de la industria (Virtual Market Agents).

DASAI es promovido y coordinado por el Instituto Andaluz Interuniversitario DaSCI “Data Science and Computational Intelligence” (organización académica sin fines de lucro), y cuenta con la participación de socios destacados, tanto públicos como privados, fuertemente comprometidos con la digitalización de las empresas, pero sobre todo, con la incorporación de la Inteligencia Artificial, Datos Inteligencia científica y computacional para ayudar a las empresas a transformar, crecer y mejorar sus posibilidades de negocio en el mundo digital. Se ha creado unificando algunas de las organizaciones más relevantes en Inteligencia Artificial en la región de Andalucía, con el objetivo de transformar el ecosistema de la industria andaluza en una referencia de la Inteligencia Artificial y la Ciencia de Datos en todo el mundo. Para hacerlo, el DIH también cuenta con el apoyo de algunos de los investigadores más destacados de nuestra región, siete de los cuales están incluidos en la lista de investigadores altamente citados (Clarivate Analytics, consulte la lista de 2018 en https://hcr.clarivate.com/). Estos investigadores son:

  • Francisco Herrera, Universidad de Granada (director of DaSCI Institute, https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HULIk-QAAAAJ&hl=en)
  • Enrique Herrera-Viedma, Universidad de Granada
  • Luís Martínez,  Universidad de Jaén
  • Salvador García, Universidad de Granada
  • Julián Luengo, Universidad de Granada
  • Sergio Alonso, Universidad de Granada
  • Javier Cabrerizo, Universidad de Granada
  • Francisco Chiclana, Profesor visitante, Universidad de Granada

Contact Data

Coordinator (Research & Technology organization)
Andalusian Research Institute in Data Science and Computational Intelligence
https://www.dasci.es
Year Established
2017
Location
Daniel Saucedo Aranda, s/n, 18071, Granada (Spain), E-18071, Granada (Spain)
Website
https://dasciihub.dasci.es/
Contact information
Francisco Herrera Triguero
herrera@decsai.ugr.es
+34648168567

Organisation

Organizational form
Networked organization, without formal structure
Turnover
500.000-1.000.000
Number of employees
50-100

Technologies

  • Internet of things
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Interaction technologies
  • Big data, data analytics, data handling
  • Simulation, modelling and digital twins

DASAI is fully aligned to different initiatives for the digitization of the industry, at regional, national and European level. In the following, we describe how our DIH supports these initiatives. Additionally, we include some current projects (granted or under evaluation) supported by them.

Regional level

DASAI is fully linked to the RIS3 strategies (Research and Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialisation RIS3), for the Andalucia Region http://ris3andalucia.es/, mainly collaborating with the “Priority 8: Promotion of the ICT technologies and the digital economy”, by means of the development of advanced ICT technologies and in the attraction of research funds. Additionally, the potential of the partners involved in the DIH, as the University of Granada placed as the second university in Spain in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, helps to transform the Andalucia Region into a worldwide reference in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science for research and business possibilities in digitalisation of the industry.

Furthermore, the Andalusia Region has a digitalization initiative, ‘Andalucia es digital’ https://www.empresa.andaluciaesdigital.es/inicio, which aims to a complete digitalization of the industrial ecosystem to improve their competitiveness and to achieve around the 80% of usage of the new technologies in 2020 and directly connected to the “Estrategia de Impulso del Sector TIC Andalucía 2020’ (Andalucia 2020 ICT Sector Strategy). DIH contributes to main objectives of both policies: increasing the contribution of the ICT sector to the Andalusian GDP, through the attraction of research funds, which have both an impact on the industrial environment of the region and on the employability in the ICT sector.

At regional level, our members have been very active in the process of accessing to research funds, applying to different type of opportunities (Research Projects, FIBAO, CTA contracts, etc.), obtaining more than 30 projects in the last 10 years at regional level. Just to highlight our compromise with the business sector and the collaboration among the partnership, next, we summary some of our most recent competitive projects with companies:

1) Turing project: Human impact on a controlled magnetic field sensor under variable contour conditions: Model development and algorithm integration, with the ONTECH SECURITY, S.L. from March 1, 2018 to August 31, 2019, funded through the CTA (partner in DASAI).  

2) ARIADNA project: Automatic tracing system of pipes and conduits in engineering (Under evaluation) with GHENOVA INGENIERIA S.L (Sevilla), applied to the CTA calls.

Additionally, to facilitate the interaction among the partners in DASAI and the business sector, the coordinator of this DIH has recently obtained by the DaSCI Institute a project, called “New Scientific High-Performance computational infrastructure for research on Big Data and Deep Learning”. In this project, apart from receiving funds to acquire new Hardware and technological infrastructures (€ 433,834.80), they have received around €117,000 for organizing activities for transfer knowledge with regional companies and international collaboration along 2019-2020 in order to communicate the importance of the Artificial Intelligence technologies as part of the companies’ business models. This project will be also used to attract more potential partners to DASAI.  

National level

At national level, the members of the DIH fully support the Connected Industry 4.0 (http://www.industriaconectada40.gob.es/Paginas/index.aspx), a national initiative that aims to develop competitive differential industrial infrastructure and to create an adequate environment to promote the competitiveness of Spanish companies, building in this way the Spanish model for the industry of the future. In this line, our DIH completely supports this initiative including among its priorities the transference of knowledge, technologies and innovations in order to add value to industrial companies, as shown the large number of projects developed in collaboration among public and private sectors.

Furthermore, the members of DASAI, Professor Francisco Herrera and Professor Oscar Cordón, are directly involved in the design of the Artificial Intelligence Spanish National Plan, which includes the future vision of the Spanish position for the Artificial Intelligence technology development for the period 2021 – 2027.

The members of DASAI have industrial research projects, experimental development projects, as well as innovation projects related to organization and processes that sustain the potential of our DIH, including different types of National funds, such as, CIEN, Retos, etc. During the last 10 years, more than 30 projects related to Artificial Intelligence have been funded to the members of this DIH, proving the enormous potential that DASAI has. All these projects went further in the development of Artificial Intelligence techniques and applying the results in different societal challenge and aligned with the main opened questions of our society. For example, in SOCOVIFI2, a model of craniofacial superimposition was developed to identify the age from skeletal remains and 3D reconstruction of fragmented skulls or in HeMoCDIC-Bigdata, in which a set of Data Science based on Computational Intelligence tools are developed.

Next, we highlight the most recent projects achieved by the partners of DASAI. In concrete, two CIEN projects: the INSPECTOR project:  Industrial inSPECtion and MainTenance of complex OR Unattended Facilities from October 2017 to September 2021 and AI MARS project (recently granted): Artificial Intelligence System for Monitoring, Alert and Response for Security in Events., in which the Universidad de Granada will collaborate with CELLNEX, EMERGYA, partner in DASAI and HERTA.

European Level

The members of DASAI have an extensive experience in international projects, mainly focused on the European Research Framework Programs (FP7, H2020). Since 2009, the attraction of European funds has been part of the strategy of the researchers involved in this Innovation Hub, including projects to attract and train new talented researchers (MIBISOC), to exchange staff (STEER or REMIND) or to attract young new researchers to carry out relevant research in our infrastructures (SmartMammaCAD, ALPHA-BRAIN-IMAGING or SKELETON-ID).

Among our priorities, all projects should mean a real scientific challenge for our researchers in order to get involved. Innovative applied research field such as environment or security have been the main applications. Project, such as, HUELLA-LIFE or I-PAN (environment), OPTIRAIL (transport) or MEPROCS (security) are a proof of the flexibility of our research approach and our capacity to collaborate with a large number of different entities. Furthermore, these approaches are in line with the European research policies and give an answer to a current European challenge.

Finally, at European level, the DIH is fully aligned with the forthcoming policies presented by the European Commission for the period 2021-2027, not only from the point of view of the new research framework program (HorizonEurope), but also with the new European Digitalization Program (Digital Europe) which aims to increase EU's international competitiveness as well as developing and reinforcing Europe's strategic digital capacities. The main capacities of this new program (high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and advanced digital skills) matches with the priorities of our DIH, ensuring that their wide use and accessibility across the economy and society by businesses.

Private funds

Finally, we would like to highlight the relevance of the private funds have for our DIH, mainly through Collaborative Research Projects and Research Contract. We have developed more than 50 direct research contracts with enterprises allowing the outside world to benefit from our cutting-edge research. In them, we have offered from technical consultancy services to real Artificial Intelligence and Data Science developments.

Following, we highlight the contracts with private companies from 2017 and 2018 in order to show the relevance of our expertise in Artificial Intelligence and Data science has for the national business sector:

Title: Advice and technical support in the tasks simulation, data mining, and big data

Company: Tecnologías Avanzadas Inspiralia S.A.

Period:1 March 2015 – 31 October 2019

 

Title: GRANDEMAND: Data Analytics for non-household water consumption prediction

Company: CETAQUA

Period: December 2016 - March 2017

 

Title: Contract of service to FIBAO consisting of Prostate Cancer Data Analysis to determine the genotype-phenotype architecture of this disease using the PGMRA platform.

Company: Foundation for the Bio-Health Research of Oriental Andalusia (FIBAO)

Period: January 2017 – August 2017

 

Title: Counselling Contract to the Company R0d Brand Consultants S.L. in Modeling Based on Agents and Data Science

Company: R0d Brand Consultants S.L.

Period: January 2017 – 31 December 2019

 

Title: Computational Intelligence techniques for the development and implementation of algorithms for calculating enterprise resource optimization of regular transport bus travel

Company: SHS Consultores, S.L.

Period: February 2017 – January 2018

 

Title: Big Data integration of genetic and clinical data: survival and quality of life of participants with prostate cancer

Company: Fundación Para la Investigación Biosanitaria de Andalucía Oriental (FIBAO)

Period: 2016-2018

 

Title: Big Data Preprocessing: Models and Tools to improve the quality of the data

Company: BBVA Foundation

Period: October 2016 – September 2018

 

Title: Development of artificial intelligence algorithms for learning about complex data and complex dynamic data

Company: REPSOL (Reference: OTRI 3923)

Period: February 15, 2018  - February 15, 2019

 

Title: Turing project: Human impact on a controlled magnetic field sensor under variable contour conditions: Model development and algorithm integration

Company: ONTECH SECURITY, S.L.  (Reference: OTRI-CTA 3939)

Period: March 1, 2018  - August 31, 2019

 

Title: INSPECTOR: Industrial inSPECtion MainTenance of complex OR Unatteded Faciliteis. 

Company: Predictec  (Proyecto CIEN, Reference OTRI 3940)

Period: October 2017 - September 2021

 

Title: Transformation of unstructured information from clinical analysis into structured information

Company: Mapfre Digital Health  (Reference: OTRI 4057)

Period: October 1, 2018 – December 31, 2018

 

Title: Monitoring of individuals in special protection areas

Company: SHS Consultores (Reference: C-4554-00)

Period: September 1, 2017 – December 31, 2018

 

Market and Services

Sectors

  • Agriculture and food
  • Energy and utilities
  • Transport and logistics
  • Public administration
  • Education
  • Life sciences & healthcare
  • Manufacture of coke, refined petroleum products and nuclear fuel

TRL Focus

  • TRL1 - Basic principles observed and reported
  • TRL2 - Technology concept and/or application formulated
  • TRL3 - Analytical and experimental critical function and/or characteristic proof of concept
  • TRL4 - Component and/or breadboard validation in laboratory environment
  • TRL5 - Component and/or breadboard validation in relevant environment
  • TRL6 - System/subsystem model or prototype demonstration in a relevant environment

Services provided

  • Awareness creation
  • Collaborative Research
  • Concept validation and prototyping
  • Mentoring
  • Education and skills development

Service Examples

Computational Intelligence optimization based algorithms for manufacturing

Client: ATARFIL SL is a multinational manufacturing company from Granada founded in 1995. Its main activity is related to the production of geomembranes used in safe containment applications for environmental protection either in storage and encapsulation of domestic, industrial and mining waste, or waterproofing in highly sensitive applications in waterworks such as rafts for storage, channeling and water treatment. ATARFIL’s installations made worldwide are based on its patented geomembranes material, a plastic sheet (polyethylene or polypropylene) a few millimeters thick, that is spread out over the ground forming a waterproof barrier to contain various types of liquids, waste or sometimes just water in a stable and safe way. Its manufacturing rate is higher than 65.000 tons/year, making this company one of the first five manufacturers in the world.

Needs: The geomembrane production is highly automated through a continuous manufacturing process. However, its installation is still developed in a very traditional way, as there is still no machinery solving the problem of spreading out and fixing (i.e. welding) the soil geomembrane for a work with the provided quality and speed requirements. ATARFIL’s interest was on the automation of the geosynthetics installation process for civil work, in particular, on the development of a technical solution (including a prototype intelligent software and machine) providing an integral solution to install the geomembranes in a work as effectively and efficiently as possible and with the largest degree of automation.

Solution: We conducted a research contract, called GEODISOPT with a budget of 40K euros plus taxes, to develop an intelligent system for the design of an optimal layout for the geomembranes’ installation in civil work by optimizing two different objectives: a) the amount (geomembrane rolls) of material used, and b) the overall welding distance and the number of independent welds required. Our system comprises the first component of the global solution for the installation process automation. It relies on an AI-based optimization algorithm that allows the manager to choose which objective (s)he wants to consider in each case. It was implemented in the form of a software package that can be integrated with Autodesk AutoCAD. The software receives an AutoCAD map as input reflecting the installation vessel and returns as output the design of the installation of the geomembrane material rolls represented over the same map. The composing design parts are properly labeled in the AutoCAD map, keeping the original numbering of the roll and the specific meter reference of the cut piece.

Project period: September 2016 - June 2017

More details: https://www.atarfil.com/

Computational Intelligence optimization based algorithms for planning

Client: SHS Consultores has established itself as a benchmark company in the electronics and ICT market, providing both its own system design and added value to hardware through its applications and innovative IT solutions.

Needs: AURIGA is a tool that allows the optimization of planning and fleet management of passenger transport companies. This tool needed the calculation of rotation paths, shifts and quadrants using Artificial Intelligence algorithms.

Solution: We conducted a research contract with a budget of 90k plus taxes. We designed metaheuristic based algorithms (among others genetic algorithms and memetic algorithms) to tackle two problems: a) to design bus fleet schedules with multiple restrictions minimizing the number of buses, b) the organization of shifts for the staff of drivers minimizing their number. Our approaches allow designing efficient algorithms get high quality solutions for both problems. This allowed continuous feedback with the user who could analyze multiple options in a short period of time.

Project period:  October 2015 - July 2016

Contact details: 

More details: http://www.shsconsultores.com/soluciones/soluciones-para-transporte/auriga/

Artificial Intelligence techniques for analyzing virtual markets

Client: RØD Brand Consultants (RØD) is a start-up of the marketing sector. It aims to become a worldwide reference within the marketing industry, offering its clients the leading AI-based platform to simulate their strategies on real time while having full control of the process.

Needs: The application of AI techniques in order to create virtual markets that are a trustable replica of the competitive environment in which brands operate. Based on the evolution of those virtual markets, RØD aims to support the decisions of the responsible person(s) in charge of the investments on marketing campaigns in the media.

Solution:  Together with RØD’s team, we have developed the leading software in marketing analytics: ZIO®. ZIO is actually a virtual lab based on the use of advanced social simulation and network analysis techniques as well as cutting edge marketing technologies like “behavioral economics” and machine learning. ZIO clients are able to evaluate an infinite number of marketing strategies in real time and before launching any of them to market. Therefore, the chance of error is minimized while the probability of selecting the most appropriate strategy to achieve the firm’s goals is maximized. RØD has recently started to provide its services to international firms. In particular, it has finished projects using the ZIO platform with Coca Cola Great Britain division, updating their simulations for 2018 and policies for 2019. Additionally, it has several multinational firms as current clients: Jaguar/Land Rover and Domino’s Pizza, among others. From a national point of view, important Spanish firms are also clients of ZIO: El Corte Inglés, WiZink and Pelayo. They focus their activity in very different industrial sectors (retail, bank, and insurance sectors, respectively).

Project period:  Since 2016 to present

Contact details: 

 

More details: http://www.zio-analytics.com

Automatic digitisation of haemograms

Client: MAPFRE España is one of the leading Spanish insurance companies. Health insurances are one of the products that MAPFRE provides to its policyholders. So far, MAPFRE is not offering health digital services. It thus sets as strategic objectives the development of health digital services to their policyholders. The newly incorporated company is Mapfre Digital Health.

Needs: The automatic digitisation of haemograms with the aim to add that information to the digital health record of a particular policyholder.

Solution: We conducted a research contract for the development of a system with the ability to identify, extract and structure the data of a haemogram in image format. The end goal is the development of a mobile application able to take photos of haemograms, automatically extract the most relevant data and record it in the digital health record of the policyholder. In this project, two areas of Artificial Intelligence were combined, namely computer vision for the conversion of images (haemograms) in text, and natural language processing for the extraction of the relevant data from the text.

Project period:  October-December  2018

 Contact details: 

More details: https://www.mapfre.com/

Data Science and Anomaly detection

Client: ONTECH is a Sevillian technology company founded in 2012, which focuses its R&D activities on the design and development of products in the field of security and detection using advanced sensorization. ONTECH's systems are based on its patented electromagnetic field modeling and control technology. The main activity of ONTECH is the research and development of sensor technologies with high added value within the field of security of people and assets, so that third parties (manufacturers of security items and suppliers of security services) can integrate them into their products, improving their performance, increasing their value, and even generating new goods or services.

Needs: An essential part of ONTECH's design is the firmware of the system, where all the system's intelligence resides. Currently, the company has deployed a specific department for the study of Artificial Intelligence and the development of intelligent algorithms using techniques of this discipline, with special focus on the detection of anomalies in the data.

Solution: We conducted a research project for the development of a system with the ability to identify, extract and structure anomalies found in the data which could represent different behaviours of entities or potential intruders in the contour of the protected location. The primary objective is to develop mathematical models of those factors existing in the conditions of contour of the sensors, so that they can be introduced in the algorithms of management of the system, being able to identify and to characterize, the reason of changes in the measurement of the sensors and to act in consequence, even predicting future events based on the learned of past situations.

Project period:  March  2018 - August 2019

Contact details:

More details: http://www.ontech.es/?lang=es

Funding

  • Horizon 2020
  • European Social Fund
  • European Regional Development Fund
  • National basic research funding
  • National specific innovation funding
  • Regional funding
  • Private funding
  • Partner resources

Customers

Number of customers annually
11-25
Type of customers
  • Start-up companies
  • SMEs (<250 employees)
  • MidCaps (between €2-10 billion turnover)
  • Large companies, multi-nationals

    • Partners

    Last updated: 17/07/20 07:17