The present scarcity of radio spectrum allocated to digital communications has motivated the search for technologies able to alleviate it by adapting the transmission to changing environmental and network-usage conditions.
Cognitive Radio is one of the most promising among these technologies. Three paradigms for its application have emerged. With “interweaving,” the secondary (unlicensed) users are able to occupy the portions
of the spectrum left temporarily free by the licensed primary users.  In the “underlay” paradigm, the secondary transmitter overlaps in frequency with the primary user, after making sure that the interference level it causes is below a given threshold. The “overlay” paradigm uses the secondary user’s knowledge of the primary users transmission scheme and of the channel to choose a transmission scheme that causes an acceptable amount of interference. In this talk we discuss some applications of Cognitive Radio to satellite communications, with special attention to spectrum sensing techniques.

EZIO BIGLIERI
Adjunct professor of Electrical Engineering at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and an honorary professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

EZIO BIGLIERI was born in Aosta (Italy). He received his formal training in Electrical Engineering at Politecnico di Torino (Italy), where he received his Dr. Engr\ degree in 1967. He is presently an
adjunct professor of Electrical Engineering at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and an honorary professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. Previously he was a Professor at the University of Napoli (Italy), at Politecnico di Torino, and at UCLA.
He was elected three times to the Board of Governors of the IEEE Information Theory Society, and he served as its President in 1999. In the recent past he was the Editor-in-Chief of the {\em IEEE
Transactions on Information Theory} and of the {\em Journal of Communications and Networks}. His most recent book, coauthored with A. J. Goldsmith, L. Greenstein, N. Mandayam, and H. Vincent Poor, is
entitled “Principles of Cognitive Radio” (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Among other honors, in 2000 he received the IEEE Third-Millennium Medal and the IEEE Donald G.\ Fink Prize Paper Award, in 2001 the IEEE Communications Society Edwin Howard Armstrong Achievement
Award and a Best Paper Award from WPMC’01, Aalborg, Denmark, and in 2004 the Journal of Communications and Networks Best Paper Award. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.

It is well known that the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a key aerospace sensor for exploration of the Earth, as well as of the deep space planetary environment. Microwave 2-dimensional, 3-dimensional, and most recently also topographic images of the Earth have been successfully accomplished. In deep space, a number of planets and satellites have been imaged, in particular Titan, the largest Moon of Saturn, in the frame of the CASSINI mission. With the additional presence of satellite constellations, the instrument has enlarged and improved its performances and applications, in particular in the area of Security.
But new frontiers are being to be crossed, for both SAR hardware configuration and software processing of the received raw data. It is intent of this presentation to illustrate those new exciting performances, to be hopefully finalised in the near future. Some few examples of preliminary experiments complement the presentation..

Giorgio Franceschetti
Emeritus Professor, University Federico II, Napoli, Italy, and Distinguished Visiting Scientist, JPL.

Giorgio Franceschetti. Professor Emeritus at University Federico II of Napoli, Italy; Adjunct Professor at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1992 to 2008; Distinguished Visiting Scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (CALTECH-JPL, NASA); Past Lecturer at Space-Tech Master of Delft University, The Netherlands. Founder and past Director of IRECE (now IREA), a Research Institute of the Italian National Council for Research (CNR). President of IIN (Istituto Italiano di Navigazione).
Scientific background. Electrical Engineering degree (Università Federico II di Napoli); PhD (New York Polytechnic); Post-Doc Fellow (Physicalisches Institut der Universitat Gottingen, Germany, and California Institute of Technology, USA).
Academic activity. Visiting Professor at the Universities of Illinois, CALTECH, UCLA, Somali National University, University of Santiago di Compostela (Spain). Invited Lecturer in Brazil, China, Sweden, UK.
Professional activity. Past Member of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) Board; of the Scientific Committee of CSELT; and of the International Institute of Communications Board.
Scientific Activity. Author of 12 books, over 180 scientific papers published on International Journals of recognized standard in the area of basic and applied electromagnetic theory: antennas, diffraction and propagation in complex media, including built-up areas (wireless propagation), remote sensing, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), signal and image processing, time-domain pulse scattering, Homeland Security.
Academic Societies Member. Life Fellow of IEEE; Member of the Electromagnetic Society; Member of the Italian Società di Scienze, Lettere e Arti.
Domestic (in Italy)Awards
• 1964 Premio Lori; 1969 Premio Vecchiacchi; 1984 Premio AEI Pubblicazioni; 1983 and 2002 (2 times) Premio Calabria; 1994 Premio Internazionale d’Orso; 2006 Premio del Rotary Club (Sezione di Napoli).
• 2001 Recipient of the Gold Medal of the President of the Italian Republic for outstanding cultural and scientific contributions.
• 2003 Officer of the Italian Republic, noble-type honour conferred by the Italian President for outstanding international activity.
International Awards
• 1975 Marconi Prize;
• 1990 Philip Morris Prize;
• 1998 Mountbatten Prize (IEE London);
• 1999 Schelkunoff Prize (IEEE, AP-Society);
• 2007 IEEE GRS-Society Distinguished Achievement Award “For outstanding research in Electromagnetics, Propagation, Remote Sensing and Information Data Processing”;
• 2008 (for the second time) Schelkunoff Prize (IEEE, AP-Society);
• 2009 NASA Group Achievement Award, Cassini Radar Team, for “outstanding accomplishment in the acquisition and analysis of Cassini Radar data, contributing to a better understanding of Titan and the Saturn system”.
• 2010 IEEE APS-Society Distinguished Achievement Award “For outstanding contributions to fundamental electromagnetic theory, including pulsed antennas and arrays, innovative propagation and scattering models, and exploration of new emerging application areas”
• 2010 Assignment of the Bruno Kessler honorary chair of the University of Trento (Italy)

Telemedicine is worldwide recognized as an effective tool able to ensure the provision of high quality medical care even in critical situation. Since 1996 the Italian Ministry of Defence has experienced the benefit of such tool in military operations. Satellite connection between two stations, usually located at a great distance from each other, proved to be significantly effective in providing all patients the same quality level of medical care as in the home country. Teleconsultation is used in support of the military and civilian personnel deployed abroad and even to the local population during all kinds of crisis response operations. The present applications are being continuously updated with the most recent technological solutions in order to be always ready to face any present and future challenge. The experience gained so far in the military field is being transferred to the civilian one proving the feasibility of a dual use of the innovative technology.
Eduardo Cucuzza
Italian Delegate at NATO COMEDS Medical Communication & Information System Expert Panel e Telemedicine Expert Team ( MedCIS EP/TMED ET.). Tele Healthcare, Medical Applications & Information Systems

Professional experience
• Support Officer at Department of Bromatology – Army Center for Health Studies Rome 1984-1998
• Teacher of Medical Physics for the University Diploma in Nursing – University of Tor Vergata – Rome – 1996/1997
• Coordination Section Head of the Department of Coordination and General Support – Army Logistic Inspectorate – Rome – 2002/2003
• Health Officer assigned to the coordination (Staff Officer Coordination) – 1st German-Dutch Corps – Muenster – Germany – 2002/2005
• Director of Pharmacy – Military Polyclinic in Rome – 2009 (presently held) Additional professional activities
• National Delegate to the NATO "General Medical Working Group" – NATO Headquarters – Brussels – 1997/2001.
• National Delegate to the NATO "Land Forces Logistic Doctrine" WG – NATO Headquarters – Brussels – 2002.
• National Delegate to the NATO "Medical Communication & Information System" Expert Panel and "Telemedicine" Expert Team – 2006/2012.
• Project Officer for the health aspects of the ESA (European Space Agency), for Ministries of Defense Telemedicine (T4MoD), Telemedical support for peace keeping operations. 2008/2012.
• National Delegate to the project IMIHO (Interconnection of Military Hospitals) as part of the SEDM (South Eastern Defense Ministerial process) 2009/2012.

Vidal Ashkenazi
Chief Executive Nottingham Scientific ltd, United Kingdom

The airports are rapidly becoming the logistic contexts par excellence to experiment innovative technologies and procedures. In general terms, the airports’ modernizations seem to be oriented toward two targets: (i) the optimization of the resources to manage a continuously increasing number of passengers and (ii) the mitigation of the threats posed to aviation security. A technological innovation which promises to reach both goals is represented by the so-called ABC (Automated Border Crossing) systems. The ABC systems are based on the implementation of unattended (or partially attended) gates which are used by the passengers to cross automatically the border, avoiding the long queues at the traditional passport desks. In practice, passengers allow the ABC system to inspect the document and to acquire the data from it while a biometric process guarantees that the document effectively belongs to its holder. At the moment, the most commonly used biometric technologies for ABC are based on the recognition of face, fingerprints and iris characteristics.
After a long period of experimentation (the first installations go back to 1993) and supported by the diffusion of the new electronic passports, the ABC systems are actually operational in several airports and their number is continuously growing.
ABC systems offer several advantages in respect to the traditional procedures for passports’ control. Passengers can save a considerable amount of time, the biometric recognition enhances the security level and last, but not surely least, the costs decrease thanks to the drastic reduction of the staff involved in the manual control of the documents.  Anyway, some experts raise concerns over some technical and security issues concerning ABC.
First of all, as it is well known, all the biometric technologies are characterized by some critical points. For example, face recognition, adopted in several ABC systems, can be influenced from a series of parameters such as illumination and pose variation. This may result in unacceptable false rejection rates.
Other experts raise concerns because of the lack of the human element in ABC systems. The personnel engaged in passport control has an experience in detecting frauds that goes well beyond the checking of passport’s security features.
Will it be possible, in a near future, by means of sophisticated algorithms, to let ABC systems analyze some behavioral traits of the passengers to increase the quality of the interaction between the man and the machine? Will new technologies, such ABC, have consequences on the delicate balance between freedom and security? These open issues will be discussed in the keynote address foreseen for the Security and Privacy Special Track of the ESTEL Conference.

MARIO SAVASTANO
National Research Cuncil of Italy

Mario Savastano is an Electronic Engineer and since 1982 he is with the National Research Council of Italy (CNR). His current position is “Senior Researcher” at the Institute of Biostructures and Bioimages (CNR- IBB).
From 2002 he is the Convener of the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC37 “Biometrics” WG6 on “Cross-jurisdictional and societal aspects”. The aim of WG 6 is the standardization in the field of cross-jurisdictional and societal aspects in the application of ISO/IEC biometrics standards. Within this context, and with some limitations, the terms of reference includes the support of design and implementation of biometric technologies with respect to accessibility, health and safety and support of legal requirements and acknowledgement of cross-jurisdictional and societal considerations pertaining to personal information.
Mario Savastano has joined various research projects of the European Commission and collaborates actively with several Italian Ministries in the area of security with particular reference to biometrics and video surveillance.
In 2012 he has been appointed by the Italian Ministry of the Education, University and Research as national Expert for the EC FP7 “Security” Committee.
His actual main area of interest is the analysis of the legal and ethical aspects connected to the new technologies oriented to security.