Your Global Connection to the
Biomedical Engineering Community
HI-POCT Conference Deadlines Have Changed

The deadline for final submissions uploads for all categories is now Monday, October 2.

Register now for the IEEE Brain Initiative Workshop
on Advanced NeuroTechnologies for BRAIN Initiatives


Check out the exciting speaker lineup, which includes keynotes from Tim Denison of Medtronics and Mark Chevillet of Facebook. The 2-day workshop will take place November 9-10th in Washington DC, just prior to Neuroscience 2017






Arab Health's Biomedical Engineering Conference

The Biomedical Engineering conference, taking place on Sunday 29th January at the Arab Health Congress 2018, brings to you a carefully designed programme that will address the challenges and opportunities facing those in the biomedical engineering field.

Who should attend:

* Biomedical Engineers
* Heads of Biomedical Engineering
* Clinical Engineers
* Medical Equipment Planners



Expertise will be shared by renowned keynote speakers, all the way from Italy; Dr Paolo Dario, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Director of the BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (SSSA), and Dr Michael Friebe, Professor, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Institute of Medical Engineering, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität coming from Magdeburg, Germany.

Notification Deadline Extended For Life Sciences Conference
Acceptance Notification for Two And Four Page Papers Has Been Extended Until October 12, 2017

The first IEEE Life Sciences Conference (LSC) will be held in Sydney, Australia, 13-15 December 2017. The overall theme of the conference is "Personalized Healthcare & Wearables". The IEEE Life Sciences Technical Community (LSTC), which is supported by multiple IEEE member societies, is the sponsor of the conference. As such, the conference will cover diverse topics within the theme.

LSC 2017 will include tutorials and a scientific program composed of plenary talks, invited sessions, and poster presentations of peer-reviewed papers. In addition, there will be a host of special events, including a Standards Track, an IEEE Women in Engineering event, a High School Competition, an e-textile style fashion show, and an IBM Big Data/Watson event in partnership with the IEEE Big Data Initiative

CALL FOR PAPERS
Join us for #BHI18 and #BSN18 next March in Las Vegas
DEADLINE for Workshop Proposals is September 30th
The IEEE Conference on Biomedical and Health Informatics and the IEEE Conference on Body Sensor Networks are two premier flagship venues in the area of mHealth, health analytics and wearable computers. These conferences will be co-located this year along with the HIMSS Annual Conference. We'll see you in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 4-7 March 2018.

Student Travel Grants are Available
Students who are interested in attending the BHI or the
BSN conference during HIMSS on March 4-7, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada - USA may apply for travel and registration reimbursement on the conference website.  Please go to the website for more information and instructions. 

ISBI 2018
April 4-7, 2018 in Washington DC
ISBI '18 Challenge Proposal Submission EXTENDED until 10/2/17
The IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI) is soliciting proposals to help accelerate the pace of research on an academic/clinical problem. Each challenge needs an organizing team responsible for providing training and test data, defining the tasks, specifying the metrics used to measure performance, managing entries, and organizing the on-site workshop presentations.

Call for Contributed Papers
Full-Paper Instructions

Papers are limited to 4 pages, with an additional $200 fee for up to 1 extra page. Four pages must contain technical content, figures, and references, while the 5th page may contain only references. This is the maximum number of pages that will be accepted, including all figures, tables, and references. Any documents that exceed the 5-page limit, or that have a 5th page containing anything other than references, will be rejected.

Housing now OPEN for ISBI 2018
Omni Shoreham Hotel

2500 Calvert Street NW Washington,
District  of Columbia
EMBC 2018
EMBC 2018 will be on July 17-21, 2018 in Honolulu, Hawaii 
Sponsorship's Opportunities Now Available

Are you interested in a sponsorship opportunity at EMBC 2018 find out more HERE
Housing now OPEN for EMBC 2018
Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki
Beach Resort

Approximately 15 minute walk to Hawaii Convention Center

2005 Kalia Road  Honolulu, Hawaii 96815
Tel: +1-808-949-4321  Website

Click here to book  at EMBC discounted rates, before June 13, 2018.
Call for Proposals to Organize a Session at EMBC 2018
Workshops, Tutorials, Invited Sessions, Mini-Symposia
and Special Sessions

Proposals for Workshops, Tutorials, Invited Sessions, Mini-Symposia and Special Sessions are invited. Submission opens on September 1, 2017 and closes  November 1, 2017. The activities are subdivided into pre-conference and during-conference.  Pre-conference activities will be held on Tuesday, July 16, 2018, from 8.00 AM - 5.00 PM.

If you have already read the instructions and are returning to this page to submit a proposal, GO TO PROPOSAL SUBMISSION
 
EMBC'18 is accepting proposals for the following sessions:
  • Workshops (pre-conference)
  • Tutorials (pre-conference)
  • Mini-symposia (during conference)
  • Invited Sessions (during conference)
  • Special Sessions (during conference)
Call for Contributed Papers at EMBC 2018
Author Instructions for Contributed Papers - Full

C ontributed Papers-Full are presented either as an oral presentation or a poster presentation. The type of presentation will be determined by the Conference Editorial Board based on factors such as the reviewer's suggestions and topic of the paper. All presented and contributed papers will be published in IEEE Xplore and indexed by PubMed and Medline.


At least one author of the paper must be registered at the appropriate full conference rate (Member, Non-member, Student member, Student non-member) in order to upload the final paper. If complete payment of a registration fee is not received, authors will not be able to proceed with uploading their final manuscript. While any author of the paper may be registered, only the designated "corresponding author" may upload the final paper. Once a manuscript has been uploaded, the registration fees cannot be refunded. Please be sure that the attending author completes payment and uploads the final paper. This means that they must be the "corresponding author".
IEEE TechEthics Conference- October 13, 2017 Washington DC
Keynote Speaker Danielle Bassett
Past EMB Early Career Achievement Award Winner

The IEEE TechEthics Conference serves as the IEEE TechEthics program's flagship event, featuring luminaries in technology, philosophy, ethics, policy development and more. This highly interactive event will address significant and provocative questions related to robotics, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, autonomous transportation, ethics education, and other key aspects of the technology ethics landscape. Join the conversation with keynote speakers Rodney Brooks and Danielle Bassett, and a slate of other thought leaders. For more information and to register, visit conference website.
Save the Dates
Society Spotlight
IEEE EMB Baltimore Chapter Meeting with visit from EMBS DL Marius Linguraru

.
Over 25 IEEE attentive members and guests came to the National Electronics Museum to attend last month's IEEE EMB Society Baltimore Chapter Meeting and Distinguished Lecture. Featured was EMB Distinguished Lecturer, Dr. Marius George Linguraru, a Principal Investigator in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children's National Health System, and an Associate Professor of Radiology and Pediatrics at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences of George Washington University in Washington, DC. Dr. Linguraru's talk on "Multi- Organ Modeling and Computational Anatomy in Abdominal Imaging" was very well received followed by a good discussion. He also talked about the IEEE Engineering and Biology as a society and how to join. Carole Carey, EMB Baltimore Chapter Chair, presented Dr. Linguraru with an appreciation plaque followed by a networking lunch that everyone enjoyed. The seminar also attracted other IEEE society chapters from the surrounding Baltimore Washington sections, i.e., Signal Processing Society, Communication Society and the Robotics and Automation Society to join the meeting.


Technical Activities Spotlight
TECHNICAL COMMITTEE HIGHLIGHTS: BIOROBOTICS TECHNICAL COMMITTEE SEARCHES FOR AWARD NOMINATIONS, AND WILL FACILITATE IMPACT THROUGH WIDESPREAD EMAIL LISTSERVE
Elliott J Rouse PhD, Publications Sub-Committee, BioRobotics TC Member

This highlight features two important aspects of the IEEE EMBS Technical Committee on BioRobotics-nomination of professional awards, and the development of an email listserve to service the biorobotics research area.  The Technical Committee on BioRobotics seeks to highlight leadership in the biorobotics field through awards from the IEEE EMB Society. Academic and industrial leaders are selected, and the Technical Committee on BioRobotics works with the greater IEEE / EMBS organizations to bestow these awards. The EMB Society sponsors twelve awards of member recognition for technical and professional excellence, service, community impact, and publications. The awards range from career achievement awards to distinguished lectures supported by EMBS. 

Once again this season, it is important for all members and others in the biorobotics interest area to provide worthy candidates for consideration of these prestigious awards. To provide nominations, please contact Prof. Jim Patton (pattonj@uic.edu) or visit the EMBS webpage on awards One key purpose of the Technical Committee on BioRobotics is encouraging collaboration and exchange of information in the biorobotics research area. To this end, Prof. Christian Cipriani and the Roadmapping Sub-Committee are working to develop an email listserve that facilitates the exchange of research discussions, job postings, calls for conference / workshop / paper submissions, among many other topics. The email listserve will be based on the success of the "robotics-worldwide" listserve which has a far reaching impact with over 10,000 subscribers (as of Spring 2016). Robotics-worldwide has facilitated interaction in the robotics community for over six years, and sees thousands of posts per year. Stay tuned for more updates on the listserve development, and other methods by which the Technical Committee on BioRobotics is facilitating the exchange of information in the biorobotics research area.
Publications Spotlight
Glucose Monitoring in Individuals With Diabetes Using a Long-Term Implanted Sensor/Telemetry System and Model

The use of a fully implanted first-generation prototype sensor/telemetry system is described for long-term monitoring of subcutaneous tissue glucose in a small cohort of people with diabetes. Methods: Sensors are based on a membrane containing immobilized glucose oxidase and catalase coupled to oxygen electrodes and a telemetry system, integrated as an implant. The devices remained implanted for up to 180 days, with signals transmitted every 2 min to external receivers. Results: The data include signal recordings from glucose clamps and spontaneous glucose excursions, matched, respectively, to reference blood glucose and finger-stick values. The sensor signals indicate dynamic tissue glucose, for which there is no independent standard, and a model describing the relationship between blood glucose and the signal is, therefore, included. The values of all model parameters have been estimated, including the permeability of adjacent tissues to glucose, and equated to conventional mass transfer parameters. As a group, the sensor calibration varied randomly at an average rate of -2.6%/week. Statistical correlation indicated strong association between the sensor signals and reference glucose values. Conclusion: Continuous long-term glucose monitoring in individuals with diabetes is feasible with this system. Significance: All therapies for diabetes are based on glucose control, and therefore, require glucose monitoring. This fully implanted long-term sensor/telemetry system may facilitate a new era of management of the disease.

Multichannel Electrotactile Feedback With Spatial and Mixed Coding for Closed-Loop Control of Grasping Force in Hand Prostheses
Authors: Strahinja Dosen, Marko Markovic, Matija Strbac, Minja Belic, Vladimir Kojic, Goran Bjelic, Thierry Keller, Dario Farina

Providing somatosensory feedback to the user of a myoelectric prosthesis is an important goal since it can improve the utility as well as facilitate the embodiment of the assistive system. Most often, the grasping force was selected as the feedback variable and communicated through one or more individual single channel stimulation units (e.g., electrodes, vibration motors). In the present study, an integrated, compact, multichannel solution comprising an array electrode and a programmable stimulator was presented. 

Two coding schemes (15 levels), spatial and mixed (spatial and frequency) modulation, were tested in able-bodied subjects, psychometrically and in force control with routine grasping and force tracking using real and simulated prosthesis. The results demonstrated that mixed and spatial coding, although substantially different in psychometric tests, resulted in a similar performance during both force control tasks. Furthermore, the ideal, visual feedback was not better than the tactile feedback in routine grasping. To explain the observed results, a conceptual model was proposed emphasizing that the performance depends on multiple factors, including feedback uncertainty, nature of the task and the reliability of the feedforward control. The study outcomes, specific conclusions and the general model, are relevant for the design of closed-loop myoelectric prostheses utilizing tactile feedback.


EMBS would love to hear from you....

Please send any chapter news, events or happenings, call for papers, distinguished lecturer visits, awards received by members, etc. to the EMBS Content Form for inclusion in next week's newsletter. We look forward to hearing from you.

Upcoming Conferences


LET'S GET SOCIAL!
To stay current on the latest announcements, events, and news, follow EMBS on: