MobiHealth is the 4th International Conference on Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare. The 4th edition of MobiHealth proposes to continue and extend the focus areas of the first three editions, emphasizing on specific research and scientific challenges in the Healthcare Technology domain faced in Europe and globally and hence more interactive input from industry. The objectives of the conference are to advance medical diagnosis, treatment, and patient care through application of wireless communications, mobile computing and sensing technologies. Contributions will be solicited regarding the interdisciplinary design of efficient protocols and technologies to help implement and provide advanced mobile health care applications. The essence of the conference lies in its interdisciplinary nature, with original contributions cutting across boundaries but all within the ambit of the application of mobile communications (technologies, standards, solutions, methodologies, …) aiming at the improvement of human health.

MobiHealth 2014

Dr. Venet Osmani gives us a frank insight into bipolar disorder, a serious and in most cases deadly mental disorder of unknown cause, and proposes an “early warning system” based on a mobile application. Early stage patients have to report their status and answer the app questionnaires, while results are being considered by doctors and specialized staff in an effort to further explore this grave disease. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

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TTC #101  Early warning app for bipolar disorder, Dr. Venet Osmani

Denmark’s first professor in Welfare Design, Dr. Andrea Corradini, explains the groundbreaking five year collaboration between Kolding School of Design and Lillebaelt Hospital in Denmark. His work to realize the ‘social ‘experiment’ focuses on how calculated applications of design (eg. adjustable lighting at the nurses station) and not across the board spending cuts, actually save money, increase productivity, quality of services, patient care, and efficiency. The professor tells us the project originates from the perception of ‘welfare’ as a predominant social goal in Denmark, in direct contradiction to other western societies. Dr. Corradini mentions successes thus far and future obstacles he anticipates. He highlights ‘human factor’ as the determining element for this project to succeed or fail. He explains the need to develop a feasible approach to facilitate healthcare professionals to shift perspectives and adjust to an alternative, sometimes radical, point of view. Interviewed by Venetia I. Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.


TTC #100  Defining cutting edge Welfare Design in health, Dr. Andrea Corradini

Professors Anton Amman and Agapios Agapiou speak about their effort to use breath and sweat of humans as an innovative tool for targeted clinical diagnostics – kind of an odour-CSI...Their ambitious goal is to develop a personalized mobile telemedicine application that could recognise, using special and elaborate sensors, volatiles (which is quite a feat, as we may easily pinpoint only a handful of them) and alert people if something is not as it should be... Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #99  Breath and sweat analysis as a tool for medical diagnostics, Prof. Agapiou & Prof. Amman

Professor Gianlucca Lazzi opens the conversation with the renowned ‘bionic eye’, an artificial retina to restore vision to the blind. With over 20 years experience in biolelectromagnetics for implantable devices he mentions his research in hippocampus implants and neurostimulators in general; the role they play in health and how these can affect human lives in the future. In an effort to simplify advancements in sensor technology he explains what liquid metal sensors are and their possible advantages. He goes on to foresee the future in implantable devices and restoring senses to patients. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks central.


TTC #98 Artificial Retina and Neurostimulators, Dr. Gianlucca Lazzi

Mr. Ioannis Tamposis is a healthcare IT expert working for OraSys that offers innovative healthcare services. They have developed a platform for managing medical imaging workflows in an enterprise level which can be integrated among all radiology equipment and applications. OraSys is also involved in the HPV Guard Project, a decision support system based on advanced clinical theranostics protocols for the cost-effective, personalised management of HPV related disease. Interviewed by Venetia I. Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #97 From R&D to a Healthcare Workflow Management platform, Ioannis Tamposis

Dr. Georgia Chalvatzaki tells us about MOBOT; an ambitious European FP7 project still in evaluation stage, that uses an intelligent robotic walker to assist elderly or reduced mobility people get up from a chair and walk around, during their daily life. It is an easy to use, yet highly sophisticated and self-learning system that gradually recognizes the habits of its user and helps him (or her) overcome most difficulties. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #96 An intelligent robotic walker for assisted living, Dr. Georgia Chalvatzaki

Prof. Athanasios Kakarountas combines his deep knowledge of informatics & computing with marketing techniques in order to design and produce marketable products, useful for everyday assisted living. Starting from his commercialised projects, including a pillow with sensors and an insulin injecting automated system, he talks about his new project which aims to assist elderly by making slight design changes to known household devices that can bring technology to their life in a non-invasive way. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #95 Disappearing computing for elderly assisted living, Prof. Athanasios Kakarountas

Dr. Themos Kallos, Vice President and Chief Science Officer of MediWiSe, describes two important projects his company is working on, which are based on RF properties. The first one uses special antennas for microwave tomography on cancer patients while the second uses V-band waveguides for glucose sensing, in a non-invasive way thus avoiding the painful needles. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #94  RF in Microwave tomography & Glucose sensing, Dr. Themos Kallos

Prof. Thomas Pieber talks about the EU funded REACTION project; a decision support system for the remote accessibility to diabetes management & therapy in operational healthcare networks. Patients are monitored with wearable non invasive and minimally invasive continuous Glucose Monitoring sensors(CGM) based on novel technologies. Starting from his own task of trying to improve the quality of control from the medical side, he poses an interesting question on whether ‘Hospitals are aware of the Problem?’ and how qualified hospitals, medical staff, doctors are ready for glycemic control. We ask him if Europe has anything to envy from the US when it comes to eHealth innovation, considering ideas, research and investments. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #105 The Reaction Project for Glycemic control, Prof. Thomas Pieber

Dr. Nikos Petrellis talks to us about his work in developing electronic circuits to convert sensor outputs from analog to high resolution digital data. He explains the importance of portable, low cost, and diverse modules that can be applied to existing, perhaps older technology, systems.  We talk about healthcare applications of converting and correcting  analog data derived from existing wearable sensors  in real time without the need of costly upgrades to hospital equipment. Dr. Petrellis presents his future projects including developing an easy to use interface and sensors for elderly person assistance. This will monitor vitals and detect an emergency, or simply aid healthcare professionals in diagnosis. Interviewed by Venetia I. Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #106  Converting sensor outputs from analog to digital, Dr. Nikos Petrellis

Health is changing. From traditional healthcare provision, lifestyle habits and medicinal tech to the available tools, systems, devices and software. The terms eHealth or mHealth will soon be obsolete as advances in patient management, personal healthcare records, analytics, quantified self, data mining, big data and the self-managed paradigm gradually replace legacy systems, processes and businesses. Professor Dimitris Koutsouris, an accomplished authority in Biomedical Engineering, talks about the disrupting driving forces that are making this massive shift happen, the enablers, the opportunities and the challenges. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.

TTC #102 From eHealth and mHealth to the new age of Health, Prof. Dimitris Koutsouris

Prof. Guang-Zhong Yang talks about The Hamlyn Centre and their research focus on sensing, imaging and robotics and how they’re interested in developing technology that is safe and effective for all medical devices, whilst having a strong kinetical value, making technology accessible. He talks about the body sensor network and their pervasive use; starting from wearables up to implanted sensors; how they catch signs that help distinguish possible health issues or how they can implant sensors after surgeries in order to monitor the status of the area ie. inflammation, infections etc. and prevent further deterioration. He goes on to explain how their research in imaging, sensing and robotics is creating smart medical tools with sensors and how they’re all linked with the ultimate goal of minimal invasive surgery, intervening early and preventing problems before they become irreversible. Dr. Yang adds his prediction for the future of predictive, personalised and participative health. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #103 Leading sensing, imaging and robotics into a new era, Prof. Guang-Zhong Yang

Michael Dillhyon, President of Vital Connect Europe, is a professional with an outstanding track record in leading, founding and advising businesses in the fields of life sciences, biosciences, eHealth. We talk about recent advances in health-patches - tiny self-powered adhesive devices that can be placed directly on the patient’s body for non-invasive, continuous, remote monitoring of several vital signs and metrics. In the second part of our discussion we talk about the tidal wave of change on our every-day perception of health, fitness and health - a change powered by the convergence of several disciplines and underlined by what we call Human Analytics. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.

TTC #104 Beyond “wearables” and quantified-self, Michael Dillhyon

Prof. Karakitsos explains how HPV Guard, a smart and innovative system to define individual risk for cervical cancer development, works. This brand new platform, supported by an EU Grant, Greek State money and private investments, compiles -using established know-how of Big Data mining- laboratory and clinical data that feed a dedicated scoring system, with specialist doctors analyzing the results. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #107 HPV Guard - a software management platform for cervical cancer, Prof. Petros Karakitsos

Current healthcare practices and technologies are limited what it comes to offering a treatment that is personalized and optimized for the individual patient. The reasons are not only due to current technology limitations of legacy systems but also due to operational practices and economics. Dr. Andreas Triantafyllidis, a PostDoc Research Scientist at the Institute of Biomedical Enginnering at the University of Oxford, talks about the ongoing research in using pervasive systems to achieve better, personalized patient monitoring and treatment. Using pervasive systems, combining remote monitoring, mobile technologies and focusing on optimizing user-interaction and user-experience with the system the aim of the research is to remove barriers and to drive adoption and retention by both patients and health-care professionals. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.

TTC #108 Personalized health-care using pervasive systems, Dr. Andreas Triantafyllidis

The field of non-invasive Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) is gaining massive momentum as startups, companies and researchers are pushing hard. The race on BCI research is on improvement of the efficiency and the accuracy of the systems, while some of the first commercial efforts are testing the waters with several affordable devices already available to consumers. Professor Bin He, a pioneer in the field of Biomedical Engineering, talks about the ground-breaking research currently being done at the University of Minnesota in decoding brainwaves more accurately and reliably using non-invasive interfaces. We discuss the already impressive results of a  brain-controlled helicopter experiment, some of  the present challenges and the upcoming breakthroughs in the field of Brain Computer Interfaces. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.

TTC #109 Your brain as the ultimate controller, Prof. Bin He

What if you could see what calms you down or increases your stress as you go through your day? What if you could see clearly what is causing these changes for your child or another loved one? Javier Hernandez is currently working towards his Ph.D. at the MIT Media Lab investigating Affective Computing: the field of using sensors and computers in order to interpret feeling and emotion. Starting from the current experiments at MIT Media Lab using off-the-shelf Google Glasses as the human-computer interface, we are talking about the importance of being able to provide immediate/real-time feedback to the user and the repercussions in diagnostic, motivational/gamified experiences. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.

TTC #111 Creating machines with empathy, Javier Hernandez

Veteran Program Officer, Dr. Lymberis, explains the many ways European Commission employs to support enterprises and SMEs in particular, that focus on nano- microelectronics and smart systems/apps, used mainly in the healthcare sector. Through new programs that are innovative and greatly adapted to their special needs, niche players may now submit proposals and get support for the design and development of prototypes; responding to competitors and narrowing the gap with USA or Far East countries. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #110  Potentials of miniaturized Smart Systems in healthcare, Dr. Andreas Lymberis

The highlight of Prof. Baras’ interview is that “if the 20th century was the century of ICT, then the 21st century surely is the century of Medicine”! Being a technology- Renaissance man himself, he believes that the next frontier is disease modelling (like diabetes or Alzheimer); he and his team give answers on a broad spectrum of applied technology issues focusing on revolutionary micro-energy harvesters that exploit the value-added of human body movements to power sensors and many other mobile devices, in the future. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #112 CFPG micro-energy harvester for wearable medical sensors - Prof John Baras

There are many consumer- and healthcare- grade solutions aiming to improve the quality of life for the elderly, however ease-of-use and intrusiveness are two of the most common factors hindering effectiveness and wide adoption. Dr. Panagiotis Bamidis, Assistant Professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki talks about the current research in Affective and Physiological computing aiming to improve the cognitive and physical condition of elderly people using gamified experiences through a number of consumer devices such as mobile phones, smart TVs etc. Dr. Bamidis then talks about current work in another research area which aims to help young kids with Hyperactivity or Attention Deficit Disorders by providing a far more effective mobile-based activity monitoring framework than existing practices. Finally we talk about some early stage research in Body Machine Interfaces. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.

TTC #113 Mobile in health - solutions for elderly and kids with ADHD, Dr. Panagiotis Bamidis

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