IEEE Italy Sensors Chapter

Andrea Nicolò, PhD Department of Movement Human and Health Sciences, University of Rome “Foro Italico”   Abstract Technological development is helping athletes and exercise practitioners optimize performance and minimize the risk of injury and illness. Yet, monitoring exercise is challenging due to several factors, including motion artefacts and the need to minimize the invasiveness of wearable devices. The challenge is even greater when attempting to extract simple and useful information from a myriad of data that are currently gathered during training and competitions. Furthermore, most sensors and devices currently used in sports have not been scientifically validated. Moreover, technological development is often guided by market forces rather than athlete or scientific needs, which may reduce the use of new technologies. A good example of how the development of wearable sensors should follow athletes’ needs and be informed by scientific findings is given by the increasing attention devoted to respiratory frequency (fR) monitoring during exercise. Substantial evidence suggests that fR plays an important role during exercise as a strong marker of physical effort, more so than other traditionally monitored physiological variables such as oxygen uptake, heart rate and blood lactate. Indeed, fR is closely linked with perceived exertion during a variety of exercise paradigms and experimental interventions affecting performance, including muscle fatigue, glycogen depletion, hyperthermia and hypoxia. Therefore, fR is sensitive to different fatigue states, and thus presents potentially important implications for training and recovery monitoring. Furthermore, fR is a good predictor of time to exhaustion during constant-work rate exercise and can help understand how effort is distributed during self-paced time trials. Moreover, monitoring fR may not only benefit endurance sports but also team sports and other intermittent-based sporting activities, given the very fast response observed to abrupt changes in work rate. However, the importance of fR as a marker of physical effort has emerged from recent investigations and fR is not currently measured during training. Furthermore, there is a paucity of respiratory sensors specifically designed for sporting activities, which is very relevant for companies, researchers and sensor developers. The talk will present: i) current evidence suggesting the importance of respiratory frequency monitoring during exercise; ii) our current understanding of the mechanisms underlying the control of breathing during exercise; iii) currently available techniques and sensors for measuring respiratory frequency. Biography Andrea Nicolò received his BSc (2009), MSc (2011) and PhD in Sports, Exercise and Ergonomics (2015) from the University of Rome “Foro Italico”. He is currently a post-doc researcher at the University of Rome “Foro Italico”. His research focuses on endurance physiology and performance, with special attention to the mechanisms and practical applications underlying the control of breathing during exercise. He has worked for different research projects funded by major national and international sports companies, with the aim of developing new exercise tests and training metrics, and of validating training devices and algorithms. Details  

Nowadays we are assisting to the fourth industrial revolution. This was the main theme of the World Economy Forum 2016 (WeF), the worldwide foundation organizes each year in Davos a symposium where the main political and economic leaders in the World discuss about the emerging trends of economy, technology, environment and health. The title of the last event was “Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution”, the summit launched an alarm: until 2020 at least 5 million of work positions will be lost in the world because they will be substituted by robots and artificial intelligence. The report “The Future of Jobs” published by the WeF, highlights that we are assisting to the fourth industrial revolution that implies evolutions and developments in fields, such as artificial intelligence, machine-learning, robotic, nanotechnologies 3D Printer, genetics and biotechnologies. This revolution will determine a wide disruption not only of field of business models but also in the job market as highlighted by the responsible of the human resources of 350 among the most important factories in world representing 13 millions of employers located in 15 of the most important Countries in the world such as China, India, France, Germany, UK and USA. According to the same analysis the emerging job sectors of the fourth revolution that are (i) Energy, (ii) Financial Services, (iii) Health, (iv) ICT, (v) Media & Entertainment, and (vi) Logistic. All these changes are possible also thank to the recent developments in the field of metrology. As a matter of fact, monitoring remote physical phenomena and try to control them, it is possible thank to the developments of new sensors, acquisition techniques, improve data acquisition systems, and so on.

The Instrumentation and Measurement (IM) Italy Chapter, the IEEE Sensor Council and the IEEE Student Branch of Naples, in cooperation with IEEE Student Branch of Brescia and of Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, are proud to announce the MetroInd4.0&IoT 2019 IEEE Student Hackathon, which will be held during the 2019 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for Industry 4.0 & IoT (MetroInd4.0&IoT), Naples, Italy, June 4-6, 2019. The MetroInd4.0&IoT 2019 IEEE Student Hackathon aims to encourage the birth of new ideas and solutions for Industry and IoT fitting with the workshop topics. The Hackathon is open to students from all over the world, that are invited to form teams from 3 to 5 people to address challenges that have been promoted. The Hackathon will take place on 5 and 6 June 2019, eating will be informal, like pizza and energy drinks. Challenges Roobopoli (Promoted by STMicroeletronics, Bluenet and Perlatecnica) Minidrone Competition (Promoted by The MathWorks)

Soumyajyoti Maji, Trinity College Dublin ABSTRACT: Currently, gel-less electrodes are primarily employed in heart-rate monitors used largely in the field of sports and athletics. These devices only measure and display the value of the wearer’s heart-rate on a beat-to-beat basis. This information is largely used in an athletic training capacity rather than any clinical role. While these devices detect the ECG signal they do not preserve the morphology or profile of the signal which carries the clinical information on the state of the heart and cardiovascular system. This makes it easier to detect only the presence of the heartbeat and to suppress interference and artefactual signals which are generated by the movement and vigorous activity of the wearer of the device. Electrical characterization of the electrodes will provide knowledge not already available, which is essential for the correct interfacing of the electrodes with the recording amplifier. The performance requirements of the recording amplifier and conditioning circuitry in a dry electrode scenario is an order of magnitude more stringent than is the case using standard adhesive electrodes. This seminar will provide the suggestions and recommendations in developing dry ECG recording system for ambulatory monitoring of the human electrocardiogram. Soumyajyoti Maji, Trinity College Dublin Soumyajyoti Maji graduated with a B. Tech. degree in electronics and communication engineering from West Bengal University of Technology, Kolkata, India in 2015. He obtained the M. Eng. Sc. Degree from University College Dublin, Ireland in 2016. Thereafter, he worked as a Research Assistant in the School of Computer Science & Statistics, Trinity College Dublin from 2016-2017. He won the Best Graduate Student Paper and the Travel Grant Award at the 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications (MeMeA), Rome, Italy. He is currently carrying out research towards his PhD degree in Trinity College Dublin. He is also serving as a Part-Time Assistant Lecturer in Technological University (TU) Dublin-City Campus since 2019. He also serves as a reviewer in the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation & Measurement (TIM) Journal. He is also a member of the IEEE Medical and Biological Measurements (TC-25) society. His research interests are in biomedical electronics, instrumentation, and applications.       More details: Flyer

I dettagli sono riportati nella locandina Locandina Per maggiori informazioni rivolgersi all'Ing. Paolo Chiariotti (p.chiariotti@staff.univpm.it)

ABSTRACT It is important to recognize that high fidelity in the reproduction of the ECG waveform requires a measurement system that preserves the ECG features and provides amplification selective to the physiological signal while rejecting external interference and noise. The most obvious implication is that the presence of a frequency-dependent skin-electrode interface introduces distortion to the signal in its propagation from its source to the input of the recording amplifier, which may lead to misdiagnosis of serious cardiac conditions unless the front-end stage is adapted to the source impedance. Therefore, attention is given to investigating the close relationship between the low-frequency response of the skin-electrode-amplifier network and the input impedance characteristics of electrocardiographs. The transient response of ECG amplifiers is investigated in the light of the IEC 60601 performance standard for ECG recording equipment. Recent test result on several electrode models suggests that the undershoot limit of 100 μV and the recovery slope limit of 300 μV/s in response to a 3 mV, 100 ms rectangular pulse are violated when the recommended 10 MΩ input impedance at the input of the recording amplifier is used. Signal distortions appear in the form of an exaggeration of an S wave and depression in the ST segment, which could be misinterpreted clinically as signs of myocardial ischemia or the onset of myocardial infarction when using a real recorded ECG signal with the recommended 10 MΩ input impedance at the amplifier input. Analysis and test result recommend that an amplifier input impedance exceeding 3GΩ and a cut off frequency no higher than 0.05 Hz are necessary to meet the IEC 60601 performance standard and avoid distortion in the ECG signal. Soumyajyoti Maji, Trinity College Dublin Soumyajyoti Maji graduated with a B. Tech. degree in electronics and communication engineering from West Bengal University of Technology, Kolkata, India in 2015. He obtained the M. Eng. Sc. Degree from University College Dublin, Ireland in 2016. Thereafter, he worked as a Research Assistant in the School of Computer Science & Statistics, Trinity College Dublin from 2016-2017. He won the Best Graduate Student Paper and the Travel Grant Award at the 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications (MeMeA), Rome, Italy. He is currently carrying out research towards his PhD degree in Trinity College Dublin. He is also serving as a Part-Time Assistant Lecturer in Technological University (TU) Dublin-City Campus since 2019. He also serves as a reviewer in the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation & Measurement (TIM) Journal. He is also a member of the IEEE Medical and Biological Measurements (TC-25) society. His research interests are in biomedical electronics, instrumentation, and applications.   More details: Flyer

La cardiologia interventistica è quella branca della cardiologia che si occupa dello studio dell’elettrofisiologia cardiaca volto alla risoluzione di aritmie o del ripristino della normale circolazione sanguigna in presenza di eventi ischemici (emodinamica). In questo contesto, in particolare, l’elettrofisiologia endocavitaria è lo strumento adottato per lo studio della conduzione del segnale elettrico nel cuore, volto all’identificazione di anomalie che sono alla base di aritmie maligne farmaco-resistenti. Il problema alla base può essere la presenza di vie accessorie di conduzione del segnale che dovrebbe portare all’ordinata contrazione delle camere cardiache, di vie interne a tessuto necrotico in esiti di infarto del miocardio, di focolai ectopici, eccetera. L’esame elettrofisiologico prevede uno studio elettrofisiologico del paziente, mediato da una mappatura elettro-anatomica del cuore, e la pianificazione dell’intervento vero e proprio, che può prevedere ablazione di tessuto sano che sostiene l’aritmia o l’impianto di un defibrillatore o di un pacemaker. Scopo di questo seminario è la presentazione di questa affascinante branca della cardiologia, includendo sia aspetti clinici che aspetti ingegneristici, coinvolgendo tutte le figure che partecipano alla risoluzione del caso del singolo paziente, ovvero i cardiologi e i bioingegneri, i secondi chiamati a supportare i primi durante le procedure con continuità. Tali procedure sono brevemente presentate nel corso di Strumentazione Elettromedicale. RELATORI – Dott.ssa Graziana Viola, MD EP Staff, Ospedale San Francesco, Nuoro – Ing. Mirko Matraxia, Clinical Support Specialist presso Medical Concept Lab Srl – Ing. Viola Oppia, Technical Consultant presso Medica sas ORGANIZZATORE Ing. Danilo Pani, Università di Cagliari (pani@diee.unica.it)

For details: Flyer   Contact: Prof. Antonino Fiorillo (nino@unicz.it)

Dear colleagues and students, the 29th Summer PhD School of Information Engineering (SSIE) will take place in Brixen, Italy, at the University of Padova’s premises, from the 8th to the 12th of July 2019. Every year, we make our best to offer a rich, competent and exciting training program. This year, SSIE will be the IEEE Italy Section Summer School. We are really proud of collaborating with the IEEE and we are looking forward to meeting all of you this summer !!! A sneak peek into the school program SSIE 2019 explores the use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning techniques within ICT applications. The program will address: AI/ML theory: seminars on cutting edge AI/ML theory: “Deep Learning on Graphs” and “Explainable Artificial Intelligence”; Biomedical applications: ML for motion analysis, musculoskeletal modelling and simulation, biometric systems and encoding/decoding neuromorphic sensor data; Telecommunication networks: ML approaches towards novel physical channel and networking designs. New cutting edge & cross-disciplinary applications: the Tactile Internet; Cyber-security: cloud computing and access regulation. The school features three distinguished speeches and a half-day student workshop, where PhD students will present their technical work. We hope you will enjoy the school, Brixen, and take a bit of time to immerse yourself in the fresh air, exciting trails and stunning views of the surrounding alps!!! The organizing committee, Prof. Michele Rossi, University of Padova, Italy (director) Prof. Bernardo Tellini, Chair of IEEE Italy Section (co-director) Prof. Tiziana Tambosso, Past Chair of IEEE Italy Section (co-director) Prof. Gaudenzio Meneghesso, University of Padova, Italy (co-director)

Dear colleagues and students, the 29th Summer PhD School of Information Engineering (SSIE) will take place in Brixen, Italy, at the University of Padova’s premises, from the 8th to the 12th of July 2019. Every year, we make our best to offer a rich, competent and exciting training program. This year, SSIE will be the IEEE Italy Section Summer School. We are really proud of collaborating with the IEEE and we are looking forward to meeting all of you this summer !!! A sneak peek into the school program SSIE 2019 explores the use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning techniques within ICT applications. The program will address: AI/ML theory: seminars on cutting edge AI/ML theory: “Deep Learning on Graphs” and “Explainable Artificial Intelligence”; Biomedical applications: ML for motion analysis, musculoskeletal modelling and simulation, biometric systems and encoding/decoding neuromorphic sensor data; Telecommunication networks: ML approaches towards novel physical channel and networking designs. New cutting edge & cross-disciplinary applications: the Tactile Internet; Cyber-security: cloud computing and access regulation. The school features three distinguished speeches and a half-day student workshop, where PhD students will present their technical work. We hope you will enjoy the school, Brixen, and take a bit of time to immerse yourself in the fresh air, exciting trails and stunning views of the surrounding alps!!!