Rute Alexandra Borges de Almeida's Annual Report
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Brief description of the research activities:
Work was developed regarding 4 main research lines, as briefly explained below. <!--break-->
Development and validation of tools for biomedical signal processing. Specifically regarding the enhancement of the electrocardiogram (ECG) delineation methods, consolidation of modules in the MATLAB BioSigBrowser toolbox (with Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain, partners). Preliminar work has been done regarding an algorithm for signal quality quantification, including the a PEEC (Programa de Estágios Extra-Curricular) entitled “Quantificação da qualidade de um registo electrocardiográfico”, under which I had integrated a master student to work in this project and my supervision. I have also collaborated in the development and implementation of a strategy for cardiac auscultation signals automatic processing using stationary wavelet transform. This research project give place to a master dissertation on Computer Science, by the student Nuno Marques, and an oral presentation and publication at the international conference Computing in Cardiology 2013 (CINC2013).<!--break-->
European Spatial Agency (ESA) Head-Down Bed Rest studies (HDBR). Data from 2 more ESA campaigns that took place in 2012 and 2103 is now available. Analysis of the changes produced by HDBR over the beat-to-beat repolarization linear dependence on heart rate variability (HRV) were studied using AR-ARARX models. The quantification of the repolarization variability than can be linearly explained by HRV evidence that not only duration but also the variability of ventricular repolarization is affected by HDBR. A reduced ability for restore the linear dependence was found at the end of the bed-rest period. Results were presented at the 26th IEEE International Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems 2013 and CINC2013 and published in the respective proceedings. The collaboration with the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, on analysis using selective beat averaging proceeded and results were published in a European Space Agency Special Publication and in Acta Astronautica.
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Monitoring and data analysis in intensive care. Continued to collect and preprocess data from patients admitted in the pediatric intensive care unit of Hospital S. João (Porto) in order to increase the signal and series database of brain injured (BI) patients. Analysis using both AR-ARARX and ARFIMA-GARCH models found differences between BI patients that evolved to recovered versus brain death outcome. Results were reported at the Conference on Computing in CINC2013 and the national conference of the Sociedade Portuguesa de Estatística 2013.
Signal Processing in Obstetrics. A new wavelet based methodology was defined for fetal QRS location on abdominal maternal recordings, by adapting the automatic detection and delineation strategy for electrocardiograms. Validation was performed on the datasets provide by the Noninvasive Fetal ECG: the PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2013. Results were presented at the CINC2013.
External projects:
Procesado multimodal de señales biomédicas para el análisis y la caracterización fisiológica de afecciones cardiovasculares, respiratorias y autonómicas. (TEC2010-21703-C03-02, CICYT/FEDER, Spain)
Coordinator/Institution: Juan Pablo Martínez, GTC/I3A - UZ e CIBER – BBN, Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina (Espanha);
Other participating institutions: Centre de Recerca d’Enginyeria Biomédica (CREB) (Spain), Universitat Potécnica de Catalunya (Spain), Hospital Clínico Universitario “Lozano Blesa” de Zaragoza (Spain), Hospital Miguel Servet de Zaragoza (Spain), Lund University (Sweden), Universidade do Porto (Portugal), Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina).
Evaluation of changes in ventricular repolarization and its relationship with heart rate during bed-rest experiments. (AO-09-BR European Space Agency)
Coordinator/ Institution: Enrico G. Caiani, Politecnico di Milano (Italia);
Other participating institutions: GTC/I3A - UZ (Spain), CIBER-BBN (Spain), University of Bologna (Italy), Université Victor Segalen Bordeaux Université Paris Sud. (France)
Evaluation of changes in cardiac repolarization during bed rest experiments.
(AO-06-BR-08 European Space Agency)
Coordinator/ Institution: Enrico G. Caiani, Politecnico di Milano (Italia);
Other participating institutions: GTC/I3A - UZ (Spain), CIBER-BBN (Spain), Université Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2 (France), Université Paris Sud. (France)
CIBER en bioingeniería, biomateriales y nanomedicina (CIBER-BBN)
(Financiated by Instituto de Salud Carlos III. Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo, Spain)
Coordinator/ Institution: Pablo Laguna Lasaosa, GTC/I3A - UZ e Ciber – BBN (Spain);
Other participating institutions: 50 Spanish research groups, 47 of which are full members and 3 of which are associates.
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Seminars given (at CMUP):
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List of seminars in the framework of the collaboration CINTESIS / SPDA (CMUP) / CIBER-BBN:
“ BioSigBrowser, biosignal processing interface”, by Rute Almeida from CMUP, 15/01/2013 at CINTESIS.
“Signal Processing in Obstetrics”, by Hernâni Gonçalves from Center for Research in Health technologies and Information Systems –CINTESIS, 30/05/2013 at DMAT / FCUP, integrated in the Seminar Series in statistics, modeling and Computational applications (Joint organization of Numerical Analysis, Probability and Statistics And Signal Processing and Data Analysis CMUP areas).
“ Linear/Chaos HRV analysis in pregnant women before cesarean delivery “, by Juan Bolea from Grupo de Tecnologías de las Comunicaciones - Instituto de Investigación en Ingeniería de Aragón de la Universidad de Zaragoza (GTC – I3A), Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Aragón (IIS), CIBER de Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina (CIBER-BBN), Spain, 19/06/2013 at CINTESIS
Student Mentoring:
Editorial activities:
Collaboration as reviewer with the 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC’13), taking place 3-7 July 2013, at the Osaka International Convention Center, in Osaka, Japan.
Member of the Program Committee for the special track on fetal monitoring Signal Analysis of the 6th IEEE International Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems (CBMS 2013), held at the University of Porto, Porto, Portugal, from June 20th to 22th, 2013.
Collaboration as reviewer with the following scientific journals: IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Digital Signal Processing, Computers & Electrical Engineering, Medical Engineering & Physics.
Work visits:
Working visit to the Universidad de Zaragoza in the framework with the collaboration with the research team coordinated by Professor Pablo Laguna (GTC-I3A / CIBER-BBN), from the 19th to the 28th of September 2013, with the following working schedule:
- collaboration in the organization of the Computing in Cardiology 2013 conference, that took place at Universidad de Zaragoza between the 22nd and 25th of September
- work in the preparation of a journal paper, reporting the current results of the project "Evaluation of changes in cardiac repolarization during bed rest experiments"
(AO-06-BR-08 European Space Agency).
- coordination of the tasks that involve the researcher in the ongoing project "Procesado multimodal de señales biomédicas para el análisis y la caracterización fisiológica de afecciones cardiovasculares, respiratorias y autonomicas" (TEC2010-21703-C03-02, CICYT/FEDER, Spain) and planning future collaboration work, namely with respect to the submission of a new project by the Zaragoza partners for 2014-2016