Under the title “The importance of not trivialising the Covid19 pandemic: Lessons we should learn to adapt better to what is coming“, the renowned epidemiology expert Daniel López-Acuña will give a talk on Thursday, 1 June at 19:00 at the Polytechnic City of Innovation of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). The event is in collaboration with the Fisabio Foundation and is part of the Medicarama Chair in Technology and Health.
The lecture will address issues of vital relevance. While some may consider the Covid19 crisis to be a thing of the past, studies indicate that we will face new challenges in the near future. In this context, it is crucial to ask ourselves fundamental questions: Are we adequately prepared? What have we learned so far? Will we persist in repeating the same mistakes?
These questions, among others, will be the subject of an enriching debate in the framework of this lecture, in which Daniel López-Acuña will share his vast knowledge. His ability to communicate and transmit information clearly and accurately has been evidenced in several television interventions during and after the pandemic.
The event is open to the public, although it is important to note that capacity is limited. It is therefore recommended that you arrive well in advance to guarantee a place. Take advantage of this valuable opportunity to learn from one of the leading epidemiology experts and reflect on how we can adapt more effectively to the challenges ahead.
If you are unable to attend, you can also follow it online. To do so, you must register here. You will receive an invitation from Zoom to connect.
Gandia City Council, together with the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), EIT Health and the ITACA Institute of UPV, are organising the Gandia Health Campus, a Hackathon in which through different challenges on health and wellbeing, teams must propose the best solutions to the challenges presented.
During a weekend, learning, teamwork and fun will be combined while solving a current challenge in the field of health and wellness, guided by specialists in ChatGPT, no-Code, creativity, innovation and business models.
There will be music, activities, training pills, and everything needed for a different kind of weekend. There will also be lots of PRIZES.
The Hackathon will take place on the 29th and 30th of April in Gandia Beach for 28 hours uninterrupted. The organisers will provide coffee and lunch.
A team from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), belonging to the ITACA-SABIEN group, has taught throughout last week an international course on Big Data in Health organised by the European regional office of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The course, held in Valencia, was attended by around thirty experts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Georgia, working on research/knowledge integration and policy development on Big Data in the field of health.
The WHO regional officer for the European region continues its collaboration with the UPV for the second year for this course due to its knowledge and proven experience in Big Data and Health after the implementation and application of these tools in the Valencian health environment, thanks to work developed by the ITACA-SABIEN group of the UPV.
The concept of Big Data is already more than a trend. Moreover, in the healthcare field, the growth in the volume of health-related data generated has been a constant over the last 30 years, with the widespread adoption in healthcare institutions of electronic health data, digital imaging, clinical prescription, patient management, patient monitoring, clinical decision support systems, laboratory information systems and a long list of specialised systems.
“This amount of data generated daily offers a great opportunity for the sector, incorporating Big Data functions as a key element to optimise healthcare systems and reduce inequalities,” explains Vicente Traver, director of the SABIEN group at the ITACA Institute of the Politècnica de València.
Spring School of the WHO regional office for the European region
The course “Impact Training on Big Data in Health Systems” is part of the implementation of the regional digital health action plan for the European region for the period 2023-2030, promoted by the Regional Office for Europe of the World Health Organization, through its Health Policies and Systems Division (HPS).
Throughout the week, different lectures, exercises, visits and group work have taken place, and all attendees have also developed a roadmap to successfully deploy a Big Data for Health use case in their respective national health systems.
“In this way, the course has provided ideas and solutions to improve national health information systems that are directly applicable to the country situations of each participant. We have offered them the keys to boost Big Data, from defining their implementation strategy and ensuring investment to, for example, taking advantage of the enormous potential of Artificial Intelligence in this field,” concludes Antonio Martínez, senior researcher and co-director of the course.
On European Cardiovascular Risk Prevention Day, the PersonalizeAF project, coordinated by the Universitat Politècnica de València through the ITACA Institute, draws attention to the growing number of people affected by atrial fibrillation (AF). This cardiac arrhythmia causes irregular and abnormally fast heart rhythms, which leads to a deterioration in the quality of life and can cause strokes and even death. In fact, people with AF are five times more likely to have a stroke than those without an arrhythmia.
Today, AF affects more than 6 million Europeans and 43 million people worldwide, and this number is expected to double in the coming decades. Consequently, the need for personalised patient treatment solutions, such as diagnostic tools and tailor-made cardiovascular therapies, is multiplying to address this epidemic.
The PersonalizeAF project is funded by the European Union’s H2020 programme. It aims to increase the number of AF patients diagnosed and successfully treated. Through advanced diagnostic tools and personalised treatments, millions of people with AF can benefit from a better quality of life and a reduced risk of cardiovascular events. The PersonalizeAF project, an ITN MSCA initiative, aims to change the AF diagnosis and treatment paradigm through personalised diagnostic techniques and individualised therapies. This multidisciplinary programme, carried out by 15 early-stage researchers based in different European countries, brings together experts from various disciplines, including engineers, clinicians and biologists, all working towards improving AF treatment and patient outcomes.
“As AF becomes more common, it is more important than ever to prioritise cardiovascular health and take steps to prevent heart disease. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including regular exercise and a balanced diet, can help to reduce the risk of developing AF and other heart conditions,” concludes Maria Guillem, deputy director of the ITACA Institute at the Universitat Politècnica de València and coordinator of the PersonalizeAF project.
Within the framework of the Jeanologia Mission Zero Chair, attached to the ITACA Institute, a Hackathon will be held, which seeks innovative and sustainable solutions for garment finishing in the textile industry and its automation. For the organisation and development of the Hackathon, the Jeanologia Mission Zero Chair has the collaboration of the IDEAS Institute of UPV and the Colegio Oficial de Graduados e Ingenieros Técnicos Industriales (COGITI Valencia).
The Hackathon is aimed at UPV students and graduates from the previous year. The first prize is 4,000 euros and there are also two second prizes of 500 euros.
The registration period ends on March 31, 2023. The Hackathon will take place on April 25 at UPV. The best solutions will be presented at the Jeanologia company on May 2.
Mathematics is one of the fundamental pillars of music; it is the basis, for example, of different musical theories; or of algorithmic composition, a technique based on the use of algorithms to create new scores. And both disciplines have also been the passion, for years, of Luis Nuño, a researcher at the Universitat Politècnica de València.
In 2020, Luis Nuño created an innovative musical periodic table, and a few years earlier, he presented different musical abacuses. Now, the Journal of Mathematics and Music publishes the results of the fusion of his two great passions: twelve new theorems for music and engineering (under the title “vectors and matrices of types and classes”). His work makes musical composition even more mathematical. It facilitates musical piece analysis “because many modern works cannot be analysed with classical harmony”.
According to Nuño, “With this work, we have complete information that relates each set of notes to any other and to its complementary. This makes it easier to compose using all this information. Now you have a set of notes with a certain sonority and can establish relationships from their subsets. This approach makes generating this coherence in musical composition relatively easy.” Luis Nuño, who conducts his research activity at the University Institute of Information and Communication Technologies (ITACA) of the UPV, emphasises that “It adds more theory to the analysis of contemporary composition”.
As Nuño points out, mathematics has always firmly supported music theory. Thus, for example, twelve notes per octave are commonly used; and, during the period of what is known as “common practice” (approximately from 1650 to 1900), musical compositions were based on “tonal harmony”, namely 3- or 4-note chords belonging to a few types of 7-note scales, mainly the major scale and various types of minor scales. Concerning “post-tonal” music, since the beginning of the 20th century, compositional techniques based on transpositions, inversions and other mathematical relationships between the twelve notes have been used.
“This work goes one step further. Aimed at mathematical musicians and musical mathematicians, it proposes a new way of composing, new theorems, using n notes per octave and relating the contents of the different types of scales for the different types of chords. The results are expressed as vectors and matrices, in a purely mathematical form, facilitating musical composition and analysis,” adds Luis Nuño.
The UPV professor explains that the elements of these vectors and matrices are known as “k-decks”, which are also used in scientific and technological areas as diverse as microscopy, holography, crystallography, radar signal processing and quantum mechanics. “This work transfers these concepts to the field of music theory and composition, reinforcing the relationship that has always existed between mathematics and music”, concludes Luis Nuño.
On March 3, at 12:00 p.m. in the Maxwell Room (4D building) of the Higher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de València, the reading and defense of the Doctoral Thesis “Proposed Use of the Process Choreography Paradigm to Create eHealth Systems in Heterogeneous Environments” by Mr. José Luis Bayo Montón are scheduled.
The Directors of the Doctoral Thesis are Vicente Traver Salcedo, Carlos Fernández Llatas and Antonio Martínez Millana, researchers of ITACA Institute.
A team from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), belonging to the Sabien group of ITACA Institute, in collaboration with the Joint Research Unit on ICT applied to Reengineering in Healthcare Processes (ERPSS) of the La Fe Health Research Institute (IIS La Fe) and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), has developed an innovative tool that makes clinical data more accessible and helps health professionals to monitor the care processes of cancer patients, facilitating the monitoring of their evolution and decision-making for their treatment. Their results have been published in the journal Frontiers in Oncology.
Cancer is a primary public concern in Europe, accounting for almost a quarter of all cases worldwide. The prevalence of this disease has increased dramatically over the last two decades, which means a very high number of patients who need to be followed up and their specific needs addressed.
“Hospitals collect much medical information related to cancer care in this context. But once collected, it is tough for healthcare professionals to access it effectively and use it to support their decision-making for patient treatment. And this is precisely what our work avoids,” explains Zoe Valero, a researcher in the Sabien-ITACA group at the UPV.
“Clinical experts tell us that they are interested in this type of tool to measure and improve health outcomes and patient experience during the care process. However, their development and implementation are not straightforward, as they have to face three major challenges: first, to have data of sufficient quality to be able to take advantage of these tools; second, to have the active participation of the healthcare professionals involved in the process; and finally, to present the information clearly so that it is useful for decision-making”, explain Gonzalo Collantes, a biomedical engineer at ERPSS, and Bernardo Valdivieso, leader of this research group at IIS La Fe.
Thus, the tool analyses the oncological processes of patients using data from different sources, specifically clinical cases and information provided by the patients themselves. Using process mining techniques, it infers highly relevant information for medical staff, facilitating decision-making.
“It is the only one specifically designed to apply Interactive Process Mining methodologies in the fight against cancer. In addition, oncology experts have participated directly in its design, unlike other Artificial Intelligence technologies, which are black boxes for professionals,” says Zoe Valero.
In this sense, Carlos Fernández Llatas, also a researcher at Sabien-ITACA UPV, stresses that, in the field of clinical tools, it is essential to consider the expectations, needs and requirements of end users to ensure their use, hence the importance of our tool. “In addition, its use not only allows for a better understanding of the patient’s process but also, in the face of advances in medicine, helps to understand the advantages and disadvantages of new treatments and new technologies in their treatment.
New indicators for monitoring prostate cancer patients
The tool was tested with anonymised data from 1,267 patients diagnosed with prostate cancer. Following the interactive and co-creation methodology proposed by the Interactive Process Mining paradigm, experts in process mining and prostate cancer have collaborated to develop an Interactive Process Indicator (IPI) to understand the evolution and follow-up of prostate cancer patients from the moment of diagnosis.
“We hope that these indicators can be standardised so that they can be adapted to other medical centres and serve to better understand oncological processes and optimise treatments,” says Zoe Valero.
European project
The tool has been developed within the framework of the European LifeChamps project. Its first results represent the starting point towards a more ambitious scenario within the project, which includes its validation in real conditions, with four pilot studies in Greece, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Spain.
“In these studies, our tool will support oncology professionals involved in the follow-up of 250 patients over 50 diagnosed with prostate, breast or melanoma cancer,” concludes Carlos Fernández Llatas.
For almost a hundred years, the primary way to diagnose a patient with cardiac arrhythmia has been using a standard electrocardiogram (ECG). This technique allows the detection of these pathologies, but it is hardly helpful to identify the most appropriate treatment for each patient. In recent years, a new technology called Electrocardiographic Imaging (ECGi) has been developed. ECGi allows the maps of cardiac activity to be viewed non-invasively, without the need for surgery or catheters. It is known as the “ECG of the 21st century”. However, it has a major drawback: it requires the patient to have a combined CT and ECGi scan, which limits its use only to highly complex patients and in leading centres worldwide.
Now, a study by a team from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and the company Corify Care has opened a new way to help clinicians and make ECGi a routine clinical application tool.
In their work, published in the Journal of Electrocardiology, they evaluated the possibilities of using ECGi without CT/MRI to detect atrial fibrillation, the most common cardiac arrhythmia. In Spain alone, more than 1 million people suffer from this arrhythmia. It is estimated that there are more than 40 million worldwide. Their proposal makes it possible to locate patients’ hearts and obtain maps of electrical activity quickly.
The UPV and CorifyCare team analysed surface signals from 25 patients with atrial fibrillation and compared the effect of using ECGi with imaging techniques and their proposed ECGI with an estimated cardiac geometry based on the anatomical characteristics of the patient’s torso.
Their results validate non-imaging ECGi as a robust technique for the non-invasive assessment of atrial fibrillation, demonstrating that it can provide detailed information about the electrical activity of the heart in a much more comprehensive way than conventional ECGs. “This will help to detect and diagnose cardiac arrhythmias more accurately and to plan the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias in the operating theatre more efficiently, as they provide precise information on the location and extent of the arrhythmias,” adds Dr María Guillem, a researcher in the COR-Instituto ITACA group at the Universitat Politècnica de València.
Rubén Molero, also a researcher in the COR-Instituto ITACA group at the Universitat Politècnica de València, adds that, in addition to reducing patients’ exposure to ionising radiation such as CT scans to obtain their cardiac geometry, this technique also reduces the time and costs of this technology, “making it more universal and facilitating its introduction into clinical practice”.
This technology, patented before its publication, is being developed and is starting its commercial phases from the spin-off Corify Care, the winner, among others, of the award for best European innovation of the year 2020 by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.
As Andreu Climent, researcher of the study and CEO of the company, points out, “the ability to obtain maps of the heart’s electrical activity in a few minutes and safely allows progress, both in atrial fibrillation and in many other arrhythmias, to increase the accuracy of invasive procedures”.
The study has been developed in the framework of different projects funded by the Generalitat Valenciana Conselleria d’Educació, Investigació, Cultura i Esport, the Agencia Estatal de Investigación and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology in Health (EIT-Health).
Reference
Molero R, González-Ascaso A, Climent AM, Guillem MS. Robustness of imageless electrocardiographic imaging against uncertainty in atrial morphology and location. J Electrocardiol. 2023 Jan 3;77:58-61. doi: 10.1016/j.jelectrocard.2022.12.007. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36634462.
Lalaby is a novel non-invasive monitoring tool for Quality of Life (QoL) through the patients’ Smartphones, which is currently testing on a lung cancer patient at Hospital Universitario Doctor Peset de Valencia. The first results have been recently published in the International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction under the title “Testing Lung Cancer Patients’ and Oncologists’ Experience with the Lalaby App for Monitoring the Quality of Life through Mobile Sensors and Integrated Questionnaires”.
The serial objective and subjective information in real-time on the patient’s QoL, provided by the Lalaby app, could contribute to more personalized, efficient, and effective therapeutic decision-making by oncologists. With the Lalaby app, patients continuously monitor their QoL between consultations, which could positively impact their treatment, management of their symptoms, peace of mind, and satisfaction with the medical care received. In addition, the Lalaby app contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) corresponding to “3. Health & Wellness”.
Sabina Asensio-Cuesta, Ángel Sánchez-García, Teresa Soria Comes, Inmaculada Maestu, Maria Martín Ureste, J. Alberto Conejero & Juan M. García-Gómez (2022) Testing Lung Cancer Patients’ and Oncologists’ Experience with the Lalaby App for Monitoring the Quality of Life through Mobile Sensors and Integrated Questionnaires, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, DOI: 10.1080/10447318.2022.2121561
