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.

Source: UPV’s Information Office

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.

Source: UPV’s Information Office

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.

Source: UPV’s Information Office

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”.

More information at http://www.lalaby.es.

Reference

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

The Instituto de Tecnología de Valencia and the Universitat Politècnica de València have presented the Medicarama Chair in Technology and Health, which aims to develop health technologies, promote and disseminate scientific advances and codes of good practice, as well as boost innovative digital education solutions in the field of healthcare.

José Manuel Martínez, CEO of the Instituto de Tecnología de Valencia and a graduate in Telecommunications Engineering from the UPV, and Pepe Capilla, Rector of the Universitat Politècnica de València, along with other representatives from both organisations, took part in the presentation ceremony.

Satisfaction with the collaboration

According to José Manuel Martínez, CEO of the Instituto de Tecnología de Valencia, the Medicarama Chair is an opportunity in many ways because “it allows us to collaborate with other companies and organisations for the benefit of society. Likewise, maintaining close contact with the UPV community makes it easier for us to keep a close eye on the progress of technology and learn more about the different research and innovation groups at the UPV to identify possible collaborations. Finally, the relationship with students always brings youth, dynamism and new ideas to the companies”. The CEO of the Instituto de Tecnología de Valencia has expressed his satisfaction at being able to collaborate with the university where he studied and to be able to contribute to society and the UPV, thanks to the training he received.

Training, research and learning

UPV professor José Millet, director of the Medicarama Chair, said that the Chair will promote activities of general interest to society and university students, such as prizes for the best projects, idea competitions and hackathons, as well as master’s degrees, courses, seminars, workshops and conferences on the use of new technologies in healthcare organisations.

On the other hand, research actions will be developed to explore machine-student interactions for learning and evaluation with artificial intelligence of health professionals.

Finally, the Chair will advance learning methodologies for these professionals through the use of technology, as well as promote the use of the same; it will also provide UPV students and staff with knowledge about health areas and promote active ageing and healthy living.

Valencia Institute of Technology

The Instituto de Tecnología de Valencia aims to provide higher and continuing education in the field of medicine and health, as well as training and further education services and career development in the health sector, the publication of publications and the organisation of scientific projects and events.

The Instituto de Tecnología de Valencia has collaborated for years in training UPV students in the field of Telecommunications and Biomedical Engineering by means of internships in companies.

Source: UPV’s Information Office

Eduardo Rojas Briales, professor at the School of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering (ETSIAMN) and researcher at the ITACA Institute of the Universitat Politècnica de València, has been appointed member of the Advisory Committee of the CIHEAM (International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies), an intergovernmental organisation created in 1962 under the auspices of the Council of Europe and the OECD.

This entity seeks to promote cooperation between Mediterranean countries through postgraduate training and the promotion of cooperative research in agriculture and natural resources.

To this end, it carries out problem-solving activities structured around four main lines of action: protection of the planet, inclusive development, food security and crisis and resilience to contribute to conflict resolution.

CIHEAM has 4 Mediterranean Agronomic Institutes located in Bari (Italy), Chania (Greece), Montpellier (France) and Zaragoza (Spain), and is composed of the following member countries: Albania, Algeria, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey.

With the appointment of Eduardo Rojas, there are now two professors from the ETSIAMN who are linked to this organisation, following the appointment of Raúl Compés as director of the International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM) Zaragoza.

Who is Eduardo Rojas?

Eduardo Rojas Briales holds a degree in Forestry Engineering from the University of Freiburg (Germany) and a PhD in Forestry Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. Since 2001 he has been a lecturer at the ETSIAMN, where he has taught forestry, sustainable forest management, European forest resources, nurseries and reforestation, landscaping and gardening, pastureland, forest breeding, renewable energies, disturbances, and climate change and fires.

Related to his university activity, in 2004, he was appointed Deputy Director of Academic Coordination of the ETSIAMN, being a key figure in developing the curriculum of the new Degree in Forestry and Natural Environment Engineering. He is currently a member of the University Institute of Information and Communication Technologies (ITACA) of the UPV. From 2017 to 2020, he coordinated the training programme that the Indian Forest Service organised for its future foresters abroad.

He is currently the Dean and President of the Official College of Forestry Engineers and the Association of Forestry Engineers, positions he has held since 2016. He is also the president of the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), “the most important forest certification organisation in the world”, and since 2022 he has been a member of the board of trustees of the Fundació Pau Costa.

Previously, he was Assistant Director-General of the FAO and head of its Forestry Department (2010-2015) and UN Commissioner-General for Expo Milano 2015. He has also been the coordinator of Juntos por los Bosques (2016-22). This platform brings together the entire forestry sector in Spain.

Source: UPV’s Information Office

Luis Nuño, a Professor and researcher at the ITACA Institute of the Universitat Politècnica de Valencia, has just published a new paper in the internationally renowned Journal of Mathematics and Music.

Mathematics has always been a solid foundation of music theory. Thus, for instance, we currently use the equal temperament with 12 notes per octave; and, during the “common practice” period (around 1650 to 1900), the compositions are based on “tonal harmony”, specifically chords with 3 or 4 notes (triads or tetrads), whose notes belong to a few types of 7-note or heptatonic scales, mainly the major scale and some types of minor scales. Additionally, given a set of notes, its “complement” consists of the rest of the twelve notes. Regarding “post-tonal” music, since the early 20th century, some composers began experimenting with specific techniques based on transpositions, inversions, and other mathematical relations among the 12 notes.

It is common among musicians to know that a major scale contains 3 triads of the major-chord type. However, what is not so common is to know that, reciprocally, the complement of a major chord (which is a set of nine notes) also contains 3 complements of major scales (which are of the major-pentatonic type). This “complementary reciprocity” is established in the first of twelve recently published theorems. All of them were obtained considering an arbitrary number n of notes per octave (mathematically, for Zn) and relate the contents of the different scale types (with c notes) with respect to the different chord types (with m notes). The results are expressed as vectors and matrices, with a purely mathematical formalism.

From the engineering point of view, the elements of those vectors and matrices are “higher-order autocorrelations”, also known as “k-deck”, which are present in many fields of knowledge. Particularly, the 2-deck is used in “phase retrieval” problems, which arise when measuring a complex quantity (normally, the Fourier transform of a real quantity) and, due to different factors, only the magnitude can be obtained, but not the phase. Thus, the problem is finding the phase from the magnitude, for which some authors have proposed using the 3-deck. On the other hand, a “coded” version of the k-deck, with different values of k, is used in the “reconstruction problem” of specific information from fragments of it, which also gives rise to complex combinatorial problems.

We can find examples of those kinds of problems in such diverse scientific and technological areas as microscopy, holography, crystallography, neutron radiography, optical coherence tomography, diffraction grating design, reconstruction of character sequences, reconstruction of graphs, radar signal processing or quantum mechanics, to name a few.

This paper focuses on the discrete periodic problem and obtaining the vector and matrix relations among the k-deck and other related values, considering from k=0 to k=n, which provides a global insight and a detailed knowledge of these parameters. Furthermore, it seems likely to apply these ideas to other problems. The paper can be downloaded here.

For the third consecutive year, the Innovation Days Valencia 2022 (i-Days) will take place at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) on 4 and 5 November. The i-Days promote healthcare innovation among university students through dozens of one- and two-day programmes held at academic institutions across Europe.

Students from all academic areas receive an introduction to the practical tools of healthcare innovation and compete in teams to tackle real-life healthcare challenges posed by the EIT Health, local organisations, private corporations or start-ups.

i-Days are accessible to all undergraduate and postgraduate students with an interest in healthcare innovation. You do not need any prerequisite skills or prior experience in innovation, entrepreneurship or healthcare. There are no academic requirements and students from all disciplines and departments are welcome to join.

The winning team from each i-Day will attend an all-expenses-paid event in Vienna to compete in the EIT-Health Winner’s Event. This final competition brings together students from across Europe.

Organised by EIT Health and the ITACA Institute of Universitat Politècnica de València together with IDEAS UPV, the event is sponsored and supported by Conselleria d’Innovació Universitats Ciència i Societat Digital, Ajuntament de València, Ajuntament de Gandia, Dextromedica, S.L., MYSPHERA, Quibim, with the collaboration of Fundació Fisabio, SaforSalut, CiberCV, etc.

For more information, please visit: https://idays.webs.upv.es/.

Climate change has driven countries and organisations worldwide to search for solutions to help mitigate or prevent its effects. While forests are suffering, they are also crucial to reducing emissions, as they are the most critical earth’s carbon sinks: they sequester carbon by capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and transforming it into biomass.

However, this process is threatened by the increase in natural disasters, now more frequent due to the current climate emergency. In this context, the Information and Communication Technologies against Climate Change (ICTvsCC) group of the ITACA institute of the UPV (Universitat Politècnica de València) is coordinating INFORMA, the major European forestry research project in the new Horizon Europe programme to improve forest management in this context.

14 partners, 8 EU countries and 5 regions

The project, which has a total budget of €5.3 million and 14 partners from 8 EU countries, has a duration of four years. Its main objective is to develop and implement the best sustainable forest management practices in the five most representative biogeographical regions across Europe (Atlantic, Mediterranean, Continental, Alpine and Boreal) and under future climate change scenarios to preserve carbon sinks and promote carbon sequestration while conserving their biodiversity and renewable natural resources.

In addition, INFORMA also aims to contribute with scientific rigour to the methodologies of quantification, monitoring, review and verification of existing carbon offset market instruments in Europe, especially in sustainable forest management actions in Mediterranean ecosystems. In Spain, carbon compensation mechanisms are the primary tool for payment for environmental services today, as they already have demand (sectors and companies with diffuse emissions), supply (public and private forest owners) and regulatory mechanisms, such as the Carbon Footprint Registry of the Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge.

Forest fires, the main threat

“In our country, the main threat to the preservation of ecosystems and carbon stocks is forest fires, as has become evident after the fires that occurred this summer in the Valencian Region. This type of disturbance is the main field of research in the pilot areas in the Mediterranean region, where the project will analyse the interactions between the current state of the forest, its sustainable management alternatives and the climate. In this way, the project will allow the implementation of best practices for adaptive management to climate change in the different types of Mediterranean forest ecosystems, but also the mitigation by forest bioeconomy, i.e. the optimisation of carbon sequestration in managed forests and the industrial transformation and consumption of the main forest products (wood, cork, biomass, resins, etc.) as substitutes for materials and products coming from fossil or non-renewable sources with a high impact on greenhouse gas emissions” says José-Vicente Oliver, director of the ICTvsCC-ITACA group at the UPV and general coordinator of the INFORMA project.

Moreover, the project will contribute directly with its results to the development of the European Forestry Strategy 2030, currently being negotiated by the EU Commission, as well as to the MOSAIC Strategy of the General Directorate of Forest Fire Prevention of the Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development, Climate Emergency and Ecological Transition of the Valencian Regional Government (GV) and the recently announced Forestry Cooperation Fund by the Presidency of the GV for the coming years, whose objectives are the prevention and mitigation of the effects of forest fires on forest ecosystems and society, through the sustainable integrated management of agroforestry territory.

Source: UPV’s Information Office

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

For his spirit of collaboration, his sense of commitment, and his ability to generate consensus in EIT Health activities, the winner of the Jaime Prat 2022 Award has been Vicente Traver Salcedo, professor at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and head of the Health and Wellbeing Area (SABIEN) of the ITACA Institute. The election of the winner took place on 17 October after being approved by the Members in General Assembly, based on the criteria recognised in the legal bases of the award.

The award, created in 2021, aims to recognise the commitment and collaboration of the winners with the EIT Health Spain health innovation ecosystem, as well as to pay tribute to the figure of Jaime Prat, secretary of the EIT Health Spain Governing Board and deputy director of the Institute of Biomechanics (IBV), who passed away in March last year.

EIT Health is the largest and most extensive community of health innovators in Europe. In 2021 alone and in Spain it has attracted more than 60 million euros through the startups with which it collaborates, led 8 innovation projects financed with 8.3 million euros, and trained more than 8231 executives and health professionals through the 11 educational programmes it has led.

The award is endowed with 5,000 euros to be used in collaboration and training actions within the EIT Health network. The award is part of EIT Health Spain’s philosophy and objectives to promote the connection of all relevant agents in the health innovation ecosystem to maximise synergies and cover the entire value chain.

Source: EIT Health Spain