Biomedical Informatics calls for papers / meetings & conferences

Call for Abstracts: American Society of Clinical Oncology Quality Care Symposium

Novembe 1-2, 2013 San Diego, California

Abstract Submission Deadline: July 2, 2013, at 11:59 PM (EDT)

ASCO's Quality Care Symposium will bring together leaders in the fields of quality, health services research, and oncology outcomes to present applied practice innovations and share methods for measuring and improving the quality of cancer care. Designed to address critical questions and provide healthcare professionals with the tools needed to administer superior care, the two-day Symposium will feature applicable, patient-focused educational sessions, panel discussions, and abstract presentations. ASCO is now accepting abstracts for the scientific program, which includes Poster and Oral Abstract Sessions.

Abstracts may be submitted to the following categories:

Health Reform: Implications for Costs and Quality

■ Evolving Relationship of Payers and Providers

■ Measuring Value and Costs

■ Payment and Insurance Reform

■ The Changing Landscape of Provider Organizations

■ Specialty and Manpower Issues

Practice of Quality

■ Involving Patients in Quality Care

■ Learning from Projects Done in a Practice

■ Learning from Projects Done in a Health System

■ Patient Safety

■ Use of IT to Improve Quality

Science of Quality

■ Communication, Decision Making, and Behavior

■ HIT Analytics

■ Quality Improvement

■ Quality Measurement

■ Studies Using Registries or Combining Large Databases

Call for Papers: 10th International Conference on Ubiquitous Healthcare

September 12-14, 2013 Yokohama, Japan

Paper Submission Deadline: July 19 (Fri.), 2013

Track Categories

Non-intrusive Measurement

Sensors for u-Healthcare

Ambient assisted living & smart homes

Body sensor/area networks

Signal and Data Processing

Wireless/Mobile Healthcare System

Home Healthcare System

Emergency Healthcare System

Telemedicine

Sleep Monitoring & Evaluation

Cardiovascular Informatics

u-Healthcare for The Elderly

Brain Computer Interface

Therapeutic & Rehabilitation Methods

Energy Scavenging Technologies

Informatics for Assistive Technologies

Contact Person

Toshiyo Tamura
E-mail: tamurat@isc.osakac.ac.jp

Call for Papers: Bias in Health Data

Autumn Conference of the Section
Sociology of Medicine and Health of the
German Sociological Association
03/04 October 2013
European University Institute, Florence, Italy

Public health research is based mainly on two different types of data: register data and survey data. Cases recorded in register data (such as hospital or insurance data) are the result of a selection process with several biases. For example, hospital data undergo several selection stages beginning with the definition of a mental or physical state such as being ill or dysfunctional, the decision to use medical care, the subsequent diagnosis by a physician and the decision for or against a particular treatment and finally the choice for stationary versus ambulant treatment. Independently of medical or health issues, social mechanisms also bias the filtering process at each stage. This fact is of minor concern when using hospital data to describe the population of a hospital, however, the problems begin when data are used to estimate the prevalence of diseases depending, for instance, on gender, social class, or age:

Gender is correlated with sensitivity to symptoms and the means of accessing medical care, while social class influences the conditions of health insurance and therefore also the cost of a particular treatment; older people are more likely to choose inpatient treatment since they may not be able to cope with the situation at home, which is also relevant for hospital data.

Survey data in health research is often based on answers from respondents who are medical laypeople. Respondents may systematically over- or underestimate the occurrence of a particular disease, i.e. the statistical error (false positive, false negative) is systematically biased by the respondents ́ degree of health knowledge and sensitivity to symptoms, which in turn depends on the educational background, gender and so on. Educational background is highly correlated with the degree of health knowledge, which is needed to identify a physical or mental state as “disease”. The more complex the symptoms (as with mental diseases, for example), the more health knowledge is needed in order to classify the symptoms as being connected with a disease or condition.

The conference should shed more light on these social mechanisms creating systematic biases in health data. Presentations could focus on the following theoretical, empirical or methodological issues:

Which data type (register versus survey data) is affected by which biases?

Which systematic biases in register data occur due to systematic differences in...

... access and usage of medical care?

... physicians ́ diagnoses?

... the decision for and against medical treatment?

... the decision for ambulant versus stationary treatment?

How is survey data biased by determinants such as health knowledge?

Regarding known biases of survey methodology: What is special about health data?



We have a number of preferences within the topic of "bias in health data": First, we are especially interested in presentations focusing on bias es in measures of health. Biases in other data (e.g. prevalence of risk factors or socioeconomic status) are also relevant and presentations dealing with such related topics will also be considered. Second, we are mostly interested in biases that pertain to data used in health research and less in general biases already well-known from general survey methodology. Finally, we focus more on biases based on social mechanisms (e.g. due to different perceptions of health in different social groups) than e.g. on the technical problem of moving from one version of the International Classification of Diseases to the next.

We will also provide an extra time slot for presentations that deal with other topics of sociology of medicine and health.

Please submit your abstract (about one page) via email to rasmus.hoffmann@eui.eu and cgross@soziologie.uni-kiel.de by
31 May 2013. Letters of acceptance/rejection will be sent by 21 June 2013.

A small conference fee will be charged to cover two meals, coffee, water and snacks. More detailed information about the location, conference schedule and accommodation options will be provided by the end of June. The best presentations will be selected and presenters will be invited to submit a full paper after the conference to be published in a special issue volume of an international health journal edited by Christiane Gross and Rasmus Hoffmann.

Organization:

Rasmus Hoffmann (European University Institute/Erasmus Medical Center)

Christiane Gross (University of Kiel)

Call for Papers: Fourth International Conference on Information and Communication Technology & Accessibility

October, 24-26, 2013, Hammamet, Tunisia

Deadlines:

June  20, 2013 : Submission of papers

June  20, 2013 : Poster/demonstration Submission

The Fourth International Conference on ICT & Accessibility is organized by the Research Laboratory of Technologies of Information and Communication & Electrical engineering (LaTICE), of the University of Tunis in collaboration with The Computing Center EL KHAWARIZMI (CCK), with the  Co-sponsorship of IEEE Tunisian Section  and with the support of:
 
- The Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education and  Scientific Research

- The University of Tunis

- The Tunisian association of e-accessibility

- ENSIT

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

• Accessible mobile environments.

• Mobile apps for people with disabilities.

• Software engineering for accessibility.

• Cloud Computing and Assistive Technology services.

• E-learning and accessibility.

• E-learning tools and environments for people with disabilities.

• Human Computer Interfaces for people with disabilities.

• Usability and Ergonomics.

• Web accessibility.

• End user tools for accessibility.

• Assistive technology.

• Technology design for people with multiple impairments.

• Accessibility and usability.

• E-Aging and Gerontechnology.

• Assistive Technology.

• Design for All.

• ICT for inclusive education.

• Automatic translation of Sign languages.

• Technologies for improving communication with Deaf people.

• Representation and Processing of Sign Languages.

Questions about the Conference should be directed to Program Chair: Prof. Mohamed JEMNI,
E-mail: mohamed.jemni@fst.rnu.tn
Phone : +216 71 602 944 / Fax : +216 71 601 930

Call for Papers: Global Health 2013, The Second International Conference on Global Health Challenges

November 17 - 22, 2013 - Lisbon, Portugal

Submission deadline (full paper): June 26, 2013

Recent advances in technology and computational science influenced a large spectrum of branches in approaching population health. Despite significant progresses, many challenges exist, including health informatics, cross-country platforms interoperability, system and laws harmonization, protection of health data, practical solutions, accessibility to health services, and many others. Along with technological progress, personalized medicine, ambient assistance and pervasive health complement patient needs. A combination of classical and information-driven approach is developing now, where diagnosis systems, data protection mechanisms, remote assistance and hospital-processes are converging.

GLOBAL HEALTH 2013 takes a global perspective on population health, from national to cross-country approaches, multiplatform technologies, from drug design to medicine accessibility, everything under mobile, ubiquitous, and personalized characteristics of new age population.

We solicit both academic, research, and industrial contributions. We welcome technical papers presenting research and practical results, position papers addressing the pros and cons of specific proposals, such as those being discussed in the standard fora or in industry consortia, survey papers addressing the key problems and solutions on any of the above topics short papers on work in progress, and panel proposals.

Industrial presentations are not subject to the format and content constraints of regular submissions. We expect short and long presentations that express industrial position and status.

Tutorials on specific related topics and panels on challenging areas are encouraged.

The topics suggested by the conference can be discussed in term of concepts, state of the art, research, standards, implementations, running experiments, applications, and industrial case studies. Authors are invited to submit complete unpublished papers, which are not under review in any other conference or journal in the following, but not limited to, topic areas.

All topics and submission formats are open to both research and industry contributions.

FUNDAMENTALS

Foundations in global health informatics

Computational health

Software for health

Independent living technologies

ICT and health

Platform interoperability

Semantic interoperability

Diagnosis systems

Applied health informatics

User interfaces and visualization

TECHNOLOGY

Bio-medical semantics

Bio-medicine

Disease biomarker prediction

Applications of bio-nano technology

Body networks

Mobile healthcare

Ubiquitous healthcare

TRENDS

Clinical epigenetic

Long term health conditions

Ambient assisted

Genetics

Virtual reality in medicine surgery

Clinical trials

Computational and knowledge management on proteomics and genomics

Drug design, disease diagnosis and control

PRACTICE

Nursing

Patient-centered care

Personalized medicine

Pervasive health

Homecare

Pharmaceutical services

ALTERNATIVE

Biomedicine

Natural medicine

Preventive medicine

Chronic diseases following

Home surveillance

CHALLENGES

Security aspects and access control on medical data

Data management in pervasive context

Data quality assurance and provenance

Patient flow models in hospitals

Clinical data analysis

Information visualization of medical data

GLOBAL

eHealth initiatives

Social medicine

Health global accessibility

Epidemic spreading and control

Health Education

Providing health in remote areas

Decision support within healthcare

Ethical aspects in eHealth

Healthcare plans and patient benefits

Synchronization of federal regulations

Availability of medication

Community health services

Call for Papers: BioCAS 2013--IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference

October 31-November 2, 2013 Rotterdam, the Netherlands

At the crossroads of medicine, life sciences, physical sciences and engineering, exciting interdisciplinary research and development activities are taking place that will shape tomorrow’s healthcare and wellbeing. The IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference (BioCAS) serves as a premier forum for these activities. It brings together researchers, designers and engineers from industry, academia and government to present and share the latest cutting-edge research results and innovative solutions for today’s complex health problems at the frontiers of biomedical engineering and circuits and systems. The IEEE BioCAS 2013 organizing committee invites papers and proposals for special sessions and tutorials in:

Biofeedback and electrical stimulation

Bioinformatics

Bioinspired circuits and systems

Biomedical imaging technologies and image processing

BioMEMs

Biomedical instrumentation

Biosensors, -actuators and -interfaces

Biosignal processing

Body area networks/body sensor networks

Electronics for brain science and brain machine interfaces

Implantable electronics

Innovative circuits and systems for medical applications

Lab-on-chip

Medical information systems

Telecare systems

Wireless and energy harvesting /scavenging technology in medicine

The complete 4-page paper (in standard IEEE double-column format), including title, authors' names, affiliations and e-mail addresses, as well as a short abstract are requested. Papers must be submitted electronically in PDF format through www.biocas2013.org. Only electronic submissions will be accepted.

Important Dates

Deadline for submission of Regular Papers: Friday, June 14, 2013

Deadline for submissions of Special Session proposals: Friday, June 14, 2013

Deadline for submissions of Tutorial proposals: Friday, June 14, 2013

Author decision notification date: Friday, August 23, 2013

Author registration deadline: Friday, September 13, 2013

Conference dates: Thursday, October 31 -- Saturday, November 2, 2013

Call for Abstracts: BodyNets 2013--8th International Conference on Body Area Networks

September 30–October 2, 2013 Boston, Massachusetts, United States

BodyNets 2013 aims to provide a world-leading and unique opportunity for bringing together researchers and practitioners from diverse disciplines to plan, analyze, design, build, deploy and experiment with/on body area networks (BANs). We are soliciting high-quality original papers in the following topics (but not limited to):

1. Wearable Computing

Ambient intelligence

Pervasive user interface

Context and situation awareness

Augmented reality

Motion detection and activity recognition

2. Embedded Devices and Medical Applications

High-confidence medical devices

Integration of medical devices with healthcare systems

Medical device plug-and-play

Assistive technologies for independent aging

Pervasive health care and patient monitoring

New medical diagnostics and treatments

Ambient assisted living

Virtual hospitals

3. Communications and Networking

Various types of BANs; e.g, in-body, on-body and around-body networks

Signal/information processing and communication models in BANs

BAN architectures and protocols

Power-efficient communications

Wireless energy transfer

Delay-tolerance, fault-tolerance and reliability in BANs

Cloud computing and BANs

Cognitive networks for medical bands

4. Systems and Applications

Sensing and actuation in BANs

Software engineering and systems engineering for BANs

Modeling, simulations and empirical experiments

Design and performance issues

Tools, testbeds and deployment issues

Wireless-to-bio interface/transduction

Standardization

Application domains include, but not limited to, biomedical engineering, computer vision, defense, entertainment (e.g. computer games), human computer interaction, interactive arts, Internet of things, physiological monitoring, prosthetics, robotics, smart garments, sports science, and vehicular networks.

In addition to the regular track that covers general/mainstream topics, the BodyNets 2013 technical program features a series of special tracks that focus on specific/emerging topics:

Antennas for Body Area Networks (ABAN)

Body Area Networks for Sports Applications and Systems

Body Area Networks with Social Networks (BANSN)

Brain and Body Computing based on Embodied Knowledge (BBC)

Cloud-assisted Cyber-Physical Systems (CCPS)

Energy Harvesting in Body Area Networks (EHBAN)

Human Body Communications (HBC)

Mobile Grid Computing for Smart Health and Well Being (mGrid4SHB)

Motion Detection and Activity Recognition (MDAR)

Nano-scale Communications and Networking (NCN)

Privacy, Security and Trust in Body Area Networks (PSTBAN)

Smart Garments (SG)

Smart Health and Big Data (SHBD)

Paper Submission:

Authors are invited to submit papers in the following categories:

Regular papers: Up to 7 pages

Short papers: Up to 4 pages

Poster and demo papers: Up to 1 page

Papers must follow the ACM conference paper format. Please visit http://bodynets.org/2013/show/initial-submission for detailed submission instructions.
Important Dates:

Regular paper submission due: June 1

Short, poster and demo paper submission due: July 1

Notification of acceptance for regular papers: June 30

Notification of acceptance for short, poster and demo papers: July 15

Camera ready due: July 31

Publication:

Selected papers will be considered for publication in leading journals such as:

IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics

IEEE Transaction on Network and Service Management

ACM/Springer Mobile Networks and Applications

Springer Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing

Wiley Security and Communication Networks Journal

Call for Abstracts: Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) 2013 Annual Meeting

November 14-16, 2013 Phoenix, Arizona

Abstract Submission Deadline: May 31, 2013

Genomics. Proteomics. Informatics. Optimizing Patient Care.

This three-day event will feature more than 25 hours of cutting-edge sessions, a keynote presentation by the AMP 2013 Award for Excellence Recipient, nearly 400 posters, 150 exhibitors, and countless opportunities to interact directly with your colleagues.

The meeting is preceded by one day of Corporate-Sponsored Workshops featuring the latest scientific advances and instrumentation. Corporate exhibits, lunches, and casual social gatherings offer opportunities for networking and further exchange with molecular laboratory professionals. Plan to arrive early to take advantage of this free event.

A special feature of the meeting is the Molecular Pathology Outreach Course, Current Applications of Molecular Pathology: Real Time Updates and Case Studies, a one-day course for pathologists, laboratory directors and technologists who have little experience with molecular pathology testing. Registration for the Molecular Pathology Outreach Course is separate from registration for the scientific sessions.