Biomedical engineering systems and technologies

Nathalia Peixoto
Margarida Silveira
Hesham H. Ali
Carlos Maciel
Egon L. van den Broek (Eds.)
Communications in Computer and Information Science

881

Biomedical Engineering
Systems and Technologies
10th International Joint Conference, BIOSTEC 2017
Porto, Portugal, February 21–23, 2017
Revised Selected Papers

123


Communications
in Computer and Information Science
Commenced Publication in 2007
Founding and Former Series Editors:
Alfredo Cuzzocrea, Xiaoyong Du, Orhun Kara, Ting Liu, Dominik Ślęzak,
and Xiaokang Yang

Editorial Board
Simone Diniz Junqueira Barbosa
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio),
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Phoebe Chen
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

Joaquim Filipe
Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, Setúbal, Portugal
Igor Kotenko
St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian
Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
Krishna M. Sivalingam
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India
Takashi Washio
Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
Junsong Yuan
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, USA
Lizhu Zhou
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

881


More information about this series at />

Nathalia Peixoto Margarida Silveira
Hesham H. Ali Carlos Maciel
Egon L. van den Broek (Eds.)
•

•

Biomedical Engineering
Systems and Technologies
10th International Joint Conference, BIOSTEC 2017
Porto, Portugal, February 21–23, 2017

Revised Selected Papers

123


Editors
Nathalia Peixoto
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA
USA
Margarida Silveira
Instituto Superior Técnico (IST)
University of Lisbon
Lisbon
Portugal

Carlos Maciel
University of Sao Paulo
Sao Carlos, SP
Brazil
Egon L. van den Broek
Utrecht University
Utrecht
The Netherlands

Hesham H. Ali
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Omaha, NE
USA

ISSN 1865-0929
ISSN 1865-0937 (electronic)
Communications in Computer and Information Science
ISBN 978-3-319-94805-8
ISBN 978-3-319-94806-5 (eBook)
/>Library of Congress Control Number: 2018947372
© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
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broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
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Preface

The present book includes extended and revised versions of a set of selected papers
from the 10th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and

Technologies (BIOSTEC 2017), held in Porto, Portugal, during February 21–23, 2017.
BIOSTEC is composed of five co-located conferences, each specialized in a different
knowledge area, namely, BIODEVICES, BIOIMAGING, BIOINFORMATICS, BIOSIGNALS, and HEALTHINF.
BIOSTEC 2017 received 297 paper submissions from 56 countries, of which only
6% are included in this book. This reflects our care in selecting contributions. These
papers were selected by the conference chairs on the basis of a number of criteria that
include the classifications and comments provided by the Program Committee members, the session chairs’ assessment, and the program chairs’ meta-review of the papers
that were included in the technical program. The authors of selected papers were
invited to submit a revised, extended, and improved version of their conference paper,
including at least 30% new material.
The purpose of the BIOSTEC joint conferences is to bring together researchers and
practitioners, including engineers, biologists, health professionals, and
informatics/computer scientists. Research presented at BIOSTEC included both theoretical advances and applications of information systems, artificial intelligence, signal
processing, electronics, and other engineering tools in areas related to advancing
biomedical research and improving health care.
The papers included in this book contribute to the understanding of relevant research
trends in biomedical engineering systems and technologies. As such, they provide an
overview of the field’s current state of the art.
We thank the authors for their contributions and Monica Saramago for process
management. In particular, we express our gratitude to the reviewers, who helped to
ensure the quality of this publication.
February 2017

Nathalia Peixoto
Margarida Silveira
Hesham H. Ali
Carlos Maciel
Egon L. van den Broek

Organization

Conference Co-chairs
Ana Fred
Hugo Gamboa
Mário Vaz

Instituto de Telecomunicações/IST, Portugal
LIBPHYS-UNL/FCT - New University of Lisbon,
Portugal
INEGI LOME, FEUP, Portugal

Program Co-chairs
BIODEVICES
Nathalia Peixoto

Neural Engineering Lab, George Mason University,
USA

BIOIMAGING
Margarida Silveira

Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Portugal

BIOINFORMATICS
Hesham Ali

University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA

BIOSIGNALS

Carlos Maciel

University of São Paulo, Brazil

HEALTHINF
Egon L. van den Broek

Utrecht University, The Netherlands

BIODEVICES Program Committee
Azam Ali
Mohammed Bakr
Steve Beeby
Hadar Ben-Yoav
Dinesh Bhatia
Efrain Zenteno Bolaños
Luciano Boquete
Carlo Capelli
Vítor Carvalho
Hamid Charkhkar
Wenxi Chen
Mireya Fernández Chimeno
Youngjae Chun

University of Otago, New Zealand
CCIT-AASTMT, Egypt
University of Southampton, UK
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
North Eastern Hill University, India
Universidad Católica San Pablo, Peru

Alcala University, Spain
Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Norway
IPCA and Algoritmi Research Centre, UM, Portugal
Case Western Reserve University, USA
The University of Aizu, Japan
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
University of Pittsburgh, USA


VIII

Organization

James M. Conrad
Albert Cook
Maeve Duffy
Paddy French
Juan Carlos Garcia
Javier Garcia-Casado
Bryon Gomberg
Miguel Angel García
Gonzalez
Klas Hjort
Toshiyuki Horiuchi
Leonid Hrebien
Sandeep K. Jha
Eyal Katz
Michael Kraft
Ondrej Krejcar
Ning Lan

Jung Chan Lee
Chwee Teck Lim
Mai S. Mabrouk
Jordi Madrenas
Jarmo Malinen
Karen May-Newman
Joseph Mizrahi
Raimes Moraes
Umberto Morbiducci
Antoni Nowakowski
Eoin O’Cearbhaill
Mónica Oliveira
Abraham Otero
Gonzalo Pajares
Sofia Panteliou
Nancy Paris
Lionel Pazart
Nathalia Peixoto
Marek Penhaker
Dmitry Rogatkin
Wim L. C. Rutten
Seonghan Ryu
Ashutosh Sabharwal
V. V. Raghavendra Sai
Chutham Sawigun
Michael J. Schöning
Mauro Serpelloni
Dong Ik Shin

University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA

University of Alberta, Canada
NUI Galway, Ireland
Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
University of Alcala, Spain
Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
Geyra Gassner IP Law, Israel
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
Uppsala University, Sweden
Tokyo Denki University, Japan
Drexel University, USA
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India
Tel Aviv University, Israel
University of Liege, Belgium
University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Seoul National University, South Korea
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Misr University for Science and Technology, Egypt
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
Aalto University, Finland
San Diego State University, USA
Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil
Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Gdansk University of Technology, Poland
University College Dublin, Ireland
University of Strathclyde, UK
Universidad San Pablo CEU, Spain
Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
University of Patras, Greece

British Columbia Institute of Technology, Canada
CHU, France
George Mason University, USA
VŠB, Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic
Moscow Regional Research and Clinical
Institute MONIKI, Russian Federation
University of Twente, The Netherlands
Hannam University, South Korea
Rice University, USA
IIT Madras, India
Mahanakorn University of Technology, Thailand
FH Aachen, Germany
University of Brescia, Italy
Asan Medical Center, South Korea


Organization

Alcimar Barbosa Soares
Filomena Soares
Akihiro Takeuchi
Gil Travish
John Tudor
Renato Varoto
Pedro Vieira
Bruno Wacogne
Huikai Xie
Sen Xu
Hakan Yavuz

IX

Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Brazil
Algoritmi Research Centre, UM, Portugal
Kitasato University School of Medicine, Japan
Adaptix Ltd., UK
University of Southampton, UK
University of Campinas, Brazil
Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade
Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
FEMTO-ST, France
University of Florida, USA
Merck & Co., Inc., USA
Çukurova Üniversity, Turkey

BIOIMAGING Program Committee
Sameer K. Antani
Peter Balazs
Grégory Barbillon
Alpan Bek
Mads Sylvest Bergholt
Obara Boguslaw
Alberto Bravin
Tom Brown
Enrico G. Caiani
Rita Casadio
Alessia Cedola
Heang-Ping Chan
James Chan
Dean Chapman

Guanying Chen
Jyh-Cheng Chen
Christos E. Constantinou
Edite Maria Areias
Figueiras
Dimitrios Fotiadis
Patricia Haro Gonzalez
P. Gopinath
Dimitris Gorpas
Alberto Del Guerra
Tzung-Pei Hong
Kazuyuki Hyodo
Shu Jia
Ming Jiang
Xiaoyi Jiang

National Library of Medicine, National Institutes
of Health, USA
University of Szeged, Hungary
EPF-Ecole d’Ingénieurs, France
Middle East Technical University, Turkey
Imperial College London, UK
University of Durham, UK
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, France
University of St. Andrews, UK
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
University of Bologna, Italy
CNR, Institute of Nanotechnology, Italy
University of Michigan, USA
University of California Davis, USA

University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Harbin Institute of Technology and SUNY Buffalo,
China/USA
National Yang-Ming University, Taiwan
Stanford University, USA
National Physical Laboratory, Portugal
University of Ioannina, Greece
Universidad Autonoma Madrid, Spain
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India
Technical University of Munich, Germany
University of Pisa, Italy
National University of Kaohsiung, Taiwan
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, Japan
Stony Brook University, USA
Peking University, China
University of Münster, Germany


X

Organization

Pluim Josien
Patrice Koehl
Adriaan A. Lammertsma
Sang-Won Lee
Rainer Leitgeb
Ivan Lima
Xiongbiao Luo
Modat Marc

David McGloin
Aidan D. Meade
Erik Meijering
Israel Rocha Mendoza
Kunal Mitra
Christophoros Nikou
Joanna Isabelle Olszewska
Kalman Palagyi
Joao Papa
Tae Jung Park
Gennaro Percannella
Ales Prochazka
Jia Qin
Wan Qin
Miroslav Radojevic
Joseph Reinhardt
Giovanna Rizzo
Bart M. ter Haar Romeny
Emanuele Schiavi
Jan Schier
Leonid Shvartsman
Chikayoshi Sumi
Chi-Kuang Sun
Pablo Taboada
Xiaodong Tao
Pécot Thierry
Kenneth Tichauer
Eric Tkaczyk
Arkadiusz Tomczyk

Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
University of California, USA
VU University Medical Center Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science,
South Korea
Medical University Vienna, Austria
North Dakota State University, USA
XMU-TMMU, China
University College London, UK
University of Dundee, UK
Centre for Radiation and Environmental Science,
Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland
Erasmus University Medical Center, The Netherlands
Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación
Superior de Ensenada, (CICESE), Mexico
Florida Institute of Technology, USA
University of Ioannina, Greece
University of West Scotland, UK
University of Szeged, Hungary
UNESP, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil
Chung-Ang University, South Korea
University of Salerno, Italy
University of Chemistry and Technology,
Czech Republic
University of California/University of Washington,
USA
University of Washington, USA
Erasmus MC, Biomedical Imaging Group Rotterdam,
The Netherlands

University of Iowa, USA
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy
Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e),
The Netherlands
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
The Institute of Information Theory and Automation
of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic
Hebrew University, Israel
Sophia University, Japan
National Taiwan University, Taiwan
University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain
University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
Medical University of South Carolina, France
Illinois Institute of Technology, USA
Vanderbilt University, USA
Lodz University of Technology, Poland


Organization

Carlos M. Travieso
Benjamin M. W. Tsui
Vladimír Ulman
Gözde Ünal
Sandra Rua Ventura
Yuanyuan Wang
Quan Wen
Hongki Yoo
Habib Zaidi

XI

University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Johns Hopkins University, USA
Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
School of Allied Health Technologies/Escola Superior
de Saúde do Porto, Portugal
Fudan University, China
University of Electronic Science and Technology
of China, China
Hanyang University, South Korea
Geneva University Hospital, Switzerland

BIOIMAGING Additional Reviewers
Xiaoli Qi
Qinqin Zhang

Johns Hopkins University, USA
University of Washington, USA

BIOINFORMATICS Program Committee
Tatsuya Akutsu
Jens Allmer
Sameer K. Antani
Marco Antoniotti
Joel Arrais
Rolf Backofen
Lucia Ballerini
Ugur Bilge

Leonardo Bocchi
Ulrich Bodenhofer
Luca Bortolussi
Andrea Bracciali
Giulio Caravagna
José Pedro Cerón Carrasco
Claudia Consuelo Rubiano
Castellanos
Santa Di Cataldo
Wai-Ki Ching
Mark Clement
Netta Cohen
Federica Conte
Antoine Danchin
Sérgio Deusdado
Richard Edwards
Fabrizio Ferre
António Ferreira
Giulia Fiscon

Kyoto University, Japan
Izmir Institute of Technology, Turkey
National Library of Medicine, National Institutes
of Health, USA
Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca, Italy
Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Germany
University of Edinburgh, UK
Akdeniz University, Turkey
Università di Firenze, Italy

Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
University of Trieste, Italy
University of Stirling, UK
University of Edinburgh, UK
Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia, Spain
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota, Colombia
Politecnico di Torino, Italy
The University of Hong Kong, SAR China
Brigham Young University, USA
University of Leeds, UK
National Research Council of Rome, Italy
Institute of Cardiometabolism and Nutrition, France
Instituto Politecnico de Bragança, Portugal
University of Southampton, UK
University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy
Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
National Research Council of Rome, Italy


XII

Organization

Alexandre P. Francisco
Dario Ghersi
Arndt von Haeseler
Christopher E. Hann
Ronaldo Fumio Hashimoto
Shan He
Volkhard Helms

Song-Nian Hu
Jari Hyttinen
Sohei Ito
Bo Jin
Giuseppe Jurman
Yannis Kalaidzidis
Michael Kaufmann
Natalia Khuri
Sami Khuri
Inyoung Kim
Toralf Kirsten
Jirí Kléma
Peter Kokol
Malgorzata Kotulska
Ivan Kulakovskiy
Yinglei Lai
Carlile Lavor
Matej Lexa
Antonios Lontos
Shuangge Ma
Pawel Mackiewicz
Thérèse E. Malliavin
Elena Marchiori
Andrea Marin
Majid Masso
Petr Matula
Claudine Médigue
Ivan Merelli
Armin Mikler
Paolo Milazzo

Saad Mneimneh
Pedro Tiago Monteiro
Vincent Moulton
Chad Myers
Jean-Christophe Nebel

Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa,
Portugal
University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA
Center of Integrative Bioinformatics Vienna, MFPL,
Austria
University of Canterbury, New Zealand
University of São Paulo, Brazil
University of Birmingham, UK
Universität des Saarlandes, Germany
Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Tampere University of Technology, Finland
National Fisheries University, Japan
MilliporeSigma, Merck KGaA, USA
Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy
Max Planck Institute Molecular Cell Biology
and Genetics, Germany
Witten/Herdecke University, Germany
Stanford University, USA
San José State University, USA
Virginia Tech, USA
University of Leipzig, Germany
Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
University of Maribor, Slovenia
Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland

Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology RAS,
Russian Federation
George Washington University, USA
University of Campinas, Brazil
Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Frederick University, Cyprus
Yale University, USA
Wroclaw University, Poland
CNRS/Institut Pasteur, France
Radboud University, The Netherlands
University of Venice, Italy
George Mason University, USA
Masaryk University, Czech Republic
CEA/Genomic Institute/Genoscope and CNRS, France
ITB CNR, Italy
University of North Texas, USA
University of Pisa, Italy
Hunter College CUNY, USA
INESC-ID/IST, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
University of East Anglia, UK
University of Minnesota, USA
Kingston University, UK


Organization

José Luis Oliveira
Hakan S. Orer
Giulia Paciello
Marco Pellegrini

Matteo Pellegrini
Nadia Pisanti
Olivier Poch
Alberto Policriti
Gianfranco Politano
Giuseppe Profiti
Mark Ragan
Jagath Rajapakse
Javier Reina-Tosina
Laura Roa
David Rocke
Simona E. Rombo
Eric Rouchka
Carolina Ruiz
J. Cristian Salgado
Alessandro Savino
Sophie Schbath
Noor Akhmad Setiawan
Joao C. Setubal
Christine Sinoquet
Neil R. Smalheiser
Pavel Smrz
Gordon Smyth
Yinglei Song
Peter F. Stadler
Andrew Sung
David Svoboda
Peter Sykacek
Jerzy Tiuryn
Takashi Tomita

Alexander Tsouknidas
Gabriel Valiente
Juris Viksna
Thomas Werner
Yanbin Yin
Malik Yousef
Jingkai Yu

XIII

Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
Koc University, Turkey
Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy
University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Universitá di Pisa, Italy
Université de Strasbourg, France
Università degli Studi di Udine, Italy
Politecnico di Torino, Italy
University of Bologna, Italy
The University of Queensland, Australia
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
University of Seville, Spain
University of Seville, Spain
University of California, Davis, USA
Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italy
University of Louisville, USA
WPI, USA
University of Chile, Chile
Politecnico di Torino, Italy

French National Institute for Agriculatural Research,
France
Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia
Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
University of Nantes, France
University of Illinois Chicago, USA
Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research,
Australia
Jiansu University of Science and Technology, China
Universität Leipzig, IZBI, Germany
University of Southern Mississippi, USA
Masaryk University, Czech Republic
BOKU, University of Natural Resources and Life
Sciences, Austria
Warsaw University, Poland
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology,
Japan
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Technical University of Catalonia, Spain
University of Latvia, Latvia
University of Michigan, Germany
Northern Illinois University, USA
Zefat Academic College, Israel
Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy
of Sciences, China


XIV

Organization

Nazar Zaki
Helen Hao Zhang
Leming Zhou
Zexuan Zhu

United Arab Emirates University, UAE
University of Arizona, USA
University of Pittsburgh, USA
Shenzhen University, China

BIOINFORMATICS Additional Reviewers
Roberta Gori
Artem Kasianov

Universitá di Pisa, Italy
VIGG, Russian Federation

BIOSIGNALS Program Committee
Marko Ackermann
Jean-Marie Aerts
Robert Allen
Sergio Alvarez
Sridhar P. Arjunan
Ofer Barnea
Eberhard Beck
Egon L. van den Broek
Guy Carrault
Maria Claudia F. Castro

Sergio Cerutti
Bruno Cornelis
Jan Cornelis
Adam Czajka
Bruce Denby
Gordana Jovanovic Dolecek
Petr Dolezel
Pier Luigi Emiliani
Pedro Encarnação
Poree fabienne
Luca Faes
Dimitrios Fotiadis
Arfan Ghani
Inan Güler
Thomas Hinze
Roberto Hornero
Jiri Jan
Tzyy-Ping Jung
Theodoros Kostoulas
Dagmar Krefting
Vaclav Kremen
Lenka Lhotska
Julián David Arias Londoño
Ana Rita Londral
Harald Loose

FEI University, Brazil
M3-BIORES, Katholieke Universitëit Leuven, Belgium
University of Southampton, UK
Boston College, USA

RMIT University, Australia
Tel Aviv University, Israel
Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Utrecht University, The Netherlands
University of Rennes 1, France
Centro Universitário da FEI, Brazil
Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
University of Notre Dame, USA
Université Pierre et Marie Curie, France
Institute INAOE, Mexico
University of Pardubice, Czech Republic
Italian National Research Council, Italy
Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal
Université de Rennes 1, France
Università degli Studi di Trento, Italy
University of Ioannina, Greece
Coventry University, UK
Gazi University, Turkey
Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany
University of Valladolid, Spain
University of Technology Brno, Czech Republic
University of California San Diego, USA
University of Geneva, Switzerland
Berlin University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia
Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany


Organization

Carlos Maciel
Hari Krishna Maganti
Armando Malanda
Pramod Kumar Meher
Jirí Mekyska
Roberto Merletti
Mihaela Morega
Percy Nohama
Andres Orozco-Duque
Krzysztof Pancerz
Gennaro Percannella
Vitor Pires
Ales Prochazka
Heather Ruskin
Tomasz Rutkowski
Andres Santos
Roberto Sassi
Edward Sazonov
Gerald Schaefer
Christian Schmidt
Reinhard Schneider
Lotfi Senhadji
Samuel Silva
Alan A Stocker
Nicola Strisciuglio

Asser Tantawi
António Teixeira
João Paulo Teixeira
Carlos Eduardo Thomaz
Carlos M. Travieso
Pedro Gómez Vilda
Gert-Jan de Vries
Yuanyuan Wang
Quan Wen
Kerstin Witte
Didier Wolf
Pew-Thian Yap
Chia-Hung Yeh
Rafal Zdunek
Li Zhuo

XV

University of São Paulo, Brazil
Saga, UK
Universidad Pública de Navarra, Spain
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic
Politecnico di Torino, Italy
University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná, Brazil
Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano, Colombia
University of Rzeszow, Poland
University of Salerno, Italy
Escola Superior de Tecnologia de Setúbal,

Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal, Portugal
University of Chemistry and Technology,
Czech Republic
Dublin City University, Ireland
The University of Tokyo, Japan
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
Università degli studi di Milano, Italy
University of Alabama, USA
Loughborough University, UK
University of Rostock, Germany
Fachhochschule Vorarlberg, Austria
University of Rennes 1, France
Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
University of Pennyslvania, USA
University of Groningen, The Netherlands
IBM, USA
University of Aveiro, Portugal
Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, Portugal
Centro Universitário da FEI, Brazil
University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
Philips Research Healthcare, The Netherlands
Fudan University, China
University of Electronic Science and Technology
of China, China
Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany
Research Centre for Automatic Control, CRAN CNRS
UMR 7039, France
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan

Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland
Beijing University of Technology, China


XVI

Organization

HEALTHINF Program Committee
Anurag Agrawal

Hesham Ali
Adil Alpkocak
Flora Amato
Francois Andry
Wassim Ayadi
Bert-Jan van Beijnum
Patrick Boissy
Sorana D. Bolboaca
Alessio Bottrighi
Andrew D. Boyd
Egon L. van den Broek
Berry de Bruijn
Federico Cabitza
Eric Campo
Guillermo Lopez Campos
Marc Cavazza
Philip K. Chan
Taridzo Chomutare
Mihail Cocosila

Miguel Coimbra
Emmanuel Conchon
Carlos Costa
Andre Dekker
Chrysanne DiMarco
Liliana Dobrica
Stephan Dreiseitl
José Fonseca
Daniel Ford
Christoph M. Friedrich
Ioannis Fudos
Henry Gabb
Hugo Gamboa
Mauro Giacomini
Laura Giarré

CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology,
Center for Translational Research in Asthma
and Lung, India
University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA
Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey
Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Italy
Philips, France
LERIA, University of Angers, France and LaTICE,
University of Tunis, Tunisia
University of Twente, The Netherlands
Université de Sherbrooke and Research Centre
on Aging, Canada
Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy,
Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Universitá del Piemonte Orientale, Italy
University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Utrecht University, The Netherlands
National Research Council, Canada
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy
LAAS CNRS, France
The University of Melbourne, Australia
University of Kent, UK
Florida Institute of Technology, USA
University Hospital of North Norway, Norway
Athabasca University, Canada
IT, University of Porto, Portugal
XLIM, France
Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
MAASTRO Clinick, The Netherlands
University of Waterloo, Canada
University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania
Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences
at Hagenberg, Austria
UNINOVA, Portugal
Dell Research, USA
University of Applied Sciences and Arts Dortmund,
Germany
University of Ioannina, Greece
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
New University of Lisbon, Portugal
University of Genoa, Italy
Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italy

Organization

Alejandro Rodríguez
González
Yves Gourinat
David Greenhalgh
Jorge Henriques
Dragan Jankovic
Noreen Kamal
Enkelejda Kasneci
Finn Kensing
Irena Koprinska
Sofia Kyratzi
Elyes Lamine
Gondy Leroy
Giuseppe Liotta
Guillaume Lopez
Martin Lopez-Nores
Alda Marques
Paloma Martínez
Ken Masters
Sally Mcclean
Gerrit Meixner
Christo El Morr
Hammadi Nait-Charif
Goran Nenadic
José Luis Oliveira
Calvin Or
Rui Pedro Paiva
Guy Pare

Vimla L. Patel
Sotiris Pavlopoulos
Göran Petersson
Enrico Maria Piras
Arkalgud Ramaprasad
Grzegorz Redlarski
Ita Richardson
Valter Roesler
Elisabetta Ronchieri
Senjuti Basu Roy
Carolina Ruiz
George Sakellaropoulos
Ovidio Salvetti
Akio Sashima
Jacob Scharcanski
Bettina Schnor
Yuval Shahar

XVII

Centro de Tecnología Biomédica, Spain
ISAE-SUPAERO, France
University of Strathclyde, UK
Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal
University of Nis, Serbia
University of Calgary, Canada
University of Tübingen, Germany
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
University of Sydney, Australia
University of the Aegean, Greece

University of Toulouse, CUFR J.F. Champollion,
France
University of Arizona, USA
University of Perugia, Italy
Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan
University of Vigo, Spain
University of Aveiro, Portugal
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
Sultan Qaboos University, Oman
University of Ulster, UK
Heilbronn University, Germany
York University, Canada
Bournemouth University, UK
University of Manchester, UK
Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
The University of Hong Kong, SAR China
University of Coimbra, Portugal
HEC Montréal, Canada
Arizona State University, USA
ICCS, Greece
eHealth Institute, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy
University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Gdansk University of Technology, Poland
University of Limerick, Ireland
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
INFN, Italy
The University of Washington, Tacoma, USA
WPI, USA
University of Patras, Greece

National Research Council of Italy, Italy
AIST, Japan
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Potsdam University, Germany
Ben-Gurion University, Israel


XVIII

Organization

Jan Sliwa
George Spyrou
Jan Stage
Vicente Traver
Mohy Uddin
Gary Ushaw
Aristides Vagelatos
Sumithra Velupillai
Sitalakshmi Venkatraman
Francisco Veredas
Justin Wan
Szymon Wilk
Janusz Wojtusiak
Clement T. Yu
Xuezhong Zhou
André Zúquete

Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland
The Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics,

Cyprus
Aalborg University, Denmark
Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain
King Abdullah International Medical Research Center,
Saudi Arabia
Newcastle University, UK
CTI, Greece
KTH, Sweden and King’s College, UK
Melbourne Polytechnic, Australia
Universidad de Málaga, Spain
University of Waterloo, Canada
Poznan University of Technology, Poland
George Mason University, USA
University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Beijing Jiaotong University, China
Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal

HEALTHINF Additional Reviewers
Koundinya Desiraju
Angela Locoro
Imen Megdiche
Sebastian Rauh
Kateryna Sergieieva

Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology,
Mall Road, Delhi, India
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy
IRIT, France
Heilbronn University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Heilbronn University of Applied Science, Germany

Invited Speakers
Bart M. ter Haar Romeny
Kristina Höök
Bethany Bracken
Hugo Plácido da Silva

Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e),
The Netherlands
Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Charles River Analytics Inc., USA
IT, Institute of Telecommunications, Portugal


Contents

Biomedical Electronics and Devices
An Electronic-Engineered Sensory Sternal Retractor Aimed
at Post-sternotomy Pain Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Giovanni Saggio, Alessandra Bianco, Giancarlo Orengo,
Giuseppe Tancredi, Costantino Del Gaudio, and Jacob Zeitani
lSmartScope: Towards a Fully Automated 3D-Printed Smartphone
Microscope with Motorized Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Luís Rosado, Paulo T. Silva, José Faria, João Oliveira,
Maria João M. Vasconcelos, Dirk Elias, José M. Correia da Costa,
and Jaime S. Cardoso

3

19

A Portable Chemical Detection System with Anti-body Biosensor
for Impedance Based Monitoring of T2-mycotoxin Bioterrorism Agents. . . . .
V. I. Ogurtsov and K. Twomey

45

Microfluidic Devices Integrating Clinical Alternative Diagnostic
Techniques Based on Cell Mechanical Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A. S. Moita, D. Vieira, F. Mata, J. Pereira, and A. L. N. Moreira

74

A Biochip Based Medical Device for Point-of-Care ABO Compatibility:
Towards a Smart Transfusion Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Karine Charrière, Alain Rouleau, Olivier Gaiffe, Pascal Morel,
Véronique Bourcier, Christian Pieralli, Wilfrid Boireau, Lionel Pazart,
and Bruno Wacogne
Novel Pattern Recognition Method for Analysis the Radiation Exposure
in Cancer Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dmitriy Dubovitskiy and Valeri Kouznetsov

94

106

Bioimaging
Automatic Segmentation of Neurons from Fluorescent
Microscopy Imaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Silvia Baglietto, Ibolya E. Kepiro, Gerrit Hilgen, Evelyne Sernagor,

Vittorio Murino, and Diego Sona
Evaluation of Dense Vessel Detection in NCCT Scans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Aneta Lisowska, Erin Beveridge, Alison O’Neil, Vismantas Dilys,
Keith Muir, and Ian Poole

121

134


XX

Contents

Tracking Anterior Mitral Leaflet in Echocardiographic Videos Using
Morphological Operators and Active Contours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Malik Saad Sultan, Nelson Martins, Eva Costa, Diana Veiga,
Manuel João Ferreira, Sandra Mattos, and Miguel Tavares Coimbra
Convolutional Neural Network Based Segmentation of Demyelinating
Plaques in MRI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Bartłomiej Stasiak, Paweł Tarasiuk, Izabela Michalska,
Arkadiusz Tomczyk, and Piotr S. Szczepaniak

146

163

Bioinformatics Models, Methods and Algorithms
Compositional Analysis of Homeostasis of Gene Networks
by Clustering Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sohei Ito, Kenji Osari, Shigeki Hagihara, and Naoki Yonezaki

191

Fast and Sensitive Classification of Short Metagenomic Reads
with SKraken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jia Qian, Davide Marchiori, and Matteo Comin

212

Computational Identification of Essential Genes in Prokaryotes
and Eukaryotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dawit Nigatu and Werner Henkel

227

A Heuristic for the Live Parsimony Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rogério Güths, Guilherme P. Telles, Maria Emilia M. T. Walter,
and Nalvo F. Almeida
Evaluating Runs of Homozygosity in Exome Sequencing Data - Utility
in Disease Inheritance Model Selection and Variant Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jorge Oliveira, Rute Pereira, Rosário Santos, and Mário Sousa
Virus Disassembly Pathways Predicted from Geometry
and Configuration Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Claudio Alexandre Piedade, Marta Sousa Silva, Carlos Cordeiro,
and António E. N. Ferreira

248

268

289

Bio-inspired Systems and Signal Processing
Towards Swarm Intelligence of Alcoholics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Andrew Schumann

305

Health Informatics
Technologies for Ageing in Place: A Systematic Review of Reviews
and Meta-analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Luís Pereira, Ana Dias, Alexandra Queirós, and Nelson Pacheco Rocha

331


Contents

A Model-Based Approach for Jump Analyses Regarding Strength
and Balance: The Human as an Oscillating System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sandra Hellmers, Sebastian Fudickar, Lena Dasenbrock,
Andrea Heinks, Jürgen M. Bauer, and Andreas Hein

XXI

354

Regression, Classification and Ensemble Machine Learning Approaches
to Forecasting Clinical Outcomes in Ischemic Stroke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ahmedul Kabir, Carolina Ruiz, Sergio A. Alvarez, and Majaz Moonis

376

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

403


Biomedical Electronics and Devices


An Electronic-Engineered Sensory Sternal
Retractor Aimed at Post-sternotomy Pain
Reduction
Giovanni Saggio1(&), Alessandra Bianco2, Giancarlo Orengo1,
Giuseppe Tancredi1, Costantino Del Gaudio2, and Jacob Zeitani3
1

Department of Electronic Engineering, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”,
Rome, Italy

2
Department of Enterprise Engineering, INSTM Res. Unit,
University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy
3
German Hospital Tirana, Tirana, Albania

Abstract. The median sternotomy can rise in rib and/or sternum micro/
macro-fractures and/or brachial plexus injuries, which can even evolve in

chronic pain with significant impact on patient’s quality life. Post-sternotomy
chronic pain is recognized as a multifactorial complex issue, and it has been
assessed that sternum retraction forces, applied by the surgeons, can be considered one of these factors. In order to investigate the behavior of these forces,
we developed a reliable and sterilizable system, to monitor the retraction forces
along the hemisternums. Therefore, a Finochietto sternal retractor was instrumented by means of ultra-thin force sensors interfaced with ad hoc electronic
circuitry. Two different sets of sensors were adopted, one of which able to
support autoclave operating conditions. In-vitro tests were performed by means
of a made on purpose dummy. The instrumented retractor allows monitoring the
force exerted on both the arms during the opening procedure. Force versus time
patterns were acquired and stored, and so we determined how the forces are
distributed in terms of their mean, maximum and plateaus. Results demonstrate
the reliability of the instrumented retractor in measuring forces, up to 400 N.
Cost-effectiveness and feasibility can be considered further additional values of
the proposed instrumented retractor.
Keywords: Chronic chest pain
Force sensor

Á Retractor Á Median sternotomy

1 Introduction
The first median sternotomy has been performed in 1897, to remove lymph nodes.
Since then, only six decades after, the median sternotomy has become the standard
approach to the mediastinum, following Julian’s report [1] where the superiority over
thoracotomy was described underlining its less time-consuming, and higher tolerability
by the patients.

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
N. Peixoto et al. (Eds.): BIOSTEC 2017, CCIS 881, pp. 3–18, 2018.
/>

4

G. Saggio et al.

Briefly, to access the mediastinum through the median sternotomy, a skin incision
is made, approximately 2 cm under the sternal notch and extended below the xiphoid.
The exact midline over the sternum is marked with electrocautery to avoid faulty
sternotomy. Before the sternum incision is made, a pathway is create above the
suprasternal ligament and then continued beneath the manubrium and finally, performed as well under the xiphoid to guarantee the separation of the mediastinum
structures from the posterior sternum bone.
Although, in comparison to extensive thoracotomy, midline sternotomy is less
traumatic, persistent postoperative pain remain the Achilles’ heel, affecting negatively
early postoperative respiratory function, delayed hospital discharge and increasing
costs [2–4]. The process of pain is difficult to assess [5], anyway the pain is considered
chronic when localized in the surgical site and persist over three months. In a
prospective study, a number of independent predictors for persistent thoracic pain
following sternotomy were identified, including urgent surgery, and re-sternotomy [6].
In this study, at one year, 42 (35%) patients reported chronic thoracic pain. Similarly,
another work reported the prevalence of post-operative pain as high as 39.3% at the
mean time of 28 months after surgery [7]. In 2001, Mazzeffi and Khelemsky [8]
estimated a 28% overall incidence of non-cardiac pain one year after surgery. Several
studies assessed that women are substantially more likely to suffer early and chronic
postoperative pain than men [6, 9], and that the prevalence of post-sternotomy chronic
pain decreases with age [6, 8]. These studies highlight the negative impact on daily life
of the population who experienced sternotomy and suffer postoperative pain. In fact
with the introduction of less invasive surgical procedures to treat cardiac pathologies,
although with limited surgical field, surgeons who are in favor claim that it is not only
cosmetic, but guaranteeing better and faster post-operative recovery.
Chronic post-sternotomy pain can be related to patient’s age, gender and degenerative process like osteoporosis. It can be also related directly to the surgical procedure, including secondary sternal osteomyelitis and/or sternocostal chondritis,
incomplete bone healing. If the internal thoracic arteries are harvested in myocardial

revascularization, the different retractors, used to facilitated vessel exposure, add
additional trauma. In this contest the way of harvesting and the use of ellectrocautery
might affect wound healing and persistence pain.
To access to the mediastinum, retractors are being used to allow adequate surgical
field. Hemi-sternums separation extent of the force impressed during sternum opening
might lead to rib fracture, eventually associated to brachial plexus injury (BPI) [10–14].
Thus, there is an actual clinical need to provide to the surgeons suitable instrumented
retractors able to monitor in real time the forces exerted on the two halves during the
sternum opening procedure. In this way, by monitoring forces applied on the sternum,
it will be possible to find the balance between adequate surgical field and excessive
trauma to the chest. By evaluating major risk factors, width chest opening can be
tailored to the patients. For example if female gender is prone to chronic pain, chest
separation should be reduced to minimum.
Furthermore, with the increasing interest of shifting the cardiac surgery procedures
from full to partial sternotomy, including the “J” and “T” incisions, the proposed study
might be useful to evaluate and compare the forces applied on the sternum in the


An Electronic-Engineered Sensory Sternal Retractor Aimed

5

various surgical approaches to determine the best access, allowing at the same time the
optimal surgical view and successively good quality of life.
Only few data are available for the actual value of the forces exerted by a retractor
on the skeletal cage, dummy reproduced [15], or of corpses or animal models [16].
Aigner et al. [17] pointed out that data obtained from human patients are not presently
available in the literature probably due to the lack of an instrumented sternal retractor
readily suitable for the translation to surgery.
For this purpose, we designed and realized a sterilizable system based on a commonly adopted straight sternal retractor (Finocchietto) equipped with ultrathin force

sensors and conditioning electronic circuitry. The forces experienced during the
retraction were monitored in real-time by means of a home-made dummy.
The idea is to acquire data on the intensity and distribution of exerted retraction
forces during hemi-sternums separation in view of future challenging clinical studies
aimed to reduce the risk of chronic post-sternotomy pain.

2 Materials
A commonly adopted straight sternal retractor, Finochietto type (Fig. 1a), was equipped
with both ultra-thin force sensors (Fig. 1b and c) and electronic circuitry. The resulting
electronic-engineered “sensory retractor” was tested by means of a home-made dummy.

(c)

front

cover

back

Fig. 1. (a) The Finochietto retractor equipped with the four sensors placed in positions designed
from 1 to 4 according to the figure. (b) The ultra-thin force sensors, HT201 (top) and A201
(bottom) types. (c) Aluminum sensors’ housings: front, back and cover [15].