About the Contributors

Transcription

1 334 About the Contributors Rafael Magdalena-Benedito was born in 1968 in Segovia (Castellón). Between 1986 and 1991, he studied a degree in Physics at the University of Valencia, Computer and Electronic specialty. In 1993 he worked in the company of electro DextroMédica as dictafonía technician in cardiology and medical physics. In 1998 he joined the Group Processing Digital Signal Department, where he currently works on research projects, is an Assistant Professor. His areas of work are data security, multimedia networks, standardization in biomedical engineering, and telemedicine. Emilio Soria received an MS degree in Physics (1992) and a PhD degree (1997) in Electronics Engineering from the Universitat de Valencia (Spain). He has been an Assistant Professor at the University of Valencia since His research is centered mainly in the analysis and applications of adaptive and neural systems. Juan Guerrero Martínez earned his degree in Physics, specializing in Electrical Engineering and Electronics and Computer Science in 1984 and PhD in Physics from the University of Valencia in He has been Associate Professor at the University of Valencia since 1985 and Associate Professor in the area of Electronics since He has participated in several research projects and R & D contracts with companies on issues related to the development of control systems based on microprocessors, as well as biomedical instrumentation and processing of biosignals. He has written several papers published in conferences and national and international journals. He is currently coordinating a research group Digital Signal Processing (GPDS) on Digital Processing, with applications in various fields but preferably oriented biosignals, which is developing research projects. His main interests are the development of biomedical instrumentation systems based on microprocessor or PC and the digital processing of biosignals, including real-time applications. Juan Gómez-Sanchis received a B.Sc. degree in Physics (2000) and a B.Sc. degree in Electronics Engineering from the University of Valencia (2003). He joined at the Public Research Institute IVIA in 2004, developing is Ph.D. in hyperspectral computer vision systems applied to the agriculture. He joined to the Department of Electronics Engineering at University of Valencia in 2008, where he currently works as Assistant Professor in Pattern Recognition using Neural Networks.

2 Antonio Jose Serrano-López received a BS degree in Physics in 1996, a MS degree in Physics in 1998, and a Ph.D. degree in Electronics Engineering in 2002, from the University of Valencia. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Electronics Engineering Department at this same university. His research interest is machine learning methods for biomedical signal processing. Currently, he teaches courses of Analog Electronic Design and Digital Signal Processing. * * * Jose M. Alonso received his M.S. degree (2003) and the Ph.D. degree (2007) in Telecommunication Engineering, both from the Technical University of Madrid, Spain. From , he was involved in the ADVOCATE2 project, funded by European Union. Between , he enjoyed as visiting researcher at Cemagref (Montpellier, France), an agricultural and environmental engineering research centre; and ECSC, European Centre for Soft Computing (Mieres, Spain). Since November 2007, he is postdoctoral researcher in the Fundamentals of Soft Computing Unit at the ECSC. His main research line is related to knowledge extraction and representation in fuzzy modeling. Two kinds of knowledge, expert and induced knowledge, are considered paying attention to their integration and final model interpretability-accuracy trade-off. He has published more than 40 peer-reviewed papers in international journals and conference proceedings. Juan I. Alonso-Barba received the B.E and M.S. in Information Technology from the University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain, in 2007 and 2008, respectively. He joined the Intelligent Systems and Data Mining research group in 2006 and he is currently a granted Ph.D. student by the Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha. He has been working on several projects related with the applications of metaheuristics in the field of data mining. Currently, his research work focuses on automatic learning of probabilistic graphical models, mainly Bayesian Networks and Chain Graphs. Dario Antonelli holds a M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, He is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Production Systems and Economics of Politecnico di Torino. His scientific activity is mainly related to finite element simulation of metalworking processes, to experimental identification of process parameters and to collaborative networks management. He is member of COVE, IFIP-WG5.5. Carlos Julio Arizmendi received his degree in Electronic Engineering from the Industrial University of Santander (Bucaramanga-Colombia), is a currently postgraduate student of the Artificial Intelligence program adscript to the Department of Computer Languages and Systems at Technical University (Catalonia-Barcelona). Also, he is a Professor of the Autonomous University (Bucaramanga-Colombia) in the Mechatronics Department. His currently interest areas are: pattern recognition, machine learning, data mining, neural networks, biomedical engineering and signal treatment, and processing in general. Azuraliza Abu Bakar is a Professor at the School of Computer Science, Faculty of Technology and Information Science, UKM. She was awarded PhD in Artificial Intelligence from UPM. Currently she is the head of the Center for Artificial Intelligence Technology, a research center in the faculty. Her research interests include data mining, artificial intelligence, rough sets, outlier detection, and knowledge-based technology. 335

3 Elena Baralis received the Master s degree in Electrical Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, Italy. She is full Professor at the Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica of the Politecnico di Torino since January Her current research interests are in the field of databases, in particular data mining, sensor databases, and bioinformatics. She is the author or coauthor of numerous papers on journal and conference proceedings, and she has managed several Italian and EU research projects. Aleš Belič is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana where he is involved in modelling and analysis of biological and pharmaceutical systems with major stress on the analysis of EEG signals, systems biology, pharmacokinetics, and modelling in pharmaceutical technology. He received his BSc and PhD degrees from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana in 1994 and 2000, respectively. He has been involved in several industrial projects as well as national and international research activities (6th and 7th European Framework Projects: STEROLTALK, FightingDrugFailure). His professional bibliography consists of more than 150 contributions in international and domestic journals, international conferences, and book chapters. Radoslav Bortel received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University (FEE CTU), Prague, Czech Republic, in 2005 and 2010, respectively. He is currently an Assistant Professor at FEE CTU. His research interests include statistical signal analysis, EEG coherence analysis and spatial filtering, ECG signal processing, and electronic circuits for the measurement of biological signals with dry electrodes. Zoran Bosnić obtained his Master and Doctor degrees in Computer Science at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2003 and 2007, respectively. Since 2006 he has been employed at Faculty of Computer and Information Science and currently works as an Assistant Professor in the Laboratory of Cognitive Modeling. He teaches courses on computer networks, communication protocols, and web programming. His research interests include artificial intelligence, machine learning, regression, and reliability estimation for individual predictions, as well as medical and other applications in these areas. He is a (co)author of about 20 research papers and a textbook in international journals and conference proceedings. Giulia Bruno holds a Master degree and a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Politecnico di Torino, Italy. She is currently working in the field of data mining and bioinformatics. Her activity is focused on anomaly detection in temporal and biological databases and on microarray data analysis to select genes relevant for tumor classification. She is also investigating data mining techniques for clinical analysis, particularly the extraction of medical pathways from electronic patients records. Martha Ivón Cárdenas received his degree in Mathematics from the Department of Mathematics and Computer, University of Havana (Cuba) in She received his MSc in Artificial Intelligence from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in 2011 under careful supervision of Dr. Alfredo Vellido and Dr. Jesús Giraldo. Her research interests cover machine learning and pattern recognition applied to proteomics area, specifically in G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) where a protein sequences comparison approach is developed. 336

4 Ciro Castiello is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Informatics of the University of Bari since He graduated (cum laude) in Informatics at the University of Bari and received from the same university also his PhD in Informatics in His research activity mainly concerns the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Particularly, his research is focused on: the development of Knowledge-Based Neurocomputing methodologies and their application for solving different problems; the study of inductive learning mechanisms for assessing the theoretical basis of meta-learning approaches; the application of Soft Computing techniques in the contexts of image processing and Semantic Web; and the definition of interpretability evaluation techniques for fuzzy rule based classifiers. Dr. Castiello is author of more than fifty scientific papers, he took part as a speaker in several national and international conferences, and he is involved in different national research projects. Dr. Castiello regularly participates in the didactic activity of the II Science Faculty of the University of Bari, where he acts as a member. Silvia Chiusano is an Assistant Professor at the Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica of the Politecnico di Torino since January She holds a Master degree and a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering, both from Politecnico di Torino. Her current research interests are in the areas of data mining and database systems, in particular integration of data mining techniques into relational DBMSs, and classification of structured and sequential data. Luis de la Ossa received the MSc. and PhD degrees in Computer Science in 2002 and 2007, respectively, from the University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. He is currently working as Associate Professor in the Computing Systems Department of this university, and he is also member of the Intelligent Systems and Data Mining research group in the Albacete Research Institute of Informatics I3A. Most of his former research was related to evolutionary computation, and he is currently working on evolutionary fuzzy systems, Bayesian network learning, and data mining. Claudia Diamantini is associate professor at the Università Politecnica delle Marche, Department of Information Engineering, where she leads the Knowledge Discovery & Management research group. She received the Laurea degree in Computer Science with honors in 1990 from the University of Milan, and the PhD degree in Artificial Intelligent Systems from the University of Ancona in Her research interests are in the areas of business intelligence (in particular data mining and data warehousing) and semantic interoperability, with special attention to interdisciplinary relationships among them. On these topics she has published more than 70 technical papers in refereed journals and conferences. She is a member of the IEEE and ACM. Ian Douglas, Ph.D., is an Associate Program Director at the Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University and an Associate Professor in the university s College of Communications and Information. His research interests focus on improving human performance, particularly through knowledge management and user-centered design of technology. Dr. Douglas has a multidisciplinary background, with an M.A. (hons) in Psychology, an M.S. in Computing and Cognition, and a Ph.D. in Computing. He began his career in medical AI and has worked as an educator in the USA, UK, and Singapore. He has also been a visiting Professor at the University of the Philippines, Dalian Maritime University, China, and the Informatics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 337

5 Sandro Fioretti graduated in 1979 in Electronic Engineering at Ancona University and presently is Associate Professor in Bioengineering at the Department of Information Engineering Università Politecnica delle Marche - Ancona. He teaches Movement Biomechanics and Bioengineering of Motor Rehabilitation at the Biomedical Engineering course of the same university. His main research interests are in the field of human movement analysis and its related fields such as: stereophotogrammetry, linear and nonlinear filtering, joint kinematics, analysis and identification of postural control, static and perturbed posturography, gait analysis, and dynamic electromyography. He participated in various European and National research projects in the field of movement analysis for motor rehabilitation. He is author of numerous scientific publications in international journals, books, and congress proceedings. Oana Frunza is a Ph.D. candidate at the SEECS (School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), University of Ottawa, Canada. She holds an M.C.S. degree from the same university and a B.C.S. in Computer Science from Babes-Bolyai University, Romania. Her research interests include different areas of artificial intelligence, natural language processing and text analysis, machine learning, and medical informatics. Affiliated with several renowned associations such as CAIAC (Canadian Artificial Intelligence Association) she is an active reviewer for prestigious journals and conferences. She is the author of the book: Cognates, False Friends, and Partial Cognates and more than 20 publications including: a book chapter, 6 journal articles, and 14 conference papers. Jesús Giraldo received his PhD in Chemistry from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain. He is currently based at the Institut de Neurociències and Unitat de Bioestadística (UAB) where he works mainly in the molecular and mathematical modeling of G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) structure and function. The complexity of GPCR signaling requires collaborative efforts between researchers from all the disciplines involved-both experimental and theoretical. Because of this, his research is conducted in an integrative way, combining methods and techniques from computational chemistry, statistics, and bioinformatics, with the general aim of providing a mechanistic interpretation of biological function. Ciril Grošelj, MD, PhD is internal medicine specialist, working at Nuclear medicine Department in University Medical Center Ljubljana, Slovenia and member of research group of the institution. He is also an Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at Medical Faculty Ljubljana. His research interest include coronary artery disease, lung diseases, myocardial and lung nuclear medicine diagnostics, machine learning, data mining, and their applications in medicine. He is co-author of a few chapters in Slovenian medical books and of more than 60 scientific publications. Abdul Razak Hamdan is a Professor in Intelligent System, Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM).Currently he is the dean of the faculty, and also a head of Data Mining & Optimization Research Group. He received his BSc degree from UKM (1975), MSc degree from University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK (1977) and PhD in Artificial Intelligence from Loughborough University of Technology, United Kingdom in His research interests include data mining & optimization, ICT strategic & policy, and intelligent decision support. 338

6 Ching-Chi Hsu was born in Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China, on September 24 th, He received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST) in December In August 2007, he joined in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of NTUST as a Project-Appointed Assistant Professor. In August 2009, he moved to the Graduate Institute of Engineering of NTUST as an Assistant Professor. In August 2011, The Graduate Institute of Engineering is renamed as the Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology. Dr. Hsu has taught and published in the field of biomechanics. His main research interests are in analyses and improvements of the orthopaedic implants, applications of engineering algorithms and artificial intelligence in biomedicine, and applications of nonlinear finite element analyses for biomechanical problems. Diana Inkpen is an Associate Professor the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Ottawa. She obtained her PhD in 2003 from the University of Toronto, Department of Computer Science. She obtained her M.Sc. from the Department of Computer Science, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in 1999, and a B.Eng. from the same university, in Her research interests are in the areas of Computational Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence, more specifically: Natural Language Understanding, Natural Language Generation, Lexical Semantics, and Information Retrieval. She has many research grants from NSERC, SSHRC, and OCE, including industrial collaborations. She is a reviewer for several journals and a program committee member for many conferences (ACL, NAACL. EMNLP, RANLP, CICLing, TANL, AI, etc.). She published 6 book chapters, 20 journal papers, and 61 conference and workshop papers. She organized 4 international workshops. She is member of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). Igor Kononenko received his PhD in Computer Science in 1990 from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is the Professor at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science in Ljubljana and the head of Laboratory for Cognitive Modeling. His research interests include artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data mining. He is the (co)author of about 200 papers and 13 textbooks (two in English). His papers were cited over 1000 times by other authors. Igor Kononenko was actively involved in research in 20 national and international research projects. He is the member of the editorial board of Applied Intelligence Journal and Informatica Journal. He was a chair and the proceedings editor of three international scientific conferences. Domen Košir received his Bachelor s degree in Computer Science from University of Ljubljana in He is currently a PhD student and a junior researcher in the Laboratory of Cognitive Modeling at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science. He is employed at Httpool Online Advertising Limited as a senior software architect where he works mostly on web content analysis and contextual advertising. His research is partly financed by the European Union, European Social Fund. His interests include artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data mining with focus on natural language processing, online advertising, and web user profiling. Matjaž Kukar is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and a member of Laboratory for Cognitive Modeling as well as of Artificial Intelligence Department at the same Faculty. His research interests include machine learning, data mining 339

7 and their applications in medicine, ROC analysis, cost-sensitive learning, combinations of classifiers, classification reliability in machine learning, and spatial learning. He is the co-author of the book Machine Learning and Data Mining: Introduction to Principles and Algorithms (with Igor Kononenko) and of more than 70 scientific publications. Vito Logar received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2004 and 2009, respectively. He is currently working as a researcher/ assistant at the same institution. At the time his main research interests are modeling of the industrial systems, namely modeling of the electric-arc processes. Furthermore, modelling and identification of the neurophysiological systems based on the EEG measurements and development of the web-based applications regarding e-learning solutions are also a part of his research work. His professional bibliography consists of more than 50 contributions in international and domestic journals, international conferences, and book chapters. Zalizah Awang Long is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Malaysia Institute Information Technology (MIIT), Universiti Kuala Lumpur. She is currently pursuing PhD at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Her research interests in data mining for public health applications. She has taught for more than 10 years, consisting mainly of courses in Information Systems. Marco Lucarelli is currently a PhD student at the Department of Informatics of the University of Bari (since 2011) with a grant by the same university. In 2007 he received his B.Sc. degree in Informatics and Digital Communications at the University of Bari. In 2010, at the same University, he received his M.Sc. degree in Informatics (summa cum laude) defending the thesis Interpretable Fuzzy Knowledge Discovery for IgA Nephropathy. Currently, his research field is soft computing, in particular with focus on granular computing, human centric information processing, and interpretable fuzzy modelling. He is co-author of three peer-reviewed scientific papers. Naeem A. Mahoto received the Master s degree in Computer Engineering from Mehran University of Engineering and Technology Jamshoro, Pakistan. He is PhD student at Politecnico di Torino, Italy since January He works in the field of data mining and bioinformatics with the Databases and Data Mining Group of Politecnico di Torino, Italy. His activity is focused on pattern extraction and classification of electronic records in the medical domain. Manuel Martín-Merino received the B. S. degree in Physics from the University of Salamanca (Spain) in 1996 and the PhD. degree in Applied Physics from the same university in He is currently an Associate Professor in the Computer Science school at the University Pontificia of Salamanca. His research interests include visualization and clustering algorithms for the analysis of high dimensional data, pattern recognition techniques, and particularly kernel methods and Support Vector Machines. Currently he is focusing on practical problems related to Bioinformatics (gene expression data analysis and proteomics), data mining, and text mining. He is a member of the IEEE. 340

8 Corrado Mencar is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Bari, Faculty of Sciences, Department of Informatics, in Bari (Italy). He got a laurea (Ms.Sci) degree in Informatics in 2000 and a PhD degree in Informatics in 2005, both at the University of Bari. In 2001 he was employed as software analyst and designer for some Italian software firms. From 2005, he started his academic career as Assistant Professor by actively doing research in Computational Intelligence and Soft Computing. In his research activities, he joined several research projects and published more than 50 peer-reviewed international publications. He also acts as a reviewer for several international journals and conferences, as well as for the ACM Computing Reviews. His current research topics include fuzzy logic, granular computing, neuro-fuzzy systems, computational web intelligence, and intelligent data analysis. Jens Dalgaard Nielsen received the MS degree in Software Engineering in 2002, and the PhD degree in Computer Science in 2007, both from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Aalborg, Denmark. From 2007 to 2008 he was a research assistant at the Department of Statistics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Almerìa, Spain. From 2008 to 2011 he was a researcher at the Department of Computer Systems, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. He has been working of various research projects on the development of learning algorithms for probabilistic graphical models, and his research interests include machine learning and graphical models and the application of these techniques in genetics and bioinformatics. Since 2011 he has been a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Cardiovascular Science and the University of Sheffield (UK). Iván Olier is currently a Marie Curie research fellow at the School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Manchester, UK. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Neurosciences, Universitat Autdnoma de Barcelona, Spain, during the period He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, in His research interests include Bayesian modeling of cognitive processes, statistical machine learning, and biomedicine. Caterina Petrigni received the Master degree in Biomedical Engineering at Politecnico di Torino (2007). She was a research assistant at the Department of Production Systems and Business Economics of Politecnico di Torino. She is currently Ph.D. student at Universita` degli Studi di Torino and grant researcher at Istituto Superiore di Sanità. Her main research activity is focused on the transferability of industrial management concepts to healthcare networks. She actively collaborates with the AIIC (The Italian Association of Clinical Engineers). Domenico Potena received the MSc degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Ancona, Italy, in 2001, and the Ph.D. in Information Systems Engineering from the Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy, in From June 2005 to October 2008, he was post-doctoral fellow at the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Informatica, Gestionale e dell Automazione - Università Politecnica delle Marche. Since 2008 he is an Assistant Professor at the the Department of Information Engineering of the same University. His research interests include knowledge discovery in databases, data mining, data warehousing, information systems, and service oriented architectures. 341

9 Jose M. Puerta received a M.S. degree in Computer Science in 1991, and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science in 2001, both from the University of Granada, Spain. He joined the Department of Computer Systems at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) in 1991, where he is currently an Associate Professor. He currently serves as Vice-Dean of the Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Informática (UCLM) and is the co-leader of the Intelligent Systems and Data Mining research group. He carries out his research at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems and Data Mining (SIMD) and his main research interest include probabilistic graphical models, Bayesian networks, evolutionary algorithms, machine learning, and data mining. Dr. Puerta has published more than 50 papers on these topics. Dr. Puerta has served in the organization of International Conferences and Workshops as Program Co-Chair and Technical Program Committee Member. Vicent Ribas received an MSc in Telecommunications Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (Sweden) from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain) with majors in Digital Signal Processing and Radiocommunications Technology in At UPC, he also followed the studies of Mathematical Engineering focusing on the mathematical modelling of physiological processes. He is currently pursuing a PhD degree at the Department of Languages and Information Systems of UPC. Vicent Ribas has extensive experience as a technology specialist (10+ years). He worked as a Project Manager at T-Systems Spain and as Management Consultant at Accenture Technology Labs in Sophia Antipolis, France. His research interests include, pattern recognition, machine learning, signal processing, and mathematical modelling applied to medicine. He has authored and co-authored more than 5 patents and papers on these topics. Enrique Romero received a B.Sc. degree in Mathematics in 1989 from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). In 1994, he received a B.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). In 1996, he joined the Department of Llenguatges i Sistemes Informátics at UPC, as an Assistant Professor. In 2004, he received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the UPC. His research interests include pattern recognition, neural networks, support vector machines, and feature selection. X. Rovira graduated with a degree in Biology at the University of Girona (Spain) in He received his PhD from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain) in 2010 at the Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology and Bioinformatics lead by Dr Jesús Giraldo. Currently, Dr. Rovira held a Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) long-term fellowship at the Institute of Functional Genomics (IGF) in Montpellier under the supervision of Dr Jean-Philippe Pin. His research is focussed on the study of the functional significance of the oligomerization phenomenon in G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). To that aim, he develops mathematical and computational theoretical models which can shed light on some apparent pharmacological abnormalities that can be explained in the context of a receptor dimer. These hypotheses are then used to design new experimental assays. Juan Carlos Ruiz-Rodriguez graduated in Medicine and Surgery (University of Barcelona) and specialized in Intensive Care Medicine (Vall d Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona). Medical staff of the Critical Care Department, Vall d Hebron University Hospital and member of the Research Group for Shock, Organ Disfunction and Resuscitation (SODIR Research Group), Vall d Hebron Institut de Recerca, 342

10 Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. His research interests include sepsis and technological innovation projects. Active member of Scientific Committee of the Catalan Society of Critical Care Medicine. He was a member of Extended Scientific Committee of the Spanish Society of Intensive Care Medicine, Critical and Coronary Units (SEMICYUC) and he was national coordinator of the Working Group on Blood Products and Transfusion Alternatives SEMICYUC. Is also a member of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine and the Spanish Society of Transplantation. He is author and coauthor of several articles, book chapters, and books. Vasco Saavedra graduated in Information Systems (2002, Oporto University). Currently he teaches several subjects in the Computer Science domain in University of Aveiro. His main research areas are Computer Science, also including the Healthcare Information System domain. He has several articles published in journals, book chapters, and proceedings in several national and international conferences. He also works since 2003 with Portugal Telecom Inovação, a major telecommunication company, as software analyst and developer. Mazrura Sahani is a senior medical fellow at the Faculty of Health Sciences, UKM. Her domain specialization is Environmental and Occupational Epidemiology. She obtained a medical degree from Catholic University of Leuven Belgium. She was awarded a Master degree on Public health in 1997 from UKM and PhD on Environmental Management for Health in 2004 from University of Western Sydney, Richmond, Australia. Her research interests include environmental and occupational health sciences, public health, and not limited to artificial intelligence. João Pedro Simões received his MSc in Computer Science in 2009 from the University of Coimbra, Portugal. At this moment he is a Software Developer consultant at Accenture. Before joining Accenture, he worked on PT Inovação, Aveiro, where he was a Software Developer for two years. In this period he had the opportunity to publish in some conferences. Pavel Sovka received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University (FEE CTU), Prague, Czech Republic, in 1981 and 1986, respectively. From 1985 to 1991, he was with the Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. In 1991, he joined the Department of Circuit Theory, FEE CTU. Since 2000, he has been a Full Professor. His research interests include the application of adaptive systems to noise and echo cancellation, speech analysis, changepoint detection, and signal separation. He is a member of the International Speech Communication Association (ISCA). Leonor Teixeira graduated in Management and Industrial Engineering, received an MSc degree in Information Management and a PhD in Health Information Systems area. She is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Economics, Management and Industrial Engineering at the University of Aveiro and teaching in Technology and Information Systems areas. She has published in several conferences and journals, and currently she is researcher at the Governance, Competitiveness and Public Politics (GOVCOPP) and of the Institute of Electronics and Telematics Engineering (IEETA) of Aveiro research units. 343

11 Alfredo Vellido received his degree in Physics from the Department of Electronics and Automatic Control of the University of the Basque Country (Spain) in He completed his PhD at Liverpool John Moores University (UK) in After a few years of experience in the private sector, he briefly joined Liverpool John Moores University again as senior research officer. Following a Ramón y Cajal research fellowship, he is currently Assistant Professor at Technical University of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain. Research interests include, but are not limited to, pattern recognition, machine learning, and data mining, as well as their applications in medicine, market analysis, ecology, and e-learning, subjects on which he has published widely. 344