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Biography

Elske Ammenwerth obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg in 2001. In 2002, she joined UMIT as assistant professor and head of a research group on assessment of health information systems. Since 2005, she is head of IIG and professor for health informatics at UMIT. Her research comprises tactical and strategic management of health information systems including process management and optimization, regional networking, strategic IT planning, and evaluation and assessment of IT in health care. She is head of the IT strategy board of the Tyrolean state hospitals (TILAK). She is managing editor of the IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics, member of the editorial board of Int J Med Inform and Method Inf Med, and reviewer for BMC, JAMIA and several other journals. She is leading the working group on evaluation of EFMI (European Federation for Health Informatics) and the Austrian health informatics working group (AK-MI). She published over 40 papers in international peer-reviewed papers in the last 5 years and published or edited 7 books on health informatics.

Speech

Neuroendocrine control of eating – an overview

Abstract

Current understanding indicates that a complex, hierarchical neural network that is widely distributed throughout the central nervous system (CNS) processes the numerous extrinsic and intrinsic stimuli to produce eating behavior and eating-associated subjective phenomena. This presentation reviews this system in broad strokes, emphasizing especially aspects that appear to present good opportunities for environmental and on-body nutrition-monitoring technology. The central nervous system neural network subserving eating includes major components in the brain stem, hypothalamus, and cerebral hemispheres. Neurons in these anatomical areas display a degree of functional localization, especially in regard to the types of extrinsic signals reaching them. Thus, the brainstem contributes especially to the “reflex-like controls of meal initiation (hunger) and termination (satiation); the hypothalamus contributes especially to so-called “regulatory” or “homeostatic” controls related to short and longer term supply of metabolic fuels; and the subcortical and cortical telencephalic areas contribute especially to processing rewarding or hedonic aspects of foods and eating habits. These areas interact extensively, however, so that any anatomic localization must be thought of as mainly heuristic, and the network’s operation should be conceived of in terms of interacting functional streams of information processing. Pharmacological attempts to control eating have, of course, focused on this CNS network. Their modest success may reflect redundancy and parallel processing within the network.

Each of the three CNS divisions of the neural network for the control of eating receives a variety of peripheral afferent information. These afferent inputs are integrated across a wide range of temporal intervals. As a result, the control of the rate and amount eaten in a single meal is co-determined by inputs that change within seconds (such as flavors in the mouth) or minutes (such as gut fill and plasma levels of hormones and metabolites) to hours or days (such as plasma levels of hormones secreted by the adipose tissue). Presenting patients with feedback information related to such signals, especially if combined with cognitive behavioral therapy, seems to have great potential therapeutic utility for the control of disordered eating. Thus, efforts to develop technology for on-body monitoring of such signals, individually or in combination, is clearly warranted.

Biography

Nori Geary is Research Director of the Institute of Animal Sciences to the Medical Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETHZ). He completed his postdoctoral training in Nutrition at MIT, in Nutritional Physiology at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, and in Behavioral Neuroscience at Cornell University. He has been Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology of Columbia University and Director of the E.W. Bourne Behavioral Research Laboratory at Cornell University. Amongst his awards is the John Harvard Honorary Scholarship.

Speech

The Personal Fuel Gauge: Awareness of Energy Balance

Abstract

We are developing a cell-phone personal fuel gauge that will help individuals become more aware of their daily physical activity and diet. The concept is simple: as the day goes on and a person moves around more, their fuel level decreases; when they eat, it increases. We measure physical activity using a compact sensor package that is a satellite to the user’s cell phone (and can eventually be incorporated within it). It is based on using GPS, barometric pressure, and accelerometry so that we can calculate relatively accurate energy expenditure levels. Although measures of food intake currently rely on user input, we plan on using our current sensors (as well as new sensors) to prompt the user when they are eating to increase compliance. We have also developed a novel approach to describing the caloric contact of food that makes it possible to user’s to input relevant parameters of meals and snacks with just a few button presses. Our objectives are two-fold: (1) to increase a person’s awareness of how much activity they are really getting relative to their food intake so that they work toward achieving energy balance or weight-loss; and (2) to then provide suggestions to the user throughout the day (in a non-intrusive manner) that will help them become more aware of possible actions they can take to strike a better balance. This project is multi-disciplinary between UW’s Departments of Computer Science & Engineering, Epidemiology, and Nutrition.

Collaborators: Adrienne Andrew, Carl Hartung, Barbara Breummer and Glen Duncan (University of Washington)

Biography

Gaetano Borriello, Professor, has a BS in EE from the Polytechnic Institute of New York (1979), an MS in EE from Stanford University (1981), and a PhD in CS from the Unversity of California at Berkeley (1988). He was a member of the research staff at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center from 1980-87. He joined the Department in 1988.

Gaetano Borriello is known primarily for his work in automatic synthesis of digital circuits, reconfigurable hardware, and embedded systems development tools. Recently, Borriello was PI for the Portolano Expedition, a DARPA-sponsored investigation on invisible computing. He was on partial leave from 2001 to 2003 to found and direct the Intel Research Seattle laboratory which is engaged in ubiquitous computing research. The focus of Borriello's research interests are in location-based systems, sensor-based inferencing, and tagging objects with passive and active tags.

Biography

Paul Lukowicz received the M.Sc. degree in computer science, the M.Sc. degree in physics, and the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1992, 1993, and 1999, respectively. From 1999 to 2004 he led the Wearable Computing and Computer Architecture Groups at the Electronics Lab., ETH Zurich. In 2003 he was appointed Professor of Computer Science at the Institute for Computer Systems and Networks, University of Health Informatics and Technology Tirol, Innsbruck, Austria. Since 2006 he is a Professor for Computer Science at the University of Passau, Germany. His research interests include wearable and mobile computer architecture, context and activity recognition and dietary monitoring.

Speech

Automatic dietary monitoring using on-body sensors

Abstract

Appropriate nutrition is a major aspect of a healthy lifestyle. Worldwide a considerable number of life-years is lost due to the current prevalence of overweight, obesity and related chronic diseases. Novel ubiquitous sensing solutions for a continuous monitoring of dietary activities are considered as vital cornerstones for behaviour coaching in risk groups and linked to the reduction of diet-related diseases.

This talk summarizes previous attempts for dietary monitoring and outlines options for Automatic Dietary Monitoring as a new paradigm, eliminating food-logging diaries. The feasibility of the automated monitoring approach is demonstrated in a summary of study results using on-body sensors and adapted pattern recognition methods. The activities include motion of the upper body, chewing sound and swallowing. Moreover, an intake cycle model is introduced that provides insights on the eating process and its temporal structure. An outlook on future applications of the solutions for dietary monitoring concludes the presentation.

Biography

Oliver Amft is a Ph.D. candidate at the Wearable Computing Lab., ETH Zurich. Before joining ETH he was five years with ABB Inc. Switzerland developing embedded systems. He received the Dipl.-Ing. (M.Sc.) degree in electrical engineering from Technical University of Chemnitz, Germany in 1999. His research focuses on applications of wearable assistance systems in medicine, including sensing and recognition of physiology and activity context as well as behavioral pattern analysis. His PhD thesis investigates novel methods for Automatic Dietary Monitoring.