The common research activities started inside the RTs have already led to some progress beyond the SoA in some of the identified areas:
RT1 - Stratification and diagnosis, the main advances have been on the development of interpretable models for cardiovascular risk assessment and stratification, algorithms for the detection of cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory conditions. Furthermore, algorithms for the estimation of the cardio-respiratory coupling have been developed for the identification of stress conditions, which constitute a risk factor for cardiovascular patients.
RT2 - Personalized predictions, the main advances were on the development of models able to produce an understandable decision by the clinicians. The work performed in this field focused on the development of interpretable models to assess the patient’s condition based on supervised clustering theories, fusion strategies and case-based reasoning for Heart Failure decompensation, hyptertension, glucose level prediction and epileptic seizures . Furthermore, algorithms for the detection of changes of emotional and stress-related physiological response, particularly using modulations of the autonomic nervous system, during cognitive/stress demanding tasks (e.g. software coding and analysis) have been developed based on a multimodal bio-signal analysis.
RT3 - Integrated care and process mining, the main advances have been on the implementation of Process Mining tools aiming to provide researchers with proper frameworks to further advance the research in this field. An interactive process mining technique has been researched and is being evaluated to support daily clinical practice in the management of cardiovascular diseases (e.g. How do the Stroke processes times affect patients cognitive deterioration).
One of the potential impacts aimed at LiNK is to increase international impact, visibility and leadership:
(1) The number of citation in the consortium increased by 94% during the project (widening partner 52%);
(2) The achieved global funding for research by the widening partner increased 25% overall. The international competitive funding (H2020, EIT-Health, etc.) increased 211% during the period for the widening partner.
(3) The number of PhD students in the widening partner increased 180%
(4) Key positions in major scientific organizations:
- Coordination of the Working Group on Health Informatics and e-Health, of the IFMBE;
- Associate Editor of the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics;
- Membership of Technical Committee of the Cardiopulmonary System of the IEEE;
- Membership of Technical Committee on Biomedical Signal Processing of the IEEE.
- Chair of the 2019 edition of the Mediterranean Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing
- Invited keynote at the Gordon Research Conferences on Health Informatics
(5) a clear roadmap for research in the mid/long-Term
Another impact aspired by LINK is related to the increase of attractiveness to PhD students and Post-Docs through its immersive international research ecosystem and cutting–edge research questions. This has already increased in 180% the number of PhD students enrolled.
