Conference Report

The 11th Nordic-Baltic Conference on Biomedical Engineering, Tallinn, Estonia The 11th Nordic-Baltic Conference on Biomedical Engineering NBC99, the Regional Meeting of the IFMBE, IEEE EMBS and IOMP, took place from 6-10 June 1999 in Tallinn, Estonia. The conference was organised by the Biomedical Engineering Centre of Tallinn Technical University and the Estonian Society for Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics.

The NBC99 was the eleventh in a series of Nordic meetings on medical and biological engineering. These meetings began in 1970, the first of which was organised in Helsinki, Finland, followed by conferences in Oslo, Norway (1971), Tampere, Finland (1975), Lyngby, Denmark (1977), Linkšping, Sweden (1981), Aberdeen, Scotland (1984), Trondheim, Norway (1987), Ålborg, Denmark (1990), Lund, Sweden (1993) and Tampere, Finland (1996).

The Nordic BME Meeting, which has traditionally served as an IFMBE Regional Meeting, also included several topics on medical physics. The NBC99 was also approved as an IOMP Regional Meeting, thus joining two closely related areas, biomedical engineering and medical physics.

The last Nordic Conference on Biomedical Engineering, which took place in 1996 in Tampere, was historical in the sense that the word 'Baltic' was added to the name of the conference, thus extending its coverage to include the small countries on the south coast of the Baltic Sea (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), who recently regained their independence. The 11th Nordic-Baltic Conference on Biomedical Engineering was the first IFMBE regional Nordic meeting to be held in a Baltic State (Estonia) rather than in the traditional Scandinavian-Nordic area. As we enter the millennium, it seemed somewhat significant to meet in the thousand-year-old city of Tallinn, once an important trading and cultural centre of Europe and part of the Hansa League, which is now struggling to regain its old position.

The Nordic-Baltic Conference on Biomedical Engineering has come to represent a forum at which biomedical engineers and medical physicists from the Nordic-Baltic countries and the rest of the world can report on technical advances and exchange ideas in this rapidly developing field of science and technology. More than 300 participants from 35 countries, including Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia, attended the 11th Nordic-Baltic Conference. At six mini-symposia, four round-table meetings and twenty session meetings, 197 presentations were presented and discussed. The conference proceedings have been published as an attachment to the IFMBE Journal Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing and include contributions from more than 500 authors. With the integration of Europe, co-operation between research groups from different parts of Europe is growing and becoming more important. The proceedings of this conference contain a large number of joint papers submitted by scientists from different countries.

The conference topics traditionally cover a broad spectrum of subjects in the field of biomedical engineering and medical physics. However, this particular conference had some special features. The 11th Nordic-Baltic Conference on Biomedical Engineering was the last in its series this side of the millennium. It therefore seemed appropriate to analyse the past and look ahead, specifying the main trends and future developments of biomedical engineering and medical physics. The conference motto was 'Biomedical Engineering at the Turn of the Millennium'. Robert Plonsey opened the discussion on this topic with his excellent keynote lecture 'The ECG, BME History (and BME Future!)'.

As we enter the millennium, European healthcare is undergoing widespread changes with a shift from institutionally centred care to citizen-centred care. The main aim of the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Community for Research and Development is to improve quality of life. The Special Quality of Life Programme includes several aspects of biomedical engineering and medical physics. The applications of information technology in health on different levels and for several purposes is a key activity of the Fifth Framework Information Society Technology Programme. In his plenary presentation, David Guedj, representing the EU Commission, gave an overview of the biomedical engineering opportunities in the Information Society Technology Programme of the Fifth Framework Programme of the EU.
IFMBE President signs Honorary Book
IFMBE President Jean-Pierre adding his
name to the Honorary Book of the City of
Tallin in the presence of Mayor of the
City of Tallin Mr Peeter Lepp.

The State-of-the-Art Lectures were selected to present an overview of most topical problems as well as of the various relevant research themes in the Baltic countries:

  • Swamy Laxminarayan (USA) 'Information Technology Road Map in Biomedicine: Overview'
  • Jean-Pierre Morucci (France) 'Can Ex Vivo and In Vivo Impedance Techniques Characterise Breast Cancer?'
  • Olav Kongas (Estonia) 'Modelling of Intracellular Compartmentalised Energy and Metabolic Fluxes in the Heart'
  • Metin Akay (USA) 'Fractals in Cardiology'
  • Ivars Knets (Latvia) 'General Principles of the Biomechanical Behaviour of Biological Tissue'
  • Jaakko Malmivuo (Finland) 'Application of Bioelectromag-netic Methods in the Detection of the Electric Sources of the Brain and the Heart'
  • Hiie Hinrikus (Estonia) 'Low Level Microwave Field Effects on Living Systems'.

The topics of the mini-symposia, organised by team leaders from different countries, included:

  • Bioelectromagnetism and Bioelectromagnetic Phenomena (Jaakko Malmivuo),
  • Bioimpedance (Antoni Nowakowski and Javier Rosell)
  • Bio-optics (Åke Öberg)
  • Electromagnetic Phenomena (Hiie Hinrikus)
  • Nonlinear Dynamics and Signal Processing (Jüri Engelbrecht).

Telemedicine, clinical engineering as well as education and training in biomedical engineering and medical physics are especially topical in the newly independent Baltic States. Therefore, round-table discussions on these topics were included in the programme and organised by leading specialists:

  • Telemedicine and Home Care Technology (Swamy Laxminarayan)
  • Medical Technology Assessment and Quality Assurance (Heikki Teriö)
  • Biomedical Engineering Education (Jaakko Malmivuo)
  • Medical Physics Education (Slavik Tabakov).

Medical physics was a major theme of the sessions, with the special sessions on imaging, radiation protection, radiotherapy, effects of fields and radiation attracting a large number of presentations and interest.

Twenty scientists competed for the Ragnar Granit prize of 1000 Euro for the best young scientist. The prize was established by the Ragnar Granit Foundation, Finland. The winner was Jaanus Lass from Tallinn Technical University, Estonia. His paper 'Modulated Microwave Effects on EEG Alpha Waves' presented very interesting experimental data and discussed the very topical problem of the effects of cellular phones on human brain activity.

Conference President passes on horn
President of the Conference Professor Hiie Hinrikus
passing on the traditional horn to the organisers of the next
Nordic-Baltic Conference (NBC12) Mr Stefan Sigurdssson,
Reykjavik, Iceland.


Those participating at the NBC99 were invited to a reception by the Mayor of the City of Tallinn in Tallinn City Hall. President of IFMBE Jean-Pierre Morucci, Vice President of IOMP Oskar Chomicki and IEEE EMBS AdCom member and head of RGI Jaakko Malmivuo added their names to the Honourary Book of the City of Tallinn.

The social programme included the most famous part of Estonian culture: choir music, including a concert performed by a childrens' choir at the opening ceremony. The Tallinn Boys' Choir concert at Niguliste Museum-Concert Hall on June 7 included music from various eras, from Gregorian chants till today. The conference dinner was held in the 500-year-old House of Blackheads, home to the Middle-Age Brotherhood of the Blackheads (a group of young unmarried tradesmen with black hair as opposed to grey). The participants at the NBC99 enjoyed their stay in the thousand-year-old Hansean city of Tallinn.
Conference participants
Conference participants and organisers: Tarmo Lipping
(Tampere University of Technology, Pori Unit), Jari Hyttinen
(Tampere University of Technology, Ragnar Granit
Institute), Jaakko Malmivuo (Tampere University of Technology, Ragnar Granit Institute),
Hiie Hinrikus (conference chair), Juri Engelbrecht
(President Estonian Academy of Science), Ivars Knets (Latvia,
Rigas Technical University, prorector), Antoni Nowakowski
(Poland, Technical University of Gdansk), Javier Rosell
(Barcelona) and J-P Morucci (IFMBE President)

The aim of this first high-level international conference on biomedical engineering and medical physics in a Baltic State was to promote research and education in Baltic countries, encourage Baltic-Nordic co-operation, especially with regard to education and medical technology assessment, and promote worldwide and European co-operation and collaboration in the Baltic Sea region in the field of biomedical engineering. Especially important was the role of NBC99 for students and young scientists in Estonia and other Baltic countries. The large number of biomedical engineering students present at the conference - all conference service was provided by student volunteers from Estonian universities - showed the importance of the conference to the student community.

Hiie Hinrikus

Conference Chair