Cândido Pinto de Melo Student Competition 2004
1st: André V Alvarenga The Cândido Pinto de Melo Award aims to honour the memory of Cândido, a pioneer of Biomedical Engineering in Brazil, founder of the Brazilian Society of Biomedical Engineering (SBEB) and one of its first Presidents, who unfortunately has passed away in 2002 as a consequence of a political violence that victimised him in 1969. It was an amazing coincidence that he was born in this same beautiful city of João Pessoa in 1947. There were 103 student contestants in this first edition of the Cândido Pinto de Melo competition. All undergraduate and graduate students under 35 years of age were eligible. The submitted full papers (4 pages) were reviewed by, at least, two experts whose scores were used for selecting the five finalists. The five papers were orally presented in a special session at the conference attended by a jury composed of 7 researchers (Alfonso A Gutierrez - Inst Politecnico Nacional / Mexico, Gustavo H M B Motta - UFPb / Brazil, Joséé W M Bassani - UNICAMP / Brazil, Maria G Ruano - University of Algarve / Portugal, Renato Garcia - UFSC / Brazil, Ronney B. Panerai - University of Leicester / UK and Sérgio S Furuie - Instituto do Coração HC.FMUSP / Brazil). In both phases of assessment, each work was objectively analysed based on scores given to five criteria and weighted by the self-assigned reviewer familiarity (score) with the paper's subject. The criteria were: a) Relevance of the paper to the conference; b) Originality of the contribution; c) Well defined methods; d) Clarity of presentation; e) Results and Conclusions. All five finalists received a diploma and R$ 500.00 each from SBEB. The winner of the competition, André V Alvarenga, received additional R$ 500.00 and a special diploma from SBEB delivered by Joana Melo, spouse of Cêndido. IFMBE and CORAL provided additional prizes for the first, second and third best student articles. The second prize went to Alexandre V Pino and the third prize went to Cézar A Teixeira. The president of IFMBE, Joachim Nagel, delivered the IFMBE prizes: U$ 300.00, U$ 200.00 and U$ 100.00 respectively, while Antonio F Infantosi, president of CORAL, handed over his prizes: U$ 200.00, U$ 150.00 and U$ 100.00. The remaining two finalists were: O.L. de Barros Júnior and Edejar Teixeira da Silva Junior. Relatives and old friends paid due homage to Cāndido bringing tears to many faces. The ceremony was passionate and very emotional. The Brazilian Society of Biomedical Engineering wishes that the vivid and creative spirit of Cāndido would remain among us forever, enlightening us all.
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