Meeting Report3rd Workshop on Biosignal Interpretation a SuccessThe 3rd International Workshop on Biosignal Interpretation (BSI99) was successfully held in Chicago from June 12-14. The BSI99 Workshop is a joint initiative of the IFMBE, IMIA, and IEEE-EMBS, bringing together engineers and scientists to discuss the recent advances in the field of biosignal interpretation. This Workshop aims to explore the relatively new field of biosignal interpretation, including model-based biosignal analysis, their interpretation and integration, and to extend existing signal processing technology for the effective utilisation of biosignals in a practical environment and a deeper understanding of biological functions. This is the third workshop in this emerging research field. The first workshop, the IMIA-IFMBE Working Conference on Biosignal Interpretation, was held at Skorping, Denmark in August 1993. The second workshop, the IFMBE-IMIA International Workshop on Biosignal Interpretation, was held at Kanagawa, Japan in September 1996. The President of the IMIA, Dr J. H. van Bemmel, and the Past President of the IFMBE, Dr Niilo Saranummi, were the originators of the BSI Workshop. The Past President of the IFMBE, Dr F. Kajiya, held the General Chair of the 2nd BSI Workshop. In BSI99, the Past Vice-Presidents of IEEE-EMBS, Dr Swamy Laxminarayan and Dr Alan Sahakian, held the Publication Co-Chairs. Over 110 scientists and engineers from all over the world participated in the BSI99 Workshop. The BSI99 scientific program included invitation lectures by leading experts in the field and contributed papers in ten oral sessions and eight poster sessions. A total of 99 presentations were made in the Workshop. Among the distinguished invited speakers were Dr Roger G. Mark, Distinguished Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who delivered the first Keynote Speech on 'Signal Processing and Sudden Death: Past Progress and Future Challenge.' Dr Sergio Cerutti, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Polytechnic University at Milan, delivered the second Keynote Speech on 'Variability in Biological Signals: From Rhythms to Chaos.' All oral sessions were held in a single room to facilitate the interdisciplinary discussion and exchanging of research ideas. Over the almost three days of the Workshop, the room was quite full, illustrating the strong interests of the participants to the topics in BSI. A whole afternoon was devoted to poster presentation and discussion to facilitate the exchanging of ideas and interaction among the participants. All the accepted papers were included in the Workshop Proceedings. In addition, selected papers will also be published in a special issue of IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, and of Methods of Information in Medicine. For more information on the BSI Workshop, please visit the web page at http://www.eecs.uic.edu/~bsi99/. Bin He University of Illinois at Chicago | ||