This book contains selected contributions from some of the most renowned researchers in the field of small-scale robotics, based in large part on invited presentations from the workshop "The Different Sizes of Small-Scale Robotics: from Nano-, to Millimeter-Sized Robotic Systems and Applications," which was held in conjunction with the conjunction with the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2013), in May 2013 in Karlsruhe, Germany. With many potential applications in areas such as medicine, manufacturing or search and rescue, small-scale robotics represent a new emerging frontier in robotics research. The aim of this book is to provide an insight to ongoing research and future directions in this novel, continuously evolving field, which lies at the intersection of engineering, computer science, material science and biology.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on Biomedical Informatics and Technology, ACBIT 2013, held in Aizu-Wakamatsu, Japan, in September 2013. The ??? revised full papers presented together with 14 keynotes and invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 48 submissions. The papers address important problems in medicine, biology and health using image analysis, computer vision, pattern analysis and classification, information visualization, signal processing, control theory, information theory, statistical analysis, information fusion, numerical analysis, fractals and chaos, optimization, simulation and modeling, parallel computing, computational intelligence methods, machine learning, data mining, decision support systems, database integration and management, cognitive modeling, and applied linguistics.

The Internet and related technologies have reconfigured every aspect of life, including mental health. Although the negative and positive effects of digital technology on mental health have been debated, all too often this has been done with much passion and few or no supporting data. In Mental Health in the Digital Age, Elias Aboujaoude and Vladan Starcevic have edited a book that brings together distinguished experts from around the world to review the evidence relating to this area. The first part of the book addresses threats resulting from the growing reliance on, and misuse of, digital technology; it also looks at how some problematic behaviors and forms of psychopathology have been shaped by this technology. This section reviews problematic Internet and video game use, effects of violent video games on the levels of aggression and of online searches for health-related information on the levels of health anxiety, use of digital technology to harm other people, and promotion of suicide on the Internet. The second part of Mental Health in the Digital Age examines the ways in which digital technology has boosted efforts to help people with mental health problems. These include the use of computers, the Internet, and mobile phones to educate and provide information necessary for psychiatric treatment and to produce programs for psychological therapy, as well as use of electronic mental health records to improve care. Mental Health in the Digital Age is a unique and timely book because it examines comprehensively an intersection between digital technology and mental health and provides a state-of-the-art, evidence-based, and well-balanced look at the field. The book is a valuable resource and guide to an area often shrouded in controversy, as it is a work of critical thinking that separates the hype from the facts and offers data-driven conclusions. It is of interest particularly to mental health professionals, but also to general audience.

This book provides readers with an integrative overview of the latest research and developments in the broad field of biomedical engineering. Each of the chapters offers a timely review written by leading biomedical engineers and aims at showing how the convergence of scientific and engineering fields with medicine has created a new basis for practically solving problems concerning human health, wellbeing and disease. While some of the latest frontiers of biomedicine, such as neuroscience and regenerative medicine, are becoming increasingly dependent on new ideas and tools from other disciplines, the paradigm shift caused by technological innovations in the fields of information science, nanotechnology, and robotics is opening new opportunities in healthcare, besides dramatically changing the ways we actually practice science. At the same time, a new generation of engineers, fluent in many different scientific "languages," is creating entirely new fields of research that approach the "old" questions from a new and holistic angle. The book reports on the scientific revolutions in the field of biomedicine by describing the latest technologies and findings developed at the interface between science and engineering. It addresses students, fellows, and faculty and industry investigators searching for new challenges in the broad biomedical engineering fields.

This volume presents the proceedings of the International Conference on Health Informatics (ICHI). The conference was a new special topic conference initiative by the International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE), held in Vilamoura, Portugal on 7-9 November, 2013. The main theme of the ICHI2013 was Integrating Information and Communication Technologies with Biomedicine for Global Health .

The proceedings offer a unique forum to examine enabling technologies of sensors, devices and systems that optimize the acquisition, transmission, processing, storage, retrieval of biomedical and health information as well as to report novel clinical applications of health information systems and the deployment of m-Health, e-Health, u-Health, p-Health and Telemedicine."

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 6th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies, BIOSTEC 2013, held in Barcelona, Spain, in February 2013. The 28 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 392 submissions. The papers cover a wide range of topics and are organized in four general topical sections on biomedical electronics and devices; bioinformatics models, methods and algorithms; bio-inspired systems and signal processing; health informatics.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Brain and Health Informatics, BHI 2013, held in Maebashi, Japan, in October 2013. The 33 revised full papers presented together with 8 workshop papers and 12 special session papers were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers are organized in topical sections on thinking and perception-centric Investigations of human Information processing system; information technologies for curating, mining, managing and using big brain/health data; information technologies for healthcare; data analytics, data mining, and machine learning; and applications. The topics of the workshop papers are: mental health with ICT; and granular knowledge discovery in biomedical and active-media environments; and the topics of the special sessions are: human centered computing; neuro-robotics; and intelligent healthcare data analytics.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Information Technology in Bio- and Medical Informatics, ITBAM 2013, held in Prague, Czech Republic, in August 2013, held in conjunction with DEXA 2013. The 7 revised long papers presented together with 4 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers address the following topics: critical health and intelligent systems in medical research, and obstetrics, neonatology and decision systems in cardiology.

The two-volume set LNAI 8856 and LNAI 8857 constitutes the proceedings of the 13th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, MICAI 2014, held in Tuxtla, Mexico, in November 2014. The total of 87 papers plus 1 invited talk presented in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 348 submissions. The first volume deals with advances in human-inspired computing and its applications. It contains 44 papers structured into seven sections: natural language processing, natural language processing applications, opinion mining, sentiment analysis, and social network applications, computer vision, image processing, logic, reasoning, and multi-agent systems, and intelligent tutoring systems. The second volume deals with advances in nature-inspired computation and machine learning and contains also 44 papers structured into eight sections: genetic and evolutionary algorithms, neural networks, machine learning, machine learning applications to audio and text, data mining, fuzzy logic, robotics, planning, and scheduling, and biomedical applications.

This book constitutes revised post-proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Pervasive Computing Paradigms for Mental Health, MindCare 2014, held in Tokyo, Japan, in May 2014. The 11 full and 5 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 26 submissions for inclusion in the proceedings. The papers are organized in topical sections on recognition and assessment, mental health management, improving communication, depression, and self-applied treatments.

The three-volume set LNCS 8016, 8017, and 8018 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2013, held in Las Vegas, NV, USA in July 2013. The total of 1666 papers and 303 posters presented at the HCII 2013 conferences was carefully reviewed and selected from 5210 submissions. These papers address the latest research and development efforts and highlight the human aspects of design and use of computing systems. The papers accepted for presentation thoroughly cover the entire field of human-computer Interaction, addressing major advances in knowledge and effective use of computers in a variety of application areas. This volume contains papers in the thematic area of human interface and the management of Information, addressing the following major topics: complex information environments; health and quality of life; mobile interaction; safety in transport, aviation and industry.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Digital Human Modeling and Applications in Health, Safety, Ergonomics and Risk Management 2014, held as part of the 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2014, held in Heraklion, Crete, Greece in June 2014, jointly with 13 other thematically conferences. The total of 1476 papers and 220 posters presented at the HCII 2014 conferences were carefully reviewed and selected from 4766 submissions. These papers address the latest research and development efforts and highlight the human aspects of design and use of computing systems. The papers accepted for presentation thoroughly cover the entire field of Human-Computer Interaction, addressing major advances in knowledge and effective use of computers in a variety of application areas. The 65 papers included in this volume are organized in topical sections on modeling posture and motion; anthropometry, design and ergonomics; ergonomics and human modeling in work and everyday life environments; advances in healthcare; rehabilitation applications; risk, safety and emergency.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Data Integration in the Life Sciences, DILS 2014, held in Lisbon, Portugal, in July 2014. The 9 revised full papers and the 5 short papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 20 submissions. The papers cover a range of important topics such as data integration platforms and applications; biodiversity data management; ontologies and visualization; linked data and query processing.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Workshop on Augemented Environments for Computer-Assisted Interventions, held in conjunction with MICCAI 2012, in Nice, France in September 2012. The 16 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 22 submissions. The papers cover the topics of image registration and fusion, calibration, visualization and 3D perception, hardware and optical design, real-time implementation, as well as validation, clinical applications, and clinical evaluation.

The two-volume set LNAI 8265 and LNAI 8266 constitutes the proceedings of the 12th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, MICAI 2013, held in Mexico City, Mexico, in November 2013. The total of 85 papers presented in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 284 submissions. The first volume deals with advances in artificial intelligence and its applications and is structured in the following five sections: logic and reasoning; knowledge-based systems and multi-agent systems; natural language processing; machine translation; and bioinformatics and medical applications. The second volume deals with advances in soft computing and its applications and is structured in the following eight sections: evolutionary and nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithms; neural networks and hybrid intelligent systems; fuzzy systems; machine learning and pattern recognition; data mining; computer vision and image processing; robotics, planning and scheduling and emotion detection, sentiment analysis and opinion mining.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference for Smart Health, ICSH 2014, held in Beijing, China, in July 2014. The 21 papers presented together with 4 extended abstracts were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on information sharing, integrating and extraction; health data analysis and management; clinical and medical data mining; and clinical practice and medical monitoring.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Well-Being in the Information Society, WIS 2014, held in Turku, Finland, in September 2014. The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 64 submissions. The core topic is livability and quality of (urban) living with safety and security. The papers address topics such as secure and equal use of information resources, safe and secure work environments and education institutions, cyberaggression and cybersecurity as well as impact of culture on urban safety and security.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Information Processing in Computer-Assisted Interventions, IPCAI 2014, held in Fukuoka, Japan, on June 28, 2014. The 28 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 58 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on planning, simulation, patient specific models for computer assisted interventions, medical robotics and surgical navigation, interventional imaging and advanced intra-op visualization, cognition, modeling and context awareness, clinical applications, systems, software, and validation.

New computerized approaches to various problems have become critically important in healthcare. Computer assisted diagnosis has been extended towards a support of the clinical treatment. Mathematical information analysis, computer applications together with medical equipment and instruments have become standard tools underpinning the current rapid progress with developing Computational Intelligence. We are witnessing a radical change as technologies have been integrated into systems that address the core of medicine, including patient care in ambulatory and in-patient setting, disease prevention, health promotion, rehabilitation and home care. Computer aided diagnosis and treatment systems increase the objectivity of the analysis and speed up the response to pathological changes.

This book presents a variety of state-of-the-art information technology and its applications to the networked environment to allow robust computerized approaches to be introduced throughout the healthcare enterprise. Patient's safety and shortening of the rehabilitation time requires a more rapid development of minimally invasive surgery supported by image navigation techniques. Home care, remote rehabilitation assistance, safety of the elderly requires new areas to be explored in telemedicine and telegeriatrics.

This book is a great reference tool for scientists who deal with problems of designing and implementing processing tools employed in systems that assist clinicians in patient diagnosis and treatment."

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Persuasive Technology, PERSUASIVE 2014, held in Padua, Italy, in May 2014. The 27 revised full papers and 12 revised short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 58 submissions. In addition to the themes of persuasive technology dealt with in the previous editions of the conference, this edition highlighted a special theme, i.e. persuasive, motivating, empowering videogames.

This timely volume presents an in-depth tour of population health monitoring-what it is, what it does, and why it has become increasingly important to health information systems across Europe. Introductory chapters ground readers in the structures of health information systems, and the main theoretical and conceptual models of population health monitoring. From there, contributors offer tools and guidelines for optimum monitoring, including best practices for gathering and contextualizing data and for disseminating findings, to benefit the people most affected by the information. And an extended example follows the step-by-step processes of population health monitoring through a study of health inequalities, from data collection to policy recommendations. Included in the coverage: * Structuring health information: frameworks, models, and indicators * Analysis: contextualization of process and content * Knowledge translation: key concepts, terms, and activities * Health inequality monitoring: a practical application of population health monitoring * Relating population health monitoring to other types of health assessments * Population health monitoring: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats A robust guide with international implications for an emerging field, Population Health Monitoring is a salient reference for public health experts working in the field of health information as well as post-graduate public health students and public health policymakers. "In this comprehensive and easy to read volume, Verschuuren and van Oers, accompanied by other specialists in the field, present a fresh and thoroughly researched contribution on the discipline of population health monitoring. They critically analyse and describe the phases, functions and approaches to population health monitoring but far more importantly, the discipline is positioned within the wider domains of public health, health policy and health systems. The book is definitely highly recommended reading for students of public health and health services management but is also a useful refresher course for public health practitioners." Natasha Azzopardi Muscat, President, European Public Health Association Chapter 7 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 3.0 IGO license at link.springer.com Chapter 8 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 3.0 IGO license at link.springer.com

New computerized approaches to various problems have become critically important in healthcare. Computer assisted diagnosis has been extended towards a support of the clinical treatment. Mathematical information analysis, computer applications have become standard tools underpinning the current rapid progress with developing Computational Intelligence. A computerized support in the analysis of patient information and implementation of a computer aided diagnosis and treatment systems, increases the objectivity of the analysis and speeds up the response to pathological changes.

This book presents a variety of state-of-the-art information technology and its applications to the networked environment to allow robust computerized approaches to be introduced throughout the healthcare enterprise. Image analysis and its application is the traditional part that deals with the problem of data processing, recognition and classification. Bioinformatics has become a dynamically developed field of computer assisted biological data analysis.

This book is a great reference tool for scientists who deal with problems of designing and implementing processing tools employed in systems that assist the radiologists and biologists in patient data analysis.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the workshops co-located with the 4th International Joint Conference on Ambient Intelligence, AmI 2013, held in Dublin, Ireland, in December 2013. The 33 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions to the following workshops: 5th International Workshop on Intelligent Environments Supporting Healthcare and Well-being (WISHWell 13) 3d International workshop on Pervasive and Context-Aware Middleware (PerCAM 13), 2nd International Workshop on Adaptive Robotic Ecologies (ARE'13), International Workshop on Aesthetic Intelligence (AxI'13), First International Workshop on Uncertainty in Ambient Intelligence (UAmI13). The papers are organized in topical sections on intelligent environments supporting healthcare and well-being; adaptive robotic ecologies; uncertainty in ambient intelligence; aesthetic intelligence; pervasive and context-aware middleware."

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Health Information Science, HIS 2014, held in Shenzhen, China, in April 2014. The 29 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 61 submissions. They cover a wide range of topics in health information sciences and systems that support the health information management and health service delivery. They deal with medical/health/biomedicine information resources, such as patient medical records, devices and equipments, software and tools to capture, store, retrieve, process, analyse, and optimize the use of information in the health domain; data management, data mining, and knowledge discovery, all of which play a key role in the decision making, management of public health, examination of standards, privacy and security issues; computer visualization and artificial intelligence for computer-aided diagnosis; and development of new architectures and applications for health information systems.

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the International Workshop on Clinical Image-Based Procedures, CLIP 2013, held in conjunction with MICCAI 2012 in Nagoya, Japan, in September 2013. The 19 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 26 submissions. The workshop was a productive and exciting forum for the discussion and dissemination of clinically tested, state-of-the-art methods for image-based planning, monitoring and evaluation of medical procedures.