Introduction to the Special Issue on "Advances in Biomedical Engineering and Computing: The MEDICON Conference Case"

The aim of this special issue is to provide a snapshot of emerging technologies and applications in Biomedical Engi- neering from a selection of papers presented in the 12th Mediterranean Conference on Medical and Biological Engi- neering and Computing – MEDICON 2010, held in May 2010 in Chalkidiki, Greece ( www.medicon2010.org ), under the aus- pices of International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE). The conference was organized by the Hellenic Society for Biomedical Engineering, in cooperation with the Medical School at the Aristotle University of Thes- saloniki, and the Medical School of the University of Patras, Greece. It was a successful continuation of the long lasting tra- dition of regional IFMBE events. The conference attracted over 360 participants, and encompassed two satellite events, the 7th European Symposium on Biomedical Engineering (ESBME) and the 3rd Panhellenic Conference on Biomedical Technol- ogy. The conference accommodated some 172 oral and some 158 poster presentations – all selectively drawn through a meticulous reviewing process from a pool of some 400 sub- missions; some 90 of these submissions were candidates for the IFMBE Young Investigator Award! The conference included 9 plenary invited lectures (6 distinguished keynote speeches and 3 invited Editors-sessions), which together with all papers above comprised a 4-day event of some 38 scientific sessions. The overall aim of MEDICON 2010 was to present recent advances and exchange of ideas in practically every main topic of Biomedical Engineering (BME) [1] like Medical Imag- ing, Biosignal Processing, Biomechanics, Bioinstrumentation, Medical Radiation Physics, Technology Assessment, Clinical Engineering, Rehabilitation Engineering, Medical Informatics, Biomaterials, as well as, Educational, Ethical and Professional Aspects. The main conference programme consisted of tracks and specially organized workshops. The papers consisted of some 330 papers, covering a truly diverse range of all aspects of Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing. The aim of this special issue is to provide a snapshot of some of the paper from the various tracks; submissions followed a special invitation (Call for Papers) to authors of selected papers, carefully including a significant number of Young Investigator Award contestants. All the received papers went through the peer review process of the Com- puter Methods and Programs in Biomedicine journal. From the submitted papers only ten (10) were finally accepted for pub- lication. These papers are briefly presented in the following section