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Summary

Workplan

EMG-net Summary


A large amount of data and expertise has already been accumulated and embodied in various computer systems in the domain of electromyography (EMG). The European AIM project ESTEEM was a substantial step in this direction but it also suggested new possible extensions and improvements. First, the accumulated experience needs to be shared and exchanged with those of the medical labs from Central European countries. Second, collected data require further analysis so that new and useful knowledge is extracted. These reasons motivated establishment of the European research network for intelligent support of EMG studies (EMG-net). Its principle objective is to capitalize knowledge in the domain of EMG focusing on the following main tasks:

  • competition and enhancement of the available knowledge. The idea is to automatically extract new knowledge from the available one and to include the expertise of other EMG labs external to the ESTEEM consortium;
  • continuation of the standardization efforts. The newly acquired data and knowledge will help physicians in their consensus negotiations. New medical partners will be involved into the discussions to extend the basis for the future standard of medical procedures;
  • dissemination, at a larger European level, of the competence of each node as well as the joint competence of the partners collected through their active collaboration, both in EMG and related IT areas;
  • support for the establishment of infrastructures necessary to achieve the above objectives.

The recent IT technology developments and particularly those concerning knowledge-based systems, intelligent interfaces and global information exchange via WWW, provide an ideal framework for achieving the network objectives. In this context, infrastructure support, electronic dissemination of information, workshops, mobility support of researchers and educational/training activities are required.

The significance of the proposed research cooperation can be seen at three levels:

  • partners level - beneficial for the organizations directly involved in the cooperation;
  • national level - will improve the quality of the early diagnosis and prevention of neuromuscular diseases as a result of the adaptation and distribution of relevant EMG knowledge provided by the network and used by the medical training institutions and directly by the physicians performing EMG studies;
  • European level - the EMG-net will contribute to both the standardization and the quality of the public health services in the field of EMG studies and will further increase the awareness of the positive role of IT within this area.

 
 

EMG-net Workplan

 

Work package 1: Infrastructure support

Leader: IIT-BAS; Effort in person months: 1; Duration: M1 to M8

Participants: INRIA, Gentofte hospital, ETF Skopje LIMBISS, AI Research Lab, FEI-SUT, N.Gh. Lupu, LN-IP, Comenius University, First City Hospital.

 

Task 1.1: Evaluation of infrastructure requirements (Leader of task: INRIA with Gentofte hospital as adviser)

Evaluation of the infrastructure requirements for the Internet and WWW access of each of the nodes and providing the necessary support for this purpose.

 

Task 1.2: Installing computing facilities and Providing WWW access to nodes (Leader of task: IIT-BAS)

Providing access and installing Web-servers containing all the project-relevant information for each of the nodes. Support of the local communication infrastructure for CCE nodes, which currently have no (or very limited) access to Internet or WWW, (N.Gh. Lupu, LN-IP, Comenius University, First City Hospital), or needs a reevaluation of the means (IIT-BAS, ETF SKOPJE LIMBISS, AI Research Lab, FEI-SUT).

 

Task 1.3: Training and creation of local WWW server (Leader of task: IIT-BAS)

Training the medical node members on using web provided by the corresponding IT nodes. Each individual node of EMG-net (3 partners and 12 subcontractors) has to create its own local Web-site in order to facilitate information exchange within the net nodes and dissemination of the available information outside the network. To achieve this task, each medical node will be supported by a IT node except the three double competence nodes (IT + Medical).

Workpackage 2 : Technical meetings

Leader: INRIA; Effort in person months: 2 man-months, Co-leaders: IIT-BAS, Gentofte Hospital

Effort in person months: IIT-BAS : 2, Gentofte Hospital: 2 Duration: M1 to M24, Participants: EMG-net consortium (Partners and sub-contractors)

 

Task 2.1 Mobility support of researchers (Leader of task: INRIA)

Task 2.2 Seminars and Tutorials on standardization of the EMG data and knowledge (Leader of task: Gentofte hospital)

Task 2.3 Seminars on the use of advanced IT for EMG studies (Leader of task: IIT-BAS)

 

Workpackage 3: Dissemination

Leader and co-leaders: INRIA, IIT-BAS; Gentofte Hospital; Effort in person months: INRIA : 2,78, IIT-BAS : 1, Gentofte Hospital : 1,21

 

Task 3.1 Software exchange (Leader of task: IIT-BAS)

The first goal of this task is to evaluate the existing DSS's developed in the AIM project ESTEEM and to define a standard allowing to exchange the expertise between the EMG medical nodes. The second goal is to make available to all EMG partners the various ML and data analysis tools developed by the IT nodes of the EMG-net. The software will be distributed between relevant nodes under a ftp site.

Task 3.2 Electronic publications (Leader of task: INRIA)

Task 3.3 Organizing workshops (Leader of task: IIT-BAS)

In the course of the project two workshops will be organized as a forum for presenting and discussing the recent developments in the field of intelligent IT support to the EMG studies as well as for clinical standardization and consensus discussions. These workshops will be opened to the outside world and thus will become a forum exchange concerning research results from both IT techniques and EMG domain.
    

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