Special Sessions
List in brief
1. Invited Special Session on Terahertz Science and Applications (Organizer: Tonouchi)
2. Special Session on Biomedical Applications of EM Fields (EMFs) (Organizers: Šarolić, Conceição, O'Halloran, Cavagnaro)
3. Special Session on Electromagnetic Technologies in Medicine (Organizers: Costanzo, Fanti, Lodi, Scapaticci)
4. Special Session on Near-Field Focused Antennas and Metasurfaces: Optimal Design Strategies, Technologies and Applications
(Organizers: Costanzo, Buonanno)
5. Special Session on Numerical Methods and High Performance Computing in Electromagnetics (Organizers: Liseno, Fanti, Pavone)
6. Special Session on Physical Bounds of Antennas, Stored Energy and Lossy Media (Organizer: Skrivervik)
7. Special Session on Wearable and Implantable Antennas and Sensors: Design Strategies and Challenges (Organizer: Costanzo)
2. Special Session on Biomedical Applications of EM Fields (EMFs) (Organizers: Šarolić, Conceição, O'Halloran, Cavagnaro)
3. Special Session on Electromagnetic Technologies in Medicine (Organizers: Costanzo, Fanti, Lodi, Scapaticci)
4. Special Session on Near-Field Focused Antennas and Metasurfaces: Optimal Design Strategies, Technologies and Applications
(Organizers: Costanzo, Buonanno)
5. Special Session on Numerical Methods and High Performance Computing in Electromagnetics (Organizers: Liseno, Fanti, Pavone)
6. Special Session on Physical Bounds of Antennas, Stored Energy and Lossy Media (Organizer: Skrivervik)
7. Special Session on Wearable and Implantable Antennas and Sensors: Design Strategies and Challenges (Organizer: Costanzo)
Detailed description
Invited Special Session 1:
Terahertz Science and Applications
Organizer:
Prof. Masayoshi Tonouchi, Osaka University, Japan
Contact e-mail: [email protected]
Description:
The aim of the invited special session is to provide a forum for researchers worldwide to report their latest developments in terahertz science and applications.
Prof. Masayoshi Tonouchi, Osaka University, Japan
Contact e-mail: [email protected]
Description:
The aim of the invited special session is to provide a forum for researchers worldwide to report their latest developments in terahertz science and applications.
Special Session 2:
Biomedical Applications of EM Fields (EMFs)
Organizers:
Prof. Antonio Šarolić, FESB, University of Split, Croatia
Prof. Raquel Conceição, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Prof. Martin O'Halloran, University of Galway, Ireland
Prof. Marta Cavagnaro, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
Contact e-mails: [email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected]
Description:
COST Action EMF-MED, running from 2014 – 2018 and concluded by EMF-Med 2018 conference, was the world's first systematic initiative to combine the development of novel EMF-based medical applications with the optimization of the applications in use, under the umbrella of beneficial innovative uses of EMFs in biomedicine. The following years showed exponential growth in ideas for innovative biomedical applications of EMFs, both for cancer and non-cancer applications.
This special session is organized to cover research and development in EMF-Med topics: beneficial biomedical interactions and applications of EMFs, focusing on medically applicable effects of EMFs, aiming for novel results and innovative biomedical technologies.
Topics:
Prof. Antonio Šarolić, FESB, University of Split, Croatia
Prof. Raquel Conceição, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Prof. Martin O'Halloran, University of Galway, Ireland
Prof. Marta Cavagnaro, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
Contact e-mails: [email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected]
Description:
COST Action EMF-MED, running from 2014 – 2018 and concluded by EMF-Med 2018 conference, was the world's first systematic initiative to combine the development of novel EMF-based medical applications with the optimization of the applications in use, under the umbrella of beneficial innovative uses of EMFs in biomedicine. The following years showed exponential growth in ideas for innovative biomedical applications of EMFs, both for cancer and non-cancer applications.
This special session is organized to cover research and development in EMF-Med topics: beneficial biomedical interactions and applications of EMFs, focusing on medically applicable effects of EMFs, aiming for novel results and innovative biomedical technologies.
Topics:
- EMF and neuromodulation:
- CNS and PNS electrostimulation; transcranial electric and magnetic stimulation
- EMF stimulation of excitable and non-excitable tissues - electroceuticals, bioelectronic medicine
- Neural tissue electromagnetic models
- EMF-based neural repair and regeneration
- EMF modeling and dosimetry:
- Electromagnetic modeling and simulation for biomedical applications
- Functionalized, integrated, multi-level anatomical models and tools
- Dielectric properties of biological tissues
- Dielectric measurements of biological tissues
- EMF and cancer:
- Electromagnetic hyperthermia
- Electromagnetic thermal ablation (RF ablation, microwave ablation)
- Novel modalities for non-thermal EMF-based cancer treatment
- Nanoparticles in EMF-Med applications
- Other EMF-Med applications:
- EMF-based (microwave) medical imaging
- EMF-based tissue regeneration
- EMF applications in aesthetic medicine
- EMF-mediated drug delivery
- EMF microdosimetry
- Experimental setups for EMF-Med related research
- other medical procedures, applications, and technologies that are essentially and functionally based on EMFs.
Special Session 3:
Electromagnetic Technologies in Medicine
Organisers:
Prof. Sandra Costanzo, University of Calabria, Italy
Prof. Alessandro Fanti, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy
Dr. Matteo Bruno Lodi, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy
Dr. Rosa Scapaticci, Institute of Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment, National Research Council of Italy (IREA-CNR), Naples, Italy
Contact e-mail: [email protected]
Description:
The application of electromagnetic (EM) technologies in medicine is a topic of growing and relevant interest within the electromagnetic engineering community for the opportunities it opens and the specific and stimulating challenges it poses. Recognized the fact that EM field technologies can positively impact on the health, nowadays the research is oriented toward studying, modeling and developing EM based methodologies and tools for diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Moreover, the dual nature of EM technologies enables a unique potential towards the development of theranostic devices. Since EM fields from the extremely low-frequency range to the high frequencies of GHz and THz are employed, this session solicits works concerning (but without being limited to) the following topics:
- Biosensors;
- Cells-EMF interaction;
- Design of antennas or EM devices for medical applications;
- Dieletric properties of tissues;
- Dosimetry;
- Electroporation and Electrochemotherapy;
- Hyperthermia: instrumentation, treatment planning and monitoring;
- Healthcare monitoring systems;
- Implantable systems;
- Magnetic nanomaterials;
- Microwave imaging;
- MRI: hardware and software;
- Multiscale and Multiphysic modeling;
- RF & MW ablation;
- Tissue mimicking phantoms.
- Electric Property Tomography
Prof. Sandra Costanzo, University of Calabria, Italy
Prof. Alessandro Fanti, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy
Dr. Matteo Bruno Lodi, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy
Dr. Rosa Scapaticci, Institute of Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment, National Research Council of Italy (IREA-CNR), Naples, Italy
Contact e-mail: [email protected]
Description:
The application of electromagnetic (EM) technologies in medicine is a topic of growing and relevant interest within the electromagnetic engineering community for the opportunities it opens and the specific and stimulating challenges it poses. Recognized the fact that EM field technologies can positively impact on the health, nowadays the research is oriented toward studying, modeling and developing EM based methodologies and tools for diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Moreover, the dual nature of EM technologies enables a unique potential towards the development of theranostic devices. Since EM fields from the extremely low-frequency range to the high frequencies of GHz and THz are employed, this session solicits works concerning (but without being limited to) the following topics:
- Biosensors;
- Cells-EMF interaction;
- Design of antennas or EM devices for medical applications;
- Dieletric properties of tissues;
- Dosimetry;
- Electroporation and Electrochemotherapy;
- Hyperthermia: instrumentation, treatment planning and monitoring;
- Healthcare monitoring systems;
- Implantable systems;
- Magnetic nanomaterials;
- Microwave imaging;
- MRI: hardware and software;
- Multiscale and Multiphysic modeling;
- RF & MW ablation;
- Tissue mimicking phantoms.
- Electric Property Tomography
Special Session 4:
Near-Field Focused Antennas and Metasurfaces: Optimal Design Strategies, Technologies and Applications
Organizers:
Prof. Sandra Costanzo, University of Calabria, Italy
Dr. Giovanni Buonanno, University of Calabria, Italy
Contact e-mail: [email protected]
Description:
Focusing the radiated/received field at/from specific points in the near-field region of electromagnetic sources is increasingly required in a variety of applications, as leading to enhance both spatial resolution and power density around a specific region. This could be particularly advantageous for biomedical applications, such as hyperthermia and microwave imaging, wireless power transfer, wireless sensing, radio-frequency identification, microwave-assisted thermography. Two main categories can be considered to control the near-field radiating response in a focusing way, namely: focused microwave antennas, and metasurfaces-based focusing systems. The aim of this Special Session is to provide an international forum for the most relevant advancements in the design of antenna arrays and metasurfaces with near-field focusing requirements, by covering all aspects related to the optimal design, technology issues, modeling, and experimentation.
Relevant topics include (but not limited to):
- Focused antennas;
- Focusing microwave metasurfaces;
- Bessel-beam launchers;
- Metasurface for healthcare;
- Reconfigurable metasurfaces for communications;
- Reconfigurable metasurfaces for near-field focusing;
- Focusing radiators/receivers for wireless sensing;
- Focusing radiators/receivers for microwave imaging;
- Focusing radiators/receivers for microwave-assisted thermography.
Prof. Sandra Costanzo, University of Calabria, Italy
Dr. Giovanni Buonanno, University of Calabria, Italy
Contact e-mail: [email protected]
Description:
Focusing the radiated/received field at/from specific points in the near-field region of electromagnetic sources is increasingly required in a variety of applications, as leading to enhance both spatial resolution and power density around a specific region. This could be particularly advantageous for biomedical applications, such as hyperthermia and microwave imaging, wireless power transfer, wireless sensing, radio-frequency identification, microwave-assisted thermography. Two main categories can be considered to control the near-field radiating response in a focusing way, namely: focused microwave antennas, and metasurfaces-based focusing systems. The aim of this Special Session is to provide an international forum for the most relevant advancements in the design of antenna arrays and metasurfaces with near-field focusing requirements, by covering all aspects related to the optimal design, technology issues, modeling, and experimentation.
Relevant topics include (but not limited to):
- Focused antennas;
- Focusing microwave metasurfaces;
- Bessel-beam launchers;
- Metasurface for healthcare;
- Reconfigurable metasurfaces for communications;
- Reconfigurable metasurfaces for near-field focusing;
- Focusing radiators/receivers for wireless sensing;
- Focusing radiators/receivers for microwave imaging;
- Focusing radiators/receivers for microwave-assisted thermography.
Special Session 5:
Numerical Methods and High Performance Computing in Electromagnetics
Organizers:
Prof. Angelo Liseno, Università di Napoli Federico II
Prof. Alessandro Fanti, Università di Cagliari
Prof. Santi Concetto Pavone, Università di Catania
Contact e-mail: [email protected]
Description:
Numerical simulations play a crucial role in many areas of applied electromagnetics. Many advanced algorithms have been developed and applied to find solutions for very complicated and large problems. Nevertheless, new larger-scale ones with growing computational demands continuously arise. Effectively solving these problems requires the development of appropriate numerical methods as well as the efficient use of current High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms. The combination of numerical techniques and HPC enables indeed to conceive new problems, to face applications previously deemed as unfeasible and to set up algorithms benefitting of either a more accurate modelization or of a higher execution speed.
An effective computation is furthermore particularly useful in iterative optimizations. In this case, the efficiency is dictated not only by the quality of the numerical simulation tools but also by that of the optimizer. To be efficient and effective, the latter should indeed be properly conceived to exploit the mathematical features of the problem at hand since a general purpose optimizer is missing.
The use of high performance, massively parallel computing hardware is nowadays catching on in the electromagnetics community as witnessed by the even increasing number of published papers in the related topics. The exploitation of multicore platforms or of off-the-shelf Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) has becoming more and more popular to solve medium-to-high computationally demanding issues thanks to lower or higher level programming paradigms like OpenMP, CUDA, OpenCL, Matlab’s multicore/GPU-aware functions and Python/PyCUDA. Furthermore, to solve very highly demanding large scale problems, many research groups exploit small clusters of multi-core or GPUs units or large mainframes consisting of several computing nodes. Differently from the past, large computing systems are simply accessible by cloud computing for free or at moderate prices. The development of tensor architectures specifically tailored for machine learning/deep learning, like the last GPU generation or the recent introduction of Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), is opening a new horizon to many topics in applied electromagnetics. Finally, many electromagnetic commercial suites have started to offer the exploitation of High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms.
The purpose of this Special Session is to provide a forum for scientific researchers and engineers on hot issues related to advances and challenges in numerical techniques, HPC as well as optimization techniques for electromagnetic applications.
Prof. Angelo Liseno, Università di Napoli Federico II
Prof. Alessandro Fanti, Università di Cagliari
Prof. Santi Concetto Pavone, Università di Catania
Contact e-mail: [email protected]
Description:
Numerical simulations play a crucial role in many areas of applied electromagnetics. Many advanced algorithms have been developed and applied to find solutions for very complicated and large problems. Nevertheless, new larger-scale ones with growing computational demands continuously arise. Effectively solving these problems requires the development of appropriate numerical methods as well as the efficient use of current High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms. The combination of numerical techniques and HPC enables indeed to conceive new problems, to face applications previously deemed as unfeasible and to set up algorithms benefitting of either a more accurate modelization or of a higher execution speed.
An effective computation is furthermore particularly useful in iterative optimizations. In this case, the efficiency is dictated not only by the quality of the numerical simulation tools but also by that of the optimizer. To be efficient and effective, the latter should indeed be properly conceived to exploit the mathematical features of the problem at hand since a general purpose optimizer is missing.
The use of high performance, massively parallel computing hardware is nowadays catching on in the electromagnetics community as witnessed by the even increasing number of published papers in the related topics. The exploitation of multicore platforms or of off-the-shelf Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) has becoming more and more popular to solve medium-to-high computationally demanding issues thanks to lower or higher level programming paradigms like OpenMP, CUDA, OpenCL, Matlab’s multicore/GPU-aware functions and Python/PyCUDA. Furthermore, to solve very highly demanding large scale problems, many research groups exploit small clusters of multi-core or GPUs units or large mainframes consisting of several computing nodes. Differently from the past, large computing systems are simply accessible by cloud computing for free or at moderate prices. The development of tensor architectures specifically tailored for machine learning/deep learning, like the last GPU generation or the recent introduction of Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), is opening a new horizon to many topics in applied electromagnetics. Finally, many electromagnetic commercial suites have started to offer the exploitation of High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms.
The purpose of this Special Session is to provide a forum for scientific researchers and engineers on hot issues related to advances and challenges in numerical techniques, HPC as well as optimization techniques for electromagnetic applications.
Special Session 6:
Physical Bounds of Antennas, Stored Energy and Lossy Media
Organizer:
Anja Skrivervik, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Contact e-mail: [email protected]
Description:
Physical bounds provide basic restrictions on the antenna performance offering antenna designers a priori information about the feasibility of the considered antenna designs and a figure of merit comparison of different antenna designs. The aim of this special session is discuss the latest research results related to fundamental limits for antennas used in different environments.
Anja Skrivervik, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Contact e-mail: [email protected]
Description:
Physical bounds provide basic restrictions on the antenna performance offering antenna designers a priori information about the feasibility of the considered antenna designs and a figure of merit comparison of different antenna designs. The aim of this special session is discuss the latest research results related to fundamental limits for antennas used in different environments.
Special Session 7:
Wearable and Implantable Antennas and Sensors: Design Strategies and Challenges
Organizers:
Sandra Costanzo, University of Calabria, Italy
Contact e-mail: [email protected]
Description:
The availability of low-cost and low-power technologies has enabled the adoption of compact wearable radio-frequency devices, integrating both sensing and elaboration features, thus being able to realize a real-time monitoring of peoples and environments. Interesting applications of these wearable sensors can be advised in the framework of healthcare and security contexts, to provide a fast and real-time technology for the identification of biomedical parameters and/or detect peoples and objects. Many challenges are also related with the design of implantable antennas and sensors to efficiently work into complex biological tissues, but guaranteeing safe conditions for the human body. The aim of this Special Session is to provide an international forum for the most relevant advancements in the development of compact wearable and implantable sensors and antennas, by covering all aspects related to the design, modeling, experimentation and safety preserving.
Relevant topics include (but not limited to):
- Non-invasive wearable sensors for biometric applications;
- Wearable antennas design in the presence of human body;
- Textile wearable antenna sensors;
- Wearable sensors for on-body medical diagnosis;
- Wearable sensors for personalized healthcare;
- Wearable sensor technologies;
- Implantable medical antennas and sensors;
- Biocompatible and flexible materials for wearable and implantable sensors;
- Design issues for wearable and implantable antennas;
- Technological issues for wearable and implantable antennas;
- Wearable antennas for security;
- Safety aspects related to implantable medical devices.
Sandra Costanzo, University of Calabria, Italy
Contact e-mail: [email protected]
Description:
The availability of low-cost and low-power technologies has enabled the adoption of compact wearable radio-frequency devices, integrating both sensing and elaboration features, thus being able to realize a real-time monitoring of peoples and environments. Interesting applications of these wearable sensors can be advised in the framework of healthcare and security contexts, to provide a fast and real-time technology for the identification of biomedical parameters and/or detect peoples and objects. Many challenges are also related with the design of implantable antennas and sensors to efficiently work into complex biological tissues, but guaranteeing safe conditions for the human body. The aim of this Special Session is to provide an international forum for the most relevant advancements in the development of compact wearable and implantable sensors and antennas, by covering all aspects related to the design, modeling, experimentation and safety preserving.
Relevant topics include (but not limited to):
- Non-invasive wearable sensors for biometric applications;
- Wearable antennas design in the presence of human body;
- Textile wearable antenna sensors;
- Wearable sensors for on-body medical diagnosis;
- Wearable sensors for personalized healthcare;
- Wearable sensor technologies;
- Implantable medical antennas and sensors;
- Biocompatible and flexible materials for wearable and implantable sensors;
- Design issues for wearable and implantable antennas;
- Technological issues for wearable and implantable antennas;
- Wearable antennas for security;
- Safety aspects related to implantable medical devices.