INTERSTRESS Newsletter * March 2011 * Issue 2
INTERSTRESS
Interreality in the Management and Treatment of Stress-Related Disorders
Welcome to the INTERSTRESS Newsletter
INTERSTRESS was launched in March 2010 with
the aim of designing, developing, and testing an
advanced ICT-based solution for the assessment
and treatment of psychological stress. The kick-off
meeting for the project was 19 March 2010 at
Istituto Auxologico Italiano in Milan, Italy.
The project will use a new eHealth concept known
as Interreality, which the creators define as a
hybrid, closed-loop, empowering experience
bridging both physical and virtual worlds into one
seamless reality. In other words, behaviour in the
physical world will influence the virtual world
experience, and behaviour in the virtual world will
influence the real-world experience.
Clinical use of interreality is based on a closed-loop
concept that involves the use of technology for
assessing, adjusting, and/or moderating the
emotional regulation of the individual. This is
achieved by increasing the individual’s coping skills
and appraisal of the environment based upon a
comparison of the individual’s behavioural and
physiologic al response to training or performance
criterion. The project will provide a proof of concept
of the proposed system with clinical validation. The
INTERSTRESS project will run for 36 months.
Partner Profiles
C.E.R.T.H
The Centre for Research and Technology
Hellas (C.E.R.T.H.), the largest research center in
Northern Greece, was founded in March 2000.
CERTH is a non-profit organization that directly
reports to the General Secretariat for Research and
Technology (GSRT), of the Greek Ministry of
Development.
The mission of CERTH is to carry out
fundamental and applied research with emphasis
on development of novel products and services
of industrial, economic and social importance in the
following fields:
a. Chemical and Biochemical Processes and
Advanced Functional Materials
b. Informatics and Telecommunications
c. Land, Sea and Air Transportation
d. Agrobiotechnology and Food Engineering
e. Enviromental Friendly Technologies for
Solid Fuels and Alternative Energy Sources
and
f. Biomedical Informatics, Biomedical
Engineering, Biomolecular Medicine and
Pharmacogenetics
CERTH participates in the INTERSTRESS project
by working on the creation of the data fusion model
(DFM) that will be designed to allow for automatic
detection, aggregation and combination of data
from multiple sources (subjective/self-report data,
physiological data, behavioral activity data). The
DFM will have to manage uncertainty in the system
generated by incompleteness, noise, and errors of
wearable sensors.
University of Pisa (U.D.P.)
University of Pisa is represented by the
Interdepartmental Research Center "E. Piaggio", a
research Center of the University of Pisa dedicated
to Bioengineering and Robotics. The Center is a
focal point for multidisciplinary research for several
departments and faculties, including the Faculty of
Engineering, Medicine and Natural Sciences.
Among the main fields of research in
Bioengineering at the Centre are portable and
wearable health monitoring systems and
biomimetic robots mimicking the biological behavior
by means of dedicated materials and structures,
likewise control strategy, algorithms and artificial
neural networks.
The mission of the Centre is to perform research
work and train research personnel for the study,
design and exploitation of automation and
biomedical devices. It cooperates with private and
public companies to study specific application
problems that need advanced or innovative
solutions.
For decades the Center has collaborated with the
Institute of Clinical Physiology (IFC) of the National
Research Council (CNR). In the INTERSTRESS
project the Center will benefit from the professional
expertise and experimental support of IFC
researchers. IFC researchers will work on Personal
Biomonitoring System (PBS) physiological data
fusion protocols, the development of knowledge-
based models for the physiological evaluation, as
well as the hierarchical model of the decision
support system and support to clinicians and
patients.
Partner News
ISDA 2010
On November 29 and December 1st,
INTERSTRESS partner Università di Pisa (UDP)
attended the 10th International Conference on
Intelligent Systems Design and Applications, where
Alessandro Tognetti of UDP co-chaired a special
session on “Advances in Robotics and Virtual
Reality”. The session aim was to stimulate and
exchange research ideas that will contribute to the
collective advancement of robotic and virtual reality
systems.
The INTERSTRESS project was introduced during
the session by way of a collaborative paper
between INTERSTRESS partners CNR, UDP and
IAI, entitled “Interreality: the Use of Advanced
Technologies in the Assessment and Treatment of
Psychological Stress". The joint efforts of our
INTERSTRESS members have participated and introduced the
project at the following conferences and workshops (Sept 2010
– Feb 2011)
• ICT 2010, September 2010, Brussels, Belgium
• UBICOMP 2010, 26-29 September 2010,
Copenhagen DK
• Blue Helmet Forum, 5-7 October 2010, Vienna,
Austria.
• 10th International Conference on Intelligent System
Design and Application, November 29 – December
1, Cairo, Egypt.
• European Association for Behavioral & Cognitive
Therapies, October 2010, Milan, Italy
• Health Info 2011, International Conference on Health
Informatics, 26-29 January 2011, Rome IT
• Medicine Meets Virtual Reality (MMVR), February
2011, Newport Beach, California, U.S.A.
Upcoming opportunities for the next 6 months (Mar 2011 to
August 2011) include:
• First International Forum on Health Care and
Information Communication Technologies
(HICT2011) - Barcelona, Spain (March 8-10)
• IEEE Virtual Reality 2011 – Singapore (March 19-23)
• Med-eTel 2011 - Luxembourg, (April 6-8)
• Computer Human Interaction Conference -
Vancouver, Canada (May 7-12)
• World of Health IT 2011 - Budapest, Hungary (May
10-13)
• International Conference on Computer
Communications and Management - Sydney,
Australia (May 13-14)
• ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive
Computing Systems - Pisa, Italy (June 13-16)
• 16th Annual CyberPsychology & Cybertherapy
Conference - Quebec, Canada (June 20-22)
• 12th IEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation
Robotics: Reaching Users and the Community -
Zurich, Switzerland (June 29 - July 1)
• HCI International 2011 – Orlando, Florida (July 9 –
14)
partners allowed INTERSTRESS to reach the
versatile audience of researchers, engineers,
stakeholders, experts and other professionals that
were present in Cairo, Egypt, during this
Conference.
Blue Helmet Forum
INTERSTRESS partner VRMI introduced the
project during the conference on Stress
Management and Peace Soldiering, which took
place in Vienna, 5 - 7 October 2010.
The conference, co-chaired by the Institute for
Human and Social Sciences of the Austrian
National Defense Academy, focused on the
different aspects of stress and stress management
in connection with international operations.. The
possible applications of INTERSTRESS to help
military members was introduced during the
conference. The Forum addressed preventive
measures such as stress management during the
preparation phase of operations, the strain during
operations and the challenges for aftercare and
reintegration.
International Conference on Health Informatics
(ICHI)
Medicine Meets Virtual Reality (MMVR)
In February 2011 INTERSTRESS was presented
during the MMVR conference in Newport Beach,
California. A symposium, entitled “Virtual Reality
and Advanced ICT in Europe” chaired by Prof.
Giuseppe Riva, was intended to enlighten
attendees on the advances being made in Europe
with new tools and technologies. Other members
of the symposium were,Prof. Andrea Gaggioli, and
Prof. Brenda K. Wiederhold, both from the
INTERSTRESS project, and Prof. Rosa Banos,
Prof. Cristina Botella, both from the OPTIMI project,
also funded by ICT for Health.
MMVR served as a forum for researchers
harnessing IT advances for the benefit of patient
diagnosis and care, medical education, and
procedural training. The conference went beyond
VR, presenting a wide spectrum of biomedical
innovation. It provided an excellent occasion to
entertain singular interactions between developers
and end-users. MMVR’s aim is to encourage and
create a collaborative environment for sharing new
solutions to healthcare challenges among
scientists, physicians, engineers, educators,
students, military, industry, psychologists,
designers, futurists, and others who are interested
in medicine's future.

On 26 January 2011, the International Conference

on Health Informatics brought together researchers
and practitioners interested in the application of ICT
for healthcare and medicine in general and for the
specialized support of persons with special needs
in particular.
Databases, networking, graphical interfaces,
intelligent decision support systems and specialized
programming languages are just a few of the
technologies currently used in medical informatics.
Mobility and ubiquity in healthcare systems,
standardization of technologies and procedures,
certification, and privacy are some of the issues
that medical informatics professionals and the ICT
C. Botella, G. Riva, B.K. Wiederhold, R. Banos, and
industry in general need to address in order to
A. Gaggioli, at the MMVR conference.
further promote ICT in healthcare. For medical
rehabilitation and assistive technology the use of
ICT has produced important results in the
enhancement of quality of life, contributing to better
integration of all citizens in society.