XVth International Conference on Electrical Bio-Impedance and the XIVth Conference on Electrical Impedance Tomography (Heilbad Heiligenstadt, Germany, 22–25 April 2013)

Abstract

This issue of Physiological Measurement follows the successful XVth International Conference on Electrical Bio-Impedance (ICEBI) in conjunction with the XIVth International Conference on Biomedical Applications of Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) held at Heilbad Heiligenstadt, Germany. The conference was hosted at the Institut für Bioprozess- und Analysenmeßtechnik in Heilbad Heiligenstadt by Uwe Pliquett and Dieter Beckmann with co-organiser Günter Hahn from the University of Göttingen. The conference provided a platform for investigators in all aspects of bio-impedance and EIT to engage in common areas of interest whilst also allowing an opportunity for the community to broaden its outlook in the areas of clinical applications and new technologies associated with both areas of research. It focused on instrumentation, modeling and data processing but also new applications especially for clinical purpose. This upholds the tradition of successful conferences on biomedical applications of bio-impedance and electrical impedance tomography, as was the case with the 13th International Conference on Biomedical Applications of Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT 2012). The conference was held in China and hosted at Tianjin University. It was co-organized by Professor Xuemin Wang from Tianjin University, Professor Jie Zhang from the University of Kentucky, and Professor Eung Je Woo of Kyung Hee University. The most recent conference is the 14th International Conference on Biomedical Applications of Electrical impedance Tomography (EIT) that was held in Gananoque, Canada in April 2014. This conference will be followed by a focus issue in Physiological Measurement that will be published in 2015. This issue contains papers stemming from discussion and feedback during the 2013 conference in these research areas. It was also an opportunity for new researchers to join the community and propose recent innovations. There were 247 accepted submissions (actually participating: 141 oral and 85 poster) presented at the conference, and all authors were invited to prepare new peer-reviewed papers for inclusion in this issue of Physiological Measurement . The manuscripts were put through a process of careful review before selection. A total of 20 were accepted covering an important range of topics. Both fields of bio-impedance and EIT continue to provide researchers with new challenges, and attract more researchers into these areas as evident by the number of attendees (258) to this conference. The high quality of the research papers in this special issue is clear evidence of the significant advances in the field.