MC Villa-Uriol

RESEARCH

Publications

Publications

For a complete list of publications, please visit my personal public profiles in:

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Find below a list of my Journal Publications:

2015

Modeling of the Acute Effects of Primary Hypertension and Hypotension on the Hemodynamics of Intracranial Aneurysms
Sarrami-Foroushani A, Villa-Uriol MC, Nasr Esfahany M, Coley SC, Di Marco LY, Frangi AF, Marzo A.; Annals of Biomedical Engineering 43(1):207-221

2013

RADStation3G: a platform for cardiovascular image analysis integrating PACS, 3D+t visualization and grid computing
Perez F, Huguet J, Aguilar R, Lara L, Larrabide I, Villa-Uriol MC, López J, Macho JM, et al.; Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 110(3):399-410

2012

AngioLab--a software tool for morphological analysis and endovascular treatment planning of intracranial aneurysms
Larrabide I, Villa-Uriol MC, Cárdenes R, Barbarito V, Carotenuto L, et al.; Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 108(2):806-819

2012

Automated landmarking and geometric characterization of the carotid siphon
Bogunović H, Pozo JM, Cárdenes R, Villa-Uriol MC, Blanc R, Piotin M, et al.; Medical Image Analysis 16(4):889-903

2012

Fast virtual deployment of self-expandable stents: method and in vitro evaluation for intracranial aneurysmal stenting
Larrabide I, Kim M, Augsburger L, Villa-Uriol MC, Rüfenacht D, Frangi AF; Medical Image Analysis 16(3):721-730

2011

Efficient 3D geometric and Zernike moments computation from unstructured surface meshes
Pozo JM, Villa-Uriol MC, Frangi AF; IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 33(3):471-484

2011

Three-dimensional morphological analysis of intracranial aneurysms: a fully automated method for aneurysm sac isolation and quantification
Larrabide I, Villa-Uriol MC, Cárdenes R, Pozo JM, Macho J, Roman LS, et al.; Medical Physics 38(5):2439-2449

2011

Dynamic estimation of three-dimensional cerebrovascular deformation from rotational angiography
Zhang C, Villa-Uriol MC, De Craene M, Pozo JM, Macho JM, Frangi AF; Medical Physics 38(3):1294-1306

2011

Automated segmentation of cerebral vasculature with aneurysms in 3DRA and TOF-MRA using geodesic active regions: an evaluation study
Bogunović H, Pozo JM, Villa-Uriol MC, Majoie CBLM, Van Den Berg R, Van Gratama Andel HAF, Macho JM, Blasco J, San Román L, Frangi AF; Medical Physics 38(1):210-222

2011

How do coil configuration and packing density influence intra-aneurysmal hemodynamics?
Morales HG, Kim M, Vivas EE, Villa-Uriol MC, Larrabide I, Sola T, et al.; American Journal of Neuroradiology 32(10):1935-1941

2011

@neurIST complex information processing toolchain for the integrated management of cerebral aneurysms
Villa-Uriol MC, Berti G, Hose DR, Marzo A, Chiarini A, Penrose J, Pozo J, Schmidt JG, et al.; Interface Focus 1(3):308-319

2010

Toward integrated management of cerebral aneurysms
Villa-Uriol MC, Larrabide I, Pozo JM, Kim M, Camara O, et al.; Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 368(1921):2961-2982

2009

The role of computational fluid dynamics in the management of unruptured intracranial aneurysms: a clinicians' view
Singh PK, Marzo A, Coley SC, Berti G, Bijlenga P, Lawford PV, Villa-Uriol MC, Rufenacht DA, McCormack KM, Frangi A, et al.; Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience

Projects

Participation in Research Grants and Contracts

Since 2006 I have participated in the following European projects:

2011-2015: VPH-Share
2011-2013: DISCIPULUS
2008-2012: EuHeart
2008-2012: VPH-NoE
2006-2009: @neurIST

And in the following national projects (mainly Spanish funding):

2009-2013: cvREMOD
2009-2012: stiMath
2006-2009: CDTEAM

I have also worked in private research contracts with Philips Healthcare.

VPH-Share: Virtual Physiological Human: Sharing for Healthcare - A Research environment
FP7 Program, IST-269978, 10M€
VPH-Share aimed to build the collaborative computing environment in which Virtual Physiological Human practitioners will work together, to develop new medical simulation software. Central for this environment is the sharing of information - tools, models and data - between reseachers and clinicians, helping them to work efficiently towards building a complete model of the human body, so allowing its investigation as a single complex system.
In VPH-Share I was responsible of the @neurIST workflow and worked in the development of missing data inference algorithms for databases containing Virtual Physiological Human descriptors.

DISCIPULUS: Digitally Integrated Scientific Data for Patients and Populations in User-Specific Simulations
FP7 Program, CSA-288143
The vision of DISCIPULUS was to identify key steps towards realising the Digital Patient, which is a new paradigm in personalised medicine, across the whole healthcare system by focusing on the needs of clinical practitioners and healthcare professionals, biomedical and clinical researchers. This vision will be achieved through comprehensive solutions that involve advanced modelling and simulation tools, data acquisition and data management and advanced user interfaces. All this will enable the clinical and industrial translation of the Digital Patient.
In DISCIPULUS I participated in the writing of the Digital Patient Roadmap , and acted as overall editor of the chapter dedicated to the Mathematical Modelling for the Digital Patient (together with Pietro Liò).

euHeart: integrated cardiac care using patient-specific cardiovascular modelling
FP7-2007-IST-223920, 14M€
This European research initiative targeted the personalized diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease (e.g. cardiac arrhythmias, coronary artery disease, heart failure).
In this project I contributed with my experience in the development of VPH scientific workflows in scientific environments.

VPH-NoE: Virtual Physiological Human Network of Excellence
FP7-2007-IST-223920, 8M€
This projecte aimed to help support and progress European research in biomedical modelling and simulation of the human body. This will improve our ability to predict, diagnose and treat disease, and have a dramatic impact on the future of healthcare, the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.
In this Network of Excellence I participated in the creation of the VPH toolkit and in the development of a proposal of mathematical modelling of diseases using as an exemplar the @neurIST computational modelling tool chain.

@neurIST: Integrated Biomedical Informatics for the Management of Cerebral Aneurysms
FP6 Program, IST-2004-027703, 12M€
@neurIST focussed on cerebral aneurysms and aimed to provide an integrated decision support system to assess the risk of aneurysm rupture in patients and to optimize their treatments.
In @neurIST I worked in the development of an integrative software tool chain able to extract sophisticated descriptors from routinely acquired medical images. I concentrated on the segmentation of medical images, the extraction of morphological descriptors, the quantification of cerebral aneurysm motion and pulsation, the quantification of cerebral aneurysm blood flow, and the simulation of virtual treatments (coiling and stenting).

cvREMOD: Convergence of Medical Technologies for the Integrated Management of Cardiovascular Remodeling (Convergencia de Tecnologías Médicas para la Gestión Integral del Remodelado Cardiovascular)
CENIT Program, Spanish, 12M€

stiMath: High throughput analysis of images using statistical models of shape, appearance and deformation (Análisis de imágenes de alto rendimiento mediante modelos estadísticos de forma, apariencia y deformación)

CDTEAM: Consortium for the Development of Advanced TEchnologies in Medicine (Consorcio para el Desarrollo de TEcnologias Avanzadas para la Medicina)
CENIT Program, Spanish, 15M€

Outreach

Outreach and External Standing Activities

Pro-tempore Chair of Events of INSIGNEO (since May 2015, covering a maternity leave).

Organiser and responsible for the upcoming INSIGNEO Showcase 2016 on "Clinical Translation" to be celebrated on 5th May 2016 in Sheffield (more details to come).

Supported the celebration of the INSIGNEO Showcase 2015 on "Big dada analytics" , and organised the "Big data panel debate: Public Good vs. Privacy".

Invited talk in the Interdisciplinary Cerebrovascular Symposium (ICS) 2014.

Organized and taught a hands-on workshop on the use of "AngioLab – Image assisted planning platform for the embolization of cerebral aneurysms" within the ESMINT (European Society of Minimally Invasive Neurological Therapy) Second Teaching Course held on 13th-18th December 2009, Barcelona, Spain. In total 23 neuroradiologists attended the event.

Organized and taught a hands-on workshop on the use of "AngioLab – A knowledge-based platform for patient-specific aneurysm management, treatment assessment and planning" within the ESMINT (European Society of Minimally Invasive Neurological Therapy) Third Teaching Course held on 5th-10th December 2010, Barcelona, Spain. In total 28 neuroradiologists attended the event.

Member of the EIBIR IMAGINE committee for the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) 2013 organised by the European Society of Radiology (ESR).

Reviewer of journals such as IEEE Transactions of Medical Imaging, JAMIA, Annals of Biomedical Engineering, and Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, and of conferences such as MICCAI.

Recipient of the Regents' dissertation fellowship in 2004.

Recipient of the Balsells Fellowship in 2000.

Member of IEEE professional society since 2000.

TEACHING

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
Nelson Mandela

COM6102 - Advanced Java Programming

COM1003 - Java Programming

I teach both modules in Semester 2.

Undergraduate Projects

More details about these projects in MOLE. All projects are suitable to Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering students.

Master Projects

More details about these projects in MOLE .

COM6102 - Advanced Java Programming 2015/2016

Please, use MOLE to get access to the lectures and lab materials.

Undergraduate Projects 2015/2016

Find below the list of available projects for 2015/2016, if you are interested, please contact me:

MCV-UG-1: Cerebral aneurysm risk factors
MCV-UG-2: Mobile risk estimator for cerebral aneurysms
MCV-UG-3: Missing data in medical databases
MCV-UG-4: My personal coach for cerebral aneurysm patients

All projects are suitable for CS/SE/AI/EC/CSMaths/Biomed.
All projects are suitable for 1 or 2 students.

MCV-UG-1: Cerebral aneurysm risk factors

Unfortunately, medical databases heavily suffer from missing data. Inferences from these databases need to be carefully performed to avoid reaching biased and misleading conclusions.
In this project, an existing database of cerebral aneurysms suffering from missing data will be studied and used as a testbed to verify how multiple imputation algorithms can compensate the problem.
Resources required:

Python, VMTK and Matlab

Skills required:

Good programming skills
An interest in 3D visualisation
An interest in medical applications

Initial readings and useful links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracranial_aneurysm
http://www.vmtk.org/

MCV-UG-2: Cerebral aneurysm risk factors

Cerebral aneurysms are local pathological dilatations of arteries in the brain. Once an aneurysm ruptures, the consequences of the associated haemorrhage are devastating, inducing a serious burden for patients, their relatives and society.
In this project, an App will be developed to calculate the estimated risk of rupture for an aneurysm based on a number of well-known risk factors. An existing database of cerebral aneurysms will be used to verify the accuracy of the predictions.
Resources required:

A smartphone

Skills required:

Good programming skills
An interest in mobile health applications

Initial readings and useful links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracranial_aneurysm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24290159

MCV-UG-3: Cerebral aneurysm risk factors

MySQL, Python, R or Matlab

Skills required:

Good programming skills
An interest in medical applications adn databases

Initial readings and useful links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracranial_aneurysm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24290159

MCV-UG-4: My personal coach for cerebral aneurysm patients

Cerebral aneurysms are local pathological dilatations of arteries in the brain. Once an aneurysm ruptures, the consequences of the associated haemorrhage are devastating, inducing a serious burden for patients, their relatives and society.
In this project, an App will be developed to coach and provide recommendations about lifestyle to patients suffering from cerebral aneurysms based on a number of well-known risk factors. An existing database of cerebral aneurysms and values from literature will be used to design the recommendations.
Resources required:

A smartphone

Skills required:

Good programming skills
An interest in mobile health applications

Initial readings and useful links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracranial_aneurysm

MSc Projects 2015/2016

Find below the list of available projects for 2015/2016, if you are interested, please contact me:

MCV-MSc-1: Visual Data Analytics for Wearable Sensor Data
MCV-MSc-2: Capturing heart rate using a smartphone
MCV-MSc-3: Analysing your phone call patterns
MCV-MSc-4: Extraction of voice features from phone calls
MCV-MSc-5: App using the Apple ResearchKit

All projects are suitable for 1 or 2 students.

MCV-MSc-1: Visual Data Analytics for Wearable Sensor Data

In the recent years sensors have experienced a significant reduction in cost and size. As a result they are becoming omnipresent in our lives in the form of wearable devices specifically designed to monitor how much we move and how we do it. The systematic analysis of all the signals captured by those wearable sensors is already being used to improve athlete’s performance in sports. In healthcare, wearables can be used not only to study the levels of patient’s physical activity but also to reveal and study motor disorders associated to serious diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis.
In this project, visual data analytics techniques will be used to develop a tool to explore, understand and interpret human motion data. Two datasets will be available to test the tool, one containing 15 patients suffering from Multiple Sclerosis and 10 with Type 2 Diabetes. Sensors were attached to each of the individuals in these studies and were instructed to perform some predefined tests. The purpose is to assess visually the differences in motion and to understand the different motion patterns.
Skills required:

Excellent programming skills
An interest in visualisation and visual data analytics
An interest in medical applications

Initial readings and useful links:

Mobility Lab (ADPM wearable technologies): http://www.apdm.com/mobility/
Mobility Lab User’s Manual: http://share.apdm.com/mobility_lab/docs/MobilityLab_UserGuide.pdf
Gait analysis (Wikipedia definition): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gait_analysis

MCV-MSc-2: Capturing heart rate using a smartphone

Mobile phones have become an active and essential part of our lives. Their pervasive presence, their increasing computational power and the rising quality of their sensors, place them in an advantageous position to monitor at low cost physiological variables such as heart rate.
In this project, reflective photoplethysmography (PPG) will be used to measure the heart rate of an individual while placing the finger on the camera of a smart phone. To assess the accuracy of the measurements, the results will be compared to the measurements from a commercial heart rate sensor such as the Polar H7 Heart Rate sensor.
Skills required:

Excellent programming skills
An interest in smartphones
An interest in basic image processing techniques
An interest in medical applications

Initial readings and useful links:

Polar H7 Heart Rate Sensor: http://www.polar.com/uk-en/products/accessories/H7_heart_rate_sensor
Allen J. Photoplethysmography and its application in clinical physiological measurement. Physiol Meas. 2007;28(3):R1-R39: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17322588

MCV-MSc-3: Analysing your phone call patterns

Mobile phones have become an active part of our daily lives. Who you call, when you call, how long your calls are, how frequently you make calls… Analysing the answers to all these questions has the potential of revealing your current mood and mental state.
In this project, visual data analytics techniques will be used to develop a tool to explore, understand and interpret the phone call patterns of individuals for a period of observation asking them to answer what their mood is. The purpose is to assess visually the differences in calling patterns and if they correlate to the individual’s mood.
Skills required:

Excellent programming skills
An interest in smartphones
An interest in visualization and visual data analytics

MCV-MSc-4: Extraction of voice features from phone calls

Mobile phones have become an active part of our daily lives. Who you call, when you call, how long your calls are, how frequently you make calls, how you talk… Mood and emotions are usually reflected in how we speak. Analysing the voice features of individuals while they are on the phone have been used to recognize even depressive states or state changes in patients suffering from bipolar disorders [1].
In this project, visual data analytics and signal processing techniques will be used to develop a tool to explore, understand and interpret the mood changes of an individual during a phone call. Individuals participating in the study will be asked to also answer questions about their current mood. The purpose is to assess visually the mood changes of an individual during his/her phone calls.
Skills required:

Excellent programming skills
An interest in smartphones
An interest in signal processing and speech recognition
An interest in visual data analytics

Initial readings:

[1] Grunerbl A, Muaremi A, Osmani V, et al. Smart-Phone Based Recognition of States and State Changes in Bipolar Disorder Patients. IEEE J Biomed Heal informatics. 2014;19(1):140-148.

MCV-MSc-5: App using the Apple ResearchKit

Large corporations such as Apple, IBM or Samsung are steadily expanding their businesses into the healthcare domain. One initiative from Apple is its ResearchKit, an open source framework to allow researchers and developers to create apps for medical research.
In this project, an app will be developed to allow the recruitment and monitoring of symptoms for patients suffering from asthma.
Skills required:

Excellent programming skills
An interest in Apple smartphones and ResearchKit
An interest in medical applications
An interest in visual data analytics

Initial readings:

Asthma NHS website: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/asthma
Apple ResearchKit website: http://www.researchkit.org

ABOUT ME

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RESEARCH

Publications

Projects

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TEACHING

COM6102 - Advanced Java Programming

COM1003 - Java Programming

Undergraduate Projects

Master Projects

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PhD Students