Help is at hand for cardiovascular patients: In future, a smart sensor network will monitor sufferers and alert the doctor when necessary. Fraunhofer researchers will be presenting the "Mobile Health Assistant" at the CeBIT fair in Hanover from March 15 to 21, 2007 (Hall 9, Stand B36).

Designing emotionally aware robots which are able to interact with humans in everyday settings and develop emotionally in response to their owner's needs is the aim of a new EU-funded project.

The FEELIX GROWING (FEEL, Interact, eXpress: a Global approach to development With Interdisciplinary Grounding) initiative brings together partners from fields as diverse as developmental and comparative psychology, neuroimagery, ethology and robotics.

By studying swarms of virtual robots with evolvable genomes, a team of Swiss researchers has identified the factors influencing the evolution of communication in social organisms.

The study was funded through the EU-funded ECAgents (Embodied and Communicating Agents) project, which aims to develop a new generation of robots which are able to interact with each other and their environment without human intervention. It is published online by the journal Current Biology.

Within the framework of the SHARE project funded by the European Commission, a Knowledge Base on HealthGrids has been developed and made available to the worlwide community.

Action on Grids for health is needed at EU level to address mobility of citizens and provide crossfrontier interoperability of data, cross-frontier infrastructures, best exploitation of resources (both technical and medical), equal distribution of healthcare and definition and implementation of standards.

Health-EU - the European health portal covering a vast range of health topics, is now available in 20 European languages. The portal was first launched in May 2006 by the European Commission's Directorate General for Health and Consumer Affairs, and is a 'one stop shop' for Europeans wanting to find out what's happening across a broad range of health issues in their own countries and across Europe.

In the context of the project Emergency Monitoring and Prevention (EMERGE) funded by the European Union, the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE together with other European partners is developing approaches and solutions to extend the time that elderly people can live a self-determined life in their own homes. The project started on 01 February 2007 and has a duration of 33 months.

Call for Chapters!
Editors: Athina A. Lazakidou, Ph.D and Konstantinos M. Siassiakos, Ph.D, University of Piraeus, Greece

Individuals interested in submitting chapters (5,000-7,500 words) should submit via e-mail a 2-3 page manuscript proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter by March 31, 2007.