About the Contributors

495

Panagiotis Bamidis is Assistant Professor in the Medical School, Aristotle University of Thessa- loniki, Greece. He has co-ordinated four large European projects (www.meducator.net; www.longlasting- memories.eu, www.epblnet.eu, www.childrenhealth.eu) and was the principal investigator for a number of national and international funded projects. His publication record consists of more than 90 refereed journal papers. In addition, he has been acting as a referee in more than 25 journals, and as Guest Editor in more than 13 journal special issues. Finally, he is a member of the Administration Board of the Greek Federation of Alzheimer’s Associations and Related Disorders, the Innovation Zone of Thessaloniki, Greece, and the Hellenic Biomedical Engineering Society. He has been the Chairman/Organiser of 7 international conferences (iSHIMR2001, iSHIMR2005, MEDICON2010, GASMA2010, SAN2011, MEI2012, ΜΕΙ2015) and the Conference Producer of the Medical Education Informatics Conference and Spring School Series. He is a visiting scientist at Karolinska Institute, Sweden. His research interests include health information management, affective and physiological computing and human–computer interaction, (bio)medical informatics with emphasis on neurophysiological sensing and ambient assisted living, collaborative e-learning, content sharing and repurposing, and medical education informatics.

Ioannis Tarnanas is a Senior Researcher at the University of Bern, Switzerland, Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation group at the ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research. He has been researching and developing 3D virtual and augmented reality innovations with focus on dementia and Virtual Reality rehabilitation since 2001. He is an author of 16 peer reviewed publications, 10 books and more than 40 conference papers in the field of Applied Neuroscience. He is member of the editorial board of: Neurobiology of Aging, ELSEVIER, 5-Year Impact Factor: 5.127, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, JCR Social Sciences Edition, IEEE communications 2006-2008 Infovis expert reviewer, VIS, Journal of Medical Internet Research, Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, Presence 2006- 2007and member of the Biomedical Engineering Society Bern, SSN (Swiss Society for Neuroscience), AAATE (Association for the advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe), International Ergonomics Association, International Association for Psychophysiology in Ergonomics and International Society for Gerontechnology.

Leontios J. Hadjileontiadis, (π-1966) received the Diploma and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1989 and 1997, respectively, both from the Aristotle University of Thessa- loniki (AUTH), Thessaloniki, Greece. Dr. Hadjileontiadis also holds a Diploma in Musicology (AUTH, Thessaloniki, 2011) and a Ph.D. degree in music composition (University of York, UK, 2004). Since December 1999 he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, AUTH, Greece as

About the Contributors

a faculty member, where he is a Full Professor, working at the Signal Processing and Biomedical Tech- nology Unit of the Telecommunications Laboratory. Prof. Hadjileontiadis is an IEEE Senior Member.

Magda Tsolaki, MD, PhD was born in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1954 and spent most of her time in Thessaloniki, Greece. She is Professor of Neurology since 2010, Neuropsychiatrist since 1983, and she has worked at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki since 1982 and at the 3rd Department of Neurology of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki since 1988. She has been the main author or co-author of 37 Books, she has participated with 372 abstracts in Greek Conferences, with 296 abstracts in English International or European Conferences, she is the first author or co-author in 178 Papers in Greek Journals, and in 234 International Journals -198 in PubMed with Impact Factor=1047.25, h-index=34, with 5.552 citations-, she has been reviewer for Conferences and Journals (117). She has organized 27 National Conferences on AD and five International. She was one of the three or seven advisory members for 17 doctora theses-completed. She has created the Greek Alzheimer Association in 1995 and Greek Federation of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2007, she is chair of this Federation with 308 lectures, TV and radio programs. She has participated in 29 research programs and 31 clinical trials. Totally she received 36 awards.

***

James Amor is a biomedical engineer at the University of Warwick and his research interests include the development of computationally intelligent techniques to extract meaning from multi-sensor systems for applications in health and wellbeing; and the use of wearable technology as a data gathering platform within these systems. Dr. Amor’s work primarily involves the application of intelligent data analysis techniques to large, personal data-sets to extract personalised behaviour patterns and detect differences in behaviour that are indicative of changing health state. To date this has been focused on Bipolar Dis- order and the prediction of manic and depressive episodes. His work also involves the use of wrist-worn wearable devices, particularly smart-watches and accelerometers to monitor location and activity in a longitudinal setting, and the development of signal processing techniques to detect and analyse activity and movement from these sensors.

Panagiotis E. Antoniou is a postdoctoral research associate in the Lab of Medical Physics, department of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He received a degree in Physics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 1997, a M.Sc. degree in Medical Physics in 2001 from the Democritus University of Thrace and a Ph.D. degree in Medical Physics in 2004 from Democritus University of Thrace. His research interests are in the area of Medical Informatics, in the fields of virtual patients in medical education and in the field of the elderly exergaming interventions. He has authored more than 30 publications in peer reviewed journals and conferences.

Alexander Astaras is Asst. Professor in Computer Science at the American College of Thessaloniki (ACT) and a Research Associate in the Lab of Medical Physics, Dept. of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), Greece. He obtained his BA in Physics from Oberlin College, Ohio, USA and his PhD in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. He has authored more than 30 publications in the fields of Electronics and Biomedical Engineering. In the past he has worked in chip design, system-on-chip and lab-on-chip integration, mapping artificial neural networks on silicon and assistive technologies for physical rehabilitation and supporting the elderly. His

496 About the Contributors

research interests include biomedical micro-electro-mechanical data acquisition sensors (bio-MEMS), low power mixed-signal VLSI electronics, machine learning, pervasive computing and medical robotics.

Giorgos Bamparopoulos is a research assistant at Medical Physics Laboratory, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He received his bachelor’s degree in Mathematics in 2012 from the Aristotle Univer- sity of Thessaloniki and the M.Sc. degree in Web Science in 2015 from the same department. Since 2012, he has participated in many national and European projects. He is an active member of Hellenic Mathematical Society and a Project and Workshop Coordinator for School of Data at Open Knowledge Foundation Greece. His research interests include serious games, game analytics, semantic web, open data and web science.

Antonis S. Billis received his diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2007 and MSc in Medical Informatics in 2011, both from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He also holds a Ptychio in Business Administration and Management from the University of Macedonia, Greece. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in gerontechnology and works with the Laboratory of Medical Physics, Medical School, AUTH. His main research interests lie in the areas of medical decision support systems, AAL technologies, exergaming and cloud computing. He has been a member of the technical chamber of Greece since November of 2007.

Agisilaos Chaldogeridis graduated from Informatics Department of Aristotle University of Thes- saloniki in 2010. He received his Master of Information Technologies in Education degree in 2012 from the Informatics Department of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Since 2013 his is a PhD candidate in Information Technologies in Education of the Informatics Department of Aristotle University of Thes- saloniki. While pursuing his doctoral diploma he works as a research associate in several projects which include IT services in areas such as e-learning, linguistic analysis and multimedia production. He also works as a freelancer mainly in IT services and web development. His research interests is mainly in the Cognitive Training area and its implementation in order to provide and help special groups of people like elders, dementia patients and others. According to this direction he has published several papers in journals and international conferences.

Maria Chatzidimitriou is a Medical Doctor since 1995 with a specialization in Medical Biopa- thology since 2002. In 2004 she participated in postgraduate courses in Medical Microbiology in the Medical School of the University of Edinburgh, G. Britain and in 2006 completed her Ph.D. Thesis on “Mechanisms of Resistance of Enterobacteriaceae in Trimethoprim” in the Medical School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. From 2008 she is an Assistant Professor of Medical Microbiology in the School of Health and Medical Care of the Alexandrion Educational Technological Institute of Thessaloniki. She runs a privately owned biopathology laboratory in Thessaloniki since 2002 and she is the Vice president of the Medical Association of Thessaloniki and the Secretary General of the Association of Medical Biopathology of Northern Greece.

Stavros Demetriadis is currently Asst. Professor with the Department of Informatics of the Aris- totle University of Thessaloniki. He holds a diploma in Physics (1983), MPhil in Electronic Physics (1986) and PhD in multimedia technology in education (2000). His research focuses in the broader area of technology-enhanced learning and more specifically on computer-supported collaborative learning

497 About the Contributors

(CSCL), adaptive educational systems, distance learning, conversational agents, game-based learning, educational robotics, and tangible interfaces. He has more than 120 publications in international journals and conferences and has participated in more than 20 international/national funded research projects.

Anastasios Drosou is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Information Technologies Institute at the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas. He received his Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering, with an expertise in Telecommunications, from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and an MSc. in Communication Electronics from the Technische Universitt Mnchen in 2004 in 2007, respectively. He also holds a PhD in Signal and Image processing from the Imperial College London since 2013. His research interests include biometric security, visualization and network security, regarding the identification. He serves as a regular reviewer for several technical journals and he is the coauthor of more than 25 scientific papers (i.e. 9 journals, 12 conferences and 4 book chapters).

Christos A. Frantzidis received the Diploma degree in electrical and computer engineering, in 2006, and the M.Sc. degree in medical informatics, in 2008, both from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), Thessaloniki, Greece. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in applied neuroscience and works with the Laboratory of Medical Physics, Medical School, AUTH. His current research interests include affective and neuro-physiological computing, neuro-physiological evaluation of cognitive and physical interventions targeted on elderly populations and medical expert systems.

Panagiotis Georgakopoulos was born in 1977 and received the bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, Great Britain in 2001 with specialization in Electronics. His studies continued in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he received the Electrical and Computer Engineering Diploma in 2005, with specialization in Electronics and Industrial Control. In 2002 and from 2006, he worked in the industry business and the healthcare sector as a technical support engineer. In 2013 he collaborated with the Greek Association of Alzheimer’s Disease and Relative disorders at the Saint John Center of Thessaloniki, where he has also participated as a volunteer instructor in classes for English and Computer literacy for the seniors. In 2014 he takes post graduate courses in the School of Accounting & Finance from the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki. He holds memberships in the IEEE and the IET.

Theodoros Giannakopoulos was born in Athens, Greece, in 1980. He received the Degree in Informat- ics and Telecommunications from the University of Athens (UOA), Athens, Greece, in 2002, the M.Sc. (Honors) Diploma in signal and image processing from the University of Patras, Patras, Greece, in 2004 and the Ph.D. degree in the department of Informatics and Telecommunications, UOA, in 2009. He is currently a Research Associate in the Institute of Informatics and Telecommunication, NCSR Demokritos. His main research interests are pattern recognition and multimedia analysis. He is the coauthor of more than 30 publications in journals and conferences in the fields of pattern recognition and multimedia analysis and the coauthor of a book titled “Introduction to Audio Analysis: A MATLAB Approach”.

Vaitsa Giannouli is a neuropsychologist and researcher at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh), Greece. She has received numerous accolades and scholarships for her work as an undergraduate and graduate student. She is currently working as a research assistant at AUTh-ASPAD program (Augmentation of the Support of Patients suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and their caregivers) under

498 About the Contributors

the supervision of Professor M. Tsolaki and Assistant Professor S. Demetriadis. She is responsible for the design of the protocol for the mental exercises, which are based on educational robotics technology developed at the Department of Informatics Multimedia Lab, AUTh. These new exercises are designed for patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment. Ms. Giannouli organized and supervised the exercises, she is responsible for the data processing and participated in the writing of relevant scientific publications.

Antonis M. Hadjiantonis is a Senior Engineer at Cyprus Research and Innovation Center (CyRIC, www.cyric.eu), a private center of excellence based in Cyprus. He has also collaborated with G.M Eu- roCy Innovations Ltd. as a Senior Research Engineer. Before moving to industry, he had completed a postdoctoral project as a Research Fellow at Kios Research Center for Intelligent Systems and Networks of the University of Cyprus, while he was awarded the Ph.D. title from the Centre for Communications Systems Research (CCSR) of the University of Surrey (Guildford, UK). He is also a recipient of a first- class honours Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Dipl.-Ing.) from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA).

Christopher James is a biomedical engineer and his research activity centers on the development of biomedical signal and pattern processing techniques, as well as the use of technological innovations, for use in advancing healthcare and promoting wellbeing. Neural Engineering forms a large part of his work, as to date his work has concentrated on the development of advanced processing techniques applied to the analysis of the electromagnetic activity of the human brain, primarily in Brain-Computer Interfacing. His work also involves the use of activity monitoring from predominantly wearable devices for inferring behavior in patients with chronic conditions, mental health problems and promoting independence in the elderly. Prof James is founding Editor-in-Chief of the IET journal Healthcare Technology Letters.

Artem Katasonov received his BSc (1999) and Engineer (2000) degrees in Artificial Intelligence from Kharkov National University of Radio Electronics, Ukraine. Then, he received his MSc (2001) and PhD (2006) degrees from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, with both theses related to mobile and ubiquitous software systems. After graduating, he acted as an Assistant Professor at the University of Jyväskylä teaching courses on Software Requirements and Systems Engineering, Semantic Web, and Agent-based systems. In 2009, he moved to VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, where he is currently working as a Senior Scientist in the Cyber-Physical Solutions team. His present research work is focused on various practical applications of semantic technologies: in software engineering, smart environments, and the Internet of Things, with a particular focus on data integration and interoperability.

Ali Mehmood Khan is doing a PhD in the field of wearable computing (Human Computer Interaction) from Bremen University, Germany and working as a Research Associate. He is involved in EU funded research based projects. He worked as a Software consultant with couple of companies in Germany for more than 18 months. He received his Master degree in Digital Media (Computer Sciences) from Bremen University of Applied Sciences, Germany in 2009. He did his Bachelor in Computer Sciences from Pakistan. He was a Lecturer at Pakistani university from 2009-2011. He is author, co-author of 14 papers on e-Health and Mobile HCI.

Evdokimos Konstantinidis received the Diploma in electronic engineering from the Technologi- cal Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, in 2004 and the M.Sc. degree in medical informatics in 2008

499 About the Contributors

from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He has just completed his Ph.D. degree in the Laboratory of Medical Physics of Medicine, School of Health Sciences, Aristotle University of Thes- saloniki, Greece. His current research interests lie predominately in the area of Medical Informatics, particularly with respect to people with special needs and especially elderly. Recent research interests focus on intervention for elderly in the field of exergaming. He has authored more than 30 publications in various international peer-reviewed journals and conferences.

Votis Konstantinos is a senior researcher at CERTH/ITI. He received a Ph.D. degree in computer science from Computer Engineering and Informatics department, University of Patras, Greece. He has been working in the field of Service oriented architecture and semantic Web, Human Computer Inter- action, Virtual Physiological Human and eHealth, and was also participating in European standardiza- tion initiatives and working groups concerning W3C accessibility evaluation. Since 2001, he has been involved in several R&D projects related to the eHealth domain, eInclusion as well as in the accessible and interoperable ICT technology (COG, KWFGRID, ACCESSIBLE, VERITAS, ATIS4ALL, APSI- S4ALL, CLOUD4ALL, CLEAR, NoTremor). He has authored numerous publications for international journals and international conferences and events.

Aikaterini Kyprioti, (7/11/1990), was born in Nea Moudania in Chalkidiki and moved in 2008 to Thessaloniki to study in the electrical and computer engineering department of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. During her studies, she worked on “Symbiosis: Alzheimer’s Support” start-up project, developed mobile and tablet applications in .NET and participated in national and international software developer competitions. She graduated at 2013 and since May 2014 works as software developer engineer at Amazon Luxembourg. She enjoys running, reading, tennis and movies.

Kleopatra Kyropoulou was born and raised in Thessaloniki. She graduated in 2010 from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki with a degree on “Information Technology”, followed by a master degree in “Information and Communication Technologies in Education” at the same university. Moreover, she continued her studies with her second master degree on “Counselling Psychology”. She speaks four languages and is highly interested in non-profit organizations, mainly concerning young kids and ado- lescents, being an active volunteer in many of them.

Michael Lawo is with the Universität Bremen and the Centre for Computing and Communication Technologies (TZI) since 2004. He is professor for applied computer science; managing director of the artificial intelligent group, manager of EC funded projects, and general manager of neusta mobile solutions. He was the CEO of a group of SME in the IT domain from 1999 till 2003 with a focus on the development and marketing of virtual reality simulators for surgeons; from 1996 to 2000 he was CEO of an IT consulting firm and from 1991 to 1995 top manager information systems with a large technology company. Michael Lawo was consultant before joining the research centre in Karlsruhe (KIT) from 1987 to 1991 as head of the industrial robotics department. He is a 1975 graduate of Ruhr Universität Bochum, received his PhD from Universität Essen in 1981 and became professor there in 1992. He is author, co-author and co-publisher of eight books and more than 150 papers on numerical methods and computer applications also in healthcare, optimization, IT-security and wearable computing.

500 About the Contributors

Hadas Lewy is currently the Director of International R&D Center, Maccabi Health Services Research Institute, and the CEO of NEVET Ltd -R&D Company of Maccabi Group Holdings, the business arm of Maccabi Healthcare Services. She is responsible for all innovation R&D collaborations including international collaboration EU funded projects and the development of technologies and products for healthcare services that are compatible with the workflow and needs of healthcare systems. She earned her PhD in the department of Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine at Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel. She then completed a Postdoc Fellowship in the department of Clinical Bio- chemistry and Molecular Medicine in the Medical School Pitie-Salpetriere. Paris, France. Her academic and industrial experience includes the development of medical devices and analytics.

Amaryllis-Chryssi Malegiannaki is a cognitive neuropsychologist. She has received her BSc, MSc and Phd degrees from the School of Psychology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Currently, she holds the position of chief psychologist at the Rehabilitation Unit of the Psychiatric Clinic of Veroia, Greece, and is in charge of supervising postgraduate students’ training in psychological assessment. She is also collaborating with the Greek Association of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders on projects regarding the development of computerized assessment tools for geriatric population. Her research interests include computerized neuropsychological assessment of attention, meta-attention, remediation of attentional disorders and deficit awareness in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. She has collaborated scientifically with numerous neurological and psychiatric clinics in Thessaloniki and Patras, and authored scientific articles and books in the field of neuropsychology. Her contribution to research has been awarded by the Psychological Society of Northern Greece and the Research Committee of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Dimitris Mandiliotis is an undergraduate student at the Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aris- totle University of Thessaloniki. His main interests include communications, signal analysis and business development. He is co-founder of the award winning team Symbiosis, an Alzheimer’s Support project, and has been the recipient of several scholarships (Angelopoulos Fellowship, Stanford E-Bootcamp etc.). He is member of various volunteer teams of Thessaloniki and has much experience in organizing scientific and other events. He studies piano at the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki and has diplomas in music Harmony and Counterpoint.

Georgios Milis is an experienced senior ICT analyst and possesses an MSc in Advanced Comput- ing with specialization in Artificial Intelligence from the Department of Computing, Imperial College London, and a Diploma from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in Electrical and Com- puting Engineering. He has excellent communication skills and a great experience in large-scale Web applications and knowledge management systems, Internet/Intranet applications, data and text mining, knowledge modelling and representation, natural language processing, etc. He has a wide acquaintance with software project management, analysis and state-of-the-art research and training activities, ranging from the analysis of requirements to the design, development, training and change management activities.

Vasiliki Moumtzi is an Informatics and Communications engineer, she holds an MSc degree at the faculty of Computing, Information Systems & Mathematics of Kingston University of London. She is a graduate Informatics and Communication Engineer from the Informatics and Communications department of Technological Educational Institute of Serres, Greece. She has working for more than 7 years

501 About the Contributors

for EU research projects. She has technically and administrative supported but also coordinated a series of projects in relation to industrial and e-health informatics, for the provision of new, innovative services and products. Her experience, also include the development of competitive and market analysis, business and deployment plans, for the actual exploitation of research results.

Evdokia Nikolaidou graduated from the School of Psychology of the Aristotle University of Thes- saloniki. She received her Masters Degree in the Healthcare Management, of the Hellenic Open Univer- sity of Patras. She specialised in Cognitive – Behaviour Therapy (certified by the Greek Association of Behavioral Research (EEES) and the European Association of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (EACBT). She works as a psychologist at the Greek Association of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders and she operates her own private practice offering counseling and psychotherapy to children and adults. She is specialised in neuropsychological examination, the design and application of cognitive therapeutic programmes, counseling and psychological support of patients and caregivers. She is one of the winners of the 2nd International Award for the Experiential Seminar for children, titled “Who am I, grandpa?” She is co-author of chapters in books publications on dementia, as well as of papers in international scientific journals.

Ioannis G. Paliokas was born in 1974 in Thessaloniki, Greece. He received the Diploma of Electrical and Computer Engineer (Democritus University of Thrace-DUTH, Greece, 1999), the M.Sc. in Com- puter Science (New York Institute of Technology, New York, USA, 2003) and he completed his Ph.D. in Exploratory Learning Environments (Democritus University of Thrace, Greece, 2008). As an adjunct Lecturer and Assistant Professor, he has been teaching undergraduate courses in various University level institutions in northern Greece including DUTH, Alexander TEI of Thessaloniki, TEI of Kavala and University of Western Macedonia (UoWM). In the last 5 years he has been involved in several R&D projects funded by the EC and national framework programs, while he has published around 45 papers in peer-review journals and conferences. Currently, he is a postdoctoral research associate at CERTH/ ITI in Thermi, Greece, with research interests on Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Infotainment and Virtual/Augmented Reality systems.

Niki Pandria completed her bachelor studies in the department of Mathematics of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) in 2011. Then, she performed her master studies in Statistics and Modeling at the same department with Associate Professor Dr. Dimitris Kugiumtzis as supervisor. She completed her Master in 2013 receiving a rewarding scholarship for her performance in the master curriculum. Since September 2013, she is a scientific collaborator with the Medical Physics Laboratory of Medical School in the AUTH having as supervisor the Assistant Professor Dr. Panagiotis Bamidis. Moreover, she is member of the Group of Applied and Affective Neuroscience that is hosted in the aforementioned laboratory and the Hellenic Mathematical Association as well. Her research interests focus on the study of brain networks using graph theory, correlation of time series, addictive disorders and neurofeedback. She is preparing 5 scientific papers and she has 3 contributions in international conferences with poster presentations and one talk in the 27th Panhellenic Statistics Conference. Moreover, she was technical assistant in the SAN Meeting 2014 (Utrecht-Netherlands).

Stavros Perantonis is the holder of a B.S. degree in Physics from the Department of Physics, Uni- versity of Athens, an M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the Department of Computer Science,

502 About the Contributors

University of Liverpool and a D.Phil. degree in Computational Physics from the Department of Physics, University of Oxford. Since 1992 he has been with the Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications, NCSR “Demokritos”, where he currently holds the position of Deputy Director of the Institute, Direc- tor of Research and Head of the Computational Intelligence Laboratory. Dr. Perantonis has managed or extensively participated in many EU or nationally funded projects. He is the author or co-author of over 170 papers in international journals and conference proceedings. His work is widely cited, with one of his publications earning the award for mostly cited papers in Pattern Recognition Journal in 2010.

Sergios Petridis was born in Athens, Greece in 1973. He received the Diploma Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in 1996, the M.Sc in Pattern Recognition from UPMC, Paris in 1997 and a Ph.D. at the Department of Informatics and Telecommuni- cations of UOA, Greece. He is a research associate at the Institute of Informatics and Telecommunication of the NCSR ``Demokritos”, Athens. His interests include audio signal processing, pattern recognition, data mining, machine learning and multimedia analysis. He is the coauthor of several publications and has been participating in EU and national funded projects for more than 10 years.

Evangelia D. Romanopoulou received the Diploma degree in Computer Science and Biomedical Informatics from the University of Central Greece (UCG), Greece in 2009, and the M.Sc. degree in Medical Informatics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), Greece in 2013. She is currently studying Marketing in American College of Thessaloniki, Greece, with a competitive scholarship for MBA studies by the same college. She is also a Research Assistant in the Lab of Medical Physics, Medical School of AUTH where she is working in various funded research and exploitation projects like DISCOVER (www.discover4carers.eu), LLM Care (www.llmcare.gr) and UNCAP (an H2020 project). Her research interests include affective and assistive technologies, biomedical technology and medical informatics with emphasis on elderly healthcare.

Detlef Ruschin is a senior scientist working at the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institute (HHI) in Berlin. He studied telecommunications, lighting and acoustical engineering and obtained a Dipl.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering from the Technical University Berlin in 1986. Since then he has been a staff member of the HHI human factors department. Between 2002 and 2008 he also was a postgraduate student at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Semiotics at the faculty of Language and Communication of the Technical University. Detlef participated in numerous research projects dealing with topics such as video supported motion learning, perception-based image coding, computer supported cooperative work and gestural human-machine interaction. Currently he is leading local research teams of the EU FP7 project USEFIL, which develops remote health monitoring and group messaging applications, and a German national project investigating stakeholder requirements and technology acceptance for security applications based on the analysis of spatial data.

Theodosios Sapounidis received his first degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and a second BSc degree in Electronic Engineering at the Technological Institute of Thessaloniki. He holds a MSc degree in Information Systems and a PhD degree in design and development of tangible user interface for introductory programming activities from the Department of Informatics of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is currently Special Laboratory Educational Staff, with the department of philosophy and education, Aristotle University of

503 About the Contributors

Thessaloniki. He has published research papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings and has been awarded in two international competitions with the project Cubes Coding. His research interests include tangibles programming, educational robotics and game-based learning.

Sofia Segkouli received the degree of Diploma of Greek Philology (Aristotle University of Thes- saloniki, Greece, 1997). She joined the Information Technologies Institute (CERTH/ITI) as a research assistant in 2005 in the preparation and writing of successful EU project proposals. Recently she received a Ph.D. candidate position in the University of Thessaly, Department of Special Education. Her main research interests include interaction with special groups like elderly people, people with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer patients at early stages. Among her main research activities concern Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), impact of cognitive diseases on daily activities, impaired functions of speech, impaired attention, executive and visuospatial function and their effect on language performance. Her research activity initiation has already led to 3 scientific journal publications and participation in 2 international conference proceedings.

Anastasios Sioundas is a Physicist-Medical Physicist and Associate Professor in Medical School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is the director of the Medical Physics Lab of the Medical School of this institution since 2013. He has 32 years of teaching and researching experience. He has participated in more than 60 Seminars and Congresses and given 25 lectures. He is the author of 6 chapters in 4 medical books and 62 original papers in medical journals. He has participated in the organizing committees of 20 congresses, tutored 9 theses of medical physicists and advised as a member in the committees of 10 Ph.D.s. Dr. Siountas has been a member of the HAMP council for 20 years, and presided for 4 (2004-2008). He is member of 4 Greek and International Federations and advisor in 2 medical journals. He has and still is coordinating a number of projects in radiation protection.

Ala Szczepura has over 20 years expertise in policy research and the organisation and management of health care. She has published widely in the area of economic evaluation of interventions and service organisation, and has also been actively involved in the NHS R&D programme since its inception. She has specific research expertise in health technology assessment (HTA); service delivery, organisation and implementation issues; and evaluation of new and emerging technologies. She was previously Director of the NHS fast track graduate Management Training Scheme in Warwick Business School. Research interests include reengineering of the hospital-primary care interface; research focused on care homes, including use of new technology, models of nursing in-reach, care staff training and skill-mix, workload measurement etc. She also has a long-standing interest in provision of services to meet the needs of diverse populations.

Konstantinos Toumpas holds a diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering (M.Eng.) after graduating from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. During his studies he joined a team that would create Symbiosis, an Alzheimer’s Support project. He participated in Microsoft’s Imagine Cup Competi- tion with the same project reaching the top 6 finalists followed by many other worldwide competitions, publications and presentations including TEDMED. He also published a paper on AI algorithms used in the board game Abalone. Moreover, he participated in IEEE’s IEEEXtreme programming competition. He is currently working as a Software Developer Engineer on behalf of Euroclear.

504 About the Contributors

Thanos Tsakiris is a senior researcher at CERTH/ITI. He received the Diploma in Computer Science from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and the MSc in Computer Games Technology from the University of Abertay Dundee, UK in 2000 and 2001 respectively. His main research activities include 3D rendering, VR/AR/MR technologies and applications, Multimedia Authoring and Multi-modal Human-Computer Interfaces. His involvement in these research areas has led to his participation in the authoring of 2 articles in refereed journals, 2 papers in international conferences and the co-authoring of 1 book chapter. Thanos Tsakiris has been involved in more than 8 projects, 4 funded by the EC and 4 funded from Greek Secretariat of Research and Technology.

Marianna S. Tsatali received her bachelor from the Psychology department of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2007 and MSc in Medical School from the University of Ioannina in 2011, Greece. She is currently doing her Ph.D degree in the Psychology department of the University of Sheffield. She currently works in Greek Alzheimer Association. Her main interests are related with neuropsychology, dementia, non-pharmacological interventions, mood disorders, Parkinson’s disease and emotional function, scales’ validation and chronic pain. She has been member of American Psychological Association (APA Psyc Net) since 2010.

Thrasyvoulos Tsiatsos is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Informatics of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a member of the Multimedia Lab. He obtained his Diploma, his Master’s Degree and his PhD from the Computer Engineering and Informatics Department of Patras University (Greece). His research interests include among others networked virtual learning environments, internet technologies in education, assessment in online educational environments, game based learning, mobile learning, cognitive training using information and communication technologies, development of bio- feedback interfaces to support the educational process, collaborative learning and distance learning. He has published more than 160 papers in Journals and in well-known refereed conferences and he is co-author in 3 books. He has been a PC member and referee in various international journals and conferences. He has participated in more than 25 R&D projects. Also he is member of IEEE and Technical Chamber of Greece.

Anthoula C. Tsolaki, doctor, received her diploma in Medicine in 2008 by the medical school of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Since then she has worked in Hellenic association of Alzheimer’s Disease and related disorders (2009-2013) and in Information Technologies Institute, Centre for Re- search and Technology, on a research project with dense array (256 channels) EEG recordings (2013- 2014). . She is currently a neurology resident in Neurology Clinic of“Agios Pavlos” General Hospital of Thessaloniki. From 2008 till now she has participated in a pharmaceutical double blind research, in a non-pharmaceutical European research project EDAR, both about Alzheimer’s Disease. She is also working her Ph.D, about risk factor genes for Alzheimer’s Disease and non- pharmaceutical interventions and collaborates with the Laboratory of Medical Physics,Medical School, AUTH, on gerontechnology projects (USEFIL, DISCOVER, LLM). Her main research interests are neurodegenerative diseases.

Apostolos Tsolakis, is a graduate of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Polytechnic School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and PhD candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (since 10/2012). His scientific interests are summarized as below: Computer Vision, Virtual Reality, Biotechnology, Nanotechnology and Nanosci-

505 About the Contributors

ences. Since May 2013 he is working in Informatics and Telematics Institute (ITI). National Center for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH).

Dimitrios Tzovaras is the Director of the Information Technologies Institute. He received the Di- ploma in Electrical Engineering and the Ph.D. in 2D and 3D Image Compression from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece in 1992 and 1997, respectively. His main research interests include data fusion, biometric security, virtual reality, machine learning and artificial intelligence. Since 2004, he has been the Associate Editor in the following International journals: Journal of Applied Signal Processing (JASP) and Journal on Advances in Multimedia of EURASΙP and also an Associate Editor in the IEEE Signal Processing Letters Journal (since 2009) and a Senior Associate Editor in the IEEE Signal Processing Letters journal (since 2012). Since mid 2012 he has been also an Associate Editor in the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing journal. He has a very large management record having been the project coordinator of H2020 projects SATISFACTORY, myAirCoach, RAMCIP and also been the scientific and technical manager in more than 40 EU projects .

Gerry Urwin is a Principal Lecturer in Business Strategy at Coventry University. Gerry is the lead for the Applied Research Group in Business Process Innovation, within the Faculty of Business, Environ- ment and Society. The Business Process Innovation Group undertakes market reviews, market mapping, and business model development. The group have recently completed research projects for the Assisted Living Innovation Platform, JISC, the Learning Skills Council and the University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust. Gerry has over 30 years’ experience in business strategy, information systems management, consultancy, and project management. Gerry’s current research interests include, business strategy, knowledge management, project management, and business modelling. Gerry is a member of the Coventry University Health, Design and Technology Institute, and the Centre for the International Business of Sport.

Apostolos Vontas is the co-founder and Director of VILABS with more than 14 years of experience in management of research and innovation projects and studies. He holds a University Degree in Me- chanical Engineering and a MSc in Management Information Systems.Since 2000, he has scientifically supported but also coordinated over 15 projects, in FP6, FP7-ICT, eTEN and CIP-PSP for the provision of new, innovative services and products gaining significant experience in technological analysis, research and innovation analysis, business deployment and exploitation planning, early marketing and support for fund raising. He coordinated an evaluation study on “The potential of the Living Labs approach including its relation to experimental facilities for future internet related technologies”, directly to the EC DG Information Society.

Christos Xenakidis is a Software Engineer and Assisted Living Consultant. He holds a University degree in Computer Science, an MSc in Information Systems and is a candidate for a Master of Educa- tion. He has been awarded with the Best Presentation Award for ALZMINDER (Assistive Application) at MOBIP 2014, the Pan European Partnership and Investment for Mobile Services and is also selected and awarded in many Innovation and Technology competitions in Cyprus, Greece and Europe. His scientific research interests include: Gerontechnology, Artificial Intelligence, Assistive Systems, Adult Education, Distance Learning, also maintains a focus on commercializing and connecting science and innovation with the global markets.

506 About the Contributors

Vasiliki I. Zilidou received the Diploma degree from the Department of Physical Education and Sports Science, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), Thessaloniki, Greece, and M.Sc. degree in Medical Informatics from the same University. She is currently a Research Assistant in the Lab of Medical Physics, Medical School of AUTH where she is working in the projects DISCOVER (www. discover4carers.eu) and LLM Care (www.llmcare.gr) as well as a project organized by the Department of Physical Education and Sports Science of AUTH entitled “Augmentation of the Support of Patients suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and their caregivers”. Her current research interests include biomedical technology and informatics aspects of elderly healthcare and in particular with respect to computerized physical training and dancing.

Stelios Zygouris was born in Thessaloniki at 19 November 1982. He studied at the Psychology Department of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) and continued his studies pursuing an MSc in Theoretical Psychoanalytic Studies at University College London (UCL). He worked in the field of clinical psychology as a Scientific Collaborator of the 1st AUTh University Psychiatric Clinic at Papageorgiou General Peripheral Hospital and as an associate of Interbalkan Medical Center. Cur- rently he is working in research as an associate of the Medical School of AUTh, the Greek Association of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders and as a member of CND+ research group. His research interests include computer applications for older adults, virtual reality (VR) environments, computerized cognitive assessment, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and the relationship between design and psychology.

507