Start in the office

Here I am at my desk at the dept. of mechanical engineering of the University of Tokyo. Everything worked as planned, the instructions were perfect, and everybody was informed of my arrival. I was welcome by some colleagues, all very kind and helpful.

The situation is quite comfortable, and I am sure I shall do a lot of useful work here.

If I do not spend too much time writing on the blog :-).

fare la spesa

Abbiamo provato a fare la prima spesa, mamma mia. Sarà dura. Il 90% delle cose che sono in vendita non hanno un equivalente in Italia, e sono scritte solo in giapponese.

Comunque si trova cibo di ogni tipo, anche italiano (anche se alcune cose sono ovviamente care). Si vede che il cibo e' davvero importante per i giapponesi, la scelta e' incredibile e la qualità è ottima.

Comunque come immaginavo questo è un vero test del viaggiatore; non sai parlare, non sia leggere, e quel che più conta non ha praticamente nessun riferimento culturale che ti aiuti per similitudine o altro. Una bella sfida ...

Siamo Arrivati!

Eccoci qua! Dopo un bel po' di ore di aereo, treno, taxi, ed un breve sonnellino per riprenderci dal trauma delle sette ore di fuso orario, eccoci a Tokyo.

In viaggio e' andato benissimo, senza nessun intoppo se si esclude l'ora di ritardo sul Bologna-Vienna, che ci messo un po' di agitazione. Per fortuna Vienna e' un aeroporto piccolo con procedure di sicurezza rapide.

Qui a fianco due foto alla partenza al Marconi.

Saluti a tutti dal Giappone.

Istruzioni per i familiari

Orario: Per sapere l'ora di Tokyo aggiungete sette ore all'ora di Bologna.

dal 26 al 27 Giugno siamo in viaggio. Arriviamo a Tokyo di mattina, ma poi dobbiamo prendere un treno, arrivare all'appartamento etc. Chiamiamo il 27 o il 28.

Dal 28 giungo al 26 Luglio siamo a Tokyo presso il Elite-Inn. 3-28-1 Yushima, Bunkyo, 113-0034 Tokyo. Il telefono dell'appartamento ve lo mando per email.

Dal 27 Luglio al 1 Agosto: siamo a Kyoto in Albergo.

Dal 3 Agosto al 5 Agosto : Osaka presso Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

Se il volo e' in orario arriviamo a Bologna il 6 Agosto alle ore 18:20 con il volo LH3974H da Francoforte.

My talks while in Japan

June 30(Tue), 3pm-4.30pm at Univ. Tokyo, Rm.31A: Pre-operative planning of total hip replacement: from anatomical navigation to simulation-based planning.

The original HipOp surgical planner for total hip replacement was released on 1999 by small group of researchers born out of the collaboration between the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli, the CINECA supercomputing centre, and the University of Bologna. Initially intended as a research tool to capture surgical variability, HipOp quickly become the CT-based pre-operative planning environment of choice for many surgeons in Europe and in Japan. Today, when the next release of HipOp (version 3.0) is in preparation, it is the right time to discuss this 10-years experience, and to see how the original idea is going to evolve in the next years in relation to the new generation of patient-specific modelling technologies, that should add to the anatomical planning a new dimension: functional outcome prediction. The seminar will introduce the HipOp system and its fundamental philosophy, and will summarise the extensive validation work that has been done over the years on this planning software. Then, we shall present the next version of the software, and will discuss how recent research achievements could be translated into the program in future versions.

July 6th (Mon), 1pm-2.30pm at RIKEN: VPHOP: Multiscale modelling of the musculoskeletal apparatus to predict the risk of bone fracture.

The Virtual Physiological Human is a framework of methods and technologies that once established will makes possible to investigate the human body as whole. The European Commission is actively supporting the creation of the virtual physiological human framework through the funding of various research projects. One of the largest ones, VPHOP, aims to develop a subject-specific, probabilistic multiscale model of the musculoskeletal system, to be used for the prediction of the risk of fracture in patients affected by osteoporosis. The seminar will start by detailing the consolidated validation results of the group at the Rizzoli Institute in Bologna on the creation of subject-specific finite element models of bone segments. These will introduce the description of the research scenario within the VPHOP project, presenting the technologies currently available and those that are still under development. A particular attention will be given to the tentative architecture that the VPHOP consortium is exploring for the automatic composition of integrative models, both in terms of use cases within the biomedical research context, and in terms of information technology research involved. These research scenarios will be openly debated with the participants to the seminar, in the final part of the event.

Jul 28th (Tue) 9:30am-12:30am at IUPS2009, Mail Hall: Euro Physiome and the Living Human Digital Library Project.

The paper summarises the most recent developments of the Living Human Project, an international initiative aimed to the physiome of the musculoskeletal system. We developed two team science tools that will be essential to the collaborative effort necessary to realise a complete physiome of the musculoskeletal system: Biomed Town, which is an on-line community where researchers can work together, and the PhysiomeSpace service, that makes possible to create large data collections, upload to a private sandbox, fully annotate them with powerful and extensible ontologies, and share each data resource only with the peers we choose. Data collections are formed using PsBuilder, a dedicated software base don the MAF framework that allow the creation of heterogeneous biomedical data collections including medical imaging, biomedical signals, simulation results, etc., properly fuse in time and space to provide a coherent and multiscale representation of pathophysiological process of interest. The service is running in beta, and already contain the LHDL data collection, the first multiscale data collection where skeletal data from the whole body down to the molecule were collected form a single donors. Some examples of early applications in the VPHOP project are provided.

August 5th (Tue), at University of Osaka: Tools and methods for the integrative investigation of the musculoskeletal system.

The seminar will update the Japanese community on the recent developments on three major tools developed within European projects: The Multimod Application Framework, a software framework for the rapid development of computer aided medicine applications, which is specialised in the fusion of heterogeneous biomedical data; the Biomed Town Internet community, which provides collaboration tools to nearly 2000 of researchers; and the Physiome Space service, the data sharing and management service that could provide a useful infrastructure for international project involving the exchange and sharing of large heterogeneous data collection.

Marco's seminars and talks

June 30(Tue), 3pm-4.30pm at Univ. Tokyo, Rm.31A: Pre-operative planning of total hip replacement: from anatomical navigation to simulation-based planning.

July 6th (Mon) 1pm-2.30pm at RIKEN: VPHOP: Multiscale modelling of the musculoskeletal apparatus to predict the risk of bone fracture.

July 9^th, 16^th, 23^rd (Thu) 2pm-5.00pm at Univ. Tokyo: Computational Biomechanics. A short introductory course. This short course for Ms and PhD students in engineering is based on the Ms course Prof. Viceconti holds as part of the degree in biomedical engineering at the University of Bologna.

August 5th (Tue), at University of Osaka: Tools and methods for the integrative investigation of the musculoskeletal system.

Where can you find us in Japan?

26 June - 28 June 2009: travelling to Japan, settling in Tokyo.

LH3971V 26JUN BLQFRA 1050 1220

LH 710V 26JUN FRANRT 1355 0750 27JUN

28 June - 26 July: visiting dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo, Tokyo, 113-8656, Japan (Host: Prof. Yoichiro Matsumoto).

Housing: Elite-Inn. 3-28-1 Yushima, Bunkyo, 113-0034 Tokyo.

Reach: during our stay in Tokyo we shall have access to a Internet and phone in our appartement. Contact me by email to have the phone number. Mobile will not work.

Before you call remember that when in Bologna in 12:00 in Tokyo is 19:00!!

27 July - 1 August: attending the IUPS 2009 in Kyoto.

Housing: Grand Prince Hotel Kyoto

Reach: I hope the congress will provide internet access. No private phone, but we are housed in a hotel, where they can take messages in english (I hope :-) ).

3 August - 5 August: visiting dept. Department of Pharmacology, Graduate School of Medicine Osaka University 2-2, Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan. (Host: Prof. Yoshihisa Kurachi).

Housing: Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

Reach: no defined.

6 August - 7 August: Return to Bologna.

LH 741H 06AUG KIXFRA 1025 1535

LH3974H 06AUG FRABLQ 1700 1820

Why a blog?

In general I do not like blogs, and I never had one (except for a brief period when we tested it as tool for dissemination in the Europhysiome Initiative).

But the idea of having a centralised repository for all the information, contacts, photo, and updates for the trip to Japan I shall start on June 26 together with my wife Paola and my 15 years-old Anna is appealing. Let us see if I can find time to keep this up.

Warnings:

1. You might find mixed in this blog professional and personal information, as I plan to use to keep touch both with my colleagues and with my relatives. Please ignore the content you are not interested to.
2. you might find mixed english and Italian. All professional should be in English, while most of the personal content will be in Italian, so this could be a separator.