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You are cordially invited to:
York eHealth Alliance Lecture Series
Decision support tools to identify people at risk of cardiovascular 
arrhythmias. 

Thursday, November 17, 2011
Time: 3:00pm ? 4:00pm 
Location: HNES 402

Abstract: Heart rate variability (HRV) refers to variations of 
instantaneous beat-by-beat heart rate and has become a window to autonomic 
nervous system control to the heart in normal healthy individuals and in 
patients with cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular disorders. As found in 
both clinical studies and animal models, supra-normal sympathetic drive to 
the heart is arrhythmogenic and life-threatening. Dr Dinca-Panaitescu will 
discuss various techniques which can provide an indirect measure of the 
balance between the sympathetic and vagal tone, in this way assessing 
heart health and identifying people at risk of developing atrial or 
ventricular arrhythmias. He will describe spectral analysis (e.g. Fourier 
and ARMA) for HRV, time-frequency algorithms (e.g. Wavelet), a neural 
network classification algorithm, and contrast this development with other 
systems in the literature. Dr. Dinca-Panaitescu will focus on the 
application of the decision tools for healthy individuals and patients 
with diabetes.

Biography: Dr. Dinca-Panaitescu is currently the Undergraduate Program 
Director and the Coordinator of the Health Informatics Certificate in the 
School of Health Policy and Management, Faculty of Health, York 
University. He has worked for many years in the area of medical/health 
informatics focusing on computer processing of physiological signals. His 
major research contributions address the cardiovascular disease prevention 
field by developing decision support tools aiming at detecting the 
cardiovascular dysfunction in the sub-clinical phase. He has published 
numerous articles and one book in this field. More recently Prof. 
Dinca-Panaitescu?s research focus on applying mathematical modeling 
techniques to untangle the complex relationship between socio-economical 
environments and different diseases (e.g. diabetes). 

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