ESBiomech Newsletter Autumn 2013

We are pleased to present our Autumn Newsletter with the latest ESB news, including an update on the World Congress of Biomechanics, the next award announcements, and some special offers.

We continue increasing the Newsletter functionality and the ability to do more adventurous things so please contact us with ideas of items you would like to see on our website and newsletter and these will be considered as the society continues to expand. If you do not wish to receive mailings including the newsletter and other updates from the European Society of Biomechanics you can update your settings in the membership section of the website here:

I hope you find the newsletter useful and informative.

MªAngeles Pérez – publication.chair@esbiomech.org

Message from the President

With this article I would like to report on the activities of the ESB Council members (achievements, decisions, ongoing discussions…) and “highlights” during this first year of my term, as well as some challenges that lie ahead of us. It has become a rather extensive report – blame it on the Council members for being too active!

There may be several reasons why I prefer to update you at this stage, such as (i) my term is more than half way, so you could consider it as a “midterm evaluation” (ii) we did not have a General Assembly at ESB2013, among others due to an already very busy Council agenda, so this report may act as an alternative, although “unidirectional” way of communicating with our membership and (iii) it may in general help you in getting a better idea what it means to be part of the ESB Council. Hopefully, it will motivate some of you to also get involved more, and perhaps even candidate for a Council position during the next elections in July 2014.

Enjoy the reading!

Hans Van Oosterwyck

ESB president

Table of contents

Challenges
Awards
ESB Mobility grant
Membership
Students
Meetings
… and more!
Babies

Challenges

Those of you who attended the banquet at ESB2012 in Lisbon may remember that during my opening speech, I mentioned two challenges related to the ESB congresses. The first challenge was related to the fact that for the first time in the history of ESB, we would have an ESB congress in an odd year, as such breaking the biennial rhythm that ESB was used to since 1978. In the meantime we know that this challenge was dealt with in a very successful way, and for this I need to be grateful to two groups of people. The first group is the local organizing committee from Patras who organised ESB2013, led by Yannis Missirlis, who did a wonderful job in putting together an appealing scientific and social program, running everything very professionally and creating a stimulating environment. The second group are the participants, who showed up with more than 500, ensuring that not only the quality, but also the quantity was guaranteed.

The second challenge is still ahead of us, and is the fact that – again – for the first time in the history of our society, our congress crosses the Atlantic and merges with the World Congress of Biomechanics (WCB2014). Looking at the names of plenary speakers and members of the various committees that are involved in the organization of WCB (including our Council member Stephen Ferguson, who is our liaison to WCB2014 in his duty of Technical Program Co-Chair within the WCB2014 Program Committee), I have no doubt that this will be an exciting scientific event. The challenge for biomechanics in Europe and ESB in particular is to make sure we participate in large quantities and showcase our best work to the rest of the world. In order to facilitate this, the decision was taken by the previous Council – and after having consulted the ESB membership – to join forces, instead of competing by organising our own congress in 2014. Of course, with the Council, we will do our best to ensure the visibility of ESB at WCB2014, e.g. by means of our extensive awards program, of which you can read more in this Newsletter, and by means of our General Assembly (including elections for vacant Council positions). However, the real key to success lies in your hands, and in a way is very simple: you just submit your best work to the congress and participate with as many of your group as possible. Again, in order to facilitate this, we will have up to twenty travel awards available to young, promising ESB members, which in total represents a budget of € 8,000. In addition, the ESB Council has agreed with the organizing committee of WCB2014 that a third of its travel award budget (consisting in total of $25,000) will be given to European students (whether ESB members or not), which in total means the availability of about twice as much funding for travel awards for young European biomechanics researchers than e.g. compared to ESB2013.

Awards

ESB2013 was the second time that we have run our extended awards program. In Patras, the Huiskes medal, Best Thesis award, ESB Student award, Clinical Biomechanics award, Poster award and Travel awards were presented (which is almost the complete program, apart from the SM Perren award). Believe me, coordinating such a program is a lot of work – and if you do not believe me, just talk to Peter Zioupos, our vice president and chair of the awards committee who is in charge of this. Having such an extensive awards program is important for a scientific society and community, as it allows among others the best work of some of our young, promising students to be promoted – by means of the Best Thesis award and the ESB Student award – but at the same time pay tribute to some of our most distinguished and senior scientists – by means of the Huiskes medal, which was given this year to John Currey, one of the European ‘fathers’ of bone biomechanics. Peter has further streamlined the application and evaluation procedures of some of these awards – such as for the Best Thesis award, where we now have a transparent and efficient two stage procedure. Within the Council we also decided to alternate between the two most prestigious awards, being the Huiskes medal that in the future will be awarded in odd years, and the Perren award that will be awarded in even years. Following a recent discussion with the Clinical Biomechanics journal, the sponsor of the award with the same name, ESB will present this award in even years, while our colleagues from the International Society of Biomechanics will do so in the odd years.

In summary it means that at WCB2014 the following ESB awards can be competed for: the SM Perren award, Best Thesis award, Student award, Clinical Biomechanics award and Travel awards. You can find more details (application deadlines, regulations) – on our website as well as in this Newsletter. We want to encourage all our members to take part in these awards competitions. Especially our student members should realize the importance of winning an award for their scientific career.

ESB Mobility grant

This Council has also launched a new initiative this year to promote the mobility of young researchers, by financially supporting them to carry out collaborative research in another lab, as part of their PhD or postdoc. The young researcher and senior responsible of the host lab must be ESB members. The grant regulations were drafted by Hanna Isaksson, as chair of the Student committee. Five applications were received this year, and two candidates were awarded with € 4,000 euros each, whose names and award winning projects can be found in this Newsletter.

We originally thought of this Mobility grant as a one-off initiative, following the rather substantial financial profit that was made in recent years, as a result of an ever increasing membership number and a number of very successful ESB congresses. Clearly, as a non-profit organisation with the sole mission of fostering biomechanics research in Europe, we should make sure our members are benefiting from these positive financial balances. We felt that this Mobility grant is perfectly fitting our mission statement, as it creates opportunities for young ESB members to broaden their scientific horizon, and to establish new collaborations. We are strongly considering continuing this new awards program, and have already decided that in 2014 we will at least have one Mobility grant to be competed for. More information will follow in a next Newsletter, but interested scientists can already start preparing, based on the information on our website! Clearly, the sustainability of such an extensive awards program requires an adequate budget to support it, which is one of the responsibilities of Bill Taylor, our treasurer.

Membership

We currently have almost 900 members in total and are witnessing a constant flow of new membership applications – which clearly puts Gwen Reilly, our secretary general under quite some pressure in order to process them in time! Clearly, we can only be happy with such numbers. At the same time, we would like to attract more companies to become Corporate members, among others because we feel it could facilitate the interaction between industry and academia, leading to new research collaborations and job opportunities for our younger members. Luca Cristofolini, our membership chair, has introduced additional benefits for Corporate members to make it even more attractive for them, such as “congress packages” that consist of reduced Corporate membership fees and booth prices, as well as the introduction of a dedicated Corporate Presentation Session entitled “Technology for Research” at the next ESB congresses (to be introduced in ESB2015). Luca is currently approaching companies to inform them of these new benefits – if you know of any companies who would be interested, do not hesitate to contact him!

Students

Student members are a priority for us – after all they are the future (of biomechanics)! With more than 220 student members (meaning about 25% of the membership) we feel we should do better, especially since a student membership fee of only 20 euros is almost nothing (the equivalent of a few beers, depending on where you live 😉 and gets paid back immediately (given the fact that the ESB congress fee for member students is at least 40 euros less than for non-member students). Even more, as nowadays all non-member congress participants (including students) can apply for membership, their congress fee will automatically cover their membership fee after the application is approved by the Council, meaning that membership is essentially free.

Students (and their supervisors!) should realize that getting involved in a scientific society is important for their career. By becoming a student member, you obtain additional opportunities for networking (e.g. access to ESB social media, like LinkedIn and the Facebook student site), visibility (e.g. by getting involved in the ESB Student committee, chaired by Hanna Isaksson) and career building. Again, I want to emphasise our extensive awards program tailored to student members – Best Thesis award, ESB Student award, Mobility grant – and the fact that you are only eligible to these awards if you are an ESB student member.

Meetings

It is very logical that the ESB Council closely interacts with the local ESB congress organisers, and which is coordinated by Paulo Fernandes, our Meetings chair. We feel this has only been intensified over the years, and in the particular case for ESB2013 has been a very pleasant and mutually beneficial experience for the Council as well as for the local organisers, led by Yannis Missirlis. With the decision of having annual ESB congresses, it clearly leads to more work for the Council, as it among other means that every year we have to launch a call for bids, and evaluate these bids – which we always do three years ahead of the actual congress date. As most of you know, ESB2015 will take place in Prague on 5-8 July, 2015. During our Council meeting at ESB2013, we have also evaluated the bids for ESB2016 and selected the bid from Lyon – congratulations again to David Mitton and his team for a very well prepared and balanced proposal!

Together with our web designer Barry Kaye from CookandKaye, we are currently developing a dedicated congress web portal that will facilitate and standardise a number of congress related organisational aspects, such as abstract submission and evaluation, congress registration (including incorporation of membership fee payment) and congress proceedings. Clearly, this is a rather major step that requires careful planning. Once it is operational – the first ESB congress that will make use of it is ESB2016 – we are convinced that it will have a clear added value for the visibility of the ESB, as well as for all parties involved (the congress participants and ESB members in the first place, the local organisers and the ESB Council), among others by simplifying and standardising certain procedures. For sure, you will hear more about this during the General Assembly in Boston!

…and more!

Apart from these “highlights” there are clearly much more aspects that Council members are taken care of:

• The web content and News dissemination is very efficiently being managed by Maria Angeles Pérez, our Publication chair, among others by means of a monthly Newsletter that is brought to you by email and that is fully integrated in our website.

• Since three years we have two National ESB Chapters – one Italian, and one Spanish– that have their own annual meetings, in this way facilitating scientific collaboration and dissemination at the national level. If you are interested in founding your own national chapter, please have a look at this web page and contact Anita Ignatius, our chair of the Society and Chapter Liaison Committee.

• ESB as a Society is a member of the European Alliance for Medical and Biological Engineering & Science (EAMBES), an organization which among others lobbies for biomedical engineering research at the European level. Stephen Ferguson, the chair of the EAMBES Committee, regularly updates you with news bits that are relevant to ESB.

• For the (financial) viability of a Society it is also crucial that members pay their membership fee each year. We have made this easier for you by incorporating the membership fee into the ESB congress fee. Practically, this means that those ESB members who attended ESB2013 have automatically extended their membership until the end of 2014 – an extra motivation to attend our congress every year! Those of you who did not attend will receive an email from Bill Taylor, our treasurer, very soon, with an invitation to pay their membership through our online payment site (accessible after login). At the same time, all members can subscribe to various biomechanics journals at reduced rates (see the full list here), for which Bill will send you another email soon. If you do not like to be reminded several times– Bill has implemented some very efficient ways to do this through our website 😉 – then please pay your dues after you have received the invitation. For those of you who are in doubt about our fee structure, you can find all information.
Babies

Despite all this work, some of our (female) Council members have worked on different, although very effective ways of securing the future of biomechanics. Congratulations to both Maria Angeles and Hanna with the birth of their baby girls!
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7th World Congress of Biomechanics from July 6-11, 2014, Boston (USA)

The World Congress of Biomechanics is an international meeting held once every four years, rotating among Europe, Asia and the Americas. This, the 7th WCB, will once again bring together engineers, scientists from various disciplines including biology, physics, mathematics, computer science, chemistry and various clinical specialties. Applications range from basic biology to medical devices to the latest technologies. Researchers, engineers from industry, medical doctors, academics, and students are all welcome. Vendor exhibitions will highlight the latest technologies, publications, and medical devices.

The ESB strongly supports the WCB, by its representation on the organising committee, and the ESB community is strongly integrated, with European scientists participating as keynote lecturers, track and session chairs for the conference. The WCB aims to offer nearly 400 individual scientific sessions, therefore the congress provides a unique opportunity to experience the full breadth and depth of global biomechanics research. Traditional ESB activities will be given a specific focus at the congress, with plenary sessions dedicated to our awards program and our bi-annual General Assembly. Boston is convenient to reach from all major European airports and offers a unique venue for the WCB. We hope to see a strong support from the European biomechanics community and look forward to a stimulating 5 days of in-depth discussions and presentations.

For more information consult the congress website (http://www.wcb2014.com) contact eileen@wcb2014.com or andrea@wcb2014.com.

WCB REGISTRATION: When you register for WCB remember to state that you are a member of the European Society of Biomechanics. Select European Society of Biomechanics from the dropdown menu on the section of the form that asks ‘Primary Professional Society Affiliation’. WCB only has one registration fee for all participants, regardless of any membership. For that reason, ESB is not able to offer any discount on the registration fee. The good news is that for ESB members who participate to the congress and who are in good standing (i.e. they have already paid their membership for 2014, either by having participated to ESB2013 in Patras, or by paying the membership fee by the end of this year), the membership fee up to the end of 2015 will be included in the congress registration fee.

Important dates:

November 15, 2013 – January 15, 2014

Online abstract submission is open. Podium Presentations will be limited, so please submit early to the continuous review process.

February 15, 2014 – March 15, 2014

Review period for all podium papers and posters.

April 1, 2014

Last date for notification of acceptance for Podium or Poster Presentation.

Prizes and Honors Awards for WCB-ESB-2014 in Boston

The next major conference event for the ESB is the joint 7^th WCB-20^th ESB congress on July 6 – 11, 2014 in Boston, USA. The awards and honors that can be contested in this event are: the ‘Stephan M Perren’ award, the ‘Clinical Biomechanics’ award, ‘Mobility’ award, ‘Student’ award, ‘Best PhD thesis’ award and ‘Travel’ awards (up to 20).

The terms and conditions of these awards, the regulations and the deadlines are all uploaded (and information is refreshed as required) in the ESB web pages. Please direct your attention to: www.esbiomech.org/?page_id=31, in order to keep yourselves informed of the process.

Other Meeting Announcements: Endorsed meetings

The ESB endorses several meetings during 2013. The last meeting of the year also offers a discount to the ESB members.

IMechE – Knee Surgery and Rehabilitation in 2013: How is engineering driving improved treatment?

11-12 November 2013

Institution of Mechanical Engineers,

1 Birdcage Walk, London, UK

Website:http://events.imeche.org/EventView.aspx?EventID=1916

Call for Bids 2017

The European Society of Biomechanics (ESB) holds an Annual international scientific Congress to provide the most up to date research in biomechanics and to provide a forum of discussion. (ESB congresses).

If you would like to host and organize the 2017 main ESB congress and wish to prepare and submit a bid, please read the conference rules following the link Conferences-Bid Rules General 2012 in the ESB website.

Interested members can contact or send a proposal/bid to Prof. Paulo Fernandes, Chair of the meetings Committee (prfernan@dem.ist.utl.pt)

The deadline for bid submission to organize the ESB2017 is 31^st March 2014.

Report on the 19th Congress of the European Society of Biomechanics 25-28th August, Patras Greece

The 19th Congress of the European Society of Biomechanics was held in the congress and Cultural Center of the University of Patras, Greece, from August 25^th until August 28, 2013. It was organized by the team of the Laboratory of Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering of the University of Patras, headed by Professor Yannis Missirlis.

Being the inaugural Congress, as an annual event, in the midst of the so-called economic crisis, in one of the countries, most hardly hit by this «crisis», managed to attract 550 delegates from 46 countries, from all 5 continents.

In the morning of Sunday, August 25, 2 courses were held: One on Nanomechanics of Cells-tissues-Biomaterials, and the other on Wavelet Analysis of Biological Signals, well attended and positively evaluated.

The following 3 days, 66 sessions, with 338 oral presentations, in 6 parallel venues were communicated (with only 3 last minute cancellations).

Two days of viewing, discussing (with beer and snacks!) 166 posters added to the overall scientific input and get-to know each other, especially young biomechanicians.

The plenary speakers were exceptional in transmitting their overview and state-of-art lectures to large audiences. Professors Evan Evans (Canada/USA), Peter Kohl (UK) and Reinhard Blickhan (Germany) provided everyone with excellent food-for-thought on the role of biomechanics across many scales.

The plenary sessions on students’ award, the Huiskes’ medal to Professor John Currey with his provocative lecture, the Best Doctoral thesis lecture, all added to the quality of the Congress as a whole.

The 10 exhibitions stands were frequented by many interested delegates as well.

Last, but no least, the social events during the Congress need mentioning:

The opening ceremony on Sunday evening started with a brief historical note on biomechanics by Yannis Missirlis, a lecture on the Role of Ancient Theaters by Martin Kreeb and a superb concert by the Plucked String Orchestra of the Patras Municipality, followed by a reception.

The well attended «Students’ evening» was appraised by everybody and provided a forum for getting to know each other, entertainment, dancing, and «biomechanical exercise of solid and liquid ingestion».

The Congress dinner took place in the terrace of a restaurant overlooking Patras, and was the forum for all the awards presentations.

During the Congress the delegates enjoyed freshly cooked Mediterranean food, drinks and coffee breaks both indoors and outdoors, giving them the necessary ingredients to continue attending the subsequent scientific program.

Finally, all the abstracts will be uploaded in the society’s webpage www.esbiomech2013.org

While a gallery of photos is to be found in the Congress’s webpage

www.esbiomech2013.org

Prizes and Honors Awarded at the 19th Congress of the ESB

by Peter Zioupos, Vice-President of the ESB and Chair of the awards committee.

Huiskes Medal for Biomechanics

John D Currey, was awarded with the Huiskes Medal for Biomechanics. John is a retired (though still active) Emeritus Professor at the University of York, UK, who made a profound and fundamental contribution to basic bone biomechanics. John has been interested in the mechanics of hard tissue, particularly bone, throughout his academic career, although he spent some years, while mainly studying bone, examining the population genetics of the snail Cepaea.

John can vividly recall his exact position in the room with his hand on the door handle when the engineer whom he had been consulting, said ‘Why don’t you test it?’ He had up to that moment, being a zoologist, not thought of mechanical testing. And that was it! He started breaking things and bones of all kinds in health and disease and never looked back. He has shown various things about bone in relation to mineralisation, to pre-and post-yield behaviour, and with Peter Zioupos and Gwen Reilly popularised the study of microdamage.

His first degree being in Zoology at Oxford he has always had a keen interest in the Darwinian aspects of hard tissue behaviour, for instance how do animals with, unpleasant incisor teeth like narwhals avoid hurting each other much. John likes to joke that unlike other awardees of this honour he has not won many prizes, but he considers that his life has been well and interestingly spent!

ESB Clinical Biomechanics Award

The ESB Clinical Biomechanics Award was established by ESB with the purpose of fostering the application of Biomechanics to clinically oriented problems. This year the winner was: Marcel Dreischarf who with his colleagues Antonius Rohlmann, Sascha Lauterborn, Hendrik Schmidt, Michael Putzier, Patrick Strube and Thomas Zander from Germany, won the prize for his work on : ‘INFLUENCE OF A VERTEBRAL MISALIGNMENT AFTER TOTAL DISC REPLACEMENT ON FACET JOINT FORCES, CAPSULE TENSILE FORCES AND CLINICAL OUTCOME.’

Best Doctoral thesis in Biomechanics

The Best Doctoral Thesis in Biomechanics is the award with which the ESB recognizes the development of an outstanding doctoral final thesis that has contributed to the advancement of the theory and/or applications of Biomechanics. The winner was Angelo Karunaratne, whose thesis was entitled: ‘ANALYSIS OF ALTERATIONS IN MATRIX QUALITY AT NANOSCALE IN METABOLIC BONE DISEASES USING SYNCHROTRON X-RAY DIFFRACTION’. This was submitted to Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom and was supervised by Dr Himadri Gupta.

ESB Student Award

The ESB Student Awards were instituted by Professor Marie-Christine Ho Ba Tho at the 1998 Congress in Toulouse, France, with the purpose to honour excellence in biomechanics already at a relatively young age. In 2013, the ESB Student Award was awarded jointly to 2 candidates:

Orestis Andriotis with his colleagues David Smart, Simon P. Robins, Wiparat Manuyakorn, Orestis L. Katsamenis, Peter Howarth, Donna Davies and Philipp Thurner for their work on: ‘CROSS-LINK DENSITY AND TYPE ARE STRONG DETERMINANTS OF COLLAGEN FIBRIL NANOELASTICITY.’

Hajar Razi with her colleagues Annette Birkhold, Georg Duda, Bettina Willie, Sara Checa for their work on: ‘CORTICAL BONE IN ADULT MICE EXHIBITS LOWER STRAIN LEVELS AT REMODELING SITES COMPARED TO YOUNG MICE.’

Best Poster Award

The ESB Poster Award is given at each ESB Congress with the purpose of raising the quality of poster presentations at the meeting. 2013 ESB Poster Award was awarded to Sophie-Anne Scherrer with her colleagues M. Begon, C. Coillard, C-H Rivard, P. Allard for their work on “Three-dimensional vertebral wedging in mild and moderate adolescent idiopathic scoliosis”

ESB Travel Awards

ESB Travel Awards are given to the worthiest applicants based on the selection made by the ESB Award Committee. The purpose of the Travel Awards is to allow young researchers to participate at the ESB Congress. The awardees this year were: Zahra Asgharpour, María Moreno Catalá, Carlos Borau Zamora, Marcel Dreischarf, Paula Cristina do Rosario Fernandes, Elizabeth Anne Gallagher, Noelia Garijo Millan, William van Grunsven, Angelo Karunaratne, Seyed Jamaleddin Mousavi, Niklas König, Naiara Rodriguez-Florez, Chen Yen Ooi, Pinaki Bhattacharya, Christina Perdikouri, Patrick Kugler, Gianluca Tozzi, Mikael Turunen, Clara Valero Lazaro, Roland Zemp.

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Student’s corner

Γεια σας! καλώς ήρθατε στην Πάτρα! (Hello! Welcome to Patras!)

In August the University of Patras welcomed around 550 participants, whereof 230 students for the 19^th congress of the European Society of Biomechanics. The congress started with pre-courses on Sunday focusing on the nanomechanics of cells, tissues and biomaterials and on wavelet analysis of biological signals. The following days were filled with exciting science, spread over three interesting plenary sessions and multiple parallel and poster sessions. During lunch breaks and after a full day of listening, presenting and networking, the participants could explore some nearby historical sites like Olympia or simply enjoy the wonderful weather (around 35°C) at the beach or in the swimming pool!

The ESB student event took place on Monday evening, where about 200 students were welcomed with some drinks in the garden of Achaia Beach Hotel. The evening started with a speed networking game where the participants could get to know each other in an informal way during two minutes before switching to the next participant. In this way the students were mixed and many new groups of students were formed -some of them who continued to hang out together the rest of the congress. Afterwards delicious typical Greek specialties were served for dinner accompanied by Greek music. The highlight of the evening was certainly the traditional Greek dancing. The students continued meeting new people during this very nice summer evening which ended in a great party next to the swimming pool!

After two long days of interesting presentations, it was time for the conference dinner, another highlight of the ESB meeting. This year the conference dinner was held at Dasylio, a restaurant located at the top of a hill in Patras, from which we had a magnificent view over the bay and recently built bridge of Patras. During the excellent dinner the president announced the locations of the next ESB meetings. Also, the winners of student awards were announced and the travel grants, mobility grants and best thesis awards were distributed.

The 19th ESB conference was again a successful meeting of great minds, inspiring us with fresh ideas for the upcoming World Congress in Boston in July 2014! We hope to see you all there and if you have any ideas, remarks or wishes for particular student events, please contact us!

ESB mobility awards for young researchers

This year, the ESB has launched the first ESB Mobility Awards for Young researchers, a great initiative to give young researchers the opportunity to do part of their PhD or postdoctoral research abroad. Two awards with a value of €4000 were available on a competitive basis. The mobility awards 2013 were awarded to Ana Campos from University of Sheffield, UK and Michele Casanova from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Ana will go to Politecnico di Milano, Italy, to study the influence of scaffold surface effects on dynamic seeding. The Children’s Hospital of Westmead, Australia, welcomes Michele to investigate the interplay between bisphosphonates and anabolic treatments in fracture healing. We all wish them a very interesting and enriching experience and look forward to hearing all about it in the upcoming newsletters!

Student mobility – A visit to TU Eindhoven as an academic guest – from Silke Wüst

It has only been a few weeks since I left my home university, ETH Zurich, where I am currently doing my PhD to discover a new biomechanics lab. I am at the end of my PhD and I am visiting Eindhoven to discuss and write up my research and parts of the thesis. While my professor is at ETH, my PhD supervisor has worked at TU/e since some months. To be close to her in the final phase is a nice opportunity to have effective discussions and direct feedback on the writing. The advantage of doing a lab exchange at the end of the thesis is the great networking possibility. One gets to know many new people from the field and their research and maybe gets some more ideas about possible job opportunities.

Beside the science there is always also a personal experience combined with a stay abroad. For me, moving from Switzerland to the Netherlands was really moving from the mountains to the flat. I discovered instantaneously that bikes are truly the most common mode of transportation here, and I was very lucky that I could borrow one right from the first day. The bike-culture here comes along not only with a huge infrastructure but also a completely different traffic regulations. Quite different is also lunch and dinner. While nice canteen-menus spoil hungry students in Switzerland and coffee shops on the campus which invite to extend lunch to go for coffee with colleagues, Dutch students bring their sandwiches from home and also shift most of the social activities to the evening. I am very happy to have the opportunity to spend some weeks during my PhD in Eindhoven. Even though the work-to-leisure ratio is a bit higher compared to an exchange at the beginning of the PhD, I really enjoy getting to know different people and a different culture during daily life, going to work, buying food at the groceries or trying to find out how the public transportation system (or bike traffic regulations J) work. Here are some impressions from the Philips-town Eindhoven:TU/e, visiting Van Gogh’s home town Nuenen and the first Philips X-ray tube from 1918.

Stay connected!

The ESB website offers information concerning ESB meetings, awards, affiliated societies, and so on. We recently created a section “job opportunities”. This page lists the latest job opportunities in the field of Biomechanics, specifically for PhD/Masters students, post-docs and senior/faculty positions. If you are looking for a new position, or have a position to offer, this is the place to advertise! Moreover, stay in touch with all the new interesting people you met during the ESB conference by connecting to our Facebook or LinkedIn-pages (Search for “European Society of Biomechanics – Student Members” or “European Society of Biomechanics”)!

By Aurélie and Silke, on behalf of the whole student committee

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EAMBES update

At the recent ESB conference, a lunchtime break-out meeting was held to discuss the potential for increased cooperation between the ESB and the EAMBES. It was clear from the discussion that the possibilities for both the EAMBES and ESB to strongly influence e.g. future European research policy and funding are not limitless. Both organisations function within the constraints of limited funding to devote specifically to lobby actions, therefore it is clear that co-operation rather than individual efforts would be beneficial to have the greatest impact. During the ESB meeting I also had the opportunity to meet with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Birgit Glasmacher, the current president of the EAMBES, and brought forward the idea from our break-out of a focused meeting between representatives of the EAMBES and ESB at the next convenient mutual conference or similar event, with the specific goal to produce a clear strategy that both organisations can support and represent.

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Membership news

With the “spring cleaning” a number of members in arrears have been moved to the “suspended” status. Despite this, the total number of members of the European Society of Biomechanics is steadily increasing. Total membership is now nearly 900.

A very warm welcome to the 65 new members who have joined us since Spring 2013:

32 new active members: Pinaki Bhattacharya, Christina Perdikouri, Cleveland Barnett, Hakim Naceur, Hussam El-Din El-Sheikh, Benbarek Smail, Ali Vahdati, Ali Merdji, Argiris Kasioptas, Ahmet Erdemir, Maria-Grazia Ascenzi, Nicole Yu, Seunghwan Lee, Daniel Benoit, Christof Hurschler, Annamaria Guiotto, Asimina Kazakidi, Douglas Cook, Javier Andres, Savvas Savvakis, Flora Gröning, Edouard Auvinet, Luige Vladareanu, Yuhang Chen, Pierre-Yves Rohan, Warrick McKinon, Mauro Malve, Eduardo Soudah, Chris Holland, Dimitrios Teranis, Nikolaos Darras, Leping Li;
33 new student members: Seyed Jamaleddin Mousavi, Mikael Turunen, Elizabeth Anne Gallagher, Katarzyna Szepietowska, Johann Jakob Schwiedrzik, Orestis Vardoulis , Juan Mora Macías , Pauk Fahy , Serena de Gelidi, Andreas Skiadopoulos, Ghiss Moncef, Ahmed Aldukhail, Janna Tenenbaum-Katan,Michele Casanova, Mohammad Akrami, Alessandra Scarton, Marcos PIña-Aragón, Falko Schmidt, Zuned Hajiali, Marielys Loaiza, Feng Xue, Hooman Mohammad Pour, Philip Purcell, Manuel Krämer, Ana Mercedes Campos Marin, Diogo Ferreira de Almeida, Falk Christoph Mersmann, Riza Bayoglu, Orestis Andriotis, Pedro Aparicio, Nefeli Chatzistefani, Juliet McClymont.

The recent increase of number of members is probably explained by the decision of the Council to include the yearly membership in the fee of the annual congress of the ESB. This possibility has encouraged people who regularly attended the Congress of the ESB, to join the society.

It is worth noting that the fraction of Student members is increasing (now exceeding 27% of total membership). This is probably explained by the decision of the ESB to have dedicated benefits for students, including the newly introduced Mobility Grant.

How to pay the ESB yearly membership fee?

In order to avoid any confusion regarding the payment of the ESB membership fee, we remind you of the following:

If you attended the ESB congress, in Patras membership fees for 2014 are included within the price of congress registration.
If you did not attend the ESB congress this year, your membership will elapse at the end of 2013, and you will be required to pay your annual membership fee online to cover membership for 2014. An invitation email will be sent soon. Please note that payment via Paypal is the preferred method, but for those of you who have no access to this facility, it is possible to register and then transfer your fees via bank transfer. Full details will be provided in the membership invitation email. Furthermore, both invoices and payment receipts will be available automatically in pdf format within your login section of the website.
Members who allow their membership to lapse, and do not attend the annual congress will be maintained within the membership database for a period of 3 years, under the status of “suspended”.

For more details about membership payment rules, please visit the dedicated page.

To update/check your membership profile and fee payments, you just need to login in the ESB website and follow the account overview link on the right. The ESB website has been redesigned recently, but you can still login with your email address (the one you used to register for the ESB) and old password. If you do not remember your password, just fill out your email address on the login page and a new password will be generated and emailed to you.

News about corporate members

The research activity of most ESB members requires hi-tech hardware and/or software that is developed and commercialized by specialized companies. For this reason, the Council of the ESB has decided to strengthen the contacts with Industrial parties that are active in the field of Biomechanics. The best way we could think of, was to:

Encourage companies that are active in our field to join the ESB as Corporate Members.
Offer Corporate Members better ways to communicate with regular members, such as: (i) product news (you will find a dedicated section in this Newsletter where Corporate Members can present their latest products and applications), and (ii) incorporate in the forthcoming ESB congresses a dedicated “Corporate Session: Technology for Research”.
Make regular members better aware of the presence of Corporate Members and of the opportunity to build collaborations.

We therefore invited those companies that had a booth at the Congress in Patras (and a few others) to join the ESB. In the recent months, the number of Corporate Members has nearly doubled.

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Society news

Meeting of the German Society for Biomechanics from Lutz Dürselen.

8th Biannual Meeting of the German Society of Biomechanics, 15.-17. May 2013 in Neu-Ulm

The German Society of Biomechanics has held its 8th biannual meeting from 15.-17. May 2013 in Neu-Ulm hosted by Lutz Dürselen and his team from the Institute of Orthopaedic Research and Biomechanics, Ulm University. A total of 335 participants from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom attended the meeting. The scientific program comprised 95 podium presentations and 87 posters from a broad spectrum of basic, applied and clinical biomechanics. 15 sessions were held on gait analysis, tribology, bone, sports biomechanics, meniscus and ACL, osteoarthritis and cartilage, implants and fracture healing, muscle biomechanics, and free topics. To meet our young scientist’s needs the meeting was extended by a preceding workshop with lectures on project planning, statistics and movement analysis. As a highlight three excellent invited lectures were given on bone biomechanics on macro, micro and nano level by Lutz Claes, Ralph Müller, and Christian Hellmich. All abstracts can be downloaded at

http://www.biomechanik-kongress.de/fileadmin/media/2013/dgfb/DGfB2013_Abstractband.pdf

News from the ESB Italian Chapter

The Italian National Chapter has just closed its third Meeting, which was held in Pisa on September 25. The Meeting was divided in two parts: the General Assembly and a scientific session.

The General Assembly, attended by about twenty persons, was dedicated to the discussion of past activities and the planning of future tasks. In particular, the results of the ‘census’ of Chapter members were presented, which highlighted that the current profile of the Chapter is mostly academic and characterized by a mechanical/biomedical engineering background. Moreover, the Chapter is quite ‘young’, since the mean age is 41 yrs. For further information please refer to second issue of the Chapter newsletter Il Giornalino, http://www.esb-ita.it/newsletter.html. More importantly, during the Assembly, a new executive board was elected: Federica Boschetti (Politecnico di Milano), Michele Conti (Università di Pavia) President, Diego Gallo (Politecnico di Torino).

The second part of the Meeting, attended by about forty persons, was organized in collaboration with the Italian Society of Clinical Movement Analysis (SIAMOC) and included two keynote lectures: Prof. Kevin Deluzio (Queen’s University, Canada), “Can Biomechanical Analyses influence the treatment of knee osteoarthritis?” and Prof. Gabriele Dubini (Politecnico di Milano), “Numerical simulation of endovascular procedures: state of the art and perspectives”.

As many Italian researchers work abroad and can hardly attend the Meetings, another opportunity for getting together was organized during the ESB Conference in Patras: the first Italian Chapter Dinner. About thirty members enjoyed this nice event, which will be repeated in the next conferences.

News from the ESB Spanish Chapter

The Spanish National Chapter has just closed its third Meeting, which was held in Barcelona on October 24th and organized by the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC). The event took place at the Parc Científic de Barcelona (PCB) and hosted 60 people from research centres, hospitals and universities throughout Spain.

The meeting’s main mission was to put professionals and researchers in the field of biomechanics in touch, to enhance collaboration between universities, hospitals and companies and also to encourage dissemination and promotion of studies in this field throughout Spain.

“The highlights of the conference, which took place in a very friendly atmosphere, has been the scientific quality of the papers” said Jérôme Noailly, member of the organizing committee and researcher at IBEC, after the meeting. “We’re grateful for the participation of the business and hospital sectors, who shared their experiences with the researchers in a constructive way.”

Almost 50% of the meeting participants also took part in three courses given the day before, which were established with the intention of providing an overview of the techniques used for the development of a patient model form clinical data.

The papers “Explicit simulation of muscle activation in combination with intervertebral disc swelling reproduces in vivo intradiscal pressures in a L3-S1 lumbo-sacral spine model” presented by Themis Toumanidou in the Science category and “The role of both micro/nano-topography and Na+ ion to enhance osseointegration” presented by Marc Fernández Yagüe in the Technology Transfer and Clinics category were awarded for their excellence, content and presentation.

During the meeting, the election of the Chapter’s executive committee also took place, whose candidates were Sebastian Idelsohn, Javier Martínez Reina and Jérôme Noailly.

Special Book Offer exclusive to ESB Members

We are pleased to have secured this special offer for (members of The European Society of Biomechanics) – Measuring Walking, by Richard Baker. To obtain the book at a 15% discount and free shipping contact admin@mackeith.co.uk and quote offer code MEASURING13. Offer valid until 30^th November 2013.

About the book:

This book is a practical guide to instrumented clinical gait analysis covering all aspects of routine service provision. It reinforces what is coming to be regarded as the conventional approach to clinical gait analysis. Data capture, processing and biomechanical interpretation are all described with an emphasis on ensuring high quality results. There are also chapters on how to set up and maintain clinical gait analysis services and laboratories.

The book aims to describe the theoretical basis of gait analysis in conceptual terms. It then builds on this to give practical advice on how to perform the full spectrum of tasks that comprise contemporary clinical gait analysis.

Readership
– Professionals from either a clinical or technical background working within clinical gait analysis services.
– The extensive sections on data capture and processing will also be invaluable for those using gait analysis for research purposes.

– Clinicians receiving gait analysis reports and particularly those who base clinical decisions upon gait analysis results (e.g. orthopaedic surgeons) will find it useful in understanding where the data comes from and how it can be interpreted.

– Physiotherapists

More details:

ISBN: 978-1-908316-66-0

Paperback

246 pages

April 2013

RRP £49.95 Member price: £42.00

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Basic Measurements
The conventional gait model
Alternatives to the conventional gait model
Advanced Processing Techniques
Electromyography
Clinical Video
Physical examination
General Measures of walking quality
Relationships between different data types
Quality assurance
Interpretation and reporting
Accuracy and reliability
How to set up a gait analysis service

How to set up and maintain a gait laboratory

ESBiomech Newsletter Autumn 2013

CONTENTS:

Message from the President

7th World Congress of Biomechanics from July 6-11, 2014, Boston (USA)

Prizes and Honors Awards for WCB-ESB-2014 in Boston

Other Meeting Announcements: Endorsed meetings

Call for Bids 2017

Report on the 19th Congress of the European Society of Biomechanics 25-28th August, Patras Greece

Prizes and Honors Awarded at the 19th Congress of the ESB

Student’s corner

EAMBES update

Membership news

Society news

Special Book Offer exclusive to ESB Members

Corporate members of the ESB: