Does psychotherapy via the Internet work? For the first time, clinical researchers from the University of Zurich have studied whether online psychotherapy and conventional face-to-face therapy are equally effective in experiments. Based on earlier studies, the Zurich team assumed that the two forms of therapy were on a par. Not only was their theory confirmed, the results for online therapy even exceeded their expectations.
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Swiss, French & German Scientists Develop Miniature Artificial Insect Eyes
Scientists in Switzerland, Germany, and France explored how the insect eye works and designed and built the first fully-functional miniature curved artificial compound eyes. The "CURVACE" project received €2 million in EU funding to develop the miniature "insect" eyes, which have high industrial potential in mobile robotics, smart clothing and medical applications.
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Chips that Mimic the Brain
No computer works as efficiently as the human brain - so much so that building an artificial brain is the goal of many scientists. Neuroinformatics researchers from the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich have now made a breakthrough in this direction by understanding how to configure so-called neuromorphic chips to imitate the brain's information processing abilities in real-time.
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'Intelligent Knife' Tells Surgeon which Tissue is Cancerous
Scientists have developed an "intelligent knife" that can tell surgeons immediately whether the tissue they are cutting is cancerous or not. In the first study to test the invention in the operating theatre, the "iKnife" diagnosed tissue samples from 91 patients with 100 per cent accuracy, instantly providing information that normally takes up to half an hour to reveal using laboratory tests.
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Commission Proposal for a Renewed Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme (AAL JP)
The European Commission has proposed a follow up to the Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme (AAL JP) for 2014 - 2020, to continue the success of the present programme in applied research for ageing well with ICT. The aim of the AAL JP is to support industry, in particular SME to bring digital innovative products and services for ageing well to the European market. Alignment with the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP AHA) could further boost deployment at European scale.
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New Web Portal for Drug Discovery
The GRANATUM web portal is now online, ready to connect biomedical researchers. The public GRANATUM IT platform provides access to information about cancer research and established pharmaceutical agents from 83 global data sources in an integrated, semantically interlinked manner.
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SIMPHS 2 - Strategic Intelligence Monitor on Personal Health Systems
The Strategic Intelligence Monitor on Personal Health Systems (SIMPHS) research started in 2009 with the analysis of the market for Remote Patient Monitoring and Treatment (RMT) within Personal Health Systems (PHS) from a supply side perspective. The objective was to assess the RMT market current size and future growth perspectives, provide an understanding of the market structure, innovation dynamics, types of market players involved and strategies followed, and ultimately identify market drivers and barriers as well as areas for policy action.
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