Unveiling of the Ragnar Granit Memorial Plaque

Professor Ragnar Granit and his family lived in the house at Tehtaankatu 4, in Helsinki from 1933 to 1940. To com- memorate this, the Ragnar Granit Foundation dedicated a memorial plaque which is mounted on the wall of this building. The official unveiling of this plaque was made on 10th December, 2002. That is the

date when Nobel Prizes are awarded. The unveiling took place exactly 35 years from the date when Ragnar Granit was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He shared the award with H. Keffer Hartline and George Wald.
The unveiling ceremony was performed by Rector Kari Raivio from Helsinki University. Among the guests were His Excellence, Ulf Hjertonsson, Ambassador of Sweden and Ragnar Granit's son, Professor Michael Granit.

XXX International Congress on Electrocardiology, Midnight Sun Symposium June 11- 14, 15 - 17, 2003

The Ragnar Granit Foundation jointly with the Ragnar Granit Institute, Finnish Cardiac Society, Finnish Society for Medical Physics and Medical Engineering, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and the International Society for Bioelectro- magnetism will organize under the auspices of the International Society of Electro- cardiology the XXX International Congress on Electrocardiology in Helsinki, 11 - 14 June, 2003. At that time of the year the weather is warm and the nights are so bright that the street lights are not needed.

The House of Estates

The congress venue is the House of Estates in the heart of the monumental center of Helsinki.
The scientific topics of the congress will cover all aspects of electrocardiology. When comparing the scientific program to that of earlier congresses, the following topics will add their own flavor to this congress: Because the Ragnar Granit Institute is responsible of the scientific program, the theoretical aspects of electrocardiology will be discussed in detail. Ragnar Granit Institute has coordinated for three years an international project on Dynamic and Adaptive Modeling of the Human Body, DynAMo. Special sessions on this topic will be organized. This will also be the first congress in this series were magneto- cardiography will be represented.
Because this is the 30th congress in this series, the history of these congresses will also be represented in the program.

As a very special event the Midnight Sun Symposium will be organized in Saariselkä, Lapland, immediately after the main congress. Because Saariselkä is some 250 km north of the Arctic Circle, the sun will shine there throughout the day and night. The symposium will concentrate on abnormality in cardiac repolarization. As a special event the main lecture will be given in the "Huippu"-restaurant on the top of the Kaunispää fjell at midnight, when there will be full sunshine.
www.rgi.fi/ice2003

Fernando H Lopes da Silva Received the Ragnar Granit Prize in the 4th ICBEM / XXIX ICE

Fernando H Lopes da Silva

Professor Fernando H Lopes da Silva gave the Ragnar Granit lecture in the opening ceremony of the 4th International Congress on Bioelectromagnetism / XXIX International Congress on Electro- cardiology. This was a joint conference, held in Montreal, Canada, 2 - 5 July 2002. The title of his talk was: "Nonlinear Analysis of EEG/MEG: The Case of the Epilepsies as Diseases of Brain Dynamics".
Professor Lopes da Silva is with the Institute of Neurobiology, at the University of Amsterdam. He is one of the world authorities on the biological basis of brain wave activity and epileptic seizures. He has written the definitive textbook on EEG. In addition to his clinical interests, he spends most of his time performing fundamental brain research, particularly in the area of electrophysiology and the biology of epileptogenesis,

Noriyuki Takano Defended his Doctoral Thesis

Mr. Noriyuki Takano defended his doctoral thesis on August 29, 2002. The title of his thesis was: "Reduction of ECG Leads and Equivalent Sources Using Ortho- gonalization and Clustering Techniques".
Professor Pasi Karjalainen from Kuopio University and Dr. Frank Sachse from Karlsruhe Universität served as examiners. The Custos was Professor Jari Hyttinen.

Noriyuki Takano

New Research Projects at the Ragnar Granit Institute

Professor Jaakko Malmivuo has joined to a European project which deals with the application of digital alias-free processing of signals. At the RGI this method is applied to novel multichannel impedance measurement devices.
Professor Jaakko Malmivuo has also received funding from Wihuri Foundation and Finnish Cultural Foundation for various research projects in EEG.
Outi Ryynänen, M.Sc.(Eng.) is appointed for a period of three years to Graduate School researcher of Tampere University of Technology under the supervision of Professor Jaakko Malmivuo. Her research topic is EEG.
Professor Jari Hyttinen has received two research grants from the Academy of Finland. One is a joint three year project in "Wireless Technology and Psycho- physiological Computing". The other a four year project on "Combined MR-Imaging and Bioimpedance based Computational Modeling of Tissue Geometry and Conductivity"

Jaanus Lass

Academician Jüri Engelbrecht from Tallinn and Professor Jaakko Malmivuo served as examiners. Professor Tarmo Lipping served as Chairman of the Examination Committee.

The Finnish and Swedish Names of Tampere University of Technology will Change

As of 1.1.2003 the Finnish and Swedish names of Tampere University of Techno- logy will change. They will be Tampereen teknillinen yliopisto and Tammerfors tekniska universitet, respectively. The name in English will remain unchanged.

Index

Ragnar Granit Institute