The Doctoral Consortium will take place in conjunction with the 11th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies, (BIOSTEC), to be held January 19 - 21 in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. The BIOSTEC 2018 doctoral consortium will provide an opportunity for graduate students to explore their research interests in an interdisciplinary workshop, under the guidance of a panel of distinguished experts in the field.

The Doctoral Consortium on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies is intended to bring together Ph.D. students within the biomedical field to discuss their research in an international forum. More precisely, the Doctoral Consortium will provide students with an opportunity to:

• Present their own ongoing PhD research work in a relaxed and supportive environment;
• Receive feedback and suggestions from peers and experienced faculty members;
• Gain an overview of the breadth and depth of biomedical engineering systems and technologies;
• Obtain insight into directions for biomedical engineering research taken by other doctoral candidates;
• Discuss concerns about research, supervision, the job market, and other issues;
• Network with peers and future colleagues

Thus, the symposium will help shape ongoing and future research projects aimed at biomedical engineering, will promote scholarship and networking among new researchers in this interdisciplinary area, and will expose these promising young researchers to the larger global community.

	Jan Schier The Institute of Information Theory and Automation of the Czech Academy of Sciences Czech Republic e-mail
Brief Bio Jan Schier obtained his MSc degree in electrical engineering in 1989 and Ph.D. in 1995 mathematical engineering, both from Czech Technical University. Since the beginning of his Ph.D. studies, he has been with the Institute of Information Theory and Automation, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague. He has started his research career in the field of parallel implementations of the signal processing algorithms. Between 1995-2002 he has been on several long-term stays with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at TU Delft, the Netherlands and with the SISTA group of the Department of Electrical Engineering, KU Leuven, Belgium, in both cases working in the field of applied signal processing. An informal cooperation with the Yeast Colony Group at the Faculty of Sciences, Charles University, which started round 2009, started his interest in image processing for microsocopy and bioimaging, which eventually led him to join the Image Processing group of UTIA in October 2011. The paper on Colony Counting Tool has been awarded the Best Paper Award at the BIOSTEC/BIOINFORMATICS conference in 2011. His current interests cover mainly image denoising and segmentation methods for bioimaging and microscopy imaging, as well as - on the practical side - Java programming for ImageJ. He is mainly involved in projects of applied research and implementation projects: recent examples include evaluation of Langerhans Islets (in close cooperation with Czech Technical University and Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine) and evaluation of breast ultrasound examinations (Technology Agency of the Czech Republic project TA04011392 "Early ultrasound detection of breast cancer"). Dr. Schier has served as the program co-chair for the BIOSTEC/BIOIMAGING conference in 2014 and 2015.

	Alberto Cliquet Jr University of São Paulo & University of Campinas Brazil e-mail
Brief Bio Alberto Cliquet Jr. has a PhD from the University of Strathclyde in 1988. He then followed two careers: at USP and Universidade de Campinas (UNICAMP): Senior Lecturer / Associate Professor ,1993; being a full Professor in the Dept of Orthopedics, Fac of Medical Sciences/UNICAMP from 2003 and full Professor in the Dept of Electr & Comp Engr/USP since 1998. He Coordinates Outpatient Rehabilitation Clinic for the spinal cord injured (University Hospital, UNICAMP) and Works in undergraduate, postgraduate teaching at USP and UNICAMP. Currently is the Coordinator of the Surgery Post graduate course- UNICAMP and Vice- Director of the Centre for Engr Applied to Health- USP.

ADVISORY BOARD

The Doctoral Consortium advisory board will comment each presentation and at the end of the consortium there will be a general discussion, including a reflection about current and future research topics in the area.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM REQUIREMENTS AND RULES

The Doctoral Consortium is based on the following requirements and rules:

• It is open only to Doctoral Students who have started their research;
• Each paper must have a single author, i.e. a PhD student. Other contributors, including supervisors, could be acknowledged in the “Acknowledgements” section of the paper.
• Each student with an accepted paper at the Doctoral Consortium must register and attend HEALTHINF: a special student fee applies;
• Each paper must be presented by the student
• Submissions will be judged mainly on relevance, originality, technical quality and clarity;
• Paper length: 8,000 to 50,000 characters (excluding white spaces);
• Papers must be written in MS-Word or Latex including the following information:
• research problem;
• outline of objectives;
• state of the art;
• methodology and
• expected outcome;
• stage of the research.

Registered Doctoral Consortium papers will not be included in the book of proceedings as archival publications or in the Digital Library and therefore will remain free of copyright.

HOW TO APPLY TO THE DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM

To apply for participation at the Doctoral Consortium, please submit your paper through the online submission platform PRIMORIS and follow the instructions and templates (MSWord and LaTex ) that can be found under Templates. After the paper submission has been successfully completed, authors will receive an automatic confirmation e-mail.

ACCEPTED STUDENTS SHOULD PREPARE:

1. An introduction of themselves and their Ph.D. project for the introductory session. 1 slide only. Duration: 60 sec max.
2. A 10 minute presentation of their Ph.D. project to be used for introducing discussion about their project and its main issues during the small group sessions.
3. Students are also invited to prepare a poster about their Ph.D. for the main conference poster session.

BEST PhD PROJECT AWARD

A "Best PhD Project Award" will be conferred to the student of a paper presented at the conference doctoral consortium, selected by the Doctoral Chair based on the combination of paper reviewing marks and the feedback of the Advisory Board. The award will be announced and bestowed at the conference closing session. The author of an awarded paper will be entitled to:

• A signed and stamped official award certificate;
• The announcement of their achievement on a special conference webpage;
• A one year free membership of INSTICC (http://www.insticc.org), warranting full access to the SCITEPRESS Digital Library. If already an INSTICC member, then this offer adds one year to her/his current membership.
• A voucher for a free or reduced registration* in one event sponsored by INSTICC, valid during a 12 months period, including all conference materials (without the printed proceedings). This voucher is only available if the presenter attends the closing session and receives the award.

* Speakers are entitled to a 50% discount over the basic registration fee; non-speakers are entitled to a free registration.

Important Deadlines