Foto del docente

Mauro Ursino

Full Professor

Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Information Engineering "Guglielmo Marconi"

Academic discipline: ING-INF/06 Electronic and Informatics Bioengineering

Curriculum vitae

CURRICULUM VITAE of Mauro Ursino

ACTUAL POSITION:

Full Professor at the Department of Electric, Electronic, and Information Engineering, scientific group ING-INF/06 (Electronics and Informatics Biomedical Engineering).

ACADEMIC DEGREES:

• Master in Electronic Engineering, Bologna University, 1983

• Ph. D. in Biomedical Engineering, Bologna University, 1987.

AWARD

Marotta Award from the Italian Academy of Sciences for the year 1989.

APPOINTMENTS:

• 1987-1991 - Post-doctoral Fellow, Università di Bologna.

• November 1991-February 1992 - Post-doctoral Fellow, University of Siena

• May 1992- February 1994 – Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Ancona

• March 1994-October 1998 - Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Bologna

• November 1998 – October 2001 – Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Bologna

• November 2001 – October 2004 – Full Professor (under confirmation) of Biomedical Engineering, University of Bologna

• November 2004 – Full Professor (confirmed), of Biomedical Engineering, University of Bologna.

ACADEMIC TEACHING

Master Degree Course in Electronic Engineering, University of Bologna

1996 - 2002 Biomedical signal and data processing

2003 - 2005 Natural and artificial intelligent systems

Bachelor Degree in Biomedical Engineering, University of Bologna in Cesena

1998 – 2001 Biomedical signal and data processing

Master Degree Course in Biomedical Engineering, University of Bologna

2001 – 2013 Biomedical signal and data processing

2003 – 2011 Natural and artificial intelligent systems

2012 – Neural Systems

2014 – Biological Systems modelling

Ph. D Course in Biomedical Engineering, University of Bologna

1998 – 2016 Tutor of several Ph.D. students

2002 – 2016 Member of the Ph. D. Council

Ph. D. Course in Biomedical, Electrical and Systems Engineering (IBES)

2015 – Member of the Ph. D. Council

Course at Collegio Superiore University of Bologna

2017 Distributed memory in Neural Networks

 

MANAGEMENT ACTIVITY

2006 – 2012 President of the Courses in Biomedical Engineering at the II Engineering Faculty of the Bologna University

2013-2014 Member of the Committee of the Bologna University for Research evaluation, area 09 “Industrial Engineering.

2012-2014 Member of the National Committee for the National Scientific Habilitation procedure (ASN), appointed by the Ministry of Education.

 

RESEARCH ACTIVITY

His research activity is especially focused on mathematical modeling and computer simulation of complex physiological systems. This research activity is presently subdivided into two main fields:

Modeling of cardiovascular regulation – i) He realized several original studies on mechanisms controlling local blood flow to tissues, with special emphasis on the cerebral circulation and intracranial pressure dynamics. These models have been applied for the analysis of patients in neurosurgical Intensive Care Units. A recent version of the model incorporates the complex anastomoses characterizing cerebral venous return to the heart. ii) He developed models of cardio-respiratory regulation in the short time, able to summarize the complex integration among the various mechanisms operating in response to various acute hemodynamic perturbations (haemorrhage, alterations in blood gas content, dynamical exercise). Other models are focused on the integration between cardiovascular dynamics, and solute kinetics during hemodialysis, and are currently used in some advanced Nephrology Units in Italy.

ii) Modeling of neurosensory integration and cognitive processes – i) He realized some mathematical models of the primary visual cortex, and models describing the integration among different sensory modalities (auditory, visual and tactile). The aim is to reach a deeper theoretical understanding of the neural mechanisms involved in multisensory integration, and devise a possible use in the clinical practice, to improve cognitive deficits. In particular, these models can explain some typical illusory phenomena occurring during audio-visual interactions (such as the Ventriloquism and the fission effects), the maturation of multisensory capacities during the first weeks after birth, and the modification in the visuo-tactile peripersonal space induced by a tool use. ii) Other models of neural populations have been used to estimate functional connectivity among different brain regions during simple cognitive or motor tasks, and to formulate hypotheses on the role of oscillations in brain electrical activity. These models allow a quantitative simulation of many different oscillatory phenomena (in the alpha, beta, gamma and delta frequency ranges) in different cortical areas and their reciprocal interactions during sleepiness or wakefulness. Models of oscillating neural populations are also used to analyse the behaviour of place cells in the hippocampus during navigation tasks.

iii) Further model investigates the neural mechanisms involved in semantic memory, i.e., how object semantics can be created starting from a recurring presentation of their elementary features. The model allows the formulation of hypotheses on the organisation of the semantic memory in the brain and on its the relationship with language.

iv) A recent biologically inspired neural network model simulates action choice and reinforcement learning in the basal ganglia. The model can be used to assess bradykinesia in Parkinsonian subjects, as a consequence of dopamine depletion, and to investigate the optimal strategy for levodopa treatment.

His scientific production presently includes about 346 publications (among them, 169 papers on peer reviewed international journals and 25 on international books).

 

PUBLICATION STATISTICS (Scopus February 21st 2018)

h-index 32 (excluding self-citations, 30)

i10-index [number of publications with at least 10 citations] 102 (excluding self-citations, 97)

Total number of citations 3797 (excluding self-citations, 3312)

Number of documents: 248

 

RESEARCH GRANTS

• Responsible of the Bologna Research Unit in the MIUR Grant “Diagnostic and prosthetic cardiovascular systems” (year 1996, national responsible Prof. Fumero)

• Co-operator in several MIUR/PRIN grants during the years 1998-2004

• National responsible of the FIRB project: “Cardiovascular regulation modelling: from physiological knowledge to clinical application”, November 2002-November 2005

• National responsible of the PRIN 2005 Grant during the years 2006-2007: “Estimation of brain functional connectivity with advanced methodological procedures” (specific title of the Bologna Unit: “Computer simulation of cortical EEG and of brain functional connectivity by means of neural mathematical models”)

• National responsible of the PRIN 2008 Grant during the years 2008-2009: “Advanced methods for the study of neural learning during simple visuo-motor tasks” (specific title of the Bologna Unit: “Development of Neural Networks for the study of visuo-motor learning”)

• Responsible of the Bologna Engineering Research Unit in the Ministery of Environment Grant during the years 2011-2013: “Excessive daily sleepiness and road accidents: specific risk in the transport of waste and hazardous toxic materials of significant environmental impact”

• Responsible of several local projects of the Bologna University (ex 60%) during the years 1998-2018.

 

PARTICIPATION TO THE EDITORIAL BOARDS OF INTERNATIONAL JOURNALS

• Action Editor of the Journal Neural Networks for the field “Computational Neuroscience” (2012-2015)

• Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering (2009-2014)

• Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal: Medical Engineering and Physics

• Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Integrative Neuroscience

• Guest Editor of a special issue of the journal Medical Engineering and Physics, devoted to “Cerebrovascular modeling”, 2003.

 

ORGANIZATION AT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES

Organizer and Chairman of the Conference: Biomedicine 2005, Sixth International Conference on Modelling in Medicine and Biology Bologna, 7-9 September 2005.

Organizer of a Special sessions in the 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE EMBS, Boston, USA, Aug 30 – Sep 3, 2011

Organizer of a special session in the 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Milano, Italy, August 25-29, 2015

Organizer of a special session in the IEEE 2nd International Forum on Research and Technologies for Society and Industry Leveraging a better tomorrow (RTSI), Bologna, Italy, September 7-9, 2016.

 

REVIEWER OF INTERNATIONAL JOURNALS

Reviewer for the following journals during the last years:

• Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing,

• Medical Engineering & Physics,

• Journal of Integrative Neuroscience

• Annals of Biomedical Engineering

• American Journal of Physiology Heart and Circulation Physiology

• Mathematical Biosciences

• Physiological Measurement

• IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering

• Clinical Neurophysiology

• Journal of Theoretical Medicine

• Journal of Mathematical Biology

• Neuroimage

• IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks

• Brain Research

• Plos one

• Neurocomputing

• Journal of Applied Physiology

• Neural Networks

• Trends in Cognitive Science

• IEEE Transaction on Neural Networks

Reviewer for the Editorial Company SIAM, on the book “Cardiovascular and respiratory systems: modeling, control and analysis”, by Franz Kappel et al.

Reviewer for projects submitted to the National Science Foundation, USA.

 

PATENTS

Patent on the subject: "Haemodialysis device" (n. BO2003A00660). Year 2003. University of Bologna. Applicants: Prof. M. Ursino, Prof. S. Stefoni.

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