Welcome to the June 2018 issue of the SfNIRS newsletter.
 | fNIRS 2018 is approaching fNIRS 2018 meeting will be held in Tokyo, Japan on October 5-8, 2018. We received 300 abstract submissions and nearly 450 participants are expected to come to Tokyo for this event! Sixteen sponsors will exhibit their products. This is the biggest meeting for the society so far. Registration is now open through September 5, 2018. Please register as early as possible at fnirs2018.org/registration. For more updates on the logistics and the program please check the webpage, fnirs2018.org Looking forward to seeing all of you in Tokyo. It should be a terrific meeting!!! fNIRS2018 co-chairs, Gentaro Taga and Turgut Durduran |
 | SfNIRS Elections Biannually the members of the Society for functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (SfNIRS) elect one individual to serve on the President-elect, and six individuals to serve on the SfNIRS Board of Directors for a four-year term. On behalf of SfNIRS members, the Nomination Committee (Ippeita Dan, Marco Ferrari, Richard Aslin) announces an official Call for Nominations for these open positions. For more information please visit: fnirs.org/about-us/officers/elections-2018. Nomination deadline July 19th. Please remember that only members of SfNIRS may take part in the elections or be nominated. To become a member, see instructions @ fnirs.org/membership/ Ippeita Dan |
 | Early Investigator Award Nominations are now open for the SfNIRS Early Investigator Award. Self-nominations are not allowed and only SfNIRS members can participate. Deadline is July 1, 2018. Eligibility and rules can be found at: fnirs2018.org/early-investigator-award Three finalists will present their work on the second day of the meeting (October 6, 2018) and the award will be announced during the social event at the National Museum of Nature and Science. |
 | Gate Foundation Travel Award We have secured Gates funding to facilitate the attendance and participation of researchers from low and middle income countries at fNIRS 2018 with the aim of making the application of fNIRS more impactful in global health settings and projects. We have limited funds and are currently finalizing how these should be distributed. Stay tuned, as we will provide more information about this soon. Clare Elwell |
 | From the Secretary: Privacy Policy Due to the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, we have revised our Data Protection & Privacy Policy. Regarding the emailyou have received, the Society for functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (SfNIRS) stores your email address and no other personal information. This email address was recorded during one of the conferences or from the membership of SfNIRS. It is used to send you the Newsletter and to communicate with you about news and activities, and to advocate for issues that are important to people interested in functional NIRS. You can unsubscribe at any time sending an email to: fnirs-community-unsubscribe at fnirs.org. This will result in a deletion of your email address from the mailing list. Stacey Ladieu is the agent managing the email list for SfNIRS. Martin Wolf |
 | SfNIRS News: Education Committee The upcoming fNIRS 2018 Tokyo meeting will be preceded by the usual training course, which offers both a theoretical introduction to the physiological and physical principles of NIRS applications and data analysis, as well as hands-on demonstrations with several NIRS systems installed onsite. Space is limited to 60 people, you can register at fnirs2018.org/course As a new feature, the conference program will contain three morning tutorials between 8am and 8:45am. The tutorials are aimed at novice as well as more advanced NIRS users who wish to get a deeper overview of a specific area. They will cover three topics: NIRS data processing, analysis and statistics for newcomers (Meryem Yucel) ISO/IEC standardization of fNIRS and cerebral tissue oximeter equipment (Heidrun Wabnitz) Integration of fNIRS and systemic physiological measures (Felix Scholkmann) Judit Gervain |
 | Feature Research: The Algorithms journal Special Issue on NIRS The journal Algorithms recently published a special issue on processing and analysis methods for optical brain imaging. The issue, edited by Felix Scholkmannand Alexander Caicedo, includes the description of the new NIRS Brain AnalyzIRToolbox, a new index to determine connectivity symmetry based on Hb responses, and an evaluation of fNIRS signal processing pipelines. And it is all Open Access! Continue reading at: fnirs.org/2018/06/algorithms-special-issue-nirs/ By Felipe Orihuela-Espina |
 | New Data Analysis Toolbox: NeuroDot The Washington University Optical Radiology Lab is about to release a new Matlab-based toolbox called NeuroDOT. The purpose of NeuroDOT is to provide an extendable and user-friendly environment for analysis of optical data from raw light levels through multiple processing pipelines onto voxelated movies of brain function that are co-registered to the anatomy of a specific participant or an atlas. Read more at: fnirs.org/2018/06/neurodot By Adam Eggebrecht |
 | fNIRS News: Cerebral Oximetry Standards A standard for cerebral oximeters ISO 80601-2-85, “Medical electrical equipment – Part 2-85: Particular requirements for the basic safety and essential performance of cerebral tissue oximeter equipment”, is currently being developed by the ISO/IEC joint working group “Oximeters”. A Committee Draft will be circulated to the National Committees within the next few months. A number of SfNIRSmembers are involved in this work. The topic will be discussed at fNIRS 2018. By Heidrun Wabnitz |
 | Job Opportunities (Source: Facebook; please keep posting!) Postdoctoral positions are currently available at: University of Maryland, USA; University of British Columbia, Canada; University of Delaware, USA; ICFO, Barcelona, Spain; University of Pittsburgh, USA. List prepared by Gemma Bale. fnirs.org/job-postings/job-posting-2018 |
 | fNIRS Publications A list of papers collected by Xiaosu (Frank) Hu and highlighted on Facebook in the last few months can be found on our website: fnirs.org/2018/06/publications-highlights-june-2018 |
  | Facebook Group and #fNIRS Twitter The Society for functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy group on Facebookcontinues to grow. We now have 970 members. The role of the Facebook (FB) group is to promote members’ research progress, facilitate discussions, and exchange information. The FB group is the primary source of information for the newsletter, so please share your news there! Our visibility in Twitter is also growing. Remember to add #fnirs in your work-related tweets. |
fNIRS Featured Events and Training Opportunities |
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 | Upcoming Meetings A list of meetings related to fNIRS, maintained by Dany Forster, can be found at: fnirs.org/resources/relatedmeetings. Below are highlights of recent meetings. We welcome submission of reports on fNIRS-related meetings for the newsletter. |
 | 1st joint Italian-French Workshop on Cerebral Oximetry and fNIRS The first joint Italian-French workshop on cerebral oximetry and fNIRS was held in Milan (Italy) on 14-15 June 2018. The workshop, organized by Alessandro Torricelli together with Marco Ferrari, Fredric Dehais and Stephane Perrey, aimed at gathering researchers and clinicians working in the field of NIRS and fNIRS. Read more at fnirs.org/2018/06/1st-italian-french-fnirs-workshop |
 | fNIRS Training Course at Campinas Last April, the Biomedical Optics Lab (LOB) at the University of Campinas (Prof. R. Mesquita, PI) held the second version of its 2-day fNIRS training course. The course was a success, attended by more than twenty researchers who were highly enthusiastic about learning everything from the basics to state-of-the-art in functional NIRS. Continue reading at: fnirs.org/2018/06/fnirs-training-course-campinas |
 | 1st Training Course on NIRS AnalyzIR Dr. Ted Huppert hosted a two-day intensive fNIRS training course at the University of Pittsburgh this May on advanced data analysis and experimental design. If you missed the course you can watch videos of the training sessions at: huppertlab.net and download the toolbox at bitbucket.org/huppertt/nirs-toolbox/wiki/Home |
Disclaimer: While we encourage translation of fNIRS technology to commercial products by our members, the Communication Committee and the fNIRS society do not endorse any for-profit or non-profit entity and do not receive any compensation for reporting news about commercial products.
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