1. Who are we? Ghent University in collaboration with IBBT
Ghent University is an academic institution situated in Flanders, Belgium
IBBT is an independent research institute founded by the Flemish government to stimulate ICT innovation (
Department of information technology
Acoustics group: focusing on all aspects from environmental noise and its impact on quality of life and public health (3 EU projects)
IBCN (Internet Based Communication Networks and Services) performs reseach in areas such as communication networks, managing huge data quantities and data analysis and machine learning (>15 EU projects) …
Represented today by Prof. Dick Botteldooren
contact:
Department of Information Technology – Ghent University – IBBT (

2. Environmental noise
The European Network on Noise and Health (an FP7CA) as well as the WHO
Confirm widespread cardiovascular health, sleep, and well-being effects of exposure to environmental noise in Europe
Identify research needs:
Longitudinal cohort studies
More targeted exposure assessment
Studying combined exposure to noise and air pollution
Quantifying the effect of moderators and mediators which are often related to personal factors such as sensitivity
Better specification of physiological models
The COST soundscape initiative stresses importance of positive restorative environments
Department of Information Technology – Ghent University – IBBT (

3. Proposal
We propose to collaborate with interested parties on all aspects of monitoring but focus on ENV Developing community-based environmental monitoring and information systems
We offer1:
Expertise with cheap sensor technologies
Networking and data collection
A wireless sensor testbed (200 fixed nodes in an office environment, 60 fixed + 30 mobile nodes in a dedicated environment, and >20 urban outdoor nodes)
Smart analysis grounded in machine learning for quality control
Intelligent (biologically inspired) systems for sound identification, summarizing and labeling
Interpretation of exposure data for long term effects based on psycho-physical and physiological models
Modeling of diurnal exposure variation (including exposure on the road) and its effects
Emerging consortium for participative noise monitoring
We are looking for partners (SME encouraged)
1 expertise deployed also in the IDEA-project (
Department of Information Technology – Ghent University – IBBT (