{"id":23471,"date":"2026-08-21T10:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T02:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cde.nus.edu.sg\/ece\/?post_type=nus-news&p=23471"},"modified":"2026-08-21T12:53:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T04:53:05","slug":"ece-phd-student-shao-yurui-wins-best-paper-award-at-ieee-embc-2026","status":"publish","type":"nus-news","link":"https:\/\/cde.nus.edu.sg\/ece\/news\/ece-phd-student-shao-yurui-wins-best-paper-award-at-ieee-embc-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"ECE Team Wins Best Paper Award at IEEE EMBC 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The research was conducted in collaboration with clinicians and researchers from the National Neuroscience Institute (NNI) and Singapore General Hospital (SGH).<\/p>\n

The award-winning research focuses on freezing of gait (FoG), a common symptom experienced by people with Parkinson\u2019s disease in which individuals may suddenly struggle to initiate or continue walking. These episodes can increase the risk of falls and significantly affect mobility, independence and quality of life. The team developed a system that uses data from a single ankle-mounted sensor to analyse complete walking cycles. Rather than examining individual gait cycles in isolation, the approach learns the temporal relationships between consecutive gait cycles, allowing it to identify subtle patterns that may signal an impending freezing episode.<\/p>\n

The proposed method was evaluated using data from 58 patients and achieved 90 per cent prediction accuracy. It also required 3.4 times fewer training samples and achieved an 8.8-fold reduction in training time compared with conventional approaches. The findings could contribute to the development of practical wearable systems capable of providing auditory or vibration cues before a freezing episode occurs. By providing an early warning, such technologies could potentially help individuals respond to an impending episode, reducing the risk of falls and supporting greater mobility and independence. The work demonstrates the potential of combining wearable sensing, gait analysis and machine learning to develop efficient and clinically relevant technologies for neurological healthcare.<\/p>\n

The interdisciplinary nature of the research was made possible through collaboration between ECE researchers and healthcare professionals from NNI and SGH, bringing together expertise in engineering, machine learning and clinical neuroscience to address a real-world healthcare challenge.<\/p>\n

The Best Paper Award at IEEE EMBC 2026 recognises the quality and significance of the team’s research contribution among the papers presented at the conference. The achievement highlights ECE’s commitment to interdisciplinary research that applies engineering expertise to meaningful challenges in healthcare, with the potential to translate research innovations into technologies that improve patient outcomes and quality of life.<\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An ECE research team comprising Shao Yurui, Assoc Prof Arthur Tay, Assoc Prof Heng Chun Huat and Dr Yen Shih-Cheng has received the Best Paper Award at the 2026 IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference (EMBC 2026) for their paper, \u201cLearning Temporal Dependencies of Gait Cycles for Freezing of Gait Prediction.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":23472,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rs_blank_template":"","rs_page_bg_color":"","slide_template_v7":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"news_category":[37,47,49],"class_list":["post-23471","nus-news","type-nus-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news_category-ece","news_category-awards-achievements","news_category-research-impact"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cde.nus.edu.sg\/ece\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cde.nus.edu.sg\/ece\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cde.nus.edu.sg\/ece\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/nus-news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cde.nus.edu.sg\/ece\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cde.nus.edu.sg\/ece\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23520,"href":"https:\/\/cde.nus.edu.sg\/ece\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23471\/revisions\/23520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cde.nus.edu.sg\/ece\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cde.nus.edu.sg\/ece\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cde.nus.edu.sg\/ece\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=23471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}