PneumoSIP project aims to be the first fully automated device in the POC market for the fast quantitative aetiological diagnose of Community-Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) also analysing antibiotic resistances to enable the most appropriate treatment for each infected patient. CAP is known to affect about 1/1,000 of the adult population per year, being even higher in the elderly and children populations. It is the fourth case of death in the world, and the leading cause of death in child population under 5 years old. The causal relationship between pathogens and pneumonia has been clearly established, being Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) the main pathogens responsible for CAP in Europe. Antibiotic therapy is the mainstream treatment for CAP, and the appropriate treatment involves starting empiric antibiotics administration within 8 hours of hospital arrival. Given this time constrain, traditional methods for diagnosing the aetiology of CAP have been discarded for CAP guidelines due to the slowness in sample to results. Another complication is that S. pneumoniae is a common colonizer of the nasopharynx (up to 70% of healthy population acts as a host), making the simple detection of the bacteria a useless diagnostic method. Thus, clinicians need rapid and accurate quantitative tests capable of identifying infectious agents and their potential antibiotic resistances. Therefore, PneumoSIP project aims to be a compact Respiratory Infectious Diseases diagnostic device providing fast quantitative identification of pathogens involved in CAP, enabling faster and more specific treatments. PneumoSIP seeks to combine laboratory standard precision with the simplicity required for POC applications. The market for PneumoSIP system is the POC market, concretely the Infectious Disease POC testing segment. The POCT segment was valued at $415.4 million in 2012 where Pneumosip will greatly impact.

The SILENSE project will focus on using smart acoustic technologies and ultrasound in particular for Human Machine- and Machine to Machine Interfaces. Acoustic technologies have the main advantage of a much simpler, smaller, cheaper and easier to integrate transducer. The ambition of this project is to develop and improve acoustic technologies beyond state-of-the-art and extend its application beyond the mobile domain to Smart Home & Buildings and Automotive domains. In this project, it will be proven that acoustics can be used as a touchless activation and control mechanism, by improvement or development of different smart acoustic technology blocks (hardware, software and system level) and integrate these blocks at system level. At technology level, the SILENSE project will: - Adapt and improve cost, performance, directivity and power consumption of (MEMS) acoustic transducers (incl. testing and qualification) - Heterogeneously integrate arrays of acoustic transducers with other electronics, using advanced (3D) packaging concepts - Develop smart algorithms for acoustical sensing, localization and communication - Combine voice and gesture control by means of the same transducer(s) At application level the SILENSE project will: - Apply acoustical sensing for touchless activation/control of mobile devices, wearables and, more in general, IoT nodes. The project links to Smart Systems Integration (B4), and refers also to application application-related topics, such as Smart Mobility and Smart Society. The application scope of the developed technologies is broader and comprises more societal domains, such as smart home/buildings, smart factories (i.e. Smart Production) and even Smart Health. Furthermore, a clear cross reference with Semiconductor Process, Equipment and Materials (B1) is established in view of the heterogeneous integration of technology blocks. Conventional silicon technologies will be combined with printed (flexible, large area electronics).

Despite significant advances in sanitation and medicine, infectious diseases still annually claim in excess of 15 million lives. Community acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Pneumonia is also the leading cause of death in children worldwide. It kills an estimated 1.6 million children under the age of five every year, about 25% of all pediatric deaths around the world – more than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined . In the EU about 3.3 million cases are reported annually with hospitalization rates ranging from 20–50%, meaning that there are about 1 million hospital admissions for CAP per year in the EU . In addition, the growing resistance to antibiotic treatments (>10% in EU), makes pathogen identification and streamlining of antibiotic treatment even more important. AlphaSIP aims the development of a cost-effective solution for the rapid diagnostic of pneumonia. Infectious diseases represent the largest segment of the In-Vitro Molecular Diagnostics Market with nearly 50%. It is a big market that is growing fast: $ 5 B with a 14% CAGR. The Point-of-Care Molecular Diagnostics devices market for infectious diseases based on microfluidics has a size of approximately 900 M $ with an even higher growth rate . PneumoSIP product line is expected to become the main source of growth for the company in the next 5 years. The H2020 SME instrument phase I feasibility study has four main objectives: - To verify with final users (physicians and lab technicians) the features of the problem. - To validate and close the first specifications of the product with final users and customers. - To confirm with updated market studies the future Pn