RECENT NEWS

2026

• Dr. Liang will give a Keynote talk at the Workshop on Behavioral and Emotion Analysis through wearable Technology (BEAT). [25 May 2026]

• We were honored to welcome Prof. Seiji Nishino (Director, Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology Laboratory, Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine), Dr. Naoya J Maeda-Nishino (Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine), and Mrs. Chie Nishino (Director, NOB Shiftwork Research), and engage in inspiring discussions on sleep science and technologies. [1 May 2026]

• We will present the following paper at the 17th ACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Health Informatics (ACM BCB). Ashala Lakmini Senanayake, Zilu Liang. CIERTe: Continuous Inter-Event Relative Temporal Anchoring for Anxiety Detection from Social Media Posts. (Regular paper acceptance rate = 20%)  [27 April 2026]

• Our ThermalGuardian Team (Arthur, Ken, Ethan, and Zaman) won the 2nd Place @ iCAN’26🎉 This outstanding achievement reflects the team’s dedication, creativity, and strong technical capabilities in developing innovative MEMS-based solutions for health and wellbeing. Following this success, the team has been selected to represent Japan in the international round of the competition. We are excited to see them take their work to the global stage and continue to demonstrate excellence in innovation and research. Congratulations to the entire team, and we wish them the very best in the upcoming international competition! [26 April 2026]

• Our following paper was accepted by IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics (Q1, top 5%, acceptance rate = 14.4%), indexed by SCI and Scopus.  Priyadarshana YHPP, Zhou N, Krishnaswamy P, Jiang R, Liang Z. MediPhen: Prompt-Based LLM Reasoning with Synthesized Multimodal Clinical Knowledge for Zero-Shot Multi-morbidity Phenotyping.  (International collaboration with A*STAR, Singapore) [24 April 2026]

• Our following paper was accepted by MethodsX (Q1), indexed by SCI and Scopus.  Liang Z, Khotchasing  K, Hoang N. Catching a Yawn: A Multimodal Experimental Protocol for Investigating Sleepiness under Visual and Auditory Yawning Stimuli featuring Human and Digital Characters. [19 April 2026]

• Our joint research proposal with the Faculty of Medicine at Université Paris Cité, "Public Health Meets AI-Powered Persuasive Technologies: Addressing Emerging Health Risks in Young People through Responsible Digital Innovation", has been selected for the "Exploration France" Programme, an initiative of the Embassy of France in Japan aimed at promoting France–Japan research collaboration and academic exchange. [10 April 2026]

• Congratulations to our 2025 summer research intern Hayden Morrison on receiving the 2026 OSU Student Impact Award! Well done, Hayden— we’re proud of you! [03 April 2026]

• We will present the following paper at the 17th ACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Health Informatics (ACM BCB). Yapa P, Senanayake AL, Liang Z. (2026) Reason First or Predict First: Enhancing the Interpretability of Large Language Models for Digital Mental Health Screening. [31 March 2026]

• Dr. Liang was honored to receive an IEEE Japan Council Medal in recognition of over a decade of significant contributions to research and education in ubiquitous computing, personal informatics, and digital health. [23 March 2016]

• Our Special Issue "Wearable Sensors for Continuous Health Monitoring and Analysis" received an Outstanding Special Issue Award. It has been an honor and a valuable learning experience working with Prof. Juan Antonio Holgado-Terriza and Dr. Pablo Pico-Valencia (University of Granada, Spain). Looking forward to continuing to contribute to the open science community and advancing research in wearable health technologies. The second edition of our special issue is now open for submissions. [18 March 2026]

• We were honored to welcome Prof. Evangelos Karapanos (Cyprus University of Technology) and engage in inspiring discussions on interaction design and persuasive technologies. [17 March 2026]

• We presented the following papers at the 19th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2026). [3 March 2026]

  • Hoang NH, Liang Z. Decision Threshold Optimization in Machine Learning Models for Questionnaire-Based OSA Screening. (Full paper acceptance rate = 25%) 

  • Liang Z, Hoang NH, Melcer E, and Hwang D. Unlocking Collaborative Creativity: Co-Design Smartwatch-Based Serious Games for Sleep Hygiene Intervention.  (Full paper acceptance rate = 25%, International collaboration with Carleton University, Canada)  

  • Priyadarshana YHPP, Senanayake AL, Liang Z. How Interpretable Are LLMs? A Multi-Metric Framework for Evaluating Synthetic Explanations in Digital Mental Health. (Full paper acceptance rate = 25%) 

  • Karunarathna TS, Hoang NH, Liang Z. GlucoPatrol: A Multi-Stakeholder Dashboard for Contextual Exploration of Continuous Glucose Monitoring Data.

  • Liang Z, Hoang NH, Karunarathna TS. Biochemical Self-Tracking as Personal Informatics: Sensemaking and Actionability of At-Home Micronutrient Tests.

  • Koo J, Toendan KA, Shimada ET, Akaiduzzaman AKM, Liang Z.  Thermal Guardian: An Assistive Wearable System for Home-Based Monitoring and Prevention of Bathing Related Health Risks in Older Adults.

• Our following submissions were published in Sleep Medicine, a top journal in sleep research. [5 Feb 2026]

  • Liang Z, Chapa-Martell MA. (2026) Visualizing Temporal Patterns in Sleep Tracker Accuracy: A Novel Approach to Validating Consumer Sleep Technologies. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108640.

  • Liang Z. (2026) Improving Sleep Stage Classification from Consumer Wearables Using a Two-Level Machine Learning Framework with Selective Correction. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108599.

  • Liang Z. (2026) Unpacking the Discrepancy Between Subjective and Wearable-Measured Sleep: A Neurophysiological Perspective Using fNIRS. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108540.

  • Liang Z. (2026) Bedtime Stress and Prefrontal Cortex Hemodynamics During Sleep: A Pilot Study Using Wearable fNIRS and Salivary Biomarkers. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108304.

  • Liang Z,  Hoang N, Karunarathna T. (2026) Uncovering Sleep-Linked Glucose Dynamics in Healthy Individuals Using Wearable Data. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108538.

  • Hoang N, Liang Z. (2026) Interpretable Machine Learning Using Questionnaire Data: A Scalable Approach for Sleep Apnea Screening. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108099.

  • Hoang  N, Villeneuve J, Morrison H, Tu A, Karunarathna T, Hwang D, Chen S, Khotchasing K, Liang Z, Melcer E. (2026) Delivering Sleep Hygiene Interventions through Smartwatch-based Serious Sleep Games. Sleep Medicine 138(Supp.): 108585. (International collaboration with Carleton University, Canada, and University of California Santa Cruz, USA)