ID 2335: Assessing Risk for Nocturnal Hypoglycemia after Physical Activity in Children with Type 1 Diabetes

Master’s Thesis / Project / Research Internship

Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) affects more than 8 million people worldwide, 1.5 million of them being younger than 20 years of age. T1D results from autoimmune destruction of pancreatic beta cells leading to insulin deficiency. The missing hormone insulin needs to be replaced several times a day, either with subcutaneous injections or an insulin pump. Good blood glucose control is important to avoid acute and long-term complications. However, especially for young children and adolescents, this represents an everyday challenge. Low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) is the most feared and common acute complication of T1D, and the constant risk of hypoglycemia represents a great burden, in particular for children and their caregivers.

This thesis aims to work on the research question of whether nocturnal hypoglycemia can be detected based on data collected during the day. The exact focus can be determined together, for example:

• Addressing missing data in time series
• Concentrate on feature engineering, e.g. calculation of hand-crafted features and comparison of feature selection approaches

Tasks

• Literature research
• Data cleaning and preprocessing
• Focus on either feature engineering or missing data in time series
• Comparing at least three different feature selection algorithms
• Implementing and evaluating at least three recommended classifiers from literature

Requirements

A suitable candidate should be motivated to work on a new and interesting topic and should fulfill the following requirements:

• Solid background in machine learning
• Familiar with approaches for time series data
• Proficiency in Python and experience with the Pandas package
• Bachelor’s degree in a related field of study
• Ability to independently read and understand publications in the area of machine learning and medical data science
• Advanced knowledge in signal processing

Supervisor

Dr.-Ing. Heike Leutheuser