OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA DIAGNOSIS WITH APNEA EVENT DETECTION IN SNORING SOUND USING A CONDITIONAL RANDOM FIELD

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENC

Deep sleep: deep learning methods for the acoustic analysis of sleep-disordered breathing

Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) is a serious and prevalent condition that results from the collapse of the upper airway during sleep, which leads to oxygen desaturations, unphysiological variations in intrathoracic pressure, and sleep fragmentation. Its most common form is obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). This has a big impact on quality of life, and is associated with cardiovascular morbidity. Polysomnography, the gold standard for diagnosing SDB, is obtrusive, time-consuming and expensive. Alternative diagnostic approaches have been proposed to overcome its limitations. In particular, acoustic analysis of sleep breathing sounds offers an unobtrusive and inexpensive means to screen for SDB, since it displays symptoms with unique acoustic characteristics. These include snoring, loud gasps, chokes, and absence of breathing. This thesis investigates deep learning methods, which have revolutionised speech and audio technology, to robustly screen for SDB in typical sleep conditions using acoustics. To begin with, the desirable characteristics for an acoustic corpus of SDB, and the acoustic definition of snoring are considered to create corpora for this study. Then three approaches are developed to tackle increasingly complex scenarios. Firstly, with the aim of leveraging a large amount of unlabelled SDB data, unsupervised learning is applied to learn novel feature representations with deep neural networks for the classification of SDB events such as snoring. The incorporation of contextual information to assist the classifier in producing realistic event durations is investigated. Secondly, the temporal pattern of sleep breathing sounds is exploited using convolutional neural networks to screen participants sleeping by themselves for OSA. The integration of acoustic features with physiological data for screening is examined. Thirdly, for the purpose of achieving robustness to bed partner breathing sounds, recurrent neural networks are used to screen a subject and their bed partner for SDB in the same session. Experiments conducted on the constructed corpora show that the developed systems accurately classify SDB events, screen for OSA with high sensitivity and specificity, and screen a subject and their bed partner for SDB with encouraging performance. In conclusion, this thesis makes promising progress in improving access to SDB diagnosis through low-cost and non-invasive methods

Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications

The MAVEBA Workshop proceedings, held on a biannual basis, collect the scientific papers presented both as oral and poster contributions, during the conference. The main subjects are: development of theoretical and mechanical models as an aid to the study of main phonatory dysfunctions, as well as the biomedical engineering methods for the analysis of voice signals and images, as a support to clinical diagnosis and classification of vocal pathologies

Review on biomedical sensors, technologies, and algorithms for diagnosis of sleep-disordered breathing: Comprehensive survey

This paper provides a comprehensive review of available technologies for measurements of vital physiology related parameters that cause sleep disordered breathing (SDB). SDB is a chronic disease that may lead to several health problems and increase the risk of high blood pressure and even heart attack. Therefore, the diagnosis of SDB at an early stage is very important. The essential primary step before diagnosis is measurement. Vital health parameters related to SBD might be measured through invasive or non-invasive methods. Nowadays, with respect to increase in aging population, improvement in home health management systems is needed more than even a decade ago. Moreover, traditional health parameter measurement techniques such as polysomnography are not comfortable and introduce additional costs to the consumers. Therefore, in modern advanced self-health management devices, electronics and communication science are combined to provide appliances that can be used for SDB diagnosis, by monitoring a patient's physiological parameters with more comfort and accuracy. Additionally, development in machine learning algorithms provides accurate methods of analysing measured signals. This paper provides a comprehensive review of measurement approaches, data transmission, and communication networks, alongside machine learning algorithms for sleep stage classification, to diagnose SDB

수면 호흡음을 이용한 폐쇄성 수면 무호흡 중증도 분류

학위논문 (박사)-- 서울대학교 융합과학기술대학원 융합과학부, 2017. 8. 이교구.Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common sleep disorder. The symptom has a high prevalence and increases mortality as a risk factor for hypertension and stroke. Sleep disorders occur during sleep, making it difficult for patients to self-perceive themselves, and the actual diagnosis rate is low. Despite the existence of a standard sleep study called a polysomnography (PSG), it is difficult to diagnose the sleep disorders due to complicated test procedures and high medical cost burdens. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for an effective and rational screening test that can determine whether or not to undergo a PSG. In this thesis, we conducted three studies to classify the snoring sounds and OSA severity using only breathing sounds during sleep without additional biosensors. We first identified the classification possibility of snoring sounds related to sleep disorders using the features based on the cyclostationary analysis. Then, we classified the patients OSA severity with the features extracted using temporal and cyclostationary analysis from long-term sleep breathing sounds. Finally, the partial sleep sound extraction, and feature learning process using a convolutional neural network (CNN, or ConvNet) were applied to improve the efficiency and performance of previous snoring sound and OSA severity classification tasks. The sleep breathing sound analysis method using a CNN showed superior classification accuracy of more than 80% (average area under curve > 0.8) in multiclass snoring sounds and OSA severity classification tasks. The proposed analysis and classification method is expected to be used as a screening tool for improving the efficiency of PSG in the future customized healthcare service.Chapter 1. Introduction ................................ .......................1 1.1 Personal healthcare in sleep ................................ ..............1 1.2 Existing approaches and limitations ....................................... 9 1.3 Clinical information related to SRBD ................................ .. ..12 1.4 Study objectives ................................ .........................16 Chapter 2. Overview of Sleep Research using Sleep Breathing Sounds ........... 23 2.1 Previous goals of studies ................................ ................23 2.2 Recording environments and related configurations ........................ 24 2.3 Sleep breathing sound analysis ................................ ...........27 2.4 Sleep breathing sound classification ..................................... 35 2.5 Current limitations ................................ ......................36 Chapter 3. Multiple SRDB-related Snoring Sound Classification .................39 3.1 Introduction ................................ .............................39 3.2 System architecture ................................ ......................41 3.3 Evaluation ................................ ...............................52 3.4 Results ................................ ..................................55 3.5 Discussion ................................ ...............................59 3.6 Summary ................................ ..................................63 Chapter 4. Patients OSA Severity Classification .............................65 4.1 Introduction ................................ .............................65 4.2 Existing Approaches ................................ ......................69 4.3 System Architecture ................................ ......................70 4.4 Evaluation ................................ ...............................85 4.5 Results ................................ ..................................87 4.6 Discussion ................................ ...............................94 4.7 Summary ................................ ..................................97 Chapter 5. Patient OSA Severity Prediction using Deep Learning Techniques .....99 5.1 Introduction ................................ .............................99 5.2 Methods ................................ ..................................101 5.3 Results ................................ ..................................109 5.4 Discussion ................................ ...............................115 5.5 Summary ................................ ..................................118 Chapter 6. Conclusions and Future Work ........................................120 6.1 Conclusions ................................ ..............................120 6.2 Future work ................................ ..............................127Docto

An interactive, real-time, high precision and portable monitoring system of obstructive sleep apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the most common type of sleep apnea which is defined as the suspension of breathing. OSA is generally caused by complete or partial obstruction of airway during sleep, making the breathing pattern irregular and abnormal for prolonged periods of time. Apnea can contribute to a variety of life threatening medical conditions, and can be deadly if left untreated. Nowadays, out of 18 to 50 million people in the US, most cases remain undiagnosed due to the cost, cumbersome and resource limitations of overnight polysomnography (PSG) at sleep labs. Currently PSG relies on a doctor's experience. In order to improve the medical service efficiency, reduce diagnosis time and ensure a more accurate diagnosis, a quantitative and objective method is needed. In this dissertation, an innovative method in characterizing bio-signals for detecting epochs of sleep apnea with high accuracy is presented. Three data channels that are related to breath defect; respiratory sound, ECG and SpO2 are investigated, in order to extract physiological indicators that characterize sleep apnea. An automated method was used to analyze the respiratory sound to find pauses in breathing. Furthermore, the automated method analyzed ECG to find irregular heartbeats and SpO 2 to find rises and drops. The system consists of three main parts which are signal segmentation, features extraction and features classification. Feature extractions process is based on statistical measures. Features classification process is learned through Support Vector Machines (SVMs) and Neural Network (NN) classifiers. Moreover, a preprocessing technique is carried out to distinguish the R-wave from the other waves of the ECG signal. The approach presented in this dissertation was tested using downloaded polysomnographic ECG and SpO2 data from the Physionet database. In addition, to identifying sleep apnea using the acoustic signal of respiration; the characterization of breathing sound was carried by Voice Activity Detection (VAD) algorithm. VAD was used to measure the energy of the acoustic respiratory signal during breath and silence segments. From the experimental results for the three signals, it was concluded that the precision of classifying sleep apnea has an accuracy of 97%. This result offers a clinical reference value for identifying OSA instead of expensive PSG visual scoring method which is commonly used to asses sleep apnea, and could reduce diagnostic time and improve medical service efficiency

Emotion-aware voice interfaces based on speech signal processing

Voice interfaces (VIs) will become increasingly widespread in current daily lives as AI techniques progress. VIs can be incorporated into smart devices like smartphones, as well as integrated into autos, home automation systems, computer operating systems, and home appliances, among other things. Current speech interfaces, however, are unaware of users’ emotional states and hence cannot support real communication. To overcome these limitations, it is necessary to implement emotional awareness in future VIs. This thesis focuses on how speech signal processing (SSP) and speech emotion recognition (SER) can enable VIs to gain emotional awareness. Following an explanation of what emotion is and how neural networks are implemented, this thesis presents the results of several user studies and surveys. Emotions are complicated, and they are typically characterized using category and dimensional models. They can be expressed verbally or nonverbally. Although existing voice interfaces are unaware of users’ emotional states and cannot support natural conversations, it is possible to perceive users’ emotions by speech based on SSP in future VIs. One section of this thesis, based on SSP, investigates mental restorative effects on humans and their measures from speech signals. SSP is less intrusive and more accessible than traditional measures such as attention scales or response tests, and it can provide a reliable assessment for attention and mental restoration. SSP can be implemented into future VIs and utilized in future HCI user research. The thesis then moves on to present a novel attention neural network based on sparse correlation features. The detection accuracy of emotions in the continuous speech was demonstrated in a user study utilizing recordings from a real classroom. In this section, a promising result will be shown. In SER research, it is unknown if existing emotion detection methods detect acted emotions or the genuine emotion of the speaker. Another section of this thesis is concerned with humans’ ability to act on their emotions. In a user study, participants were instructed to imitate five fundamental emotions. The results revealed that they struggled with this task; nevertheless, certain emotions were easier to replicate than others. A further study concern is how VIs should respond to users’ emotions if SER techniques are implemented in VIs and can recognize users’ emotions. The thesis includes research on ways for dealing with the emotions of users. In a user study, users were instructed to make sad, angry, and terrified VI avatars happy and were asked if they would like to be treated the same way if the situation were reversed. According to the results, the majority of participants tended to respond to these unpleasant emotions with neutral emotion, but there is a difference among genders in emotion selection. For a human-centered design approach, it is important to understand what the users’ preferences for future VIs are. In three distinct cultures, a questionnaire-based survey on users’ attitudes and preferences for emotion-aware VIs was conducted. It was discovered that there are almost no gender differences. Cluster analysis found that there are three fundamental user types that exist in all cultures: Enthusiasts, Pragmatists, and Sceptics. As a result, future VI development should consider diverse sorts of consumers. In conclusion, future VIs systems should be designed for various sorts of users as well as be able to detect the users’ disguised or actual emotions using SER and SSP technologies. Furthermore, many other applications, such as restorative effects assessments, can be included in the VIs system