On the Use of Continuous Wavelet Transforms to Analyse Accelerometer Data Collected by the NAT Device to Characterise Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is treated using drugs with powerful side-effects, and has similar symptoms to a range of other diseases. It is therefore important to diagnose PD accurately, and then to monitor its progression, to avoid mis-prescribing and under- and over-prescription of these drugs. Although diagnosis by experts in PD is fairly accurate, there is certainly room for improvement, and most initial diagnoses are carried out by non-expert medical staff with a much lower degree of accuracy. It is therefore desirable that automatic methods of diagnosis and monitoring be developed, and this Thesis examines the use of wavelets like those used in the Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT), using wavelets extracted from the data itself, to try and detect features in the data pertaining to PD patients and controls. We believe that we have successfully automatically detected distinct features, with the proviso that this has been done with very little data, opening up the possibility of tracking the development of the disease as different characteristics alter in importance, or of distinguishing subtypes of PD (analyses of the genome have determined that such subtypes exist). However, the CWTs generated by wavelets corresponding to individual features, do not suffice as a basis for diagnosis, as the features may only be intermittently present. In combination, either with other wavelets of the same type, or other methods entirely, diagnosis remains a possibility. We used Neural Acquisition Tracker (NAT) devices to obtain tri-axial accelerometer data as input to these methods, and will analyse the effect of finite bandwidth on their performance. We believe the following list sums up the main novelty of our techniques: Libraries of motion shapes: at least within the field of the analysis of the motion of PD subjects; Representing motion shapes: by equivalence classes of piecewise polynomial wavelet triplets, which are invariant under rotations and reflections; Distance functions: working out the form of a distance based on the L_2 distance between individual functions, but which works on the equivalence classes mentioned above; hierarchical k-medoids: an approximation to k-medoids, using the clustering of cluster centres, which runs faster than k-medoids

Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications

The International Workshop on Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications (MAVEBA) came into being in 1999 from the particularly felt need of sharing know-how, objectives and results between areas that until then seemed quite distinct such as bioengineering, medicine and singing. MAVEBA deals with all aspects concerning the study of the human voice with applications ranging from the neonate to the adult and elderly. Over the years the initial issues have grown and spread also in other aspects of research such as occupational voice disorders, neurology, rehabilitation, image and video analysis. MAVEBA takes place every two years always in Firenze, Italy. This edition celebrates twenty years of uninterrupted and succesfully research in the field of voice analysis

Libro de actas. XXXV Congreso Anual de la Sociedad Española de Ingeniería Biomédica

596 p.CASEIB2017 vuelve a ser el foro de referencia a nivel nacional para el intercambio científico de conocimiento, experiencias y promoción de la I D i en Ingeniería Biomédica. Un punto de encuentro de científicos, profesionales de la industria, ingenieros biomédicos y profesionales clínicos interesados en las últimas novedades en investigación, educación y aplicación industrial y clínica de la ingeniería biomédica. En la presente edición, más de 160 trabajos de alto nivel científico serán presentados en áreas relevantes de la ingeniería biomédica, tales como: procesado de señal e imagen, instrumentación biomédica, telemedicina, modelado de sistemas biomédicos, sistemas inteligentes y sensores, robótica, planificación y simulación quirúrgica, biofotónica y biomateriales. Cabe destacar las sesiones dedicadas a la competición por el Premio José María Ferrero Corral, y la sesión de competición de alumnos de Grado en Ingeniería biomédica, que persiguen fomentar la participación de jóvenes estudiantes e investigadores

Measuring Behavior 2018 Conference Proceedings

These proceedings contain the papers presented at Measuring Behavior 2018, the 11th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research. The conference was organised by Manchester Metropolitan University, in collaboration with Noldus Information Technology. The conference was held during June 5th – 8th, 2018 in Manchester, UK. Building on the format that has emerged from previous meetings, we hosted a fascinating program about a wide variety of methodological aspects of the behavioral sciences. We had scientific presentations scheduled into seven general oral sessions and fifteen symposia, which covered a topical spread from rodent to human behavior. We had fourteen demonstrations, in which academics and companies demonstrated their latest prototypes. The scientific program also contained three workshops, one tutorial and a number of scientific discussion sessions. We also had scientific tours of our facilities at Manchester Metropolitan Univeristy, and the nearby British Cycling Velodrome. We hope this proceedings caters for many of your interests and we look forward to seeing and hearing more of your contributions