Statistical Models for Detecting Existence of Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Predicting Its Severity, and Forecasting Future Episodes

This dissertation presents three statistical models based on data mining and nonlinear time-series analysis techniques as an alternative method for the diagnosis and treatment of obstructive sleep apnea disease (OSA). From a diagnosis perspective, our method reduces the time and cost associated with the conventional method by first screening a non-OSA subject from the population, then individually determining the OSA�s severity by utilizing the data from a single-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) device that is worn overnight at the subject�s location. Our OSA forecasting model can be used to activate an OSA therapy device such as a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine or a hypoglossal nerve stimulator (HNS) as needed or before an OSA episode so that the latter can be averted in real time.In particular, our contributions are: 1) Detect the existence of OSA in an individual based on the pattern of biological physiology and simple clinical data with a low false negative rate and reasonable accuracy (FNR: 5.3%, Accuracy: 84.47%). People with some degree of probability of having OSA will be confirmed by the next model. 2) Determine the OSA severity by classifying the OSA episode (event) from one-lead ECG data collected overnight (accuracy: 92.26% with 10,052 equally sampled events from 24 subjects). The advantage of our model is that the variations (i.e., different body build, age, gender, activity, health conditions, and race) have very little effect on the prediction because the neighboring patterns in the reconstructed phase spaces have very little or no correlation to those variations. This benefit can be seen from our model�s performance compared to two other models that exist in the literature. 3) Forecast an incoming OSA episode in real time using the one-lead ECG data (accuracy: 92%, 88%, and 87% for 1, 5, and 10 minutes ahead). This forecasting model with any appropriate OSA episode prevention device (i.e., HNS, and just-in-time CPAP) will allow for an effective OSA treatment method for CPAP nonadherence OSA sufferers. 4) Develop a wearable device that can collect the biological data via a single-lead ECG as a home sleep test (HST) device.Industrial Engineering & Managemen

Advances in Reinforcement Learning

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a very dynamic area in terms of theory and application. This book brings together many different aspects of the current research on several fields associated to RL which has been growing rapidly, producing a wide variety of learning algorithms for different applications. Based on 24 Chapters, it covers a very broad variety of topics in RL and their application in autonomous systems. A set of chapters in this book provide a general overview of RL while other chapters focus mostly on the applications of RL paradigms: Game Theory, Multi-Agent Theory, Robotic, Networking Technologies, Vehicular Navigation, Medicine and Industrial Logistic

Using MapReduce Streaming for Distributed Life Simulation on the Cloud

Distributed software simulations are indispensable in the study of large-scale life models but often require the use of technically complex lower-level distributed computing frameworks, such as MPI. We propose to overcome the complexity challenge by applying the emerging MapReduce (MR) model to distributed life simulations and by running such simulations on the cloud. Technically, we design optimized MR streaming algorithms for discrete and continuous versions of Conway’s life according to a general MR streaming pattern. We chose life because it is simple enough as a testbed for MR’s applicability to a-life simulations and general enough to make our results applicable to various lattice-based a-life models. We implement and empirically evaluate our algorithms’ performance on Amazon’s Elastic MR cloud. Our experiments demonstrate that a single MR optimization technique called strip partitioning can reduce the execution time of continuous life simulations by 64%. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose and evaluate MR streaming algorithms for lattice-based simulations. Our algorithms can serve as prototypes in the development of novel MR simulation algorithms for large-scale lattice-based a-life models.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/scs_books/1014/thumbnail.jp