Towards a cyber physical system for personalised and automatic OSA treatment

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a breathing disorder that takes place in the course of the sleep and is produced by a complete or a partial obstruction of the upper airway that manifests itself as frequent breathing stops and starts during the sleep. The real-time evaluation of whether or not a patient is undergoing OSA episode is a very important task in medicine in many scenarios, as for example for making instantaneous pressure adjustments that should take place when Automatic Positive Airway Pressure (APAP) devices are used during the treatment of OSA. In this paper the design of a possible Cyber Physical System (CPS) suited to real-time monitoring of OSA is described, and its software architecture and possible hardware sensing components are detailed. It should be emphasized here that this paper does not deal with a full CPS, rather with a software part of it under a set of assumptions on the environment. The paper also reports some preliminary experiments about the cognitive and learning capabilities of the designed CPS involving its use on a publicly available sleep apnea database

Proposal of a health care network based on big data analytics for PDs

Health care networks for Parkinson's disease (PD) already exist and have been already proposed in the literature, but most of them are not able to analyse the vast volume of data generated from medical examinations and collected and organised in a pre-defined manner. In this work, the authors propose a novel health care network based on big data analytics for PD. The main goal of the proposed architecture is to support clinicians in the objective assessment of the typical PD motor issues and alterations. The proposed health care network has the ability to retrieve a vast volume of acquired heterogeneous data from a Data warehouse and train an ensemble SVM to classify and rate the motor severity of a PD patient. Once the network is trained, it will be able to analyse the data collected during motor examinations of a PD patient and generate a diagnostic report on the basis of the previously acquired knowledge. Such a diagnostic report represents a tool both to monitor the follow up of the disease for each patient and give robust advice about the severity of the disease to clinicians

Haptic holography : an early computational plastic

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (p. 135-148).This dissertation introduces haptic holography, a combination of computational modeling and multimodal spatial display, as an early computationalplastic In this work, we combine various holographic displays with a force feedback device to image free-standing material surfaces with programmatically prescribed behavior. We present three implementations, Touch, Lathe, and Poke, each named for the primitive functional affordance it offers. In Touch, we present static holographic images of simple geometry, reconstructed in front of the hologram plane (in the viewer's space), and precisely co-located with a force model of the same geometry. These images can be visually inspected and haptically explored using a hand-held interface. In Lathe, we again display holo-haptic images of simple geometry, this time allowing those images to be reshaped by haptic interaction in a dynamic but constrained manner. Finally in Poke, we present a holo-haptic image that permits arbitrary reshaping of its reconstructed surface. As supporting technology, we offer a new technique for incrementally computing and locally updating interference-modeled holographic fringe patterns. This technique permits electronic holograms to be updated arbitrarily and interactively, marking a long-held goal in display holography. As a broader contribution, we offer a new behavior-based spatial framework, based on both perception and action, for informing the design of spatial interactive systems.Wendy J. Plesniak.Ph.D

Seven Defining Features of Terahertz (THz) Wireless Systems: A Fellowship of Communication and Sensing

Wireless communication at the terahertz (THz) frequency bands (0.1-10THz) is viewed as one of the cornerstones of tomorrow's 6G wireless systems. Owing to the large amount of available bandwidth, THz frequencies can potentially provide wireless capacity performance gains and enable high-resolution sensing. However, operating a wireless system at the THz-band is limited by a highly uncertain channel. Effectively, these channel limitations lead to unreliable intermittent links as a result of a short communication range, and a high susceptibility to blockage and molecular absorption. Consequently, such impediments could disrupt the THz band's promise of high-rate communications and high-resolution sensing capabilities. In this context, this paper panoramically examines the steps needed to efficiently deploy and operate next-generation THz wireless systems that will synergistically support a fellowship of communication and sensing services. For this purpose, we first set the stage by describing the fundamentals of the THz frequency band. Based on these fundamentals, we characterize seven unique defining features of THz wireless systems: 1) Quasi-opticality of the band, 2) THz-tailored wireless architectures, 3) Synergy with lower frequency bands, 4) Joint sensing and communication systems, 5) PHY-layer procedures, 6) Spectrum access techniques, and 7) Real-time network optimization. These seven defining features allow us to shed light on how to re-engineer wireless systems as we know them today so as to make them ready to support THz bands. Furthermore, these features highlight how THz systems turn every communication challenge into a sensing opportunity. Ultimately, the goal of this article is to chart a forward-looking roadmap that exposes the necessary solutions and milestones for enabling THz frequencies to realize their potential as a game changer for next-generation wireless systems.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figure

Holographic reality: enhancing the artificial reality experience throuhg interactive 3D holography

Holography was made know by several science-fiction productions, however this technology dates back to the year 1940. Despite the considerable age of this discovery, this technology remains inaccessible to the average consumer. The main goal of this manuscript is to advance the state of the art in interactive holography, providing an accessible and low-cost solution. The final product intends to nudge the HCI com munity to explore potential applications, in particular to be aquatic centric and environmentally friendly. Two main user studies are performed, in order to determine the impact of the proposed solution by a sample audience. Provided user studies include a first prototype as a Tangible User Interface - TUI for Holographic Reality - HR Second study included the Holographic Mounted Display - HMD for proposed HR interface, further analyzing the interactive holographic experience without hand-held devices. Both of these studies were further compared with an Augmented Reality setting. Obtained results demonstrate a significantly higher score for the HMD approach. This suggests it is the better solution, most likely due to the added simplicity and immersiveness features it has. However the TUI study did score higher in several key parameters, and should be considered for future studies. Comparing with an AR experience, the HMD study scores slightly lower, but manages to surpass AR in several parameters. Several approaches were outlined and evaluated, depicting different methods for the creation of Interactive Holographic Reality experiences. In spite of the low maturity of holographic technology, it can be concluded it is comparable and can keep up to other more developed and mature artificial reality settings, further supporting the need for the existence of the Holographic Reality conceptA tecnologia holográfica tornou-se conhecida através da ficção científica, contudo esta tecnologia remonta até ao ano 1940. Apesar da considerável idade desta descoberta, esta tecnologia continua a não ser acessíveil para o consumidor. O objetivo deste manuscrito é avançar o estado de arte da Holografia Interactiva, e fornecer uma solução de baixo custo. O objetivo do produto final é persuadir a comunidade HCI para a exploração de aplicações desta tecnologia, em particular em contextos aquáticos e pró-ambientais. Dois estudos principais foram efetuados, de modo a determinar qual o impacto da solução pro posta numa amostra. Os estudos fornecidos incluem um protótipo inicial baseado numa Interface Tangível e Realidade Holográfica e um dispositivo tangível. O segundo estudo inclui uma interface baseada num dispositivo head-mounted e em Realidade Holográfica, de modo a analisar e avaliar a experiência interativa e holográfica. Ambos os estudos são comparados com uma experiência semelhante, em Realidade Aumentada. Os resultados obtidos demonstram que o estudo HMD recebeu uma avaliação significante mel hor, em comparação com a abordagem TUI. Isto sugere que uma abordagem "head-mounted" tende a ser melhor solução, muito provavelmente devido às vantagens que possui em relação à simplicidade e imersividade que oferece. Contudo, o estudo TUI recebeu pontuações mais altas em alguns parâmetros chave, e deve ser considerados para a implementação de futuros estudos. Comparando com uma experiência de realidade aumentada, o estudo HMD recebeu uma avaliação ligeiramente menor, mas por uma margem mínima, e ultrapassando a AR em alguns parâmetros. Várias abordagens foram deliniadas e avaliadas, com diferentes métodos para a criação de experiências de Realidade Holográfica. Apesar da pouca maturidade da tecnologia holográfica, podemos concluir que a mesma é comparável e consegue acompanhar outros tipos de realidade artificial, que são muito mais desenvolvidos, o que suporta a necessidade da existência do conceito de Realidade Holográfica

Theoretical and practical aspects of the design and production of synthetic holograms for transmission electron microscopy

Beam shaping-the ability to engineer the phase and the amplitude of massive and massless particles-has long interested scientists working on communication, imaging, and the foundations of quantum mechanics. In light optics, the shaping of electromagnetic waves (photons) can be achieved using techniques that include, but are not limited to, direct manipulation of the beam source (as in X-ray free electron lasers and synchrotrons), deformable mirrors, spatial light modulators, mode converters, and holograms. The recent introduction of holographic masks for electrons provides new possibilities for electron beam shaping. Their fabrication has been made possible by advances in micrometric and nanometric device production using lithography and focused on ion beam patterning. This article provides a tutorial on the generation, production, and analysis of synthetic holograms for transmission electron microscopy. It begins with an introduction to synthetic holograms, outlining why they are useful for beam shaping to study material properties. It then focuses on the fabrication of the required devices from theoretical and experimental perspectives, with examples taken from both simulations and experimental results. Applications of synthetic electron holograms as aberration correctors, electron vortex generators, and spatial mode sorters are then presented