Prenatal Opioid Exposure and Intermittent Hypoxemia in Preterm Infants: A Retrospective Assessment

Introduction: Intermittent hypoxemia (IH) is defined as episodic drops in oxygen saturation (SpO2). Preterm infants are at increased risk for IH due to their immature respiratory control/apnea of prematurity. The clinical relevance of IH is a relatively new observation with rising evidence linking IH to neonatal morbidities and long-term impairment. Hence, assessing factors that influence IH in preterm infants is imperative. Given the epidemic of opioid misuse in the USA, there is an urgent need to understand the impact of prenatal opioid exposure on neonatal outcomes. Hence, we wanted to assess the relationship between isolated prenatal opioid exposure and IH in preterm infants. Methods: In order to accurately calculate IH, SpO2 data were prospectively collected using high-resolution pulse oximeters during the first 8 weeks of life in preterm infants less than 30 weeks gestational age. Data related to prenatal opioid misuse were retrospectively collected from medical charts. Infants with tobacco or poly-drug exposure were excluded. The primary outcome measure is percent time spent with SpO2 below 80% (%time-SpO2 \u3c 80). The secondary outcome measure is the number of severe IH events/week with SpO2 less than 80% (IH-SpO2 \u3c 80). Results: A total of 82 infants with isolated opioid exposure (n = 14) or who were unexposed (n = 68) were included. There were no significant differences in baseline characteristics between opioid exposed and unexposed groups. There was a statistically significant increase of 0.23 (95% CI: 0.03, 0.43, p = 0.03) in mean of the square root of %time-SpO2 \u3c 80. The number of IH-SpO2 \u3c 80 events was higher in the opioid exposed group (mean difference = 2.95, 95% CI: −0.35, 6.25, p-value = 0.08), although statistical significance was not quite attained. Conclusion: This study shows that preterm infants prenatally exposed to opioids have increased IH measures compared to unexposed infants. Interestingly, the increased IH in the opioid exposed group persists beyond the immediate postnatal period

Surface reconstruction from microscopic images in optical lithography.

This paper presents a method to reconstruct 3D surfaces of silicon wafers from 2D images of printed circuits taken with a scanning electron microscope. Our reconstruction method combines the physical model of the optical acquisition system with prior knowledge about the shapes of the patterns in the circuit; the result is a shape-from-shading technique with a shape prior. The reconstruction of the surface is formulated as an optimization problem with an objective functional that combines a data-fidelity term on the microscopic image with two prior terms on the surface. The data term models the acquisition system through the irradiance equation characteristic of the microscope; the first prior is a smoothness penalty on the reconstructed surface, and the second prior constrains the shape of the surface to agree with the expected shape of the pattern in the circuit. In order to account for the variability of the manufacturing process, this second prior includes a deformation field that allows a nonlinear elastic deformation between the expected pattern and the reconstructed surface. As a result, the minimization problem has two unknowns, and the reconstruction method provides two outputs: 1) a reconstructed surface and 2) a deformation field. The reconstructed surface is derived from the shading observed in the image and the prior knowledge about the pattern in the circuit, while the deformation field produces a mapping between the expected shape and the reconstructed surface that provides a measure of deviation between the circuit design models and the real manufacturing process

Dynamic behavior of consumer multimedia terminals:Video processing aspects

\u3cp\u3eConsumer multimedia devices are becoming more open allowing media applications in software. Programmable components, however, are expensive and the consumer expects the devices to remain robust. A novel approach uses media applications that allow a trade-off between resource usage and output quality in a QoS environment. In this paper we focus on video applications and we take a look on the type of changes they may undergo at run-time. We use this information to define the parameters that describe the state of the applications in a QoS manner. We further provide the implications of state changes to the functionality and QoS control of the video processing modules.\u3c/p\u3

Adaptive LMS Order Statistic Filters With Variable Step-Sizes

In this paper, adaptive LMS filters based on order statistics employing variable step-sizes are proposed. A novel step-size selection is developed. The performance of the designed filters in noise suppression is compared to the one of adaptive filters that use other step-size selection procedures for still images. It is demonstrated by experiments that the proposed step-size selection yields the best performance for a wide range of noise types including the Gaussian noise, the impulsive noise and the very impulsive one. 1. INTRODUCTION Adaptive signal processing has been an active research topic for more than two decades. It has found numerous applications in system identification, channel equalisation, echo cancellation etc. [1]. The most widely known adaptive filters are the linear ones that have the form of either finite impulse response (FIR) filters or lattice filters. However, linear filters may not be suitable for applications where the transmission channel is nonlinear or the..