A SERIES APPROACH TO WETTING AND LAYERING TRANSITIONS .2. SOLID-ON-SOLID MODELS

This is the second of three papers in which we discuss the applicability of series methods to interface wetting and layering transitions. Here we study the behaviour of a solid-on-solid interface, which is attracted to a surface by a local pinning potential. We find that, both for the standard and the restricted solid-on-solid models, the interface depins from the surface through an infinite sequence of layering transitions as the potential tends to zero, The applicability of our results to previous work on the Abraham model in three dimensions is discussed. © 1988 IOP Publishing Ltd

A SERIES APPROACH TO WETTING AND LAYERING TRANSITIONS .3. THE CHIRAL CLOCK MODEL

In the third of this triad of papers which study interfacial phase transitions using series expansions we treat the wetting transition of an interface in the three-state chiral clock model. Previous work has shown that on a simple cubic lattice at low temperatures the interface wets through a large, possibly infinite, number of layering transitions. We extend the low-temperature series results to an arbitrary number of nearest neighbours and show that, in the mean-field limit of infinite coordination number, only two layering transitions are seen. This is in agreement with numerical solutions of mean-field equations. Hence the mean-field approximation in this case does not provide a correct description of interface behaviour in three dimensions. © 1988 IOP Publishing Ltd

A SERIES APPROACH TO WETTING AND LAYERING TRANSITIONS .1. POTTS MODELS

Our aim in a triad of papers is to show that series methods provide a complementary approach to mean-field theories in the study of interface wetting and unbinding transitions. In this paper we consider a q-state Potts model, which contains an interface bound to a surface by a bulk field. Low-temperature and high-q series expansions are used to show that, as the field tends to zero, the interface unbinds from the surface through a sequence of first-order layering transitions. We discuss the various regions of the phase diagram where the different expansions are expected to be valid and compare our results with those obtained in the mean-field approximation. © 1987 IOP Publishing Ltd

Monitoring of nocturnal central sleep apnea in Heart failure patients using noncontact respiratory differences

© 2017 IEEE. Monitoring of respiration patterns allows the early detection of various breathing disorders and may better identify those at risk for adverse acute outcomes in a variety of clinical settings. In this paper, we report on the use of SleepMinder (SM), a bedside non-contact Doppler-based biomotion recording sensor, to monitor remotely the nocturnal respiration patterns of 50 patients with systolic Heart failure (HF) while undergoing a lab based Polysomnography (PSG) test. A new respiration rate (RR) monitoring algorithm was developed based on the collected overnight radar signals. Two schemes of RR scoring were utilized: respiratory rate count (RRC) and instantaneous respiratory rates (IRR). Analysis of SM vs. PSG revealed that the mean/median IRR scored by SM is highly correlated with that scored on the nasal flow/effort signals from the corresponding PSG studies on all patients, with a significant correlation coefficient of 0.98 (average absolute difference of 0.31 breaths/min), and 0.97 (p<0.01, average absolute difference of 0.38 breaths/min) for the median and mean of RR respectively. Our experimental results also show that the difference between the RR estimations from IRR and RRC schemes can be utilized to identify central sleep apnea (CSA)/Cheyne-Stokes respiration (CSR) sections without additional apnea detection modules. As a result, with a sensitivity and specificity of 71% and 88% respectively, and an accuracy of 86%, our CSA/CSR screener, plugged with our RR estimation, can play an important role in the remote management of HF patients

LAYERING TRANSITIONS AT AN INTERFACE

Low temperature series are used to analyse the wetting of an interface in the three-dimensional three-state chiral clock model. When the calculation is taken to general order using a matrix formulation, a large number of layering transitions are found as a function of the chiral field. © 1986 The Institute of Physics

Association of serious adverse events with Cheyne-Stokes respiration characteristics in patients with systolic heart failure and central sleep apnoea: A SERVE-Heart Failure substudy analysis

Background and objective Increases in Cheyne-Stokes respiration (CSR) cycle length (CL), lung-to-periphery circulation time (LPCT) and time to peak flow (TTPF) may reflect impaired cardiac function. This retrospective analysis used an automatic algorithm to evaluate baseline CSR-related features and then determined whether these could be used to identify patients with systolic heart failure (HF) who experienced serious adverse events in the Treatment of Sleep-Disordered Breathing with Predominant Central Sleep Apnea by Adaptive Servo Ventilation in Patients with Heart Failure (SERVE-HF) substudy. Methods A total of 280 patients had overnight diagnostic polysomnography data available; an automated algorithm was applied to quantify CSR-related features. Results Median baseline CL, LPCT and TTPF were similar in the control (n = 152) and adaptive servo-ventilation (ASV, n = 156) groups. In both groups, CSR-related features were significantly longer in patients who did (n = 129) versus did not (n = 140) experience a primary endpoint event (all-cause death, life-saving cardiovascular intervention or unplanned hospitalization for worsening HF): CL, 61.1 versus 55.1 s (P = 0.002); LPCT, 36.5 versus 31.5 s (P < 0.001); TTPF, 15.20 versus 13.35 s (P < 0.001), respectively. This finding was independent of treatment allocation. Conclusion Patients with systolic HF and central sleep apnoea who experienced serious adverse events had longer CSR CL, LPCT and TTPF. Future studies should examine an independent role for CSR-related features to enable risk stratification in systolic HF