Midsagittal Jaw Movement Analysis for the Scoring of Sleep Apneas and Hypopneas

Given the importance of the detection and classification of sleep apneas and hypopneas (SAHs) in the diagnosis and the characterization of the SAH syndrome, there is a need for a reliable noninvasive technique measuring respiratory effort. This paper proposes a new method for the scoring of SAHs based on the recording of the midsagittal jaw motion (MJM, mouth opening) and on a dedicated automatic analysis of this signal. Continuous wavelet transform is used to quantize respiratory effort from the jaw motion, to detect salient mandibular movements related to SAHs and to delineate events which are likely to contain the respiratory events. The classification of the delimited events is performed using multilayer perceptrons which were trained and tested on sleep data from 34 recordings. Compared with SAHs scored manually by an expert, the sensitivity and specificity of the detection were 86.1% and 87.4%, respectively. Moreover, the overall classification agreement in the recognition of obstructive, central, and mixed respiratory events between the manual and automatic scorings was 73.1%. The MJM signal is hence a reliable marker of respiratory effort and allows an accurate detection and classification of SAHs

Mandible Behavior in Obstructive Sleep Apnea Patients Under CPAP Treatment

Aim: To investigate whether obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) patients present different behaviors of mandible movements before and under CPAP therapy. Materials and Methodology: In this retrospective study, patients were selected according to inclusion criteria: both the diagnostic polysomnography recording showing an OSA with an apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) greater than 25 (n/h) and the related CPAP therapy control recordings were available, presence of mandible movement and mask pressure signals in the recordings, and tolerance to the applied positive pressure. Statistical analysis on four parameters, namely the apneahypopnea index (AHI), the arousal index (ArI), the average of the mandible lowering during sleep (aLOW), and the average amplitude of the oscillations of the mandible movement signal (aAMPL), was performed on two sets of recordings: OSA and CPAP therapy. Results: Thirty-four patients satisfied the inclusion criteria, thus both OSA and CPAP groups included thirty-four recordings each. Significant difference (p < 0.001) was found in the OSA group compared with the CPAP group when considering either the four parameters or only the two ones related to mandible movements. Conclusions: When an efficient CPAP pressure is applied, the mouth is less open and presents fewer broad sharp closure movements, and oscillating mandible movements are absent or very small.Peer reviewe

SPICE-Circuit Simulation of the Electrical Response of a Semiconductor Membrane to a Single-Stranded DNA Translocating Through a Nanopore

peer reviewedIn this paper, we describe a circuit-element model for the electric detection of biomolecules in translocation through a nanopore in a semiconductor-oxide-semiconductor (SOS) membrane. The biomolecules are simulated as a superposition of individual charges moving through the nanopore and inducing a charge variation on the membrane electrodes that is modeled as a current source. The SOS membrane is discretized into interconnected elementary circuit elements. The model is tested on the translocation of 11 base single-stranded C3AC7 DNA molecule, for which the electric signal shows good qualitative agreement with the multiscale device approach of Gracheva et al., while quantifying the low-pass filtering in the membrane. Overall, the model confirms the possibility of identifying the sequence of the DNA bases electrically

Method of assembly of capacitive bio-sensor for bio-molecules detection

We developed a method of assembly for electrical micro-bio-sensor. The system is a part of a micro-fluidic device based on a capacitive biosensor. The bio-sensor is designed for bio-molecules (specifically DNA and protein) detection, quantification and recognition. Using the developed method we assembled series of fully functional demonstrators.DNASI

Low temperature assembly method of microfluidic bio-molecules detection device

We developed a microfluidic device for the detection of bio-molecules. The active part of the device is a biofunctionalized interdigitated capacitive sensor. The microsystem consists of a sensor on silicon chip, a microfluidic channel formed by photo-patternable resist and a plastic cover. We implemented a low temperature packaging process to assemble the sensor and prevent the biological material from degradation.DNASi

Wearable respiratory belt for human breathing control

We designed and manufactured a working prototype of a wearable respiratory belt. The belt can work as a stand along system or can be embedded into clothes. The system is intended for remote health monitoring (particularly to monitor human respiration) such as home healthcare, remote medicine and remote socio-medical assistance as well as to monitor patients. The fully functional prototype proofs the concept that the elongation in the respiratory belt causes by human respiration is accurate enough to measure and to monitor human respiration.MONSOTE

Device, system and method for real time monitoring of overhead power lines

publication date: 2012-05-22; filing date: 2007-03-22Patent related to the sensor "Ampacimon" as accepted in USA. The sensor is directly fixed on power line conductor (any voltage) and is able, without any data, to give the sag of the span on which it is installed. The device is based on mechanical frequency detection which is a signature of the sag of the span in any conditions. The device is autonomous (it catches energy from the conductor) and informations are sent to a server which is then able to calculate ampacity of the power line

Midsagittal Jaw Movements as a Sleep/Wake Marker

The seriousness of the obstructive sleep apnea/hypopnea syndrome is measured by the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), the number of sleep apneas and hypopneas over the total sleep time (TST). Cardiorespiratory signals are used to detect respiratory events while the TST is usually assessed by the analysis of electroencephalogram traces in polysomnography (PSG) or wrist actigraphy trace in portable monitoring. This paper presents a sleep/wake automatic detector that relies on a wavelet-based complexity measure of the midsagittal jaw movement signal and multilayer perceptrons. In all, 63 recordings were used to train and test the method, while 38 recordings constituted an independent evaluation set for which the sensitivity, the specificity, and the global agreement of sleep recognition, respectively, reached 85.1%, 76.4%, and 82.9%, compared with the PSG data. The AHI computed automatically and only from the jaw movement analysis was significantly improved (p < 0.0001 ) when considering this sleep/wake detector. Moreover, a sensitivity of 88.6% and a specificity of 83.6% were found for the diagnosis of the sleep apnea syndrome according to a threshold of 15. Thus, the jaw movement signal is reasonably accurate in separating sleep from wake, and, in addition to its ability to score respiratory events, is a valuable signal for portable monitoring

Overhead power lines real time monitoring : a future trend ?

peer reviewedOverview of the needs which exist to monitor overhead lines in real time. Application to ampacity is detailed to determine the load available on a given line at a given time. After an overview of the existing sensors, a new device is proposed (Ampacimon) and first results are detailed on a 70 kV line