Motion Artifact Processing Techniques for Physiological Signals

The combination of reducing birth rate and increasing life expectancy continues to drive the demographic shift toward an ageing population and this is placing an ever-increasing burden on our healthcare systems. The urgent need to address this so called healthcare \time bomb" has led to a rapid growth in research into ubiquitous, pervasive and distributed healthcare technologies where recent advances in signal acquisition, data storage and communication are helping such systems become a reality. However, similar to recordings performed in the hospital environment, artifacts continue to be a major issue for these systems. The magnitude and frequency of artifacts can vary signicantly depending on the recording environment with one of the major contributions due to the motion of the subject or the recording transducer. As such, this thesis addresses the challenges of the removal of this motion artifact removal from various physiological signals. The preliminary investigations focus on artifact identication and the tagging of physiological signals streams with measures of signal quality. A new method for quantifying signal quality is developed based on the use of inexpensive accelerometers which facilitates the appropriate use of artifact processing methods as needed. These artifact processing methods are thoroughly examined as part of a comprehensive review of the most commonly applicable methods. This review forms the basis for the comparative studies subsequently presented. Then, a simple but novel experimental methodology for the comparison of artifact processing techniques is proposed, designed and tested for algorithm evaluation. The method is demonstrated to be highly eective for the type of artifact challenges common in a connected health setting, particularly those concerned with brain activity monitoring. This research primarily focuses on applying the techniques to functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG) data due to their high susceptibility to contamination by subject motion related artifact. Using the novel experimental methodology, complemented with simulated data, a comprehensive comparison of a range of artifact processing methods is conducted, allowing the identication of the set of the best performing methods. A novel artifact removal technique is also developed, namely ensemble empirical mode decomposition with canonical correlation analysis (EEMD-CCA), which provides the best results when applied on fNIRS data under particular conditions. Four of the best performing techniques were then tested on real ambulatory EEG data contaminated with movement artifacts comparable to those observed during in-home monitoring. It was determined that when analysing EEG data, the Wiener lter is consistently the best performing artifact removal technique. However, when employing the fNIRS data, the best technique depends on a number of factors including: 1) the availability of a reference signal and 2) whether or not the form of the artifact is known. It is envisaged that the use of physiological signal monitoring for patient healthcare will grow signicantly over the next number of decades and it is hoped that this thesis will aid in the progression and development of artifact removal techniques capable of supporting this growth

Blind Philhellenes vs. Selective Consumers of Foreign Cultures: A Reassessment of the Ancient Greco-Roman Literary Record’s Portrayal of the Gauls in Light of New Archaeological Evidence

The issue of perspective is intrinsic to historiography. This is evident in the ancient Greco-Roman literary record, specifically the limits placed on its value to modern academics by the ethnographic biases of its authors. However, with the rise of the post-processual approach to archaeology over the past thirty years, modern historians have begun to address this issue. By utilizing the impartial records offered by excavation, these scholars have increasingly managed to circumvent ancient authorial subjectivity and reevaluate the modern preconceptions it created of the world of antiquity. An example of the archaeological record\u27s value in reassessing the inherent prejudices of the ancient literary record can be seen in the instance of the archaic-era Ionian Greek colony of Massalia. While the ancient writings on Massalia have provided modern historians with a limited overview of this Greek polis, their potential for offering genuine insight is denigrated by the cultural bias evident in their overly positive portrayal of Massalia and their pejorative treatment of the native Gauls. However, by examining archaeological excavations of Massalia and surrounding Gallic sites, modern historians have begun to sidestep this Hellenic literary bias and its associated cultural stereotypes, and gain valuable insight into the much more complex reality of relations and interactions that existed between the Massaliotes and their Gallic neighbors. Overall, although ancient historians portray Massalia as a powerful bastion of civilizing Hellenism amongst the barbarian tribes of Gaul, the modern archaeological record indicates that this characterization is largely false, and that in reality Massalia\u27s Gallic trading partners were not Philhellenes who attempted to imitate Greek culture, but selective consumers who incorporated a limited range of Greek goods into their own existing cultural systems

Computational modeling of neutron production by a Siemens Oncor Linac and benchmarked by experimental data

Modeling neutron production by an electron driven linear accelerator using Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) transport code can show the potential for this accelerator to be used as a neutron generator to produce short-lived radioisotopes or potentially as an external beam source for neutron therapy. Applications of this modeling include calculating activation of other materials in this and similar systems, adjusting the size of the system to adjust neutron production, and many other potential uses. Modeling results show that a Siemens Oncor electron driven accelerator fitted with an x-ray (heavy metal) converter can produce a thermal neutron flux of 1.33E5 neutrons/cm2/sec in a 1 liter beaker of heavy water 76.37 cm away from the beam source. When irradiating a square shaped 1.2 cm by 1.2 cm piece of natural gold (Au-197) foil positioned up in the heavy (deuterated) water for 10.2 minutes, Au-198 production resulted from the Au-197(n, ?)Au-198 reaction. The experimental data showed the activity to be 40.29 decays per second (DPS) using a Geiger Muller (GM) detector for counting the 411.85 keV gamma radiation associated with Au-198. Computational modeling results showed Au-198 activity to be 43.77 DPS. Experimental results from the Au-198 production experiment in 2014 at the University of Missouri-Columbia were used to benchmark the MCNP transport modeling in this project. The 1 liter of heavy water (D2O) modeled in MCNP had a neutron flux of 5.17E7 neutrons/cm2/sec. The 1.2 cm by 1.2 cm thin piece of gold foil had a neutron flux of 2.12E7 neutrons/cm2/sec. The gold foil had a thermal neutron flux of 5.61E4 neutrons/cm2/sec. The relative error for the Au-198 production tally (f014 tally, Appendix B) was 5.15% and the variance of variance (VOV) was 2.25% after 1E11 source particles were run. In future work, this code can be used to investigate this type of systems in applications such as neutron generation in neutron therapy and activation of short-lived radioisotopes for radio-pharmacology. Variation of tank size configuration as well as varying electron beam drivers can be investigated

We Will Never Speak of It: Evidence of Hitler\u27s Direct Responsibility for the Premeditation and Implementation of the Nazi Final Solution

The “Intentionalist vs. Functionalist” debate has raged amongst academic historians for decades, centered on the question of whether Adolf Hitler personally premeditated and instigated the Final Solution, or whether the idea and its implementation developed more gradually out of a collaborative effort within the ranks of the Nazi bureaucracy. This paper seeks, through careful analysis of Nazi primary source materials, to establish an “Intentionalist” argument in favor of Hitler being directly responsible for the premeditation and implementation of the infamous Nazi attempt to systematically annihilate the entirety of Europe’s Jewish population

АНАЛІЗ ЗАСОБІВ ЗАХИСТУ WEB-СЕРВЕРІВ ВІД АВТОМАТИЗОВАНОГО ВИКОНАННЯ ЗЛОВМИСНИХ ДІЙ

Аналіз засобів захисту WEB-серверів від автоматизованого виконання зловмисних дій та розробка системи тестування користувачів на основі зворотного тесту Тюрінга

Identification of sleep apnea events using discrete wavelet transform of respiration, ECG and accelerometer signals

Sleep apnea is a common sleep disorder in which patient sleep patterns are disrupted due to recurrent pauses in breathing or by instances of abnormally low breathing. Current gold standard tests for the detection of apnea events are costly and have the addition of long waiting times. This paper investigates the use of cheap and easy to use sensors for the identification of sleep apnea events. Combinations of respiration, electrocardiography (ECG) and acceleration signals were analysed. Results show that using features, formed using the discrete wavelet transform (DWT), from the ECG and acceleration signals provided the highest classification accuracy, with an F1 score of 0.914. However, the novel employment of just the accelerometer signal during classification provided a comparable F1 score of 0.879. By employing one or a combination of the analysed sensors a preliminary test for sleep apnea, prior to the requirement for gold standard testing, can be performed

Changing Shades of Green: The environmental and cultural impacts of climate change in Ireland

This report, as the reader will see, follows two distinct but intertwined paths. One path, rooted in science, outlines the ecological impacts of climate change in Ireland. We describe climate changes witnessed in the later decades of the 20th century and the most likely scenarios for change in this current century. We do not offer a primer on climate science, nor do we provide great detail on the methodology used to downscale global climate models for modeling the Irish climate. We instead attempt to tell a simple story of how the Irish climate is likely to change, relying exclusively on peer-reviewed scientific literature. The other path, rooted in culture, describes how these ecological changes may affect the look and feel of the Irish landscape, and how they may affect life in Ireland. These sections do not rely on peer-reviewed literature; they instead rely on an intuitive sense of those things that matter greatly to the Irish. We include discussions of music and poetry because they explain the intense connections between the Irish landscape and Irish culture and how changes to one can affect the other