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Acquisition of human vital signs through radar is a very promising technology that can address the shortcomings of the traditional contact-based measurement devices and enable the move toward a contactless vital monitoring system. This research is focused on monitoring breath rate (BR) and heart rate (HR) via a frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar. Currently, the two approaches used for BR and HR estimation are filter-based and decomposition-based, such as variational mode decomposition (VMD) for high-quality signal separation. We propose an adaptive VMD (AVMD) to address the problem of setting the number of segmentation levels required by the VMD algorithm. Various experiments are conducted under practical scenarios in terms of distance, angle, posture, and activity as well as the existence of a nearby person and fan. We have made a comprehensive assessment of accuracy change and impact in these scenarios. The experimental results show clearly that the proposed AVMD gives higher accuracy compared to the filter-based and VMD-based. A real-time BR-HR monitoring system using the proposed AVMD and the TI’s IWR1843Boost radar board has been implemented to demonstrate its practical uses.

Plant secondary metabolites in Tetrapleuratetraptera fruit meal (TTFM) could be exploited as natural safe feed additives alternative to non- nutritive chemical and antibiotics to enhance rumen fermentation and feed utilization efficiency with negative oxidative stress. The study investigated the responses of West African Dwarf (WAD) rams to the diets containing varying levels of supplemental Tetrapleura tetraptera fruit meal on the oxidative status and thermo-physiological parameters. Thirty five (35) WAD rams with an average live weight of 13.20±0.2 kg were used in a completely randomized design for 140 days. Five concentrate diets containing varying levels (0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 %) of TTFM were formulated while Panicum maximum was fed as a basal diet. The rectal temperature, pulse rate and respiratory rate were measured at two week intervals while blood was collected through jugular veins at the onset and at the end of feeding trial to determine oxidative status parameters in terms of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase, thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS).Data collected were subjected to one way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). No significant difference observed (p>0.05) in the rectal temperature while the pulse rate and breathing rate increased significantly (p

Sexual conflict over parental investment is widespread among species with biparental care. Studies have indicated that a high degree of behavioural similarity between the two parents can increase offspring survival; however, it remains unclear how sexual conflict over parental care is resolved. In this study, we examined whether similarity of personality traits between the two parents plays an important role in affecting the provisioning behaviour of each sex in a wild population of the chestnut thrush, Turdus rubrocanus. First, as expected, the mating pairs with more similar personality traits had higher provisioning rates than those pairs with dissimilar traits. Moreover, we found that the similarity of personality traits can modulate the sexual conflict over provisioning in this species, as both parents with more similar partners had relatively higher and less divergent provisioning rates. A partner removal experiment revealed how the sole female or male parent responded when the level of conflict over care increased (the removed partner does not provide any care). The majority of males always reduced their provisioning investment, while females’ decisions depended on the degree of similarity with their partners. Females compensated by provisioning more frequently in pairs of similar personality traits (i.e. accepting a high level of conflict), but reduced their provisioning investment in extremely dissimilar pairs. Our results promote a better understanding of the resolution of sexual conflict over provisioning and highlight the evolutionary significance of mating with similar partners based on certain personality traits.

Respiratory rate (RR) is a clinically important predictor of cardio-respiratory deteriorations. The mainstay of clinical measurement comprises the manual counting of chest movements, which is variable between clinicians and limited to sporadic readings. Emerging solutions are limited by poor adherence and acceptability or are not clinically validated. Albus HomeTM is a contactless and automated bedside system for nocturnal respiratory monitoring that overcomes these limitations. This study aimed to validate the accuracy of Albus Home compared to gold standards in real-world sleeping environments. Participants undertook overnight monitoring simultaneously using Albus Home and gold-standard polygraphy with thoraco-abdominal respiratory effort belts (SomnomedicsEU). Reference RR readings were obtained by clinician-count of polygraphy data. For both the Albus system and reference, RRs were measured in 30-s segments, reported as breaths/minute, and compared. Accuracy was defined as the percentage of RRs from the Albus system within ±2 breaths/minute of reference counts. Across a diverse validation set of 32 participants, the mean accuracy exceeded 98% and was maintained across different participant characteristics. In a Bland-Altman analysis, Albus RRs had strong agreement with reference mean differences and the limits of agreement of -0.4 and ±1.2 breaths/minute, respectively. Albus Home is a contactless yet accurate system for automated respiratory monitoring. Validated against gold -standard methods, it enables long-term, reliable nocturnal monitoring without patient burden. ispartof: SENSORS vol:22 issue:19 ispartof: location:Switzerland status: published

The field of remote health monitoring is a growing field, which is being driven by the rapid advances in sensors and sensor measurement systems. The respiratory system can be affected by a variety of underlying conditions and respiratory event monitoring can provide medical professionals with information that would otherwise be unavailable. A key area of concern is respiration over the course of a night, changes in which can be indicative of breathing and sleep related disorders. Previous work has proposed the use of pressure sensitive mats (PSM) or audio measurement to independently detect these changes. However, neither the PSM measurement nor the audio measurement is able to capture all respiratory events and there are privacy concerns associated with continuous monitoring (especially when recording audio). This paper presents the feasibility of a system that would utilize both PSM and audio measurements. Here, a single participant was asked to lay down on a PSM and to perform a series of respiratory events (normal breathing, fast breathing, slow breathing, gasping, mimicking central sleep apnea, wheezing, snoring, and coughing) while a microphone was recording. Signal processing was applied to both measurements in order to investigate both breathing rate and uncommon respiratory events. The resulting signals were then compared. The advantages and disadvantages of both measurements are discussed and a sample scenario of the fusion of audio and PSM measurements is presented in order to capture obstructive sleep apnea events., 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications (MeMeA), June 22-26, 2022, Messina, Italy

Competitive indoor climbing has increased in popularity at the youth, collegiate, and Olympic levels. A critical aspect for improving performance is characterizing the physiologic response to different climbing strategies (e.g., work/rest patterns, pacing) and techniques (e.g., body position and movement) relative to location on climbing wall with spatially varying characteristics (e.g., wall inclinations, position of foot/hand holds). However, this response is not well understood due to the limited capabilities of climbing-specific measurement and assessment tools. In this study, we developed a novel method to examine time-resolved sensor-based measurements of multiple personal biometrics at different microlocations (finely spaced positions; MLs) along a climbing route. For the ML-specific biometric system (MLBS), we integrated continuous data from wearable biometric sensors and smartphone-based video during climbing, with a customized visualization and analysis system to determine three physiologic parameters (heart rate, breathing rate, ventilation rate) and one body movement parameter (hip acceleration), which are automatically time-matched to the corresponding video frame to determine ML-specific biometrics. Key features include: (1) biometric sensors that are seamlessly embedded in the fabric of an athletic compression shirt, and do not interfere with climbing performance, (2) climbing video, and (3) an interactive graphical user interface to rapidly visualize and analyze the time-matched biometrics and climbing video, determine timing sequence between the biometrics at key events, and calculate summary statistics. To demonstrate the capabilities of MLBS, we examined the relationship between changes in ML-specific climbing characteristics and changes in the physiologic parameters. Our study demonstrates the ability of MLBS to determine multiple time-resolved biometrics at different MLs, in support of developing and assessing different climbing strategies and training methods to help improve performance.

Study objectives: Unobtrusive monitoring of sleep and sleep disorders in children presents challenges. We investigated the possibility of using Ultra-Wide band (UWB) radar to measure sleep in children. Methods: Thirty-two children scheduled to undergo a clinical polysomnography participated; their ages ranged from 2 months to 14 years. During the polysomnography, the children's body movements and breathing rate were measured by an UWB-radar. A total of 38 features were calculated from the motion signals and breathing rate obtained from the raw radar signals. Adaptive boosting was used as machine learning classifier to estimate sleep stages, with polysomnography as gold standard method for comparison. Results: Data of all participants combined, this study achieved a Cohen's Kappa coefficient of 0.67 and an overall accuracy of 89.8% for wake and sleep classification, a Kappa of 0.47 and an accuracy of 72.9% for wake, rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, and non-REM sleep classification, and a Kappa of 0.43 and an accuracy of 58.0% for wake, REM sleep, light sleep and deep sleep classification. Conclusion: Although the current performance is not sufficient for clinical use yet, UWB radar is a promising method for non-contact sleep analysis in children.

Waterless transportation for live grouper is a novel mode of transport that not only saves money, but also lowers wastewater pollution. Technical obstacles remain, however, in achieving intelligent monitoring and a greater survival rate. During live grouper waterless transportation, the stress response is a key indicator that affects the survival life-span of the grouper. Studies based on breathing rate analysis have demonstrated that among many stress response parameters, breathing rate is the most direct parameter to reflect the intensity. Conventional measurement methods, which set up sensors on the gills of groupers, interfere with the normal breathing of living aquatic products and are complex in system design. We designed a new breathing monitoring system based on a completely non-destructive approach. The system allows the real-time monitoring of living aquatic products’ breathing rate by simply placing the millimeter wave radar on the inner wall of the incubator and facing the gills. The system we developed can detect more parameters in the future, and can replace the existing system to simplify the study of stress responses.

[EN] The emotional reactions to social exclusion can be associated with physiological responses that could allow researchers to estimate the valence and intensity of the ongoing afective state. In this work, respiratory activity was analysed to verify whether breathing rate variations can be considered as predictive factors of subsequent positive and negative afect after inclusion and exclusion in young women. A standard Cyberball task was implemented and manipulated information was provided to the participants to create both conditions. The participants were socially excluded by limiting their participation to 6% of the total number of passes among three teammates and providing negative feedback about them. The results suggest that breathing rate can be a good option to infer subjective feelings during social interactions and a promising feature to incorporate into modern emotion monitoring systems as an alternative to other physiological measures. Furthermore, the interaction between metaemotion and physiology was studied by recording breathing rate while completing the Positive and Negative Afect Schedule, evidencing a breathing rate increase during the emotion self-assessment only after exclusion., Publicación en abierto financiada por el Consorcio de Bibliotecas Universitarias de Castilla y León (BUCLE), con cargo al Programa Operativo 2014ES16RFOP009 FEDER 2014-2020 DE CASTILLA Y LEÓN, Actuación:20007-CL - Apoyo Consorcio BUCLE.

The Sleep Number smart bed uses embedded ballistocardiography, together with network connectivity, signal processing, and machine learning, to detect heart rate (HR), breathing rate (BR), and sleep vs. wake states. This study evaluated the performance of the smart bed relative to polysomnography (PSG) in estimating epoch-by-epoch HR, BR, sleep vs. wake, mean overnight HR and BR, and summary sleep variables. Forty-five participants (aged 22–64 years; 55% women) slept one night on the smart bed with standard PSG. Smart bed data were compared to PSG by Bland–Altman analysis and Pearson correlation for epoch-by-epoch HR and epoch-by-epoch BR. Agreement in sleep vs. wake classification was quantified using Cohen’s kappa, ROC analysis, sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and precision. Epoch-by-epoch HR and BR were highly correlated with PSG (HR: r = 0.81, |bias| = 0.23 beats/min; BR: r = 0.71, |bias| = 0.08 breaths/min), as were estimations of mean overnight HR and BR (HR: r = 0.94, |bias| = 0.15 beats/min; BR: r = 0.96, |bias| = 0.09 breaths/min). Calculated agreement for sleep vs. wake detection included kappa (prevalence and bias-adjusted) = 0.74 ± 0.11, AUC = 0.86, sensitivity = 0.94 ± 0.05, specificity = 0.48 ± 0.18, accuracy = 0.86 ± 0.11, and precision = 0.90 ± 0.06. For all-night summary variables, agreement was moderate to strong. Overall, the findings suggest that the Sleep Number smart bed may provide reliable metrics to unobtrusively characterize human sleep under real life-conditions.

Breathing rate is considered one of the fundamental vital signs and a highly informative indicator of physiological state. Given that the monitoring of heart activity is less complex than the monitoring of breathing, a variety of algorithms have been developed to estimate breathing activity from heart activity. However, estimating breathing rate from heart activity outside of laboratory conditions is still a challenge. The challenge is even greater when new wearable devices with novel sensor placements are being used. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm for breathing rate estimation from photoplethysmography (PPG) data acquired from a head-worn virtual reality mask equipped with a PPG sensor placed on the forehead of a subject. The algorithm is based on advanced signal processing and machine learning techniques and includes a novel quality assessment and motion artifacts removal procedure. The proposed algorithm is evaluated and compared to existing approaches from the related work using two separate datasets that contains data from a total of 37 subjects overall. Numerous experiments show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the compared algorithms, achieving a mean absolute error of 1.38 breaths per minute and a Pearson’s correlation coefficient of 0.86. These results indicate that reliable estimation of breathing rate is possible based on PPG data acquired from a head-worn device.

Patients with solid malignancies are more vulnerable to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection than the healthy population. The outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infection in highly immunosuppressed populations, such as in patients with hematological malignancies, is a point of interest. We aimed to analyze the symptoms, complications, intensive care unit admissions, and mortality rates of patients with hematological malignancies infected with SARS-CoV-2 in Turkey.In this multicenter study, we included 340 adult and pediatric patients diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 from March to November 2020. Diagnosis and status of primary disease, treatment schedules for hematological malignancies, time from last treatment, life expectancy related to the hematological disease, and comorbidities were recorded, together with data regarding symptoms, treatment, and outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infection.Forty four patients were asymptomatic at diagnosis of SARS-CoV- 2 infection. Among symptomatic patients, fever, cough, and dyspnea were observed in 62.6%, 48.8%, and 41.8%, respectively. Sixty-nine (20%) patients had mild SARS-CoV-2 disease, whereas moderate, severe, and critical disease was reported in 101 (29%), 71 (20%), and 55 (16%) patients, respectively. Of the entire cohort, 251 (73.8%) patients were hospitalized for SARS-CoV-2. Mortality related to SARS-CoV-2 infection was 26.5% in the entire cohort; this comprised 4.4% of those patients with mild disease, 12.4% of those with moderate disease, and 83% of those with severe or critical disease. Active hematological disease, lower life expectancy related to primary hematological disease, neutropenia at diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2, ICU admission, and first-line therapy used for coronavirus disease-2019 treatment were found to be related to higher mortality rates. Treatments with hydroxychloroquine alone or in combination with azithromycin were associated with a higher rate of mortality in comparison to favipiravir use.Patients with hematological malignancy infected with SARS-CoV-2 have an increased risk of severe disease and mortality.Solid malignite hastalarının şiddetli akut solunum yolu enfeksiyonu-koronavirüs-2 (SARS-CoV-2) enfeksiyonuna sağlıklı bireylerden daha yatkın oldukları gösterilmiştir. Bu verilerin ardından oldukça yoğun immünosupresif olan hematolojik malignite hastalarında SARS-CoV-2 infeksiyonu sonuçları ilgi konusu olmuştur. Biz de bu makalede Türkiye’de hematolojik malignite tanısı ile takip ve tedavi edilirken SARS-CoV-2 enfeksiyonu saptanan hastaların semptom, komplikasyon, yoğun bakım ünitesine yatış ve mortalite oranlarını değerlendirmeyi amaçladık.Çok merkezli çalışmamıza Mart-Kasım 2020 tarihleri arasında SARS-CoV-2 enfeksiyonu tanısı alan erişkin ve pediatrik 340 hastayı dahil ettik. Hastaların hematolojik malignite tanıları, hastalık statusları, tedavileri, son tedaviden enfeksiyona kadar geçen süre, komorbiditeleri, yaşam beklentileri değerlendirildi. Semptomları, oluşan komplikasyonlar ve sonuçlar analiz edildi.Kırk-dört hasta semptomsuz olarak enfeksiyonu geçirirken, semptomatik hastaların ateş, öksürük, ve dispne oranları sırasıyla %62,6, %48,8 ve %41,8 idi. Altmış altı hasta (%20) hastalığı hafif geçirirken, orta, ciddi ve kritik hastalık tanısı alanların oranı sırasıyla %29, %20 ve %16 idi. Tüm kohortta ölüm oranı %26,6 idi; ölüm hafif hastalığı olanlarda %4,4 , orta derece hastalık geçirenlerde %12 ve ciddi/kritik hastalık geçirenlerde ise %83 olarak saptandı. Aktif hematolojik hastalık olması, primer hematolojik hastalığa bağlı düşük hayat beklentisi, SARS-CoV-2 tanısı aldığında nötropenik olmak, yoğun bakıma alınmış olmak ve ilk sıra koronavirüs hastalığı-2019 tedavisi yüksek ölüm riski ile ilişkilendirilen faktörlerdendi. Tek başına veya azitromisin ile kombine olarak hidroksiklorokin kullanan hastaların sadece favipiravir kullananlara göre ölüm riskleri daha yüksek saptandı.SARS-CoV-2 infeksiyonu geçiren hematolojik malignite hastalarında daha yüksek oranda ciddi hastalık ve ölüm riski gözlenmektedir.

This work proposes a computational algorithm which extracts the frequency, timings and signal segments corresponding to respiratory phases, through buccal and nasal acoustic signal processing. The proposal offers a computational solution for medical applications which require on-site or remote patient monitoring and evaluation of pulmonary pathologies, such as coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19). The state of the art presents a few respiratory evaluation proposals through buccal and nasal acoustic signals. Most proposals focus on respiratory signals acquired by a medical professional, using stethoscopes and electrodes located on the thorax. In this case the signal acquisition process is carried out through the use of a low cost and easy to use mask, which is equipped with strategically positioned and connected electret microphones, to maximize the proposed algorithm’s performance. The algorithm employs signal processing techniques such as signal envelope detection, decimation, fast Fourier transform (FFT) and detection of peaks and time intervals via estimation of local maxima and minima in a signal’s envelope. For the validation process a database of 32 signals of different respiratory modes and frequencies was used. Results show a maximum average error of 2.23% for breathing rate, 2.81% for expiration time and 3.47% for inspiration time.

Objectives. Inspiratory, hemodynamic and metabolic changes occur in laparoscopic surgery depending on pneumoperitoneum and patient position. This study aims to evaluate the effects of intra-abdominal pressure increase based on CO2 pneumoperitoneum in laparoscopic operations on hemodynamic parameters and respiratory dynamics and satisfaction of surgeon and operative view.Materials and Methods. A total of 116 consecutive, prospective, ASA class I–III cases aged 18–70 years undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy were enrolled in this study. Data of 104 patients were analysed. Patients were divided into two groups as the group Low Pressure (n=53) and the group Standard Pressure (>13 mmHg) (Group SP) (n=51). In this study administration of general anesthesia used total intravenous anaesthesia in both groups. All groups had standard and TOF monitorization applied. The anaesthesia methods used in both groups were recorded. Before, during and after peritoneal insufflation, the peroperative ventilation parameters and hemodynamic parameters were recorded. The adequacy of pneumoperitoneum, gastric and the operative view were evaluated by the operating surgeon and recorded.Results. The peripheral oxygen saturation showed no significant difference between the low and standard pressure pneumoperitoneum in view of tidal volume, respiratory rate, end tidal CO2, mean and peak inspiratory pressure, and minute ventilation values. In terms of hemodynamics, when values just after intubation and before extubation were compared, it was observed that in the LP group systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressure values were higher. In terms of heart rate, no significant difference was observed in determined periods between groups. There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of surgical satisfaction and vision.Conclusion. Low pressure pneumoperitoneum provides effective respiratory mechanics and stable hemodynamics for laparoscopic cholecystectomy. It also provides the surgeon with sufficient space for hand manipulations. Anaesthetic method, TIVA and neuromuscular blockage provided good surgery vision with low pressure pneumoperitoneum.

The present paper proposes the design of a sleep monitoring platform. It consists of an entire sleep monitoring system based on a smart glove sensor called UpNEA worn during the night for signals acquisition, a mobile application, and a remote server called AeneA for cloud computing. UpNEA acquires a 3-axis accelerometer signal, a photoplethysmography (PPG), and a peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2) signal from the index finger. Overnight recordings are sent from the hardware to a mobile application and then transferred to AeneA. After cloud computing, the results are shown in a web application, accessible for the user and the clinician. The AeneA sleep monitoring activity performs different tasks: sleep stages classification and oxygen desaturation assessment; heart rate and respiration rate estimation; tachycardia, bradycardia, atrial fibrillation, and premature ventricular contraction detection; and apnea and hypopnea identification and classification. The PPG breathing rate estimation algorithm showed an absolute median error of 0.5 breaths per minute for the 32 s window and 0.2 for the 64 s window. The apnea and hypopnea detection algorithm showed an accuracy (Acc) of 75.1%, by windowing the PPG in one-minute segments. The classification task revealed 92.6% Acc in separating central from obstructive apnea, 83.7% in separating central apnea from central hypopnea and 82.7% in separating obstructive apnea from obstructive hypopnea. The novelty of the integrated algorithms and the top-notch cloud computing products deployed, encourage the production of the proposed solution for home sleep monitoring.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a large amount of challenges to address. To combat the spread of the virus, several safety measures, such as wearing face masks, have been taken. Temperature controls at the entrance of public places to prevent the entry of virus carriers have been shown to be inefficient and inaccurate. This paper presents a smart mask that allows to monitor body temperature and breathing rate. Body temperature is measured by a non-invasive dual-heat-flux system, consisting of four sensors separated from each other with an insulating material. Breathing rate is obtained from the temperature changes within the mask, measured with a thermistor located near the nose. The system communicates by means of long-range (LoRa) backscattering, leading to a reduction in average power consumption. It is designed to establish the relative location of the smart mask from the signal received at two LoRa receivers installed inside and outside an access door. Low-cost LoRa transceivers with WiFi capabilities are used in the prototype to collect information and upload it to a server. Accuracy in body temperature measurements is consistent with measurements made with a thermistor located in the armpit. The system allows checking the correct placement of the mask based on the recorded temperatures and the breathing rate measurements. Besides, episodes of cough can be detected by sudden changes in thermistor temperature.

International audience; This paper proposes an integrated model of cardio-respiratory interactions in preterm newborns, focused on the study of the patent ductus arteriosus (PDA). A formal model parameter sensitivity analysis on blood flow through the PDA is performed. Results show that the proposed model is capable of simulating hemodynamics in right-to-left and left-to-right shunts. For both configurations, the most significant parameters are associated with mechanical ventricular properties and circulatory parameters related to left ventricle loading conditions. These results highlight important physiological mechanisms involved in PDA and provide key information towards the definition of patient-specific parameters. © 2021 IEEE.

Breathing pattern (BP) is related to key psychophysiological and performance variables during exercise. Modern wearable sensors and data analysis techniques facilitate BP analysis during running but are lacking crucial validation steps in their deployment. Thus, we sought to evaluate a wearable garment with respiratory inductance plethysmography (RIP) sensors in combination with a custom-built algorithm versus a reference spirometry system to determine its concurrent validity in detecting flow reversals (FR) and BP. Twelve runners completed an incremental running protocol to exhaustion with synchronized spirometry and RIP sensors. An algorithm was developed to filter, segment, and enrich the RIP data for FR and BP estimation. The algorithm successfully identified over 99% of FR with an average time lag of 0.018 s (-0.067,0.104) after the reference system. Breathing rate (BR) estimation had low mean absolute percent error (MAPE = 2.74 [0.00,5.99]), but other BP components had variable accuracy. The proposed system is valid and practically useful for applications of BP assessment in the field, especially when measuring abrupt changes in BR. More studies are needed to improve BP timing estimation and utilize abdominal RIP during running.

In species that are subject to brood parasitism, individuals often vary in their responses to parasitic eggs, with some rejecting the eggs while others do not. While some factors, such as host age (breeding experience), the degree of egg matching and the level of perceived risk of brood parasitism have been shown to influence host decisions, much of the variation remains unexplained. The host personality hypothesis suggests that personality traits of the host influence its response to parasitic eggs, but few studies have tested this. We investigated the relationship between two personality traits (exploration and neophobia) and a physiological trait (breathing rate) of the host, and egg-rejection behaviour in a population of Daurian redstarts Phoenicurus auroreus in northeast China. We first show that exploratory behaviour and the response to a novel object are repeatable for individual females and strongly covary, indicating distinct personality types. We then show that fast-exploring and less neophobic hosts were more likely to reject parasitic eggs than slow-exploring and more neophobic hosts. Variation in breathing rate—a measure of the stress-response—did not affect rejection behaviour. Our results demonstrate that host personality, along the bold-shy continuum, predicts the responses to parasitic eggs in Daurian redstarts, with bold hosts being more likely to reject parasitic eggs.

Long-term sedentary behavior severely increases the risk of developing diseases and syndromes. Cardiovascular and skeletal muscle issues, higher blood pressure and cholesterol levels are among this long list of consequences. Although a great effort was devoted to fight sedentary behaviors by means of public health strategies and the employment of wearable devices, an effective and flexible technology enabling reliable worker monitoring still does not exist. This contribution is aimed to provide an advanced solution based on microwave radars for monitoring the sitting time and recognizing a worker's proper physical activities. The adoption of the radar technology is required to provide the unobtrusive wellness sensing while enabling advanced activity and vital signs monitoring. The proposed radar sensor is able to monitor the worker's breathing activity during his worktime and track his position by preserving the individual privacy in a safe and cost-effective way. Moreover, by exploiting the human micro-Doppler signature, it recognizes different activities such as standing up, sitting down and physical exercise. The basic principles of the radar sensing and processing in health care are illustrated whereas the detection of different activities is experimentally demonstrated, highlighting the potential and the advanced features of the proposed solution.

The present paper proposes the design of a sleep monitoring platform. It consists of an entire sleep monitoring system based on a smart glove sensor called UpNEA worn during the night for signals acquisition, a mobile application, and a remote server called AeneA for cloud computing. UpNEA acquires a 3-axis accelerometer signal, a photoplethysmography (PPG), and a peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2) signal from the index finger. Overnight recordings are sent from the hardware to a mobile application and then transferred to AeneA. After cloud computing, the results are shown in a web application, accessible for the user and the clinician. The AeneA sleep monitoring activity performs different tasks: sleep stages classification and oxygen desaturation assessment; heart rate and respiration rate estimation; tachycardia, bradycardia, atrial fibrillation, and premature ventricular contraction detection; and apnea and hypopnea identification and classification. The PPG breathing rate estimation algorithm showed an absolute median error of 0.5 breaths per minute for the 32 s window and 0.2 for the 64 s window. The apnea and hypopnea detection algorithm showed an accuracy (Acc) of 75.1%, by windowing the PPG in one-minute segments. The classification task revealed 92.6% Acc in separating central from obstructive apnea, 83.7% in separating central apnea from central hypopnea and 82.7% in separating obstructive apnea from obstructive hypopnea. The novelty of the integrated algorithms and the top-notch cloud computing products deployed, encourage the production of the proposed solution for home sleep monitoring.

Breathing pattern (BP) is related to key psychophysiological and performance variables during exercise. Modern wearable sensors and data analysis techniques facilitate BP analysis during running but are lacking crucial validation steps in their deployment. Thus, we sought to evaluate a wearable garment with respiratory inductance plethysmography (RIP) sensors in combination with a custom-built algorithm versus a reference spirometry system to determine its concurrent validity in detecting flow reversals (FR) and BP. Twelve runners completed an incremental running protocol to exhaustion with synchronized spirometry and RIP sensors. An algorithm was developed to filter, segment, and enrich the RIP data for FR and BP estimation. The algorithm successfully identified over 99% of FR with an average time lag of 0.018 s (−0.067,0.104) after the reference system. Breathing rate (BR) estimation had low mean absolute percent error (MAPE = 2.74 [0.00,5.99]), but other BP components had variable accuracy. The proposed system is valid and practically useful for applications of BP assessment in the field, especially when measuring abrupt changes in BR. More studies are needed to improve BP timing estimation and utilize abdominal RIP during running.

Impedance pneumography (ImP) is widely used for respiratory rate (RR) monitoring. However, ImP-derived RRs can be imprecise. The aim of this study was to develop a signal quality index (SQI) for the ImP signal, and couple it with a RR algorithm, to improve RR monitoring. An SQI was designed which identifies candidate breaths and assesses signal quality using: the variation in detected breath durations, how well peaks and troughs are defined, and the similarity of breath morphologies. The SQI categorises 32 s signal segments as either high or low quality. Its performance was evaluated using two critical care datasets. RRs were estimated from high-quality segments using a RR algorithm, and compared with reference RRs derived from manual annotations. The SQI had a sensitivity of 77.7 %, and specificity of 82.3 %. RRs estimated from segments classified as high quality were accurate and precise, with mean absolute errors of 0.21 and 0.40 breaths per minute (bpm) on the two datasets. Clinical monitor RRs were significantly less precise. The SQI classified 34.9 % of real-world data as high quality. In conclusion, the proposed SQI accurately identifies high-quality segments, and RRs estimated from those segments are precise enough for clinical decision making. This SQI may improve RR monitoring in critical care. Further work should assess it with wearable sensor data.

The present study deals with experimental measurements of CO2 generation rates, due to the human occupation of a full-scale experimental mock-up simulating the astronaut crew quarters aboard the International Space Station. The estimation of CO2 generation rates follows different methods as described in the literature. A single test subject in four different testing cases is considered, one at rest representing the baseline case and the other three cases at varying levels of physical activity or at rest but with a fixed breathing frequency requested from the human subject. The study results indicate that imposing a fixed breathing rate even while at rest increases the generation rate unpredictably. Following literature metabolic rate estimations, the latter two cases are equivalent to the subject being engaged in light or medium physical activities. The results are used to form recommendations for studies measuring human CO2 generation rates.

Assessments of respiratory response and animal activity are useful endpoints in drug pharmacology and safety research. We investigated whether continuous, direct monitoring of breathing rate and body motion in animals in the home cage using the Vum Digital Smart House can complement standard measurements in enabling more granular detection of the onset and severity of physiologic events related to lung injury in a well-established rodent model of paraquat (PQ) toxicity. In rats administered PQ, breathing rate was significantly elevated while body motion was significantly reduced following dosing and extending throughout the 14-day study duration for breathing rate and at least 5 days for both nighttime and daytime body motion. Time course differences in these endpoints in response to the potential ameliorative test article bardoxolone were also readily detected. More complete than standard in-life measurements, breathing rate and body motion tracked injury progression continuously over the full study time period and aligned with, and informed on interval changes in clinical pathology. In addition, breathing rates correlated with terminal pathology measurements, such as normalized lung weights and histologic alveolar damage and edema. This study is a preliminary evaluation of the technology; our results demonstrate that continuously measured breathing rate and body motion served as physiologically relevant readouts to assess lung injury progression and drug response in a respiratory injury animal model.

We aimed to compare the change in exercise response to taekwondo-specific circuit workouts before and after competition rule amendments. A total of 240 workouts in 15 elite athletes were analyzed over two years. Physiological and kinematic data were gathered with the wireless Bioharness system along with capillary blood samples for lactate concentration. Progressive exercise tests until exhaustion were periodically performed to obtain reference data. The rule changes resulted in significant increases (mainly medium or large effects) in the physiological (2.9&ndash, 14.4%) and kinematic (4.8&ndash, 10.1%) response to taekwondo-specific workouts. The largest increases were for peak breathing rate (12.0%), energy expenditure (6.6%), blood lactate immediately after exercise (10.2%) and at the 30th min of recovery (14.4%), and peak kinematic activity (10.1%). Significant differences between taekwondo-specific workouts and tournament combats persisted after the shift from old to new rules, ranging from 2.4 to 38.5% for physiological and from 2.9 to 15.5% for kinematic variables. The largest workout&ndash, combat differences were revealed for post-exercise (15.9%) and recovery (38.5%) blood lactate, peak (&minus, 15.8%) and relative (&minus, 15.0%) breathing rate, and mechanical (13.5%) and physiological (14.2%) intensity. Our study suggests that the rule amendments significantly modify the exercise response to discipline-specific workouts and that taekwondo-specific training sessions do not fully recreate the tournament demands in terms of physiological and kinematic load.

This work explores the use of a commodity ultra-wideband (UWB) radar based device to detect breathing rate for health monitoring applications. Health monitoring devices observe physiological signals to detect medical conditions. We focus on capturing the small mechanical movements caused by breathing. This is traditionally done via a strain gauge worn around the chest or stomach, but these systems limit user movement. Contactless systems provide a unique design that allows free user movement by eliminating all direct contact with the user. Additionally, these systems have the potential to support full health monitoring in a Smart Built Environment (SBE). In this work, a comparative evaluation is performed on a commodity UWB radar based device, the Walabot, to determine the accuracy and possible health monitoring applications. Based on results from a systematic review, six research challenges were identified: (1) high cost, functional limitations based on the user's (2) location, (3) orientation, and (4) movement, (5) dependency on system hardware placement, and (6) vulnerabilities in signal processing methods. A comparative evaluation was designed to test the Walabot against a medical grade wearable system in the context of these research challenges. The data was processed using two breathing rate derivation techniques: Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) and Peak Detection. Results suggest great potential for the Walabot coupled with the FFT technique. However, the system requires further testing to address all of the research challenges. Overall, this work provides important steps toward using the Walabot in health monitoring applications. Master of Science The goal of research in the field of health monitoring is to gather medical information about a user by constantly collecting physiological signals emitted by their body. Four physiological signals are deemed the "vital signs" because they provide information about the overall health of the patient. These vital signs are heart rate, breathing rate, temperature and blood pressure. Breathing rate is an important vital sign that, when monitored closely, can indicate the oncoming of dangerous health conditions and events. The act of breathing causes the chest to expand and contract. This movement can be captured by placing a strain gauge around a user's chest and analyzing fluctuation in strain readings. However, this is not practical for health monitoring applications because this system is uncomfortable to wear and the accuracy of the system is heavily dependent on the user's ability to wear the chest band constantly and correctly. Capturing this signal without any direct user contact would eliminate the user's discomfort and provide better reliability. This can be done by several methods, but the focus of this work is on systems that capture chest movements using ultra-wideband (UWB) radar. In this work, a specific UWB radar based device, called the Walabot, is tested against a standard strain gauge system to determine if it has health monitoring applications. Other radar based devices that aim to detect breathing rate are limited by their high cost and inaccuracies in signal processing techniques. The functionality of the devices are also dependent on the user's location and body orientation relative to the system, any user movement and the placement of the system itself. The study in this work was designed to determine the Walabot accuracy when the data is processed by two common breathing rate derivation methods. Results showed that the Walabot is cost effective and flexible in terms of user location and system placement. Overall, this work demonstrates the potential of the Walabot as a breathing rate monitor.

International audience; Objective The objective of this paper is to obtain accurate estimation of breathing rate (BR), using only the electrocardiogram (ECG) or the photoplethysmogram (PPG) signals, to avoid wearing cumbersome and uncomfortable sensors for direct measurements. Methods Several respiration waveforms are derived from ECG or PPG signals based on amplitude, frequency, and baseline wander modulations. It is, however, difficult to determine their optimal combination for BR estimation due to the noise and patient specificity. We first propose to quantify the quality of modulation waveforms using respiratory quality indices (RQIs). We then present two methods the first automatically selects the modulation signal with highest RQI for BR estimation, and the second tracks the respiration signal using the Kalman smoother to fuse modulation signals with highest RQI. Results These two methods are evaluated on two independent datasets, one benchmark database (DB) with immobilized patients recordings and the second with those performing daily activities. Our results outperform existing methods in the literature in both the cases. Conclusion Experimental results show that the RQIs coupled with a fusion algorithm increases the accuracy for BR estimations in dealing with derived modulation signals. Significance This work describes a robust Kalman Smoother method applicable in multiple clinical contexts to improve breathing rate estimation from data fusion. © 1964-2012 IEEE.

Asthma is an inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs, which is characterized by airflow obstruction and bronchospasms. Glabridin is a major flavonoid, especially found in root of Glycyrrhiza glabra, and has several pharmacological activities, including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. The anti-asthmatic effect and possible mechanism of glabridin, however, have not been revealed so far. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects and possible mechanisms of glabridin against ovalbumin (OVA)-induced airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and inflammation in mice. In male BALB/c mice, asthma was induced by intraperitoneal (i.p) injection of OVA mixed with 2 mg aluminium hydroxide on days 0, 14 and boosted with OVA aerosol challenge on days 21, 22, and 23. Mice were either treated with dexamethasone (i.p, 1 mg/kg) or glabridin (10, 20, and 30 mg/kg) from days 18–23. Pulmonary function parameters such as peak inspiratory flow, peak expiratory flow, tidal volume, expiratory volume, the frequency of breathing, enhanced pause values were evaluated by using whole-body plethysmography. Measurements were performed at baseline and following methacholine (50 mg/mL) challenges. In addition, white blood cells (WBC) count, total protein, and IgE levels were measured in bronchial alveolar lavage fluid (BALF), lung, and serum, respectively. Glabridin (20 or 30 mg/kg) significantly attenuated (p < 0.05) OVA-induced alteration in respiratory parameters. Elevated counts of total WBC, differential WBC (neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, and eosinophils) in BALF and the total protein in lungs and BALF were significantly decreased (p < 0.05) by glabridin (20 or 30 mg/kg). It also significantly attenuated the increased serum IgE levels (p < 0.05). As glabridin reduces the level of serum IgE, the total protein and the count of WBC and improves respiratory function, it may be a novel therapeutic agent in asthma. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

Healthy Saanen goats (n=30) in periparturient period were used in the present study. Blood samples were collected 21, 14 and 7 days before parturition, at the time of birth and postpartum days 7, 14 and 21. Non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), betahydroxy butyric acid (BHBA), Total protein (TP), albumin (ALB), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine (CREA) aspartate amino transferase (AST), gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT), sorbitol dehydrogenase (SDH), glucose (GLU), cholesterol (CHOL), triglyceride (TG), calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), and magnesium (Mg) levels were evaluated. During the study period, NEFA, SDH, CREA levels increased and CHOL and TG levels decreased at time of parturition. When the changes of parameters in prepartum and postpartum period were compared, the concentrations of NEFA, CHOL, GLU, TG, Ca were higher (p, OUAP(V)-2015/28, This work was supported by ULUDAG UNIVERSITY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH PROJECTS UNIT (Grant no: OUAP(V)-2015/28).

BACKGROUND: Our aim in this study was to compare the blood gas changes, the malondialdehyde (MDA) and endogenous antiox-idant glutathione (GSH) levels in blood and lung tissues after ischemia/reperfusion, the histopathological damage in lung tissue in rats provided respiratory support with mechanical ventilation after translaryngeal intubation and tracheostomy. METHODS: Group 1 rats were provided mechanical ventilator support after translaryngeal intubation, Group 2 mechanical ventilator support after tracheostomy, and Group 3 was the control group where rats were only anesthetized. Three groups were compared for blood gas changes, MDA, GSH, and histopathological changes. RESULTS: Blood gas evaluation showed a more marked increase in pO2 values and decline in pCO2 values in Group 2 than Group 1 (p0.05). In terms of histopathological scoring, the damage score in Group 1 was higher than in Group 2 (p

Global Proprioceptive Resonance (GPR) is a recently developed approach conceived to solicit the various cutaneous mechanoreceptors, through application of mechanical multifocal vibration at low amplitude and at definite body sites, limiting the stimulation of the profound structures. This interventional study evaluated the effects of GPR on cardiorespiratory function during the post-exertional recovery period. A group of volunteers involved in Triathlon (a multisport discipline consisting of sequential swim, cycle, and run disciplines higly demanding in terms of metabolic engagment), underwent two maximal incremental exercise tests until exhaustion followed alternatively to (a) a 13 minutes section of GPR or (b) a standard low intensity exercise acute trend of the same duration. These effects of these two approaches were compared in terms of recovery of: heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2) and venous lactate concentration (Lac). The physiological parameters (HR, RR, SpO2 and Lac) recorded in the pre-exertion session showed similar values between the 40 volunteers while several differences were recorded in the post-exertion phase. After 6 min of GPR recovery it was recorded a drop in RR below baseline (19.4±4.15 min-1 vs. 12.2± 0.4 min-1; p

Purpose: To evaluate patients with resolved versus confirmed ARDS, identify subgroups with substantial mortality risk, and to determine the utility of day 2 ARDS reclassification. Methods: Our primary objective, in this secondary LUNG SAFE analysis, was to compare outcome in patients with resolved versus confirmed ARDS after 24 h. Secondary objectives included identifying factors associated with ARDS persistence and mortality, and the utility of day 2 ARDS reclassification. Results: Of 2377 patients fulfilling the ARDS definition on the first day of ARDS (day 1) and receiving invasive mechanical ventilation, 503 (24%) no longer fulfilled the ARDS definition the next day, 52% of whom initially had moderate or severe ARDS. Higher tidal volume on day 1 of ARDS was associated with confirmed ARDS [OR 1.07 (CI 1.01–1.13), P = 0.035]. Hospital mortality was 38% overall, ranging from 31% in resolved ARDS to 41% in confirmed ARDS, and 57% in confirmed severe ARDS at day 2. In both resolved and confirmed ARDS, age, non-respiratory SOFA score, lower PEEP and P/F ratio, higher peak pressure and respiratory rate were each associated with mortality. In confirmed ARDS, pH and the presence of immunosuppression or neoplasm were also associated with mortality. The increase in area under the receiver operating curve for ARDS reclassification on day 2 was marginal. Conclusions: ARDS, whether resolved or confirmed at day 2, has a high mortality rate. ARDS reclassification at day 2 has limited predictive value for mortality. The substantial mortality risk in severe confirmed ARDS suggests that complex interventions might best be tested in this population. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02010073. © 2018, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature and ESICM.

The aim of this paper is designing an algorithm dubbed "pattern" to detect electrocardiogram (ECG) components accurately by searching exactly in the right places of peaks and getting exhaustive information related to the heart. Then, using the obtained results to propose a method for constructing respiration signal properly, by calculating the mean of R peaks to determine inspiration and expiration phases and calculating the amount of change for other peaks to be added during inspiration phase and subtracted during the expiration phase. The proposed method improves envelope method which only depends on the size of R to construct respiration signals. The results show that the pattern algorithm is guaranteed method and useful for detecting ECG components and exploiting them for constructing respiration signal work better than envelope method.

Objective: The simple observation of breathing rate (BR) remains the first and often the most sensitive marker of acute respiratory dysfunction. In fact, there are evidences that drastic changes in BR are a predictive indicator of adverse events (i.e. cardiac arrest). The aim of this study is to develop a camera-based technology that may provide near-continuously estimation of BR considering the effect of respiration on videoPPG (vPPG). Approach: The technology has been tested in two different experimental settings, including controlled BR and more challenging scenarios with spontaneous breathing pattern. Video data were processed offline to derive the vPPG signal. The method derives respiration from beat-to-beat PPG rate and morphology changes in amplitude and width driven by the physiological relationships between vPPG and respiration. Moreover, respiratory-induced head movements were used as additional source of information for the vPPG system. A combination of these methods has been exploited to estimate the respiratory rate every 10 second. Main Results: According to the results, respiratory frequencies in the central range (0.2-0.4 Hz) may be estimated using vPPG system with low relative error, eR < 2 % and interquartile range of order IQR < 5 %. However, the vPPG system showed a drop in performance at respiratory range boundaries, around 0.1 Hz and 0.5 Hz. Significance: This camera-based technology can be used as ubiquitous BR monitoring system. However, vPPG-based systems should consider the effect of the BR in the estimation, mainly in applications where respiratory rate is out of the range 0.2-0.4 Hz.

Detection and ranging with electromagnetic waves (Radar) are used in a number of domains such as aeronautics, automobile or even medecin. In this thesis, we are interested particularly on Radar in the wellness domain for widely use: sleep pattern tracking sensors, smart glasses or white cane with obstacles detection for visually impaired people. The problem, which so far has not been discussed, is to add necessary functionalities as follow to the exciting solution to resolve theses applications: the thoracic and abdominal displacement tracking with a millimetric resolution; and the measurements of arrival direction of backscattered signals from obstacles in front of visually impaired individuals. The technological starting point is the one of Ultra Wideband (UWB) technology, which offers a resolution of approximate one centimeter in the distance measurement within the range of few meters and in the discrimination of backscattered signals from multiple obstacles. To meet these criterias, the research focuses on the backscattering propagation channel in particularly from the human body. It also analyses the techniques in signal processing, aiming to estimate the breathing rate in the backscattered signal of human body, and to estimate the arrival direction to an antenna array to nearly one degree. Finally, it investigates the systematic architecture, especially in the receiver associated with the antenna array, in order to withstand the angular measurement without notably increasing the receiver complexity and consumption., De nos jours, la détection et la mesure de la distance avec les ondes électromagnétiques (Radar) sont utilisées dans de nombreux domaines tels que l’aéronautique, l’automobile ou bien la médecine. Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons plus particulièrement au Radar dans le domaine du bien-être pour le grand public : capteur sans contact pour le suivi du sommeil, et lunettes ou canne pour malvoyants pour la détection des obstacles sur la route. Le problème posé dans cette thèse est d’ajouter les fonctionnalités nécessaires suivantes à la solution Radar existante afin de répondre à ces applications : la mesure du rythme respiratoire issu du déplacement de la cage thoracique et de l'abdomen de quelques millimètres pendant la respiration et la mesure de la direction d'arrivée de l'onde électromagnétique rétro-diffusée des obstacles devant le malvoyant. Le contexte technologique de départ est celui de la technologie ultra large bande qui offre une résolution de l’ordre du centimètre pour la mesure de distance à une portée de quelques mètres et la discrimination des signaux rétro-diffusés des multiples obstacles. Suivant les besoins, les travaux décrits ici se sont concentrés sur le canal de propagation en rétro-diffusion sur corps humain. Ils se sont aussi portés sur les techniques de traitement du signal pour pouvoir estimer le rythme respiratoire dans le signal rétro-diffusé du corps humain, et sur l'estimation de la direction d'arrivée de l'onde à un réseau d'antennes avec une résolution au degré près. Enfin, cette thèse aborde l’architecture du système, et notamment du récepteur associé au réseau d'antennes, afin de pouvoir réaliser la mesure angulaire sans augmenter la complexité, le coût et la consommation du récepteur.

This study is based on the relationship between meditation, the present moment, and psychophysiology. We employed the metronome task to operationalize the extension of the present moment. A pre-post longitudinal study was conducted. The performance in the metronome task was compared before and after the interventions (meditation, story). The aim was to assess whether physiological changes (heart, breathing) during meditation influence the temporal-integration (TI) of metronome beats. Mindfulness meditators either meditated (n = 41) or listened to a story (n = 43). The heart and breathing activity were recorded during the intervention and compared to a resting-state condition. By applying path analyses we found that meditation led to an increase of the duration of integration intervals at the slowest metronome frequency (inter-stimulus interval, ISI = 3 s). After meditation, the higher the heart-rate variability (i.e., the root mean square of successive differences, RMSSD), the longer the duration of integration intervals at the fastest frequency (ISI = 0.33 s). Moreover, the higher the breathing rate during meditation, the greater the integration of intervals at ISI = 1 s. These findings add evidence to meditation-induced changes on the TI of metronome beats and the concept of the embodiment of mental functioning.

Background: Early and effective treatment of patients with sepsis requires early recognition in emergency department and understanding the severity of the disease. Many studies have been conducted for this purpose, and many of scoring systems have been developed that provide early recognition of these patients and show their severity. Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of the scoring systems used to determine the mortality of patients with infections admitted in emergency department. Methods: In all, 400 patients who admitted to Uludağ University Hospital Emergency Department were prospectively included in this study. In addition to Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome score, Quick SOFA score, Mortality in Emergency Department Sepsis score, Modified Early Warning Score, and Charlson Comorbidity Index score in all patients, CURB-65 score was calculated in the patients diagnosed with pneumonia. It has been aimed to determine the power of these scores’ predictive mortality rates and their superiority to each other. Results: It was found that Mortality in Emergency Department Sepsis score and Quick SOFA score could be used with similar efficacy (respectively p = 0.761 and p = 0.073) in determining early mortality in emergency department (5th and 14th days) and that MEDS score was more effective (p Conclusion: Mortality in Emergency Department Sepsis score and Quick SOFA score could be used with similar efficacy in determining early mortality in emergency department. However, if you want to predict 28th-day mortality rate, it can be better to use Mortality in Emergency Department Sepsis score or CURB-65 (in patients diagnosed with pneumonia).

Research works on operator monitoring underline the benefit of taking into consideration several signal modalities to improve accuracy for an objective mental state diagnosis. Heart rate (HR) is one of the most utilized systemic measures to assess cognitive workload (CW), whereas, respiration parameters are hardly utilized. This study aims at verifying the contribution of analyzing respiratory signals to extract features to evaluate driver's activity and CW variations in driving. Eighteen subjects participated in the study. The participants carried out two different cognitive tasks requiring different CW demands, a single task as well as a competing cognitive task realized while driving in a simulator. Our results confirm that both HR and breathing rate (BR) increase in driving and are sensitive to CW. However, HR and BR are differently modulated by the CW variations in driving. Specifically, HR is affected by both driving activity and CW, whereas, BR is suitable to evidence a variation of CW only when driving is not required. On the other hand, spectral features characterizing respiratory signal could be also used similarly to HR variability indices to detect high CW episodes. These results hint the use of respiration as an alternative to HR to monitor the driver mental state in autonomic vehicles in order to predict the available cognitive resources if the user has to take over the vehicle.

Background: In veterinary surgical operations for cats and dogs, inhalation anaesthesia is known to be a good option for general anaesthesia in long operations or emergency cases. Studies have revealed that during inhalation anaesthesia, the heart and respiratory functions of the animals are more stable compared to injectable anaesthesia. However, there are few studies performed with the use of inhalation anaesthesia in ruminants. In this research, the goal is to evaluate the effects of isoflurane and sevoflurane after induction with propofol in calves based on clinical and physiological parameters and to find a more reliable strategy for general anaesthesia in ruminants. Materials, Methods & Results: The research was carried out on 30 calves, from new-born up to 3-month-old, undergoing surgery operation. Each group consisted of 15 animals that were divided as isoflurane and sevoflurane. For premedication, atropine was administered at a dose of 0.04 mg/kg via subcutaneous injection in calves. For induction, 15 min after atropine application, propofol was given at 5-6 mg/kg via intravenous infusion. Then, endotracheal intubation was performed and inhalation anaesthesia began at 5 min after induction. In the isoflurane group, the onset of anaesthesia concentration was set to 3-5% and the maintenance was set to a concentration of 1.5-3%. In the sevoflurane group, the onset of anaesthesia concentration was set to 5-7% and the maintenance was set to a concentration of 2.5-4%. To monitor the calves, the heart rate (HR), the pulse rate (PR), the systolic blood pressure (SBP), the diastolic blood pressure (DBP), the respiratory rate (RR), the rectal temperature (RT) and the electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements were recorded before anaesthesia, the premedication, the induction periods, at 5, 15, 30, 45, 60, and 75 min after the onset of inhalation anaesthesia during the operation period. Blood samples were taken before anaesthesia, premedication, induction periods, at 30 and 75 min during the operation and the red blood cell (RBC) count, white blood cell (WBC) count, the amount of haemoglobin (HGB), the haematocrit concentration (HCT), and the platelet (PLT) count were evaluated. Based on the findings, isoflurane and sevoflurane suppressed the cardiovascular system minimally. Both anaesthetic agents caused decreases that did not exceed the physiological limits compared to the measurements taken before the initiation of anaesthesia. Although no significant differences were detected between the groups (P > 0.05) at clinical parameters, the RT differences were regarded as statistically significant according to the measurements that were taken before anaesthesia at all measurement times (P < 0.05). In both groups, the changes that occurred in the P wave, the PR interval, and in the QRS, R and T waves remained within the reference values given in the literature. Both anaesthetic agents have similar effects on the ECG. The dramatic no changes throughout anaesthesia in terms of the amount of HGB and HCT, the RBC, the WBC, and the PLT were not statistically significant, which may be associated with good tissue perfusion. Discussion: Since no serious complications occurred with either anaesthetic option, we have concluded that isoflurane and sevoflurane have similar effects on the cardiopulmonary systems of calves. In addition, the effects of propofol, which is used for induction, have been evaluated and observed and this drug is an effective and reliable option to initiate inhalation anaesthesia. The research on the use of this anaesthetic in calves is limited and most of the existing studies investigated its combination with injectable anaesthetics. As a result, in this research, we concluded that isoflurane and sevoflurane induce similar physiological measurement results, blood parameters, and ECG results and that both anaesthetics cause minimal complications. © 2019 Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. All rights reserved., VF-57, Funding. This study (It is abstract of the unpublished PhD thesis) was supported by the Kafkas University Scientific Research Projects Committee (VF-57).

Road accidents and victims provoked by drowsiness are a worldwide relevant social and economic problem. In EU, 25% of road accidents are related with fatigue. The relation between drowsiness and accidents is supported by scientific evidences that relate microsleep and other fatigue episodes with the loss of control of the vehicle. Nowadays there exist different technological approaches for drowsiness mitigating while driving, which try to reduce these accidents by detecting driver's physical condition and acting on the driver response. The techniques for mitigating accidents are based on algorithms of detection of physiological parameters that ensure drivers confidence and an appropriate use of the technology. The most frequently used non-invasive system are the cameras, which have been explored and used, mainly detecting eye movement and eyelid closure (PERCLOS). These systems have limitations due to artifacts and noise related to environmental and emotional conditions, which might lead to false positives. With the purpose of solving these shortcomings, the goal of the research is to develop a system capable of detecting the level of drowsiness based on the involuntary movements of the driver provoked by the respiration captured by means of cameras. In the current research, robustness in front of different types of users and circumstances has been explored. A system of reduced size automotive cameras of high dynamics is proposed to be used as breathing rate sensor. Images captured by these sensors will be processed to obtain the driver's chest/abdomen movement. These data will be analyzed in real time by a validated algorithm that interprets the movement and obtains the level of fatigue and drowsiness of the driver. A twofold "gold standard" is used to compare the robustness of the developed system. An experimental design has been developed in order to take into consideration different anthropometric characteristics, clothing types, user and vehicle movement and light conditions. The result will provide the boundary conditions of any system based on on-board cameras. These data will be used for building the algorithms to detect and interpret breathing patterns. The results show the capabilities of this approach and also permit to define the needs and requirements of the resulting technological developments. Language: en

Purpose: Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a rescue therapy for patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The aim of this study was to evaluate associations between ventilatory settings during ECMO for refractory hypoxemia and outcome in ARDS patients. Methods: In this individual patient data meta-analysis of observational studies in adult ARDS patients receiving ECMO for refractory hypoxemia, a time-dependent frailty model was used to determine which ventilator settings in the first 3 days of ECMO had an independent association with in-hospital mortality. Results: Nine studies including 545 patients were included. Initiation of ECMO was accompanied by significant decreases in tidal volume size, positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP), plateau pressure, and driving pressure (plateau pressure − PEEP) levels, and respiratory rate and minute ventilation, and resulted in higher PaO2/FiO2, higher arterial pH and lower PaCO2 levels. Higher age, male gender and lower body mass index were independently associated with mortality. Driving pressure was the only ventilatory parameter during ECMO that showed an independent association with in-hospital mortality [adjusted HR, 1.06 (95 % CI, 1.03–1.10)]. Conclusion: In this series of ARDS patients receiving ECMO for refractory hypoxemia, driving pressure during ECMO was the only ventilator setting that showed an independent association with in-hospital mortality. © 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg and ESICM.

INTRODUCTION. Clinical, biochemical and haemodynamic variables are used to diagnose circulatory shock and guide treatment in the critically ill. Literature is inconsistent which clinical signs have the best prognostic value on top of well-validated prognostic scores such as the simplified acute physiology score (SAPS II). OBJECTIVES. The objective of the Simple Intensive Care Studies-I (SICS-I: NCT02912624) was to evaluate the association of clinical, biochemical and haemodynamic variables with 90-day mortality in a large, consecutive, cohort of critically ill patients [1]. METHODS. This prospective cohort study included all consecutive adults who were acutely admitted with an intensive care unit (ICU) stay expected to last beyond 24 hours. We conducted a protocolised clinical examination and critical care ultrasonography (CCUS) within 24 hours of ICU admission. Our primary outcome was 90-day mortality. Our secondary outcomes were 7-and 30-day mortality, and 90-day mortality by type of circulatory shock and clinical subgroups. We used multivariable Cox regression analyses to identify independent predictors of mortality. RESULTS. From 27 March 2015 until 22 July 2017, 1104 patients were included. A total of 298 patients (28%) died at 90-day follow-up. Patients who died were older, more often ventilated, unconscious and dependent on noradrenalin, had lower blood pressures and urine output, and more often had an impaired microcirculation (tables 1-3). Multivariable Cox regression adjusted for age and SAPS-II score showed that respiratory rate (HR 1.02; 95% CI 1.00-1.04), unrespon-siveness (HR 1.53; 95% CI 1.08-2.16) and serum lactate (HR 1.08; 95% CI 1.03-1.13) were independently associated with 90-day mortality. In patients with septic shock independent predictors were mottling rate (HR 1.27; 95% CI 1.02-1.58) and serum lactate (HR 1.11; 95% CI 1.02-1.22), whereas diuresis

INTRODUCTION. Clinical, biochemical and haemodynamic variables are used to diagnose circulatory shock and guide treatment in the critically ill. Literature is inconsistent which clinical signs have the best prognostic value on top of well-validated prognostic scores such as the simplified acute physiology score (SAPS II). OBJECTIVES. The objective of the Simple Intensive Care Studies-I (SICS-I: NCT02912624) was to evaluate the association of clinical, biochemical and haemodynamic variables with 90-day mortality in a large, consecutive, cohort of critically ill patients [1]. METHODS. This prospective cohort study included all consecutive adults who were acutely admitted with an intensive care unit (ICU) stay expected to last beyond 24 hours. We conducted a protocolised clinical examination and critical care ultrasonography (CCUS) within 24 hours of ICU admission. Our primary outcome was 90-day mortality. Our secondary outcomes were 7-and 30-day mortality, and 90-day mortality by type of circulatory shock and clinical subgroups. We used multivariable Cox regression analyses to identify independent predictors of mortality. RESULTS. From 27 March 2015 until 22 July 2017, 1104 patients were included. A total of 298 patients (28%) died at 90-day follow-up. Patients who died were older, more often ventilated, unconscious and dependent on noradrenalin, had lower blood pressures and urine output, and more often had an impaired microcirculation (tables 1-3). Multivariable Cox regression adjusted for age and SAPS-II score showed that respiratory rate (HR 1.02; 95% CI 1.00-1.04), unrespon-siveness (HR 1.53; 95% CI 1.08-2.16) and serum lactate (HR 1.08; 95% CI 1.03-1.13) were independently associated with 90-day mortality. In patients with septic shock independent predictors were mottling rate (HR 1.27; 95% CI 1.02-1.58) and serum lactate (HR 1.11; 95% CI 1.02-1.22), whereas diuresis

INTRODUCTION. Clinical, biochemical and haemodynamic variables are used to diagnose circulatory shock and guide treatment in the critically ill. Literature is inconsistent which clinical signs have the best prognostic value on top of well-validated prognostic scores such as the simplified acute physiology score (SAPS II). OBJECTIVES. The objective of the Simple Intensive Care Studies-I (SICS-I: NCT02912624) was to evaluate the association of clinical, biochemical and haemodynamic variables with 90-day mortality in a large, consecutive, cohort of critically ill patients [1]. METHODS. This prospective cohort study included all consecutive adults who were acutely admitted with an intensive care unit (ICU) stay expected to last beyond 24 hours. We conducted a protocolised clinical examination and critical care ultrasonography (CCUS) within 24 hours of ICU admission. Our primary outcome was 90-day mortality. Our secondary outcomes were 7-and 30-day mortality, and 90-day mortality by type of circulatory shock and clinical subgroups. We used multivariable Cox regression analyses to identify independent predictors of mortality. RESULTS. From 27 March 2015 until 22 July 2017, 1104 patients were included. A total of 298 patients (28%) died at 90-day follow-up. Patients who died were older, more often ventilated, unconscious and dependent on noradrenalin, had lower blood pressures and urine output, and more often had an impaired microcirculation (tables 1-3). Multivariable Cox regression adjusted for age and SAPS-II score showed that respiratory rate (HR 1.02; 95% CI 1.00-1.04), unrespon-siveness (HR 1.53; 95% CI 1.08-2.16) and serum lactate (HR 1.08; 95% CI 1.03-1.13) were independently associated with 90-day mortality. In patients with septic shock independent predictors were mottling rate (HR 1.27; 95% CI 1.02-1.58) and serum lactate (HR 1.11; 95% CI 1.02-1.22), whereas diuresis

2nd International Neuroergonomics Conference, PHILADELPHIE, ETATS-UNIS, 27-/06/2018 - 29/06/2018; Research works on operator monitoring underline the benefit of taking into consideration several signal modalities to improve accuracy for an objective mental state diagnosis. Heart rate (HR) is one of the most utilized systemic measures to assess cognitive workload (CW), whereas respiration parameters are hardly utilized. This study aims at verifying the contribution of analyzing respiratory signals to extract features to evaluate driver's activity and CW variations in driving with regard to cardiac activity. Eighteen subjects participated in the study. The participants carried out two different cognitive tasks requiring different CW demands, a single task as well as a competing cognitive task realized while driving in a simulator. Our results confirm that both HR and breathing rate (BR) increase in driving and are sensitive to CW. However, HR and BR are differently modulated by the CW variations in driving. Specifically, BR is suitable to evidence a variation of CW when driving is not required. On the other hand, spectral features characterizing respiratory signal could be also used similarly to HR variability indices to detect high CW episodes. These results hint the use of respiration to monitor the driver mental state in autonomic vehicles in order to predict the available cognitive resources if the user has to take over the vehicle.

This paper addresses the application of physiological status monitoring (PSM) for assessing the impact of harsh weather conditions on sports activities in universities in Saudi Arabia. Real sports measurement was conducted during sports activities such that the physiological status (HR and BR) of five students were continuously monitored by using Zephyr BioHarnessTM 3.0 sensors in order to identify the physiological bonds and zones. These bonds and zones were employed as indicators of the associated physiological risks of the performed sports activities. Furthermore, a short yes/no questionnaire was applied to collect information on participants’ health conditions and opinions of the applied PSM sensors. The results show the absence of a warning system as a protective aid for the hazardous levels of extremely hot and humid weather conditions that may cause dangerous and fatal circumstances. The applied formulas for estimating maximum HR provides accurate estimations for Maximum Heart Rate (HRmax). The physiological results reveal that the performed activities by the participants are considered the highest category (90–100%) in terms of activity intensity. This category is associated with higher HR, BR and physiological risks including losing the ability to control human body behaviors. Therefore, there is a need for immediate intervention actions to reduce the intensity of the performed activities to safer zones. The outcomes of this study assist the safety improvement of sports activities inside universities and athletes performing their sports activities. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to represent a special case of the application of PSM technology for assessing sports activities in universities considering the impacts of harsh weather conditions on students’ health and safety., {"references":["Atrash, A., Mower, E., Shams, K., & Mataric, M. J. 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Background: Paediatric Early Warning Scores (PEWS) are increasingly being used for early identification and management of clinical deterioration in paediatric patients. A PEWS system includes scores, cut-off points and appropriate early intervention. In 2011, The Dutch Ministry of Health advised hospitals to implement a PEWS system in order to improve patient safety in paediatric wards. The objective of this study was to examine the results of implementation of PEWS systems and to gain insight into the attitudes of professionals towards using a PEWS system in Dutch non-university hospitals. Methods: Quantitative data were gathered at start, midway and at the end of the implementation period through retrospective patient record review (n= 554). Semi-structured interviews with professionals (n= 8) were used to gain insight in the implementation process and experiences. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using an inductive approach. Results: Looking at PEWS systems of the five participating hospitals, different parameters and policies were found. While all hospitals included heart rate and respiratory rate, other variables differed among hospitals. At baseline, none of the hospitals used a PEWS system. After 1 year, PEWS were recorded in 69.2% of the patient records and elevated PEWS resulted in appropriate action in 49.1%. Three themes emerged from the interviews: 1) while the importance of using a PEWS system was acknowledged, professionals voiced some doubts about the effectiveness and validity of their PEWS system 2) registering PEWS required little extra effort and was facilitated by PEWS being integrated into the electronic patient record 3) Without a national PEWS system or guidelines, hospitals found it difficult to identify a suitable PEWS system for their setting. Existing systems were not always considered applic able in a non-university setting. Conclusions: After 1 year, hospitals showed improvements in the use of their PEWS system, although some were decidedly more successful than others. Doubts among staff about validity, effectiveness and communication with other hospitals during transfer to higher level care hospital might hinder sustainable implementation. For these purposes the development of a national PEWS system is recommended, consisting of a “core set” of PEWS, cut-off points and associated early intervention.

Background: Paediatric Early Warning Scores (PEWS) are increasingly being used for early identification and management of clinical deterioration in paediatric patients. A PEWS system includes scores, cut-off points and appropriate early intervention. In 2011, The Dutch Ministry of Health advised hospitals to implement a PEWS system in order to improve patient safety in paediatric wards. The objective of this study was to examine the results of implementation of PEWS systems and to gain insight into the attitudes of professionals towards using a PEWS system in Dutch non-university hospitals. Methods: Quantitative data were gathered at start, midway and at the end of the implementation period through retrospective patient record review (n= 554). Semi-structured interviews with professionals (n= 8) were used to gain insight in the implementation process and experiences. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using an inductive approach. Results: Looking at PEWS systems of the five participating hospitals, different parameters and policies were found. While all hospitals included heart rate and respiratory rate, other variables differed among hospitals. At baseline, none of the hospitals used a PEWS system. After 1 year, PEWS were recorded in 69.2% of the patient records and elevated PEWS resulted in appropriate action in 49.1%. Three themes emerged from the interviews: 1) while the importance of using a PEWS system was acknowledged, professionals voiced some doubts about the effectiveness and validity of their PEWS system 2) registering PEWS required little extra effort and was facilitated by PEWS being integrated into the electronic patient record 3) Without a national PEWS system or guidelines, hospitals found it difficult to identify a suitable PEWS system for their setting. Existing systems were not always considered applic able in a non-university setting. Conclusions: After 1 year, hospitals showed improvements in the use of their PEWS system, although some were decidedly more successful than others. Doubts among staff about validity, effectiveness and communication with other hospitals during transfer to higher level care hospital might hinder sustainable implementation. For these purposes the development of a national PEWS system is recommended, consisting of a “core set” of PEWS, cut-off points and associated early intervention.