Intermittent Measurements Research Articles

Investigation of Water-Soluble Binders for LiNi0.5 Mn1.5 O4 -Based Full Cells.

Two water‐soluble binders of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and sodium alginate (SA) have been studied in comparison with N‐methylpyrrolidone‐soluble poly(vinylidene difluoride–co‐hexafluoropropylene) (PVdF‐HFP) to understand their effect on the electrochemical performance of a high‐voltage lithium nickel manganese oxide (LNMO) cathode. The electrochemical performance has been investigated in full cells using a Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) anode. At room temperature, LNMO cathodes prepared with aqueous binders provided a similar electrochemical performance as those prepared with PVdF‐HFP. However, at 55 °C, the full cells containing LNMO with the aqueous binders showed higher cycling stability. The results are supported by intermittent current interruption resistance measurements, wherein the electrodes with SA showed lower resistance. The surface layer formed on the electrodes after cycling has been characterized by X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The amount of transition metal dissolutions was comparable for all three cells. However, the amount of hydrogen fluoride (HF) content in the electrolyte cycled at 55 °C is lower in the cell with the SA binder. These results suggest that use of water‐soluble binders could provide a practical and more sustainable alternative to PVdF‐based binders for the fabrication of LNMO electrodes.

Noninvasive Blood Pressure Measurement Using the NICCI Monitor in Adolescents During Intraoperative Anesthetic Care.

BackgroundThe intermittent measurement of blood pressure (BP) remains the standard of care during anesthesia or procedural sedation. To improve the early identification of hemodynamic compromise, various noninvasive BP devices have been developed which provide a continuous BP reading. The current study evaluates the accuracy of a novel continuous BP device, the NICCI system, in adolescents weighing 40 - 80 kg.MethodsDuring intraoperative anesthetic care, BP readings (systolic, diastolic, and mean) were captured from the arterial cannula and the NICCI device every second.ResultsThe study cohort included 44 pediatric patients undergoing major orthopedic, cardiac, and neurosurgical procedures. A total of 383,126 pairs of systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and mean arterial pressure (MAP) values from the arterial cannula and the NICCI device were analyzed. The absolute difference for SBP, DBP, and MAP values from the NICCI monitor and the arterial cannula were 10 ± 8, 9 ± 7, and 9 ± 7 mm Hg, respectively. The difference between the BP values from the NICCI and the arterial cannula was ≤ 10 mm Hg for 60% of the SBP readings, 67% of the DBP readings, and 56% of the MAP readings. Using Bland-Altman analysis, the bias was 2, 3, and 4 mm Hg for the SBP, DBP, and MAP.ConclusionsAlthough there were technical limitations related to patient size that affected its ability to meet the strict accuracy criteria set by the American National Standards Institute/Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation standards for noninvasive BP measurement (ANSI/AAMI SP10), the NICCI system provided a continuous noninvasive beat-to-beat BP measurement which was clinically relevant during a significant portion of intraoperative care.

Wireless implantable optical probe for continuous monitoring of oxygen saturation in flaps and organ grafts

Continuous, real-time monitoring of perfusion after microsurgical free tissue transfer or solid organ allotransplantation procedures can facilitate early diagnosis of and intervention for anastomotic thrombosis. Current technologies including Doppler systems, cutaneous O2-sensing probes, and fluorine magnetic resonance imaging methods are limited by their intermittent measurements, requirements for skilled personnel, indirect interfaces, and/or their tethered connections. This paper reports a wireless, miniaturized, minimally invasive near-infrared spectroscopic system designed for uninterrupted monitoring of local-tissue oxygenation. A bioresorbable barbed structure anchors the probe stably at implantation sites for a time period matched to the clinical need, with the ability for facile removal afterward. The probe connects to a skin-interfaced electronic module for wireless access to essential physiological parameters, including local tissue oxygenation, pulse oxygenation, and heart rate. In vitro tests and in vivo studies in porcine flap and kidney models demonstrate the ability of the system to continuously measure oxygenation with high accuracy and sensitivity.

Detection of Hemodynamic Status Using an Analytic Based on an Electrocardiogram Lead Waveform.

OBJECTIVES:Delayed identification of hemodynamic deterioration remains a persistent issue for in-hospital patient care. Clinicians continue to rely on vital signs associated with tachycardia and hypotension to identify hemodynamically unstable patients. A novel, noninvasive technology, the Analytic for Hemodynamic Instability (AHI), uses only the continuous electrocardiogram (ECG) signal from a typical hospital multiparameter telemetry monitor to monitor hemodynamics. The intent of this study was to determine if AHI is able to predict hemodynamic instability without the need for continuous direct measurement of blood pressure.DESIGN:Retrospective cohort study.SETTING:Single quaternary care academic health system in Michigan.PATIENTS:Hospitalized adult patients between November 2019 and February 2020 undergoing continuous ECG and intra-arterial blood pressure monitoring in an intensive care setting.INTERVENTIONS:None.MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS:One million two hundred fifty-two thousand seven hundred forty-two 5-minute windows of the analytic output were analyzed from 597 consecutive adult patients. AHI outputs were compared with vital sign indications of hemodynamic instability (heart rate > 100 beats/min, systolic blood pressure < 90 mm Hg, and shock index of > 1) in the same window. The observed sensitivity and specificity of AHI were 96.9% and 79.0%, respectively, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.90 for heart rate and systolic blood pressure. For the shock index analysis, AHI’s sensitivity was 72.0% and specificity was 80.3% with an AUC of 0.81.CONCLUSIONS:The AHI-derived hemodynamic status appropriately detected the various gold standard indications of hemodynamic instability (hypotension, tachycardia and hypotension, and shock index > 1). AHI may provide continuous dynamic hemodynamic monitoring capabilities in patients who traditionally have intermittent static vital sign measurements.

Individualizing deep dynamic models for psychological resilience data

Deep learning approaches can uncover complex patterns in data. In particular, variational autoencoders achieve this by a non-linear mapping of data into a low-dimensional latent space. Motivated by an application to psychological resilience in the Mainz Resilience Project, which features intermittent longitudinal measurements of stressors and mental health, we propose an approach for individualized, dynamic modeling in this latent space. Specifically, we utilize ordinary differential equations (ODEs) and develop a novel technique for obtaining person-specific ODE parameters even in settings with a rather small number of individuals and observations, incomplete data, and a differing number of observations per individual. This technique allows us to subsequently investigate individual reactions to stimuli, such as the mental health impact of stressors. A potentially large number of baseline characteristics can then be linked to this individual response by regularized regression, e.g., for identifying resilience factors. Thus, our new method provides a way of connecting different kinds of complex longitudinal and baseline measures via individualized, dynamic models. The promising results obtained in the exemplary resilience application indicate that our proposal for dynamic deep learning might also be more generally useful for other application domains.

Divergent roles of angiotensin II upon the immediate and sustained increases of renal blood flow following unilateral nephrectomy.

Although the molecular and functional responses related to renal compensatory hypertrophy after unilateral nephrectomy (UNX) has been well described, many aspects of these events remain unclear. One question is how the remaining kidney senses the absence of the contralateral organ, and another is what the role of the renin-angiotensin system is in these responses. Both acute anesthetized and chronic unanesthetized experiments were performed using the angiotensin II type 1 receptor blocker losartan and the renin inhibitor aliskiren to determine the contribution of the renin-angiotensin system to immediate changes and losartan for chronic changes of renal blood flow (RBF) and the associated hypertrophic events in male Sprague-Dawley rats. Chronic experiments used implanted RBF probes and arterial catheters for continuous data collection, and the glomerular filtration rate was determined by noninvasive transcutaneous FITC-sinistrin measurements. The results of the acute experiments found that RBF increased nearly 25% (4.6 ± 0.5 to 5.6 ± 0.6 mL/min/g kidney wt) during the first 15 min following UNX and that this response was abolished by losartan (6.7 ± 0.7 to 7.0 ± 0.7 mL/min/g kidney wt) or aliskiren (5.8 ± 0.4 to 6.0 ± 0.4 mL/min/g kidney wt) treatment. Thereafter, RBF increased progressively over 7 days, and kidney weight increased by 19% of pre-UNX values. When normalized to kidney weight determined at day 7 after UNX, RBF was not significantly different from pre-UNX levels. Semiquantification of CD31-positive capillaries revealed increases of the glomeruli and peritubular capillaries that paralleled the kidney hypertrophy. None of these chronic changes was inhibited by losartan treatment, indicating that neither the compensatory structural nor the RBF changes were angiotensin II type 1 receptor dependent.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study found that the immediate increases of renal blood flow (RBF) following unilateral nephrectomy (UNX) are a consequence of reduced angiotensin II type 1 (AT1) receptor stimulation. The continuous monitoring of RBF and intermittent measurement of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in conscious rats during the 1-wk period of rapid hypertrophy following UNX provided unique insights into the regulation of RBF and GFR when faced with increased metabolic loads. It was found that neither kidney hypertrophy nor the associated increase of capillaries was an AT1-dependent phenomenon.

On the Lie symmetries of characteristic function hierarchy in compressible turbulence

We compute the Lie symmetries of characteristic function (CF) hierarchy of compressible turbulence, ignoring the effects of viscosity and heat conductivity. In the probability density function (PDF) hierarchy, a typical non-local nature is observed, which is naturally eliminated in the CF hierarchy. We observe that the CF hierarchy retains all the symmetries satisfied by compressible Euler equations. Broadly speaking, four types of symmetries can be discerned in the CF hierarchy: (i) symmetries corresponding to coordinate system invariance, (ii) scaling/dilation groups, (iii) projective groups and (iv) statistical symmetries, where the latter define measures of intermittency and non-gaussianity. As the multi-point CFs need to satisfy additional constraints such as the reduction condition, the projective symmetries are only valid for monatomic gases, that is, the specific heat ratio, $\gamma = 5/3$ . The linearity of the CF hierarchy results in the statistical symmetries due to the superposition principle. For all of the symmetries, the global transformations of the CF and various key compressible statistics are also presented.

Pulse transit time-estimated blood pressure: a comparison of beat-to-beat and intermittent measurement

Pulse transit time (PTT), which refers to the travel time between two arterial sites within the same cardiac cycle, has been developed as a novel cuffless form of continuous blood pressure (BP) monitoring. The aim of this study was to investigate differences in BP parameters, including BP variability, between those assessed by beat-to-beat PTT-estimated BP (eBPBTB) and those assessed by intermittent PTT-estimated BP at fixed time intervals (eBPINT) in patients suspected of having sleep disordered breathing (SDB). In 330 patients with SDB (average age, 66.8 ± 11.9 years; 3% oxygen desaturation index [ODI], 21.0 ± 15.0/h) from 8 institutes, PTT-estimated BP was continuously recorded during the nighttime. The average systolic eBPBTB, maximum systolic and diastolic eBPBTB, standard deviation (SD) of systolic and diastolic eBPBTB, and coefficient variation (CV) of systolic and diastolic eBPBTB were higher than the respective values of eBPINT (all P < 0.05). Bland–Altman analysis showed a close agreement between eBPBTB and eBPINT in average systolic BP and SD and CV of systolic BP, while there were disagreements in both minimum and maximum values of eBPBTB and eBPINT in patients with high systolic BP (P < 0.05). Although systolic BP variability incrementally increased according to the tertiles of 3%ODI in both eBPBTB and eBPINT (all P < 0.05), there was no difference in this tendency between eBPBTB and eBPINT. In patients with suspected SDB, the difference between eBPBTB and eBPINT was minimal, and there were disagreements regarding both the minimum and maximum BP. However, there were agreements in regard to the index of BP variability between eBPBTB and eBPINT.

Modified three stage Kalman filtering for stochastic non‐linear systems with randomly occurring faults and intermittent measurements

A robust three stage Kalman filtering problem is investigated in this article for non-linear systems with stochastic non-linearities, random faults and intermittent missing measurements. Therefore, a more general system model is governed in which unknown stochastic non-linearities are considered in both the system state and measurement equations. The fault terms are included by stochastic coefficients. Also, the sensor measurements occur in a random behaviour that encounters stochastic missing of data for each sensor. Both faults and unknown inputs are covered in the proposed filter. Moreover, the robust features of the developed estimator resolve the problems arising from the need for accurate models of faults and unknown inputs. Furthermore, any predetermined knowledge about the statistical characteristics of the above factors is not required. The augmented filters are mostly used to provide the fault diagnosis features, however, in the current work, this filter is decoupled to reduce the computational volume attributed to this approach. It is proved that the estimation error is ultimately bounded despite different stochastic terms and inaccurate information about the fault and unknown inputs. Finally, an illustrative example is proposed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed method.

Orbit Estimation for Spacecraft Based on Intermittent Measurements: An Event-Triggered UKF Approach

This article addresses a problem of spacecraft orbit estimation with measurement transmission restrictions through an event-triggered state estimation approach. Specifically, we consider the scenario that the ground station communicates with the spacecraft through multiple channels and each channel decides whether or not to transmit the measurements to the spacecraft based on separate deterministic event-triggering conditions. Considering $J_2$ perturbations, an event-triggered unscented Kalman filter-based state estimation algorithm is designed on the basis of a model of orbit dynamics and a measurement model of the ground station. The performance of the estimator is evaluated based on real-time two-line element data. The obtained results indicate that the proposed algorithm can achieve satisfactory estimation performance at reduced measurement transmission rates.

Monocular Visual-Inertial-Wheel Odometry Using Low-Grade IMU in Urban Areas

In this article, we propose a new methodology to fuse visual-inertial measurements for land vehicles in a challenging urban environment in which a GNSS signal is not available nor reliable. Motivated by a degenerate case caused by a large bias of a MEMS IMU, we redesign a system model of visual-inertial odometry in a framework of extended Kalman filter. In particular, the system model is propagated through a reduced inertial sensor system composed of a 3-axis gyroscope, a 2-axis accelerometer, and a single-axis odometer. An analytical observability derivation reveals unobservable bases of our estimator, and these directions are resolved by using intermittent position measurements from a GNSS receiver. Furthermore, we inspect the uncertainties of the state vector in a Monte-Carlo simulation that agrees with our theoretical results. The proposed method is validated through the KITTI benchmark dataset and an extensive field testing showing a position drift as 1.25% in tunnels on average and a mean position error of 2.81m in the street canyon over a 6.7km driving.

State Estimation of Pest Populations subject to Intermittent Measurements

This paper introduces an observer-based scheme to estimate pest populations in agricultural fields. The proposed scheme describes the different stages of the life cycle of insects as a system of ODEs and it uses an Extended Kalman Filter with intermittent observations to provide a state estimation. This scheme aims at providing a general framework to formally combine physiologically-based models and field measurements, contrary to current best practices where both methodologies are used independently in parallel. The presented approach allows to apply this framework to a large number of species of agricultural interest and to take advantage from different counting systems. The improvement of the presented approach with respect to current best practices is demonstrated by means of numerical simulations based on the case of Drosophila suzukii.

Formation Control on a Closed Curve Under an Intermittent Measurement Flow

In this letter we propose a distributed estimation and control strategy to balance a multi-agent system along a closed-curve. Each agent in the formation has a limited sensing range, such that a noisy measurement of the Euclidean distance from its neighbors is collected only when they are sufficiently close. We frame this problem in the challenging setting in which, when the formation is balanced, no measurement can be further obtained. An additional hurdle for control is that, even when the Euclidean distance between a pair of agent is measured, this blackwould be compatible with a finite interval of distances along the curve. To cope with these challenges, we make a synergistic design of blacka decentralized non-cooperative estimation and control law, and prove that a balanced formation is achieved. We complement the analysis with numerical simulations demonstrating the performance of the proposed scheme.

Globally Convergent Observer for the Rigid Body System on SE(3) in Presence of Intermittent Measurements

We propose a globally asymptotically convergent hybrid observer for the rigid body rotation and translation system evolving on the special Euclidean group SE(3) in the presence of intermittent measurements of the pose and continuous measurements of the velocities. We embed the system into an ambient Euclidean space and design an observer on the Euclidean space for global convergence.We perform numerical simulation of the proposed observer to show convergence.We also perform simulation using data collected from an Intel Realsense T265 camera.

Treatment of Hypertension in a Child With 11Beta-Hydroxylase Deficiency: A Case Report

Background: 11beta-hydroxylase deficiency (11βOHD) is clinically presented with external genitalia virilization in girls and precocious puberty in boys. Low renin hypertension occurs in both sexes. Early diagnosis and treatment of hypertension can prevent complications. Objectives: To provide a practical management for controlling hypertension in patients with 11-beta-hydroxylase deficiency. Methods: We described a 4.5 years old girl of 46.XX, who presented with ambiguous genitalia at birth and hypertension later in follow-up. The patient had received the appropriate dosage of hydrocortisone and the level of 17-hydroxy progesterone was within the acceptable range but the hypokalemia persisted. Both hypertension and hypokalemia were normalized when spironolactone was added. Results: Blocking mineralocorticoid receptor treat hypertension in 11-beta-hydroxylase deficiency. Conclusions: Intermittent measurement of blood pressure is necessary for patients with 11βOHD. In these patients, spironolactone is effective in treating mineralocorticoid-mediated hypertension and hypokalemia by blocking mineralocorticoid receptors.

Rational Design of Unique MoSe2-Carbon Nanobowl Particles Endows Superior Alkali Metal-Ion Storage Beyond Lithium.

Attracted by the rich earth abundance and low-cost advantages, alkali metal-ion (Na/K)-based energy storage devices have attracted wide interest as promising candidates for energy economizing in recent years. Unfortunately, the lack of suitable host materials with high capacity and long life span for alkali metal-ion storage has severely impeded their practical application in large-scale energy storage devices. Herein, we present a promising anode candidate composed of ultrasmall MoSe2 clusters embedded in a nitrogen-doped hollow carbon nanobowl substrate to form unique MoSe2-Carbon nanobowl particles (denoted as MoSe2⊂CNB). MoSe2⊂CNB demonstrates exceptional electrochemical properties for alkali metal-ion storage including sodium and potassium. In situ Raman spectroscopy and galvanostatic intermittent titration measurements reveal the possible reason for the high performance of MoSe2⊂CNB. Notably, the assembled potassium-ion hybrid capacitors could manifest an extraordinary energy density of 130.7 W h kg-1 at 0.2 A g-1, a high power density of 13,607 W kg-1, and an enviable cycle life after 6000 cycles, further reflecting the great developmental potential for energy storage devices in practical applications. This work provides a new method to design functional nanostructures for electrode materials to drive the development and application of possible energy storage devices.

Investigation of internal intermittency by way of higher-order spectral moments

The analysis of turbulence by way of higher-order spectral moments is uncommon, despite the relatively frequent use of such statistical analyses in other fields of physics and engineering. In this work, higher-order spectral moments are used to investigate the internal intermittency of the turbulent velocity and passive-scalar (temperature) fields. This study first introduces the theory behind higher-order spectral moments as they pertain to the field of turbulence. Then, a short-time Fourier-transform-based method is developed to estimate these higher-order spectral moments and provide a relative, scale-by-scale measure of intermittency. Experimental data are subsequently analysed and consist of measurements of homogeneous, isotropic, high-Reynolds-number, passive and active grid turbulence over the Reynolds-number range $35\leq R_{\lambda } \leq ~731$ . Emphasis is placed on third- and fourth-order spectral moments using the definitions formalised by Antoni (Mech. Syst. Signal Pr., vol. 20 (2), 2006, pp. 282–307), as such statistics are sensitive to transients and provide insight into deviations from Gaussian behaviour in grid turbulence. The higher-order spectral moments are also used to investigate the Reynolds (Péclet) number dependence of the internal intermittency of velocity and passive-scalar fields. The results demonstrate that the evolution of higher-order spectral moments with Reynolds number is strongly dependent on wavenumber. Finally, the relative levels of internal intermittency of the velocity and passive-scalar fields are compared and a higher level of internal intermittency in the inertial subrange of the scalar field is consistently observed, whereas a similar level of internal intermittency is observed for the velocity and passive-scalar fields for the high-Reynolds-number cases as the Kolmogorov length scale is approached.

Towards a portable-noninvasive blood pressure monitoring system utilizing the photoplethysmogram signal.

Blood pressure (BP) responds instantly to the body's conditions, such as movements, diseases or infections, and sudden excitation. Therefore, BP monitoring is a standard clinical measurement and is considered one of the fundamental health signs that assist in predicting and diagnosing several cardiovascular diseases. The traditional BP techniques (i.e. the cuff-based methods) only provide intermittent measurements over a certain period. Additionally, they cause turbulence in the blood flow, impeding the continuous BP monitoring, especially in emergency cases. In this study, an instrumentation system is designed to estimate BP noninvasively by measuring the PPG signal utilizing the optical technique. The photoplethysmogram (PPG) signals were measured and processed for ≈ 450 cases with different clinical conditions and irrespective of their health condition. A total of 13 features of the PPG signal were used to estimate the systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP), utilizing several machine learning techniques. The experimental results showed that the designed system is able to effectively describe the complex-embedded relationship between the features of the PPG signal and BP (SBP and DBP) with high accuracy. The mean absolute error (MAE) ± standard deviation (SD) was 4.82 ± 3.49 mmHg for the SBP and 1.37 ± 1.65 mmHg for the DBP, with a mean error (ME) of ≈ 0 mmHg. The estimation results are consistent with the Association for the American National Standards of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) and achieved Grade A in the British Hypertension Society (BHS) standards for the DBP and Grade B for the SBP. Such a study effectively contributes to the scientific efforts targeting the promotion of the practical application for providing a portable-noninvasive instrumentation system for BP monitoring purposes. Once the BP is determined with sufficient accuracy, it can be utilized further in the early prediction and classification of various arrhythmias such as hypertension, tachycardia, bradycardia, and atrial fibrillation (as the early detection can be a critical issue).

The Alarm Burden of Excess Continuous Pulse Oximetry Monitoring Among Patients With Bronchiolitis.

Guidelines discourage continuous pulse oximetry monitoring of hospitalized infants with bronchiolitis who are not receiving supplemental oxygen. Excess monitoring is theorized to contribute to increased alarm burden, but this burden has not been quantified. We evaluated admissions of 201 children (aged 0-24 months) with bronchiolitis. We categorized time ≥60 minutes following discontinuation of supplemental oxygen as "continuously monitored (guideline-discordant)," "intermittently measured (guideline-concordant)," or "unable to classify." Across 4402 classifiable hours, 77% (11,101) of alarms occurred during periods of guideline-discordant monitoring. Patients experienced a median of 35 alarms (interquartile range [IQR], 10-81) during guideline-discordant, continuously monitored time, representing a rate of 6.7 alarms per hour (IQR, 2.1-12.3). In comparison, the median hourly alarm rate during periods of guideline-concordant intermittent measurement was 0.5 alarms per hour (IQR, 0.1-0.8). Reducing guideline-discordant monitoring in bronchiolitis patients would reduce nurse alarm burden.

Flow Monitoring of ECMO Circuit for Detecting Oxygenator Obstructions

Oxygenator thrombosis during extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), is a complication that necessitates component replacement. ECMO centers monitor clot burden by intermittent measurement of pressure drop across the oxygenator. An increase in pressure drop at a preset flow rate suggests an increase in resistance/clot formation within the oxygenator. This monitoring method comes with inherent disadvantages such as monitoring gaps, and increased risk of air embolism and infection. We explored utilizing flow measurement, which avoids such risks, as an indicator of ECMO circuit obstructions. The hypothesis that flow rate through a shunt tube in the circuit will increase as distal resistances in the circuit increases was tested. We experimentally simulated controlled levels of oxygenator obstructions using glass microspheres in an ex vivo veno-venous ECMO circuit and measured the change in shunt flow rate using over the tube ultra-sound flow probes. A mathematical model was also used to study the effect of distal resistances in the ECMO circuit on shunt flow. Results of both the mathematical model and the experiments showed a clear and measurable increase in shunt flow with increasing levels of oxygenator obstruction. Therefore, flow monitoring appears to be an effective non-contact and continuous method to monitor for obstruction during ECMO.