Nod Off Research Articles

Drowsiness Detection System

A sleepiness detection system uses technology to spot and warn people who might be about to nod off or become less vigilant. To assess the degree of drowsiness, the system uses a variety of physiological or behavioural signs, including eye movements, brain waves, and patterns of vehicle control. Research is now being done to create reliable sleepiness detection systems, which could have positive effects on safety, accident avoidance, and productivity for a variety of businesses and people. These technologies all have the potential to increase safety in a variety of industries and lower the risk of accidents brought on by drowsiness, even though their accuracy and dependability vary. By lowering accident costs and boosting productivity, the deployment of sleepiness detection systems may also have favourable economic effects. Over all, the creation of precise and trustworthy sleepiness detection systems is an important field of study with potential advantages for a range of businesses and people.

Driver Drowsiness Detection using Machine Learning

Driver drowsiness is a condition where the driver operating on the automobile is about to nod off or sleep which is caused by various factors, which can impair and hinder safe driving, including biological, physical, psychological, and other various factors. Accidents through driver drowsiness are observed especially in the case where journeys are long-distance, and sleep-deprivation also plays the role of a prominent determining parameter. There are extensive number of accidents caused by driver drowsiness and these are of major safety concern, hence it is of critical importance to come up with some mechanism that can combat and prevent such road accidents to save precious lives. Thanks to technological advancements we can deploy systems that can detect driver drowsiness. In this paper, we would be reviewing the various techniques that can be used to implement a system for the detection of driver drowsiness.

Survey Paper for Real Time Car Driver Drowsiness Detection using Machine Learning Approach

Abstract: Tiredness is a way wherein one level of mindfulness is decreased due to lacking of rest or weariness and it might cause the driver fall into rest unobtrusively. A Drowsy or lethargic driver can't decide while he/she can have a crazy rest. Nod off pulverizes are exceptionally outrageous as far as injury.Recent insights gauge that every year 1,200 passings and 76,000 wounds can be caused to fatigue or sluggishness related crashes. Over 25% of interstate car crashes are caused as consequence of driver weariness. Decrease the gamble of a mishap by advance notice the driver of his/her tiredness. This undertaking is fundamentally founded on four parts 1) Face and Eye identification: Performs scale invariant location utilizing Haar Cascade Classifier perform through a webcam. 2) Eye highlight extraction: Eye highlights are removed utilizing Hough Circle and 3) Extract single eye 4) Edge location and perform tiredness discovery on it. In the proposed technique, following the face identification step, the facial parts those are more significant and considered as the best for tiredness, are removed and followed in video succession outlines. The framework has been tried and carried out in a genuine climate. The commitment work is when tiredness recognized, after it will give alert admonition sign to the driver.

Monitoring driver distraction using machine learning and deep learning techniques

Languid driving is a common and a genuine general medical problem that merits consideration. Late examinations gauge that around 20% of vehicle crashes have been brought about by languid drivers. An individual when the person doesn't have an appropriate rest particularly a driver, will in general nod off causing a car crash. These days, one of the fundamental objectives in the improvement of new progressed driver help frameworks is dependable sleepiness location. It is the reason the current venture needs to understand a framework that can distinguish the sleepiness of the driver, to lessen car crashes. For that framework, it will take the handling of pictures through a camera which will zero in on the driver. In that, it will dissect the progressions that occur in the face and afterward will be handled through a program to identify tiredness to send an alarm to the driver. . These techniques are utilized in a wide scope of uses, the picture arrangement being one of the fields in which these are utilized with progress.

Gp130 blockade to NOD off Crohn’s disease

In a recent publication, Nayar et al. uncover specific inflammatory cell populations associated with Crohn's disease (CD) pathogenesis, and a gp130-STAT3 signaling axis linked to disease in anti-TNF antibody treatment-refractory patients. Therefore, gp130 blockade might represent a potential CD therapy approach, perhaps in conjunction with existing anti-TNF treatment regimes.

A National Survey of Motor Vehicle Crashes Among General Surgery Residents.

Evaluate the frequency of self-reported, post-call hazardous driving events in a national cohort of general surgery residents and determine the associations between duty hour policy violations, psychiatric well-being, and hazardous driving events. MVCs are a leading cause of resident mortality. Extended work shifts and poor psychiatric well-being are risk factors for MVCs, placing general surgery residents at risk. General surgery residents from US programs were surveyed after the 2017 American Board of Surgery In-Training Examination. Outcomes included self-reported nodding off while driving, near-miss MVCs, and MVCs. Group-adjusted cluster Chi-square and hierarchical regression models with program-level intercepts measured associations between resident- and program-level factors and outcomes. Among 7391 general surgery residents from 260 programs (response rate 99.3%), 34.7% reported nodding off while driving, 26.6% a near-miss MVC, and 5.0% an MVC over the preceding 6 months. More frequent 80-hour rule violations were associated with all hazardous driving events: nodding off while driving {59.8% with ≥5 months with violations vs 27.2% with 0, adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 2.86 [95% confidence interval (CI) 2.21-3.69]}, near-miss MVCs, [53.6% vs 19.2%, AOR 3.28 (95% CI 2.53-4.24)], and MVCs [14.0% vs 3.5%, AOR 2.46 (95% CI 1.65-3.67)]. Similarly, poor psychiatric well-being was associated with all 3 outcomes [eg, 8.0% with poor psychiatric well-being reported MVCs vs 2.6% without, odds ratio 2.55 (95% CI 2.00-3.24)]. Hazardous driving events are prevalent among general surgery residents and associated with frequent duty hour violations and poor psychiatric well-being. Greater adherence to duty hour standards and efforts to improve well-being may improve driving safety.

The visiting speaker: Some tips and some traps.

I should start with some confessions. I've made some mistakes as a visiting speaker, and I've also fallen into some traps when I've hosted visiting speakers, including eminent professors (Fig. 1). Mistakes? Well, twice, I've mixed up my departure dates. One resulted in me arriving a day late and missing my scheduled guest lecture, which had to be rearranged for the next day. On that occasion, while I was in mid-air, my hosts phoned my wife to see if I was all right as they were expecting me to dinner that evening and I hadn't arrived. The other time, I realised just in time that I was leaving ‘today’ rather than ‘tomorrow’, and just made the plane in time. At the receiving end, I've been graciously met at the airport late in the night but then deposited at the wrong hotel, one where no English was spoken. I've had my name spelt in a most bizarre way in the programme (no big deal) and another time arrived to find a programme showing me as giving a presentation I had not known about and had not prepared. On one occasion, arriving after 36 h with almost no sleep, I managed to nod off on stage during the opening ceremony, in front of 1500 people. Another time, my host supplied me with the name of a hotel I was not staying at because he thought it would be easier to spell on my visa application. So, I had unwittingly made a false declaration on the visa application, even though ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the law. I've also been given some very nice gifts of appreciation that unfortunately weighed almost half of my total luggage allowance. As a scientific meeting organiser, I once forgot to tell the visiting professor one of his lectures was a named oration. He was understandably embarrassed about not having prepared any appropriate introductory remarks for his presentation, so started off by saying: ‘Had I known this oration was named in honour of your pioneering urologist IP Freely….’ (obviously not the Oration's correct title) and returned to that theme more than once in his presentation. He forgave me, but it was pretty uncomfortable at the time. To make it worse, while chatting with him over coffee in the lecture theatre foyer, I somehow up-ended my full cup of black coffee over his pale, light-weight tropical suit. You guessed it; with an outfit like that, he had to be visiting from the UK. Being asked as a visiting speaker is a joy and a privilege. It's a great way to meet interesting people, develop lasting friendships and learn about new cultures. And if we're honest, it's a rather nice escape from the daily grind at home, being treated as somebody fairly important, when deep down most of us honestly know that it just isn't so. So, having inadvertently fallen into various traps, I thought I'd set out some tips for visiting speakers and for those who organise their visits:

Sleepiness, driving, and motor vehicle accidents: A questionnaire-based survey

In Switzerland, the prevalence of an excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) in drivers undergoing a driving capacity assessment is currently not known. In this study, private and professional drivers were evaluated by means of a paper-based questionnaire, including Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Berlin Questionnaire, and additional questions to sleepiness-related accidents, near-miss accidents, health issues, and demographic data.Of the 435 distributed questionnaires, 128 completed were returned. The response rate was 29%. The mean age of the investigated drivers was 42.5 years (20–85 years). According to the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, 9% of the participants are likely to suffer from excessive daytime sleepiness. An equal percentage has a high risk for obstructive sleep apnea syndrome based on the Berlin Questionnaire. 16% admitted an involuntary nodding off while driving a motor vehicle. This subset of the participants scored statistically significant higher on the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (p = 0.036). 8% of the participants already suffered an accident because of being sleepy while driving. An equal number experienced a sleepiness-related near-miss accident on the road. The study shows that a medical workup of excessive daytime sleepiness is highly recommended in each driver undergoing a driving capacity assessment. Routine application of easily available and time-saving assessment tools such as the Epworth Sleepiness Scale questionnaire could prevent accidents in a simple way. The applicability of the Berlin Questionnaire to screen suspected fatal sleepiness-related motor vehicle accidents is discussed.

The King Who Wouldn’t Sleep by D. Singleton

Singleton, Debbie. The King Who Wouldn’t Sleep. Illus. Holly Swain. London: Anderson Press, 2012. Print. The King featured in this fairytale picture book is a man on a mission. He refuses to nod off until he finds the perfect mate for his lovely daughter, so he interviews a long line of princes, but of course “not one of them was quite perfect”. The illustrations of princes in all shapes and sizes are highly amusing, and the prince with the “extraordinary mustache” is especially charming. Despite the King’s indifference to this motley crew, the princes refuse to give up, so they decide that the only way to talk to the princess is to make the King fall asleep. They present him with sleeping potions, stuffed animals, blankets, bedtime stories, and every imaginable soporific gift, but the King will not be deceived; indeed, he gives everything to his servants, who immediately fall asleep, leaving no one in the palace to cook his dinner. Princes continue to come and go but no one makes the cut. A young farmer witnesses all the comings and goings and decides to approach the King with successive gifts of farm animals, but the King shoos him away at every turn. That is, until the farmer returns with an entire flock of sheep and encourages the King to count them to ensure that all one hundred are present and accounted for. Presto! The King finally falls asleep. Everyone is impressed with the clever farmer, especially the princess, and so they get married, have a magnificent wedding, and live happily ever after. The comical story, complemented by cheerful illustrations, provides plenty of entertainment for young readers. Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer: Robert DesmaraisRobert Desmarais is Head of Special Collections at the University of Alberta and Managing Editor of The Deakin Review of Children’s Literature. A graduate of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information Studies, with a Book History and Print Culture designation, he also has university degrees in English literature and publishing. He has been collecting and enjoying children’s books for as long as he can remember.

Nod off – switch off

Researchers in China have presented a device for identifying when a patient is asleep and accordingly to adjust deep brain stimulation (DBS) in Parkinson's disease sufferers. The device is worn on the wrist and can communicate with the implanted stimulating system to control its activity.

The passionate life of Simon Chan

This issue features a collaborative paper [1] between the Ian Korf and the Simon Chan laboratories describing the evolution of centromeric repeats in animal and plant genomes. Simon Chan passed away on August 22 2012 at the age of 38. Although the ongoing work of his coworkers will result in multiple additional papers carrying his name, this is the last paper he actively worked on. Simon was born in Auckland, New Zealand. He graduated with a degree in biochemistry from the University of Auckland and earned a Ph.D. from UCSF, where he studied yeast telomeres under the guidance of Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn. He did his postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Steve Jacobsen at UCLA working on RNA-directed DNA methylation and gene silencing. In 2006, Simon joined the faculty in the Department of Plant Biology at UC Davis. At that time, Simon took his passion for chromosomal biology and epigenetics into a new area: centromeric function and inheritance. At UC Davis, Simon and his postdoctoral associate, Ravi Maruthlalacham, labored for three years studying the function of centromeric histone H3 (CENH3). Their approach was to complement a nullimorphic cenh3 mutant of Arabidopsis with genes encoding versions of CENH3 with varying degrees of alteration. They found that if a plant with an altered CENH3 was crossed to the wild type, many F1s were sterile. Chromosome mounts from these individuals revealed five chromosomes instead of ten, the expected diploid number. The hypothesis explaining these results had far-reaching implications: centromeres organized by a modified CENH3 were stable in crosses between similarly modified plants. However, when confronted in the zygote with centromeres determined by wild-type CENH3 the centromeres with the altered CENH3 lost out, causing the loss of the connected chromosomes. The resulting haploids could be easily converted to di-haploids (doubled haploids), enabling the establishment of pure inbreds in a single generation. This discovery, published in Nature in 2010 [2], has basic and applied importance. For example, in a 2011 Science article [3], the Chan lab collaborated with Raphael Mercier and Imran Siddiqi to demonstrate the production of clonal plants through seeds in a process mimicking apomixis. This was done by crossing the haploid inducer line with a plant that bypassed meiotic recombination and reduction. In 2012, articles in PNAS [4] and Nature Genetics [5] illustrated, respectively, the use of CENH3-mediated genome elimination in the production of recombinant inbred lines and in molecular breeding. This research showed that it was possible to produce plants with a designated chromosomal composition using CENH3-mediated breeding. Simon's scientific contribution was recognized in 2011 with the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Award- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Investigatorship. Simon would have been well loved and respected even if his scientific career had not been as successful. His passionate, kind and friendly demeanor made him a popular teacher and colleague. He was also refreshingly informal. One of the pictures we treasure features Simon wearing a T-shirt and jeans, surrounded by others in business attire, explaining haploid induction to Bill Gates [6]. He was multi-talented: he played several instruments at nearly professional level, was broadly read, assembled his bicyles from used parts, cracked any puzzle, and had an encyclopic knowledge of both the trivial and the relevant. His friends remember with fondness his leadership in far-ranging culinary explorations, which he carefully recorded and annotated. His scientific promise and greater-than-life personality left a big vacuum in the lives of those who interacted with him, and beyond. We miss his scientific advice, his infectious smile, his stylish haircut, his colorful sneakers, his Hawaiian shirts, his tales and insights, his nodding off during seminars and his penetrating questions at the end. With no interest in material gains and personal wealth, he was passionate and intense about science, was dedicated to environmental sustainability and to making his inventions available to the developing world. He lived life to its fullest and made no compromise. Shortly before his death, he travelled to Africa to fulfill what he saw as his collaborative duties to local plant breeders and laboratories, which are aiming to apply Simon's findings to improve African staple crops. Simon had assembled an excellent team of junior scientists whose ongoing work is providing exciting insights into the fundamental questions raised by CENH3-mediated genomic elimination. In his last moments of consciousness during terminal hospitalization he would eagerly ask for updates. We hope that wherever he is, he is able to follow developments of his scientific discoveries. We, his colleagues and friends, are thankful that we could be associated with him even if the time was short.

SLEEPLESS COCKROACHES

Long-term lack of sleep can make you feel a lot worse than a bit bad tempered and under the weather. It's something we just can't do without:deprived of sleep's restorative benefits, rats die prematurely. According to Richard Stephenson of the University of Toronto, `Sleep presents one of the great mysteries that remain in biology'; researchers still aren't exactly sure what the function of sleep is. The metabolic rate in sleep deprived rats nearly doubles and they produce a lot of excess heat, so it's possible that lack of sleep affects the rats' temperature regulation. But other mechanisms could be at work, so to see if the rise in metabolic rate is to do with temperature regulation or not, Stephenson and his colleagues Karen Chu and James Lee investigated sleep deprivation in an animal that can't regulate its body temperature, the Pacific beetle cockroach (p. 2540).Insects don't sleep in the same way that mammals do, but they do undergo periods of `sleep-like rest' where they sit very still and don't interact with their environment. The team found in preliminary tests that a combination of a small movement and a puff of CO2 alerted dozy cockroaches and kept them awake, probably because it exploits natural predator avoidance behaviour and the cockroaches never stop responding to the stimulus. They also found that sleep deprived cockroaches only needed 55 s to nod off again after being disturbed from a 2 min snooze. Normal roaches took 356 s, showing that sleep deprivation increases need for sleep.To test how the cockroaches coped with sleep deprivation, the team placed them in cylinders equipped with food and water. The sleep deprived cockroaches received a CO2 puff and a 2 s, 1 cm rotation of the cylinder every minute to keep them awake. The other group received the same number of puffs and rotations in the day, every 30 s for 3 hours in each 6-hour period, giving them four 3-hour rest periods each day.To measure how the sleep deprivation was affecting survival, the team counted the number of dead cockroaches each day. The normal roaches died at a rate of 1 every 7.7 days for the whole experiment. The sleep deprived roaches all survived up to day 17, but after that started dying at 1 every 1.57 days,showing that sleep deprivation increased the risk of dying young.To find out how sleep deprivation affected metabolic rate, the team removed the cockroaches from their containers at the end of each week and put them individually into a specially designed respirometer to measure oxygen consumption, and hence their metabolic rate. While metabolic rates were the same at the beginning of the experiment, in the sleep deprived group metabolic rates were 82% higher after 35 days. This shows that the metabolic rate rockets in sleep deprived insects, suggesting that in cockroaches at least,there is a change in metabolism which results from the sleep deprivation, and which isn't related to temperature regulation. To try and get to the bottom of the mystery, researchers `will need to find the source of the heat',Stephenson says.

Incidence of and risk factors for nodding off at scientific sessions

The authors conducted a surreptitious, prospective, cohort study during a 2-day series of lectures to a group of internists to determine how often physicians nod off during scientific meetings and to examine risk factors for nodding off. The incidence density curve, based upon a single nodding episode per lecture, ranged from 3 to 24 (median, 16) nod-off episodes per lecture per 100 attendees. The greatest risk factors for nodding off were speaker-related, including monotonous tone (odds ratio, 6.8; 95% confidence interval 5.4 to 8.0), tweed jacket (odds ratio, 2.1; 95% confidence interval 1.7 to 3.0), and losing place in the lecture (odds ratio, 2.0, 95% confidence interval 1.3 to 2.6). Other major risk factors included poor slides, failure to speak into the microphone, postprandial timing of the lecture, and dim lighting. Surprisingly, talks on obscure topics, those with little data, or those with absent analysis were at low risk for nodding off episodes, presumably because of the bizarreness of the presentation. Factors such as wandering off to inspect the screen, dropping the microphone, or just raving, although disconcerting to the audience, helped keep the listeners awake. The authors conclude that nodding off at presentations is common and may pose a risk to the health of patients. Studies are required to assess the effectiveness of interventions (eg, lessons in public speaking, wardrobe makeovers, drama classes) in preventing nodding off during lectures. —Michael D. Wagoner The authors conducted a surreptitious, prospective, cohort study during a 2-day series of lectures to a group of internists to determine how often physicians nod off during scientific meetings and to examine risk factors for nodding off. The incidence density curve, based upon a single nodding episode per lecture, ranged from 3 to 24 (median, 16) nod-off episodes per lecture per 100 attendees. The greatest risk factors for nodding off were speaker-related, including monotonous tone (odds ratio, 6.8; 95% confidence interval 5.4 to 8.0), tweed jacket (odds ratio, 2.1; 95% confidence interval 1.7 to 3.0), and losing place in the lecture (odds ratio, 2.0, 95% confidence interval 1.3 to 2.6). Other major risk factors included poor slides, failure to speak into the microphone, postprandial timing of the lecture, and dim lighting. Surprisingly, talks on obscure topics, those with little data, or those with absent analysis were at low risk for nodding off episodes, presumably because of the bizarreness of the presentation. Factors such as wandering off to inspect the screen, dropping the microphone, or just raving, although disconcerting to the audience, helped keep the listeners awake. The authors conclude that nodding off at presentations is common and may pose a risk to the health of patients. Studies are required to assess the effectiveness of interventions (eg, lessons in public speaking, wardrobe makeovers, drama classes) in preventing nodding off during lectures. —Michael D. Wagoner

Symptoms related to snoring and sleep apnoea in subjects with chronic bronchitis: report from the Obstructive Lung Disease in Northern Sweden Study

To assess the relationship between chronic bronchitis and obstructive sleep apnoea, a postal survey was performed. A postal questionnaire was sent to 523 subjects identified as having chronic bronchitis or long-standing cough and sputum production in the Obstructive Lung Disease in Northern Sweden Study I (OLIN I). In 1986–1988, all 6610 adults born in 1919–1920, 1934–1935 and 1949–1950 living in representative areas in Northern Sweden were screened for airway diseases according to different methods. A random sample of healthy adults identified in the screening were chosen as references ( n = 625). Subjects were asked about a variety of airway symptoms, smoking habits and symptoms related to obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS). In the bronchitic group, 20% did not report bronchitic symptoms in the present study, and 26% of the formerly healthy reference group reported at least one bronchitic symptom in the present study. Snoring, apnoea and liability to ‘nod off’ during activity were much more common in the bronchitic group in both men and women, and most common in men, as expected. Snoring was reported by 29% of the men in the bronchitic group and by 14% in the reference group. In women, the corresponding figures were 14 and 8%, respectively, and for apnoea, the figures were 25 vs. 11% in men and 6 vs. 4% in women. The prevalence of OSAS symptoms was similar in subjects with attacks of breathlessness, long-standing cough, sputum production and recurrent wheezing. Bronchitic symptoms may influence quality of sleep and contribute to daytime tiredness, but this does not fully explain the high prevalence of snoring and apnoea reported by subjects in this cohort. This study indicates a positive correlation between chronic bronchitis and OSAS, but sleep studies are required to confirm this.

Chest physician innovations keep sandman out of CME

It's another exhausting continuing medical education course. Some 430 physicians are assembled in a Chicago hotel meeting room taking the American College of Chest Physicians' (ACCP) latest course on pulmonary medicine. All are in their seats by 8 AM, and they often are still in those chairs up to ten hours later. It goes on like this for five straight days, complete with evening homework. But what's this? Says course director Reuben M. Cherniack, MD, director, Department of Medicine, National Jewish Hospital, Denver: "I haven't seen anyone nod off. And I've yet to hear a complaint." How so? According to ACCP Executive Director Alfred Soffer, MD, the continuing interest seems to stem from a combination of motivation and participation. And the latter ingredient comes mainly from electronics. At the fingertips of each physician in this course was a six-button "voter station." Every so often, usually in the course of a

Chest physician innovations keep sandman out of CME

It's another exhausting continuing medical education course. Some 430 physicians are assembled in a Chicago hotel meeting room taking the American College of Chest Physicians' (ACCP) latest course on pulmonary medicine. All are in their seats by 8 AM, and they often are still in those chairs up to ten hours later. It goes on like this for five straight days, complete with evening homework. But what's this? Says course director Reuben M. Cherniack, MD, director, Department of Medicine, National Jewish Hospital, Denver: I haven't seen anyone nod off. And I've yet to hear a complaint. How so? According to ACCP Executive Director Alfred Soffer, MD, the continuing interest seems to stem from a combination of motivation and participation. And the latter ingredient comes mainly from electronics. At the fingertips of each physician in this course was a six-button voter station. Every so often, usually in the course of a