Entropy Analysis of Heart Rate Variability in Different Sleep Stages

How the complexity or irregularity of heart rate variability (HRV) changes across different sleep stages and the importance of these features in sleep staging are not fully understood. This study aimed to investigate the complexity or irregularity of the RR interval time series in different sleep stages and explore their values in sleep staging. We performed approximate entropy (ApEn), sample entropy (SampEn), fuzzy entropy (FuzzyEn), distribution entropy (DistEn), conditional entropy (CE), and permutation entropy (PermEn) analyses on RR interval time series extracted from epochs that were constructed based on two methods: (1) 270-s epoch length and (2) 300-s epoch length. To test whether adding the entropy measures can improve the accuracy of sleep staging using linear HRV indices, XGBoost was used to examine the abilities to differentiate among: (i) 5 classes [Wake (W), non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM), which can be divide into 3 sub-stages: stage N1, stage N2, and stage N3, and rapid-eye-movement (REM)]; (ii) 4 classes [W, light sleep (combined N1 and N2), deep sleep (N3), and REM]; and (iii) 3 classes: (W, NREM, and REM). SampEn, FuzzyEn, and CE significantly increased from W to N3 and decreased in REM. DistEn increased from W to N1, decreased in N2, and further decreased in N3; it increased in REM. The average accuracy of the three tasks using linear and entropy features were 42.1%, 59.1%, and 60.8%, respectively, based on 270-s epoch length; all were significantly lower than the performance based on 300-s epoch length (i.e., 54.3%, 63.1%, and 67.5%, respectively). Adding entropy measures to the XGBoost model of linear parameters did not significantly improve the classification performance. However, entropy measures, especially PermEn, DistEn, and FuzzyEn, demonstrated greater importance than most of the linear parameters in the XGBoost model.300-s270-s.     

Similarity Changes Analysis for Heart Rate Fluctuation Regularity as a New Screening Method for Congestive Heart Failure

Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a chronic cardiovascular condition associated with dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Heart rate variability (HRV) has been widely used to assess ANS. This paper proposes a new HRV analysis method, which uses information-based similarity (IBS) transformation and fuzzy approximate entropy (fApEn) algorithm to obtain the fApEn_IBS index, which is used to observe the complexity of autonomic fluctuations in CHF within 24 h. We used 98 ECG records (54 health records and 44 CHF records) from the PhysioNet database. The fApEn_IBS index was statistically significant between the control and CHF groups (p < 0.001). Compared with the classical indices low-to-high frequency power ratio (LF/HF) and IBS, the fApEn_IBS index further utilizes the changes in the rhythm of heart rate (HR) fluctuations between RR intervals to fully extract relevant information between adjacent time intervals and significantly improves the performance of CHF screening. The CHF classification accuracy of fApEn_IBS was 84.69%, higher than LF/HF (77.55%) and IBS (83.67%). Moreover, the combination of IBS, fApEn_IBS, and LF/HF reached the highest CHF screening accuracy (98.98%) with the random forest (RF) classifier, indicating that the IBS and LF/HF had good complementarity. Therefore, fApEn_IBS effusively reflects the complexity of autonomic nerves in CHF and is a valuable CHF assessment tool.     

Influence of Ectopic Beats on Heart Rate Variability Analysis

The analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) plays a dominant role in the study of physiological signal variability. HRV reflects the information of the adjustment of sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves on the cardiovascular system and, thus, is widely used to evaluate the functional status of the cardiovascular system. Ectopic beats may affect the analysis of HRV. However, the quantitative relationship between the burden of ectopic beats and HRV indices, including entropy measures, has not yet been investigated in depth. In this work, we analyzed the effects of different numbers of ectopic beats on several widely accepted HRV parameters in time-domain (SDNN), frequency-domain (LF/HF), as well as non-linear features (SampEn and Pt-SampEn (physical threshold-based SampEn)). The results showed that all four indices were influenced by ectopic beats, and the degree of influence was roughly increased with the increase of the number of ectopic beats. Ectopic beats had the greatest impact on the frequency domain index LF/HF, whereas the Pt-SampEn was minimally accepted by ectopic beats. These results also indicated that, compared with the other three indices, Pt-SampEn had better robustness for ectopic beats.     

Reduced System Complexity of Heart Rate Dynamics in Patients with Hyperthyroidism: A Multiscale Entropy Analysis

Studying heart rate dynamics would help understand the effects caused by a hyperkinetic heart in patients with hyperthyroidism. By using a multiscale entropy (MSE) analysis of heart rate dynamics derived from one-channel electrocardiogram recording, we aimed to compare the system complexity of heart rate dynamics between hyperthyroid patients and control subjects. A decreased MSE complexity index (CI) computed from MSE analysis reflects reduced system complexity. Compared with the control subjects (n = 37), the hyperthyroid patients (n = 37) revealed a significant decrease (p < 0.001) in MSE CI (hyperthyroid patients 10.21 ± 0.37 versus control subjects 14.08 ± 0.21), sample entropy for each scale factor (from 1 to 9), and high frequency power (HF) as well as a significant increase (p < 0.001) in low frequency power (LF) in normalized units (LF%) and ratio of LF to HF (LF/HF). In conclusion, besides cardiac autonomic dysfunction, the system complexity of heart rate dynamics is reduced in hyperthyroidism. This finding implies that the adaptability of the heart rate regulating system is impaired in hyperthyroid patients. Additionally, it might explain the exercise intolerance experienced by hyperthyroid patients. In addition, hyperthyroid patients and control subjects could be distinguished by the MSE CI computed from MSE analysis of heart rate dynamics.     

Ischemic Stroke Risk Assessment by Multiscale Entropy Analysis of Heart Rate Variability in Patients with Persistent Atrial Fibrillation

It has been recognized that heart rate variability (HRV), defined as the fluctuation of ventricular response intervals in atrial fibrillation (AFib) patients, is not completely random, and its nonlinear characteristics, such as multiscale entropy (MSE), contain clinically significant information. We investigated the relationship between ischemic stroke risk and HRV with a large number of stroke-naïve AFib patients (628 patients), focusing on those who had never developed an ischemic/hemorrhagic stroke before the heart rate measurement. The CHA2DS2−VASc score was calculated from the baseline clinical characteristics, while the HRV analysis was made from the recording of morning, afternoon, and evening. Subsequently, we performed Kaplan–Meier method and cumulative incidence function with mortality as a competing risk to estimate the survival time function. We found that patients with sample entropy (SE(s)) ≥ 0.68 at 210 s had a significantly higher risk of an ischemic stroke occurrence in the morning recording. Meanwhile, the afternoon recording showed that those with SE(s) ≥ 0.76 at 240 s and SE(s) ≥ 0.78 at 270 s had a significantly lower risk of ischemic stroke occurrence. Therefore, SE(s) at 210 s (morning) and 240 s ≤ s ≤ 270 s (afternoon) demonstrated a statistically significant predictive value for ischemic stroke in stroke-naïve AFib patients.     

舌体高光谱的高血压患者中合并冠心病的筛查方法

高血压合并冠心病是高血压疾病的一类严重合并症.目前高血压患者对合并冠心病的情况检测不及时,容易导致严重事件的发生,其致残率、致死率极高,严重影响患者的生活质量.因此对高血压患者合并冠心病的早期发现对预防更严重事件的发生显得尤为重要.舌体信息与心血管功能关系密切,为此,提出一种基于舌体高光谱用于高血压患者中合并冠心病筛查...     

用荧光分光光度法测量冠心病患者血浆谷胱甘肽

利用荧光分光光度计对还原型谷胱甘肽(GSH)及氧化型谷胱甘肽(GSSG)标准品进行全波长扫描,确定激发(λ_ex)波长为334.4 nm,发射(λ_em)波长为424 nm以及5 nm的谱带宽度,以pH 8.3的磷酸盐缓冲液(PBS)作为缓冲液,用100 μL 10 mmol·L-1邻苯二甲醛(OPA)甲醇溶液对GSH进行衍生化30 min后测量荧光值(FU)。以标准品浓度为自变量,FU为应变量,求直线方程, Y_GSH=6.9+8.6X(r2=0.994),Y_GSSG=6.2+17.2X(r2=0.999) , 并制作标准曲线。据此测定三组研究对象血浆GSH及GSSG,并计算GSH/GSSG的氧化还原电位。研究发现,从正常对照组到冠心病前期组,再到冠心病组,GSSG逐渐升高,GSH和GSH/GSSG逐渐减少,氧化还原电位逐渐升高,向氧化方向偏移(P均＜0.05)。该方法操作简单,精密度好, 准确度高。     

Joint Angle Variability Is Altered in Patients with Peripheral Artery Disease after Six Months of Exercise Intervention

Supervised exercise therapy (SET) is a conservative non-operative treatment strategy for improving walking performance in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). Gait variability is altered in patients with PAD, but the effect of SET on gait variability is unknown. Forty-three claudicating patients with PAD underwent gait analysis before and immediately after a 6-month SET program. Nonlinear gait variability was assessed using sample entropy, and the largest Lyapunov exponent of the ankle, knee, and hip joint angle time series. Linear mean and variability of the range of motion time series for these three joint angles were also calculated. Two-factor repeated measure analysis of variance determined the effect of the intervention and joint location on linear and nonlinear dependent variables. After SET, walking regularity decreased, while the stability remained unaffected. Ankle nonlinear variability had increased values compared with the knee and hip joints. Linear measures did not change following SET, except for knee angle, in which the magnitude of variations increased after the intervention. A six-month SET program produced changes in gait variability toward the direction of healthy controls, which indicates that in general, SET improved walking performance in individuals with PAD.     

基于血液中微量元素LM-BP神经网络模式识别冠心病患者方法

选择微量元素Sr,Cu,Mg和Zn在血液中的含量作为判别冠心病患者的指标,建立了Levenberg Marquardt Backpropagation神经网络识别模式。网络的第一层传输函数为Tansig函数,第二层传输函数为线性的Purelin函数,输入有4个向量,隐含层有8个神经元,输出层有1个神经元。选择4个样本(测试元素含量在训练元素范围内)作为测试集,余下22个样本为训练集。给出了神经网络的权重(Weight)和偏置(Bias)值,对给定的数据能完全识别,预示着可通过血液中的微量元素,可能作为冠心病患者诊断的一种辅助手段。     

Discrimination of Patients with Varying Degrees of Coronary Artery Stenosis by ECG and PCG Signals Based on Entropy

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of cardiovascular death. This study aimed to propose an effective method for mining cardiac mechano-electric coupling information and to evaluate its ability to distinguish patients with varying degrees of coronary artery stenosis (VDCAS). Five minutes of electrocardiogram and phonocardiogram signals was collected synchronously from 191 VDCAS patients to construct heartbeat interval (RRI)–systolic time interval (STI), RRI–diastolic time interval (DTI), HR-corrected QT interval (QTcI)–STI, QTcI–DTI, Tpeak–Tend interval (TpeI)–STI, TpeI–DTI, Tpe/QT interval (Tpe/QTI)–STI, and Tpe/QTI–DTI series. Then, the cross sample entropy (XSampEn), cross fuzzy entropy (XFuzzyEn), joint distribution entropy (JDistEn), magnitude-squared coherence function, cross power spectral density, and mutual information were applied to evaluate the coupling of the series. Subsequently, support vector machine recursive feature elimination and XGBoost were utilized for feature selection and classification, respectively. Results showed that the joint analysis of XSampEn, XFuzzyEn, and JDistEn had the best ability to distinguish patients with VDCAS. The classification accuracy of severe CHD—mild-to-moderate CHD group, severe CHD—chest pain and normal coronary angiography (CPNCA) group, and mild-to-moderate CHD—CPNCA group were 0.8043, 0.7659, and 0.7500, respectively. The study indicates that the joint analysis of XSampEn, XFuzzyEn, and JDistEn can effectively capture the cardiac mechano-electric coupling information of patients with VDCAS, which can provide valuable information for clinicians to diagnose CHD.     

闪电成像仪虚警率和探测率模拟计算

在明确虚警率和探测率概念基础上,建立了虚警率和探测率与信噪比之间相互关系的定量模型,通过模拟计算给出信噪比对虚警率和探测率的影响.计算结果表明:要使虚警率控制在10%以内,信噪比应该达到5.0以上;要使探测率达到90%,信噪比应该达到5.2～5.7.     

Pilot Study: Understanding the Effects of Voicing Intervention on HFCC Therapy in People with Cystic Fibrosis

The efficacy of High-Frequency Chest Compression (HFCC) airway clearance therapy is linked to the induced-peak expiratory airflow pulse (IPEF) at the patient's mouth. The authors' goal was to determine the conditions that yield the highest IPEF using HFCC running at 6 Hz in conjunction with voicing intervention. A pilot experimental study was conducted in a laboratory setting. Six adults with moderate to mild cystic fibrosis (CF) and 10 healthy adults participated. When the component characteristics of voicing were disregarded in data analysis of four conditions, voicing only intervention (V₁I₀), HFCC only intervention (V₀I₁), voicing intervention and HFCC intervention combinations (V₁I₁) and nonintervention (V₀I₀), V₀I₁ had significantly higher (P < 0.0001) IPEF. Data analyses of 64 separate voicing component characteristics, frequency (×4), amplitude (×4), and rhythm (×2) of voicing intervention, in addition to absence and presence of HFCC intervention (V₁I₀ and V₁I₁), were examined. One condition in V₁I₀ had significantly higher (P < 0.000001) IPEF than other conditions in V₁I₀ and V₁I₁ in both experimental and control groups. Based on these findings, V₁I₁ may yield higher IPEF than V₀I₁. One condition of amplitude component of voicing and one condition of rhythm component of voicing had significantly higher (P < 0.0001) IPEF than other conditions of amplitude and rhythm components in both CF and control subjects. Analysis of this combined condition of V₁I₁ showed that this specific condition of V₁I₁ had significantly higher (P < 0.000001) IPEF than any other conditions in V₁I₁ and V₀I₁.     

Q-Switched Intracavity Frequency-Doubled Solid State Lasers: Influence of ETU Effect, Repetition Rate and ESA Effect

Our theoretical analysis showed that the overall intracavity frequency-doubled actively Q-switched solid state laser performance is affected by both pulse repetition rate and energy transfer up-conversion effect. The energy transfer up-conversion effect increased greatly and seriously degraded the laser performance especially when operating at high pumping power and low pulse repetition rate. The curves generated by numerical computation of the presented model can be used to predict the laser performance. We concluded that the pulse lengthening effect also appears with the influence of energy transfer up-conversion and is not related to the repetition rate. From the analysis, we found that the frequency doubling coefficient that Liu and Kim chose in their experiment was just the optimized value. Considering the effect of excited state absorption of saturable absorber into passively Q-switched intracavity frequency doubled solid state laser, the second threshold condition for this model is derived. A simple and very clear formula is obtained.     

光纤通信系统中差分相位调制平衡接收机系统误码率的精确计算

采用高斯函数近似方法以及傅里叶变换法分析推导出高速光纤通信技术中所采用的差分相位调制(differential phase-shift keying,DPSK)-平衡接收机系统中的差分非线性相位噪声△ψ的精确表示,把它应用于考虑了所有对接收机误码产生影响的噪声计算公式中,最终得出了DPSK-平衡接收机误码率最终完整的数学表达式,并用VPI软件进行了仿真验证.     

Contribution to Calculation of Ion Microfield Nonuniformity Effect on the Asymmetry of Lyman‐α Line in Dense Plasma

The high orders of Stark effects on spectral line shapes are examined in the ion‐static and electron‐impact ap‐proximations. At first the distribution functions of the spatial derivative of the ion microfield in He⁺ plasma are calculated for different plasma conditions when the coupling parameter is weak. We present new results about the spatial derivative ion microfield distributions and apply them to show the asymmetry of the Lyman‐α (Ly‐α) line in He⁺ plasma. At the second stage we show that asymmetry is affected by the spatial derivative tensor of the local ion electric field. We have used the Monte‐Carlo simulation (MCS) to compute the distribution functions for all tensor components and use them to solve the evolution equation of emitter whose solution serves to compute and therefore to show the line shape asymmetry. Good agreement of our distribution functions of ion microfield gradients and the line asymmetry with other results are obtained (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

基于核驱动模型参数反演的作物株型遥感识别

传统的单一方向遥感只能得到地面目标一个方向的辐射量,缺乏足够信息来同时推断像元的波谱和空间结构。多角度的反射光谱对于植被结构特征的估算及类型鉴别比垂直光谱具有明显的优越性。将多角度观测数据和核驱动模型结合,构建了基于核参数各向同性核所占比例(f_iso),几何光学核所占比例(f_geo)和体散射核所占比例(f_vol)的植被结构参数敏感指数(SPEI)来进行作物株型的遥感识别,并将SPEI与结构散射指数(SSI)和归一化差异参数指数(NDFI)等对紧凑型品种京411和披散型品种中优9507的实测多角度冠层方向反射率数据进行了核参数的反演,不同指数对作物株型结构表现出的敏感性依次为：SPEI＞SSI＞NDFI。SPEI较以往学者构建的指数对不同株型品种遥感识别具有更好的敏感性,该方法可以在其他作物上拓展应用,具有很好的理论基础和应用前景。     

Effect of pearlitic morphology with varying fineness on the cavitation erosion behavior of eutectoid rail steel

The present work discusses the effect of the pearlitic morphology with varying fineness on the cavitation erosion behavior of eutectoid rail steel. Cavitation erosion of three different types of the pearlitic steels (furnace-cooled, air-cooled, and forced-air-cooled) consisting of coarse, fine, and very fine microstructures were tested in 3.5% NaCl solution and compared with that of the as-received pearlitic rail steel. The variation in the mean depth of erosion (MDE) and mean depth erosion rate (MDER) with erosion time was analyzed. Furthermore, the cavitation erosion resistance of the as-received, the air-cooled, and the forced-air-cooled was found to be 1.03, 1.51, and 2.14 times better than the furnace-cooled pearlitic steel, respectively. It was concluded that the cavitation erosion resistance of the pearlitic steel increased with the increase in the fineness of the microstructure.     

结温对高压白光LED光谱特性的影响

高压LED因其自身突出的特点在照明领域有着潜在的应用优势,但作为一种新型功率LED,其光电热特性仍需深入研究。该实验对6和9V GaN基高压LED芯片进行了相同结构和工艺条件的封装,对封装样品进行了10~70℃的变温度光谱测试,并进行了从控温平台温度到器件结温的转换。为保证器件的电流密度相同,6和9V样品光谱测试的工作电流分别设定为150和100mA。结果显示,结温升高会导致蓝光峰值波长红移、波长半高宽增大、光效下降和显色指数上升等现象。在相同平台温度和注入功率下,9V样品的结温低于6V样品;随着温度的升高,9V样品波长半高宽的增加量比6V样品少1.3nm,光效下降量少1.13lm·W~(-1),显色指数上升量少0.28。以上表明,与低压LED相比,高压LED有着更低的工作结温和更小的温度影响。原因在于,相同环境温度下高压LED具有更好的电流扩展性和更少的发热量。此特性在高压LED的研究、发展与应用等方面具有参考价值。此外,峰值波长仍与结温有着较好的线性度,在光谱设备精度较高的情况下可继续作为结温的敏感参数。     

Effect of physiological Heart Rate variability on quantitative T2 measurement with ECG-gated Fast Spin Echo (FSE) sequence and its retrospective correction

Object

Quantitative T₂ measurement is applied in cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for the diagnosis and follow-up of myocardial pathologies. Standard Electrocardiogram (ECG)-gated fast spin echo pulse sequences can be used clinically for T₂ assessment, with multiple breath-holds. However, heart rate is subject to physiological variability, which causes repetition time variations and affects the recovery of longitudinal magnetization between TR periods.

Materials and methods

The bias caused by heart rate variability on quantitative T₂ measurements is evaluated for fast spin echo pulse sequence. Its retrospective correction based on an effective TR is proposed. Heart rate variations during breath-holds are provided by the ECG recordings from healthy volunteers. T₂ measurements were performed on a phantom with known T₂ values, by synchronizing the sequence with the recorded ECG. Cardiac T₂ measurements were performed twice on six volunteers. The impact of T₁ on T₂ is also studied.

Results

Maximum error in T₂ is 26% for phantoms and 18% for myocardial measurement. It is reduced by the proposed compensation method to 20% for phantoms and 10% for in vivo measurements. Only approximate knowledge of T₁ is needed for T₂ correction.

Conclusion

Heart rate variability may cause a bias in T2 measurement with ECG-gated FSE. It needs to be taken into account to avoid a misleading diagnosis from the measurements.     

Effect of Ir(pq)2acac doping on CBP in phosphorescence organic light-emitting diodes

Doping is one of the most powerful methods amongst the various performance improvement ways. Doping affects the energy levels of the host layer by the energy level of the dopant. This allows the energy bandgap to be adjusted to a desired level and thus generates light corresponding to that energy level. Alternatively, it can act as an energy barrier between the interfaces to change the flow of carriers. In this study, the voltage dependences of undoped and doped devices were observed. Bis(2-phenylquinoline) iridium(III) (acetylacetonate) (Ir(pq)₂acac) was doped in 4,4′-N, N′-dicarbazole-biphenyl (CBP) as the emission layer. The light intensity changes with the doping concentration, and the efficiency was also studied. When a high voltage was applied, the effect of triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA) adversely affected the electron-hole recombination. We analyzed the optimal operating conditions and the effect of doping concentration on OLEDs.