Motor imagery refers to the brain’s response during the mental simulation of physical activities, which can be detected through electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. However, EEG signals exhibit a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) due to various artifacts originating from other physiological sources. To enhance the classification performance of motor imagery tasks by increasing the SNR of EEG signals, several signal decomposition approaches have been proposed. Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) has shown promising results in extracting EEG components associated with motor imagery tasks more effectively than traditional linear decomposition algorithms such as Fourier and wavelet methods. Nevertheless, the EMD-based algorithm suffers from a significant challenge known as mode mixing, where frequency components intertwine with the intrinsic mode functions obtained through EMD. This issue severely hampers the accuracy of motor imagery classification. Despite numerous algorithms proposed, mode mixing remains a persistent issue. In this paper, we propose the Deep-EMD algorithm, a deep neural network-based approach to mode mixing problem. We employ two datasets to compare the motor imagery classification and mode mixing improvement achieved by the conventional EMD algorithm. Our experimental results demonstrate that the Deep-EMD algorithm effectively mitigates the mode mixing problem in decomposed EEG components, leading to improved motor imagery classification performance.

In this study, the optimal features of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals were investigated for the implementation of a personal authentication system using a reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm. ECG signals were recorded from 11 subjects for 6 days. Consecutive 5-day datasets (from the 1st to the 5th day) were trained, and the 6th dataset was tested. To search for the optimal features of ECG for the authentication problem, RL was utilized as an optimizer, and its internal model was designed based on deep learning structures. In addition, the deep learning architecture in RL was automatically constructed based on an optimization approach called Bayesian optimization hyperband. The experimental results demonstrate that the feature selection process is essential to improve the authentication performance with fewer features to implement an efficient system in terms of computation power and energy consumption for a wearable device intended to be used as an authentication system. Support vector machines in conjunction with the optimized RL algorithm yielded accuracy outcomes using fewer features that were approximately 5%, 3.6%, and 2.6% higher than those associated with information gain (IG), ReliefF, and pure reinforcement learning structures, respectively. Additionally, the optimized RL yielded mostly lower equal error rate (EER) values than the other feature selection algorithms, with fewer selected features.

In this study, we analyze the effect of a recliner chair with rocking motions on sleep quality of naps using automated sleep scoring and spindle detection models. The quality of sleep corresponding to the two rocking motions was measured quantitatively and qualitatively. For the quantitative evaluation, we conducted a sleep parameter analysis based on the results of the estimated sleep stages obtained on the brainwave and spindle estimation, and a sleep survey assessment from the participants was analyzed for the qualitative evaluation. The analysis showed that sleep in the recliner chair with rocking motions positively increased the duration of the spindles and deep sleep stage, resulting in improved sleep quality.

Sleep experts manually label sleep stages via polysomnography (PSG) to diagnose sleep disorders. However, this process is time-consuming, requires a lot of labor from sleep experts, and makes the participants uncomfortable with the attachment of multiple sensors. Thus, automatic sleep scoring methods are essential for practical sleep monitoring in our daily lives. In this study, we propose an automatic sleep scoring model based on intrinsic oscillations in a single channel electroencephalogram (EEG) signal. We applied noise assisted bivariate empirical mode decomposition (NA-BEMD) to extract the intrinsic mode components and an attention mechanism in deep neural networks to provide weights to the components depending on their significance to sleep scoring. In particular, through the attention mechanism, we found an interpretable model by examining the oscillations that correspond to specific sleep stages. Therefore, we analyzed which frequency components are more weighted to a sleep stage than the others, when the model classifies sleep stages, and, as a result, confirmed that the model assigns convincing weights to the frequency components for each sleep stage. Additionally, the model consists of a one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN) to extract features of an epoch and bidirectional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) to learn the sequential information of the consecutive epochs. We evaluated proposed model using Fpz-Cz, Pz-Oz, and F3-M2 channel EEG from three different public datasets (Sleep-EDF-2013, Sleep-EDF-2018, WSC) and demonstrated that our model yielded the best overall accuracy (Fpz-Cz: 86.22%-82.67%, Pz-Oz: 83.63%-80.15%, F3-M2: 84.20%) and macro F1-score (Fpz-Cz: 80.79%-76.90%, Pz-Oz: 76.89%-72.98%, F3-M2: 74.88%) compared with the state-of-the-art sleep scoring algorithms using single channel EEG. As a benchmark test, FIR bandpass filters were compared, and it was confirmed that NA-BEMD was superior to the traditional filters in all experiments, demonstrating that the proposed model is interpretable and a state-of-the-art sleep scoring algorithm.

Several studies, wherein the structure or rigidity of a mattress was varied, have been conducted to improve sleep quality. These studies investigated the effect of variation in the surface characteristics of mattresses on sleep quality. The present study developed a mattress whose rigidity can be varied by controlling the amount of air in its air cells. To investigate the effect of the variable rigidity of the air mattress on sleep quality, participants (Male, Age: 23.9 ± 2.74, BMI: 23.3 ± 1.60) were instructed to sleep on the air mattress under different conditions, and their sleep quality was subjectively and objectively investigated. Subjectively, sleep quality is assessed based on the participants’ evaluations of the depth and length of their sleep. Objectively, sleep is estimated using the sleep stage information obtained by analysing the movements and brain waves of the participants during their sleep. A subjective assessment of the sleep quality demonstrates that the participants’ sleep was worse with the adjustment of the air mattress than that without; however, the objective sleep quality results demonstrates an improvement in the sleep quality when the rigidity of the air mattress is varied based on the participant’s preference. This paper proposes a design for mattresses that can result in more efficient sleep than that provided by traditional mattresses.

The evaluation of sleep stages is the most crucial part in diagnosing and treating patients with sleeping disorders. However, in most healthcare environments, doctors evaluate sleep stages manually by using patients’ polysomnography (PSG) data, which leads to high economic and time costs. PSG data are extremely complicated due to the amount of data and its recording process. In this study, instead of using PSG data single-channel EEG data are used to create an automated model for evaluating the five stages of sleep. The proposed model is an explainable artificial intelligence model for applications in a real-world medical environment. For this purpose, single-channel EEG data are decomposed into each signal component by band-pass filters. For post-hoc analysis, the learning rate for each key component in determining the sleep stages was estimated using the attention mechanism. A cross-evaluation was conducted on data from 80 subjects. The result was an averaged F1-score of 72.66 (±22.24) and an explainable model where EEG components were more effective in estimating each sleep stage.