Which of These Devices Could Win the Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE?

Qmed will sponsor one of technologies below to enter the Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE. We are seeking your help in picking the  technology that has the best chance of winning in the competition. Have a look at the official rules for the Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE, and cast your vote in the survey. The main factors to consider are: 1) Relevance to prevalent public health needs, 2) Originality and creativity, 3) Potential for widespread commercial application.

Entrant 1: Noninvasive Autonomic Nervous System Monitor from FNND LLC

Noninvasive Autonomic Nervous System Monitor (first prototype name: FN-PPG-02) utilizes an optical sensor to create a wireless or wired handheld continuous blood pressure, heart rate, EKG (optional) and SpO₂ monitor. This device belongs to the class of intelligent sensors with real-time data pre-processing. This convenient, portable monitor would be ideal for both spot checks and continuous monitoring in virtually any setting. Due to its light weight it can be used as a vital signs monitor, Holter monitor, and ambulatory blood pressure monitor at the same time. It provides an opportunity to monitor epilepsy patients, detect dangerous heart arrhythmias. It also can be helpful to predict and, possibly, prevent autonomic failure episodes, such is vasovagal syncope, which never been done before. The proposed device incorporates the latest digital signal processing technology to deliver accurate, reliable data  with complicated conditions, including subject motion and signal interference. As a result, it can monitor a broad range of patients with greater efficiency. It can be connected to virtually any data acquisition system, including smart phones, with remote (network) access. With the use of internal FLASH memory, it can be applied for outpatient 24 hour monitoring. Optionally it can be equipped with MEMS inertial sensor for motion activity and body position tracking. This monitor can also be easily incorporated in multi-patient data acquisition systems.

Project status: system/device prototyping, data collection, working prototype design, software development.

Problems Solved: absence of pocket size vital-sign and autonomic nervous system monitors on the market

Improvement over Existing Technology: This method allows creating portable handheld inexpensive devices for 24h ABP, HR, EKG  monitoring/recording. Currently devises with similar function have a number of issues, very complicated, not portable, not reliable and extremely expensive. No one incorporates all functions in a single device.

Suggested  Features and Specifications

Indications for Usage

Entrant 2: Miniature Sensors for Health Monitoring from Dennis J. Solomon

As you may be aware, today's wearable sensors such as in sports watches, performance straps, headphones rely on the implementation of one or more sensor modalities to monitor temperature, pulse, heart rhythms, oxygenation, etc.  We have pushed the boundaries of miniaturization and precision monitoring through our in-depth understanding of biophysics, biochemistry and nanotechnology.

The technology provides a hardware foundation for monitoring fitness, health, and convalescence as well as specific markers for communicable disease.

Our approach uses a multimodal, wireless external patch or small disk to monitor general and complex physiological and biochemical functions.The novelty is in the sensors themselves - which are proprietary.

Entrant 3: Visual Inspection System from AMA Optics, Inc.

Inherent in our binocular visual system is a precise balance of right vs. left brightness sense. Most diseases damage, at least in their early stage, affect one side of the visual system more than the opposite side and result in an interocular brightness disparity. Measuring brightness disparity has been the achieved by a number of techniques and correlation to disease severity has been shown. The problems with current techniques are that the tests are very subjective or the instrumentation is large and laboratory based.

We have developed a program utilizing rivalrous images presented in paired reciprocal image sets (four images) that are presented stereoscopically, which for the first time provides direct visual inspection by the subject of the right-left relative brightness. The subject sees the fused images as one top and one bottom image and the subject chooses the brighter image of the pair. This direct comparison of right-left brightness balance allows distinctive endpoints and provides for changing one image of the four reciprocal images to quantitate a defect by bringing into balance the brightness disparity. Our system, "a psychophysical bridge" is analogous to the very accurate Wheatstone bridge using four resistors to measure the resistance of an unknown resistor.

In one experiment, we measured the accuracy of our system by inducing brightness disparity using light attenuating neutral density filters placed over one eye of normal subjects. With staircase algorithms, disparate rivalrous image sets of 0, .3, .6, .9, 1.2, 1.5, or 1.8 log units were presented on an iPhone within a stereo-viewer. A monocular series of challenging ND filters creating brightness disparity was neutralized by each of 18 normal sighted subjects (8 to 98 years). The results are very accurate for a biological system.  The imposed brightness disparity was accurately neutralized with r = 0.9817, p =0.0005.

Brightness disparity occurs in a wide variety of diseases including amblyopia (lazy eye in children), glaucoma, optic nerve inflammatory and compressive diseases, pituitary tumors, retinal diseases, abnormalities of the pupil, and asymmetrically cataracts.

Our team currently has a IRB study at Columbia University analyzing the amblyopic defect in children.

Our program is viewable on a smart phone, iPad, computer, or picture viewer.  Stereoscopic separation is achieved by a stereo-viewer or polarizing filters.  The self-testing algorithm allows the game (test) to be performed without an examiner and an app is planned.

Our technology would be competitive in the Nokia Sensing XChallenge in the physiology category because we have working prototypes, the test is extremely accurate and a wide variety of diseases could be detected that are not currently being screened by telecommunication sensing technology.

Entrant 4: Wrist-Mounted Vital Signs Monitor from Empirical Technologies

CareTaker® is a wrist mounted complete vital signs monitor weighing 105 grams.  It has been validated against over 400 hours of radial and central catheters to track beat by beat blood pressure (cNIBP) and ECG accurate heart rate.  Additional trials verified that CareTaker detects blood loss of one pint.  Other trials showed that CareTaker measures respiration rate and beat by beat arterial stiffness.  Two modifications in prototype production allow the tracking of SpO₂ and near-core body temperature.  CareTaker uses a low pressure, below diastole, skin friendly polyurethane cuff around a finger or thumb and, for SpO₂, a separate distal finger cuff.  Temperature is taken in the axilla using a small patch and Bluetooth low energy (BLE) to transmit the temperature every minute for a week whereupon the patch is disposed.  CareTaker slaves up to eight BLE enabled device such as a bathroom scale, glucometer, or future biomedical devices for specific disease identification.  The heart rate function allows determination of all arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation, but without the electrodes that, when removed, often tear the skin of older people.  The new prototypes contain a cellular radio that reaches 99% of the US population.  Simply by putting the cuff on and pushing a button, all five vital signs and others are continuously transmitted through a HIPAA data tunnel to a secure server.  No confusing cell phones connections or pairings are necessary nor any hubs or extra equipment.  The device works as well at home as on the interstate highways; one device does it all.  Cloud data is available through Apps that are downloaded to cell phones, PCs, and tablets.  Both real time and trend data, from home sleep studies for instance, are instantly available to qualified caregivers.  All data is locally processed using an on-board ARM processor so that the data rate is almost zero, dramatically lowering subscription costs.  A battery charge lasts for over 15 hours.  SpO₂ is only measured every 20 seconds and the pulse rate is not measured using the oximeter since it excessively uses battery energy and the results are not good enough for heart rate variability.  CareTaker will cost as much as a smart phone and can be carried around in a purse or pocket.  For sleep studies it should replace polysomnography, determine the nocturnal dip, and discover dangerous and prevalent nocturnal hypertension.  CareTaker is a complete vital signs monitor with real time observation at any distance, greatly reducing emergency room visits.  There is solid evidence that CareTaker can enable predictive cardiology.  In a small blind trial, CareTaker detected and located five of five aortic aneurisms.  The theory behind CareTaker is new, but supported in peer reviewed literature.   Basically CareTaker decomposed each pulse arriving at the finger into several constituent pulses that occur due to partial pulse reflections near the renal arteries at the aorta and another at the iliac artery bifurcation.  It was developed using SBIR funding for combat casualty care from the Office of Naval Research and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Entrant 5: Promeinfo from Ricardo Silva Bustillos, PhD

Promeinfo stands for Continuous Computing Medical Research Program. It is a collective effort leaded by Prof. Ricardo Silva, Ph.D., C.C.E. to bring together the biomedical engineering capacities from Simon Bolivar University and the Bioinformatics Capabilities of University of Guayaquil to develop a fully functional cellphone mediated biosensor network.

The group at University of Guayaquil, also developed a computerized tool for orderly, systematic and problem-oriented individual and collective health information. The system can be managed by primary care programs in real time, both health promoters and community medical doctors can view epidemiological profiles and establish comparative tables for indicators of health status. Information on family history enables the practitioner to include listed therapies and side effects, preventing undesirable drug effects. The system can detect information relevant to the lifestyles preventing life related diseases and allowing to investigate risk factors and ill planned changes in the epidemiological profile [2]. The University of Guayaquil participated in Microsoft Imagine Cup 2012 competition - Ecuador - with a project called " EKG application using Windows Mango Phone as Grapher for electrical activity of the heart", qualifying amongst the 11 semifinalists groups.

The team in Venezuela is currently working on the development of acquisition and support systems articulated with Android platform smartphones to acquire physiological signals. The system developed by the Simon Bolivar University has been optimized for capturing, recording and presentation of ECG signals and particularly for the detection of paroxysmal tachycardia. It is desired to combine the capabilities of research groups in Bioengineering at the Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela and Medical Informatics in Guayaquil to develop a joint solution. This solution is compatible with the objectives of the Nokia Sensing XChallenge in the category of Physiology: "searching quantitative measurement and visualization of physiological states, including vital signs, traditional and non-traditional measures of health." Our device should be capable of recording Electrocardiogram (ECG), we are studying the incorporation blood glucose and other physiological signals.

The combined capabilities of both groups should be allowed to integrate a high-level team capable of meeting the challenges posed by this competition. At the same time it is working on the development of skills associated with the change of the productive matrix , building the knowledge society and the priority areas for development . The prototype developed in this work provides the basis for the first stage of a sole telemedicine system with ability to acquire and record basic physiological parameters for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. The parameters will then be sent as simple over the cellular network to the Internet , the data will not be sent in real time. The system of collection of this information will be developed under programming strategies in the cloud.

References

Entrant 6: Carbon Nanotube-Based Sensor from Alpha Szenszor

Alpha Szenszor Inc. (ASI) is a leading manufacturer of carbon nanotube (CNT) based sensors. The company is currently developing applications for the health and wellness industry. ASI's main attributes include a strong multi disciplinary technical and business development team with decades of consumer electronics integration experience, and an extensive IP portfolio. The company has exclusive rights to over 200 patents and applications from an IP portfolio ranked #2 in the world for semiconductor manufacturing by IEEE's patent power scorecard 2010. ASI has established a low cost, scalable manufacturing process for CNT sensors as well as seamless integration with standard electronic components and mobile devices. ASI's sensor technology is ideal for direct integration into hand-held, wearable, and medical appliances, where low power consumption and real estate constraints are critical. The majority of ASI's devices have been designed to use human breath to detect trace gases, in particular volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are indicators of changes in human physiology (Volatolomics). Both the approach i.e. the detection of human conditions from exhaled breath, and the developed device are highly innovative. As an example, ASI is currently leading a joint venture (JV) with the Technion of Haifa, Israel to provide an inexpensive non-invasive lung malignancy breath test (~$50 per test) as both an early screen, and a guided follow-up of patients with CT-detected lung nodules. Technion's clinical studies of lung cancer (LC) (malignancy; histology; genotype; staging; to date > 800 patients) showed great promise for clinical practice with highly accurate results (sensitivity>80%; specificity>90%) in the detection and discrimination of LC, compared to healthy states. Similar results have been obtained in other cancer states (breast, colorectal, prostate, liver, head-and-neck, gastric cancer). This joint venture has been recently ranked number #1 among the top Israeli medical advances to watch in 2014. We are entering the Nokia sensing X-­- challenge by virtue of the fact that the ASI's CNT sensor technology provides a high level of synergy with Nokia's vision of ubiquitous point of care (POC) monitoring. For this challenge we propose our wrist wearable sensor device that monitors dietary intake and fat burning during physical activities by measuring breath VOCs., namely acetone. Normal human breath contains acetone levels in the range of 100 - 2000 ppb. This breath acetone level increases by relative amounts during exercise for healthy, T1 diabetics and T2 diabetics, reflecting instantaneous lipid oxidation. The results provide real-­-time continuous information on fat burning by the individual. ASI's sensors have demonstrated direct digital detection of said trace gases in single digit parts per billion (ppb) concentrations, thus providing a highly robust platform for acetone in human breath measurement. Additionally, standard off the shelf MEMS based accelerometers will be integrated in the final appliance to provide a more comprehensive lifestyle monitor.      

Entrant 7: OMNI Channel sensing from Mapjects

OMNI Channel sensing

Two main patterns for application

? Innovation

? Consumer Application

Seamless Solution
LOB = sensor -> data streams - >
convergence -> Automation

Innovation = software + hardware

Mapjects was geared for Innovation and Competition

It's in our DNA, and we thrive on completion

Microsoft NUI winners 2010

RASCO winners Energy (OPEC) 2011

Smithsonian Technical Advisory Council NPM 2012, 2013

Energy Standards Advisory members Zigbee

Fujitsu Telecom Excellence Award 2002
 

Entrant 8: mHolter from Lorenzo Valacca

mHolter is a patent pending biomedical application for smartphones connected to skin electrodes, whose purpose is to monitor heart activity for 24 hours, to record any abnormalities. It is a product for all ages, non-invasive, indicated for the control of various symptoms, from feelings of faintness to severe disease. The data collected on the phone will be processed by a server and the consequent electrocardiogram will be sent directly to the patient or analysed by expert cardiologists affiliated with mHolter.

The mentioned electrodes could take different forms: electrodes wearable as patches, bracelets, belts, or chest bands.

The system is very simple and it needs:

Potential issues that may be addressed to this product are:

mHolter is designed to solve the problems related to the current standard holters purchased by hospitals that are sophisticated and expensive devices, released to patients after waiting times that may be several months and with high prices based on the patient's health insurance. Since hospitals do not carry many holters, patients can obtain this device just few times hoping that a cardiac event occurs during one of these holter tests.

Main advantages of mHolter:

Entrant 9: KneeStim from Articulate Labs

KneeStim uses neuromuscular electrical stimulation to contract quadriceps muscles in synchronicity with joint movement, with the intent of turning a foot step into a quadriceps muscle building repetition. This is achieved using high level patient monitoring with motion-tracking hardware, programmed user inputs, and a real-time operating system. By stimulating in synchrony with gait, every step a patient takes becomes a quadriceps muscle building repetition, and a patient's daily routines are transformed into ongoing physical therapy. This is intended for use in assisting rehabilitation related to knee osteoarthritis and knee replacement surgery.

KneeStim was invented by co-founder Larry "Herbie" Kirn, an engineer who suffered a lower-limb amputation following a motorcycle accident. Shortly there after, he experienced osteoarthritis in the knee of his intact leg. The osteoarthritis, combined with his amputation, threatened his ability to move and work. What he discovered to be most effective during therapy was neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) to help strengthen his quadriceps muscles. He drew on his extensive experience as a control systems designer, where sensitive, real-time decisions based on motion data had been in use for decades and applied it to stationary NMES therapy, for use during regular daily activities.

KneeStim's joint kinematics history may offer physicians and physical therapists feedback on patient progress that would only be achieved otherwise with expensive, non-mobile motion analysis in controlled settings. Data can be used by providers to monitor patient compliance and to look for actionable insight that might indicate higher likelihood for readmission or continued rehabilitation difficulty. Patients can observe similar data through either their smartphone or a secure website portal to get feedback on progress and how it relates to their improved health outcomes.

The base technology can be applied to other joints, other musculoskeletal disorders, and sports medicine and military health concerns. More importantly, we believe this technology represents a step change in rehabilitation technology and in mobile health measurement of musculoskeletal conditions.

Entrant 10: iAware from USC

iAware fatigue to focus EOG eye-tracking glasses

iAware^TM opens new possibilities for non-intrusive acquiring of physiological signals in wearable devices to capture early signs of autism-related attention problems as well as identifying the levels of eye fatigue which could stop the epidemic of myopia, or nearsightedness.

(descriptive materials removed at developers' request) 

Entrant 11: Photo-Electric Chemical Sensors (PECS) and Photo-Electric Microbial Sensors (PEMS)

Ken Emanuel EE/ME [[email protected]]
Jay Huebner, PhD [[email protected]]
Brian Stadelmaier, BS [[email protected]]

Abstract
PECS and PEMS is a novel sensing technology utilizing interfacial photo-voltages to detect the presence and concentration of a wide range of chemical analytes and microbes in near real time.

Intellectual property coverage includes the following US Patents: # 7,354,770, # 7,354,770, # 8,354,647, # 7,892,495, # 8,440,145, with others pending. Research and development funding of over $5 million has been previously provided by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Concept
Charge motion through chemical or biochemical surface layers generates a unique electrical signal in the presence of a photon source. A measure of this charge motion can be related to the physical substance and/or current state of the substance that can be altered in the presence of an analyte. Sensing selectivity is achieved through molecular recognition in combination with electrode arrays for sensing in a complex matrix where simultaneous detection of multiple analytes is possible.

Hardware/Packaging
PECS and PEMS uses a photon source, an electrode and an analog data acquisition device. Advances in LED, MEMS / nanotechnology, and digital processing allows for miniaturization of these components ultimately allowing for detection and analysis on an extremely portable scale. These fundamental components in combination with peripheral sensors for analysis of environmental and thermodynamic conditions allow for deployment in a field environment.

Research
Successful testing has been performed using hundreds of different chemical and microbial analytes over the past decade. Test data shows a high degree of selectivity, stability and sensitivity.

Application
PECS and PEMS are applicable in aqueous and gaseous environments. Chemical and microbial analysis of bodily fluids, breath and the local environment can be performed to identify the state of human health and any potential risks.