Manuel Merino Monge

• Engineer in Computer Science
• PhD at University of Seville

Background: The protocol described in this paper is part of a research project coordinated between three Spanish universities, where a technology aimed at improving the quality of life of people with cerebral palsy will be developed. Part of the proposed technology will consist of an interface and a series of applications to increase motivation for...

This paper is the first of a two-part study aiming at building a low-cost visible-light eye tracker (ET) for people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The whole study comprises several phases: (1) analysis of the scientific literature, (2) selection of the studies that better fit the main goal, (3) building the ET, and (4) testing with final...

Background: The protocol described in this paper is part of a research project coordinated 1 between three Spanish universities where a technology aimed at improving the quality of life of 2 people suffering from cerebral palsy will be developed. Part of the technology developed will consist 3 of developing an interface and a series of applications...

This paper introduces a novel non-invasive wearable device that can infer whether people are suffering from anxiety or not. The device allows capturing physiological signals such as: electrodermal activity (EDA), skin temperature (ST), electrocardiography (ECG) and photoplethysmography (PPG), and provides an estimation of blood pressure-through the...

The analysis of cardiac activity is one of the most common elements for evaluating the state of a subject, either to control possible health risks, sports performance, stress levels, etc. This activity can be recorded using different techniques, with elec-trocardiogram and photoplethysmogram being the most common. Both techniques make significantly...

This paper presents the development of a virtual rehabilitation game and mental load with different difficulty blocks. The game was controlled with body tracking and physiological signals - electrocardiography and electrodermal activity - were recorded throughout the session. Several parameters -heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), skin c...

In this work, an intervention study is designed whose objective is to motivate physical activity with tools that adjust as much as possible to the subject's capacities. The methodology uses physiological information to facilitate interaction by mean of low-cost devices that allow these parameters to be measured and related to the emotional state of...

Detecting stress when performing physical activities is an interesting field that has received relatively little research interest to date. In this paper, we took a first step towards redressing this, through a comprehensive review and the design of a low-cost body area network (BAN) made of a set of wearables that allow physiological signals and h...

The correct diagnosis of high blood pressure is important to avoid cardiovascular diseases. In this work, we propose a low-cost noninvasive blood-pressure measurement unit composed of a photoplethysmograph and an electrocardiograph. It is based on pulse transit time measurement, thus performing nonocclusive measurement. To test the effectiveness of...

This paper describes several computer access methods tested by Eva, a woman with choreoathetosic cerebral palsy. This disease prevents her from controlling the peripherals and configurations that normally give access to information and communication technologies, further limiting her independence. To make Eva access a computer, we focused our effor...

People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have great difficulties in social interaction and in the management of personal and other people’s emotions. This work aimed at developing an intelligent bracelet, capable of inferring the children’s emotional state, transmitting it to others, and, above all, informing the patients themselves so that they...

Physical activity (PA) performed in group can slow down the decline in motor functions in people with disabilities. With this objective, Interactive Rehab Orchestra (IRO) was developed. IRO is an interactive multiplayer musical game that looks for reducing sedentary lifestyles by promoting PA. The individuals are responsible for playing the melody...

Sedentary behavior (SB) is a common problem that may produce health issues in people with cerebral palsy (CP). When added to a progressive reduction in motor functions over time, SB can lead to higher percentages of body fat, muscle stiffness and associated health issues in this population. Regular physical activity (RPA) may prevent the loss of mo...

A typical routine in many scientific studies consists of recording data from devices and identifying which segment of data corresponds with an experimental interval. However, many current applications have been designed to obtain and save data from one single device, and synchronizing data with the markers that delimit the test phases can be diffic...

This work aims at demonstrating that it is possible to detect emotions using a single EEG channel with an accuracy that is comparable to that obtained in studies carried out with devices that have a high number of channels. In this article the Neurosky Maindwave device, which only a single electrode at the FP1 position, the MatLab and the IBM SPSS...

In this article we present a new low-cost physiological signal acquisition platform in compliance with OSHW philosophy. The device contains an ECG circuit; two EDA channels that implement a time-multiplexing technique to remove inter-channel coupling interference; and a skin temperature module. These features make the platform suitable for experime...

1) Background: Some people with severe disabilities are confined in a state in which communication is virtually impossible, being reduced to communicating with their eyes or using sophisticated systems that translate thoughts into words. EyeTrackers and BCI are suitable systems for those people but their main drawback is their cost. More affordable...

This database contains the results of using different method of blinking and several technologies to access a computer. If you use this database in your research, please cite the following manuscript: Communication technologies based on voluntary blinks: assessment and design. Molina-Cantero, A. J., Lebrato-Vázquez, C., Merino-Monge, M., Quesada-...

Applications involving data acquisition from sensors need samples at a preset frequency rate, the filtering out of noise and/or analysis of certain frequency components. We propose a novel software architecture based on open-software hardware platforms which allows programmers to create data streams from input channels and easily implement filters...

This paper describes a hardware/software platform to acquire human body signals. In the field of physiological computing it is desirable to have a system that allows the synchronized acquisition of signals coming from different sources. Here is described how to unify the whole process of acquiring signals from both customized hardware and low cost...

The study of emotions using multiple channels of EEG represents a widespread practice in the field of research related to brain computer interfaces (Brain Computer Interfaces). To date, few studies have been reported in the literature with a reduced number of channels, which when used in the detection of emotions present results that are less accur...

This paper describes a hardware/software platform to acquire human body signals. In the field of physiological computing it is desirable to have a system that allows the synchronized acquisition of signals coming from different sources. Here is described how to unify the whole process of acquiring signals from both customized hardware and low cost...

This work studies the feasibility of using mental attention to access a computer. Brain activity was measured with an electrode placed at the Fp1 position and the reference on the left ear; seven normally developed people and three subjects with cerebral palsy (CP) took part in the experimentation. They were asked to keep their attention high and l...

Multisensory stimulation therapy involves the simultaneous stimulation of several senses in a relaxing environment to achieve a variety of therapeutic outcomes for clients with conditions affecting sensory and cognitive processes. We present, StimuHat, a wearable system for therapists to visually stimulate patients. We conducted a pilot study in wh...

A five-layered software architecture translating movements into mouse clicks has been developed and tested on an Arduino platform with two different sensors: accelerometer and flex sensor. The architecture comprises low-pass and derivative filters, an unsupervised classifier that adapts continuously to the strength of the user's movements and a fin...

An experience that took place in ASPACE (Association of People with Cerebral Palsy in Seville) showed that the intervention with games based on tangible devices like small robots is a good alternative in the case of people with cerebral palsy (CP). The aim is to develop skills in three facets: cognitive, motor and social. From three to six sessions...

Resumen—La asignatura de Procesamiento de Señales Multi-media utiliza una metodología de evaluación continua consistente en la realización de 7 proyectos basados en Octave con periodici-dad bisemanal y de tests de evaluación durante la última hora en las sesiones de laboratorio. Con ella se ha conseguido alumnos con mayor motivación, se ha ayudado...

Resumen—La disciplina de procesamiento de bioseñalesbiose˜bioseñales abar-ca un amplio y complejo espectro de conocimientos. El diseñodise˜diseño de sesiones de laboratorios es fundamental para afianzar los conoci-mientos teóricos y motivar al alumno. Por ello, la implementación y visualización de diferentes técnicas de procesamiento, usando medios...

In this paper a thermal flowmeter based on the calorimetric principle is reported and analytically modeled. The flow is measured without using any kind of laminar or bypass elements and it has been tested for laminar, transitional and turbulent flow patterns. It contains four temperature sensors. Three of them are placed downstream and the fourth u...

Las interfaces HCI y PC basadas en bioseñales constan de 3 fases: la captación de los datos, procesamiento y actuación sobre el sistema. El trabajo de esta tesis está centrado en el bloque de procesamiento de la información registrada por los electrodos. La naturaleza heterogénea de las bioseñales implica diferentes técnicas de captación y procesam...

The goal of this study is to identify EEG parameters and electrode positions with the highest significant values to differentiate between tasks and relax periods. Different signals were recorded as 12 subjects are doing arithmetic and memory tasks under stress condition. The test consisted of an initial and final 5-minute relax periods and three 4-...

Background Eye movements have been used in control interfaces and as indicators of somnolence, workload and concentration. Different techniques can be used to detect them: we focus on the electrooculogram (EOG) in which two kinds of interference occur: blinks and overshoots. While they both draw bell-shaped waveforms, blinks are caused by the eyeli...

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a well-established technique for determining the electrical activity of the heart and studying its diseases. One of the most common pieces of information that can be read from the ECG is the heart rate (HR) through the detection of its most prominent feature: the QRS complex. This paper describes an offline version an...

The aim of this paper is to identify heart rate parameters with higher significant values when a set of people are performing a task under stress condition. In order to accomplish this, one computer application with arithmetic and memory activities which lets drive the subjects to different stages of activity and stress has been designed. Tests are...

In this paper we propose an assessment of biosignals for handling an application based on virtual keyboard and automatic scanning. The aim of this work is to measure the effect of using such application, through different interfaces based on electromyography and electrooculography, on cardiac and elec-trodermal activities. Five people without disab...

Body Area Networks are a solution to remote monitoring in order to acquire vital signals of patients. Actual sensors provide its own interface which makes more difficult to integrate them in a system. Us-ing standardized protocols and interfaces increases the usability and the integration of different sensors, to achieve this goal the IEEE 1451 sta...

This paper presents an exhaustive study on the different topologies of ambiguous soft keyboards, analyzing the text entry average time per character and the average number of user inputs necessary for its creation. Various topologies and design criteria are investigated. In addition, an analytical model is also proposed. This model allows one to co...

This paper presents a research and a development of a fingerprint-indoor-positioning system using the Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). The WSN implementation is based on two different protocol stacks: BitCloud and OpenMAC, a certified ZigBee Compliant Platform (ZCP) and an IEEE 802.15.4 embedded softwar...

This In this paper, a system architecture that can be adapted to an individual’s motor capacity and preferences, to control a computer is presented. The system uses two different transducers based on the emission and the reflection of infrared light. These let to detect of voluntary blinks, winks, saccadic or head movements and/or sequences of th...

In this paper, a signal processing algorithm to detect eye movements is developed. The algorithm works with two kinds of inputs: derivative and amplitude level of electrooculographic signal. Derivative is used to detect signal edges and the amplitude level is used to filter noise. Depending of movement direction, different kinds of events are gener...

This paper describes a system composed by predictive text input software called “Dasher” and a hardware used to connect an accelerometer to the computer. The main goal of this work is to allow people with motor disabilities to have a flexible and cheap way to communicate. The accelerometer can be placed on any body part depending on user preference...

In this paper we propose an application based on virtual keyboard and automatic scanning to communicate with a PC and the others people. The aim users are the people with disabilities. A high degree of customization is possible in the software. So the user can selected the color of buttons, position of system on screen, the kind of scanning, timer...

This paper presents a proposal of a flexible telemedicine system for remote patient monitoring. It can be used in different kind of environments where there is only available low speed transmission links like Radio Frequency. This proposal includes the use of a previous work where the IEC-60870-5 standard was applied to the development of an open a...

Text entry is one of the communication alternatives requiring special systems and techniques to enable disabled people to type. Auto-matic scanning virtual keyboards are an alternative to enable handicap-ped people to input text. This kind of system have a limited text entry rate. In this paper two alternatives are proposed in order to increase thi...