Sabine Angelika Weyand

University of Toronto | U of T · Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering

Purpose: Near-infrared spectroscopy brain-computer interfaces (NIRS-BCIs) have been proposed as potential motor-free communication pathways. This paper documents the challenges of implementing an NIRS-BCI with a non-verbal, severely and congenitally impaired, but cognitively intact young adult. Methods: A 5-session personalized mental task NIRS-...

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) provide individuals with a means of interacting with a computer using only neural activity. To date, the majority of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) BCIs have used prescribed tasks to achieve binary control. The goals of this study were to evaluate the possibility of using a personalized approach to establish cont...

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) enable users to interact with their environment using only cognitive activities. This paper presents the results of a comparison of four methodological frameworks used to select a pair of tasks to control a binary NIRS-BCI; specifically, three novel personalized task paradigms and t...

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) allow individuals to use only cognitive activities to interact with their environment. The widespread use of BCIs is limited, due in part to their lack of user-friendliness. The main goal of this work was to develop a more user-centered BCI and determine if: (1) individuals can acquire control of an online near-infr...

As a non-invasive and safe optical measure of hemodynamic brain activity, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has emerged as a potential brain-computer interface (BCI) access modality. Currently, to the best of our knowledge, all NIRS BCIs use mental tasks to elicit changes in regional hemodynamic activity. One of the limitations of using mental task...

Single-trial classification of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) signals for brain-computer interface (BCI) applications has recently gained much attention. This paper reviews research in this area conducted at the PRISM lab (University of Toronto) to date, as well as directions for future work. Thus far, research has included classification of hem...

Access solutions may facilitate communication in children with limited functional speech and motor control. This study reviews current trends in access solution development for children with cerebral palsy, with particular emphasis on the access technology that harnesses a control signal from the user (eg, movement or physiological change) and the...

An approach termed temporal quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics is presented to extend the time scales accessible in molecular dynamics simulations of reactions. This approach employs a hierarchy of methods: force-fields (FFs) to simulate the system near potential energy minima, semi-empirical (SE) molecular orbital methods to assess the likeliho...

In this paper we present the development and evaluation of a parent decision support tool for a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), known as PPADS or Physician and Parent Decision Support. The NICU interprofessional (IP) team uses advanced technology to care for the sickest infants in the hospital, some at the edge of viability. Many difficult car...

This paper compares two pattern classifiers with applications in medicine: the first is an artificial neural network with weight-elimination (ANN-we); the second is a hybrid classifier consisting of a decision-tree (DT) to eliminate variables which have little impact on predicting the outcome of interest, then processing the remaining variables thr...

In this paper we explore the design options for the development of a combined physician-parent decision support tool for a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), known as PPADS or Physician and Parent Decision Support. The work incorporates previous research on the development of a clinical data repository and the development of an NICU clinical deci...

Three criteria are suggested to help design a Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) that would have a better chance of being successfully deployed in a clinical environment. These criteria have been successfully applied to a CDSS designed to estimate outcomes for neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients. The CDSS was deployed in a pilot study...

In this paper, we examine the issue of patient safety as it was perceived when clinical engineering departments (CEDs) first began to emerge, and discuss how this responsibility changed dramatically in the past two decades. Technology management was of prime importance in the last three decades of the twentieth Century and to this, we now add the i...