[Openeeg-list] a very fantastic potential use for openEEG

[Nathan W. <nat...@ya...>]

Helen Barkan wrote:

> THANK YOU Nathan ...

You're welcome. I don't have much specific technical skill I can offer, 
to make a return on the benefit I receive from other's knowledge and 
uncommon generosity here, but it does feel rewarding to contribute in 
ancillary ways when the opportunity presents. Aside from that, I think 
this prospective ESES&CSWS project is indeed "a very fantastic potential 
use for openEEG." ( See Helen's initial post by that name on 24 Feb for 
details. )

Multiple subtopics follow.

--- About Learning Materials for Intro to EEG "Wetware":

Oh; on another topic, I'd really like a copy of the chapter(s) on EEG 
you (Helen) recommended to Ray Cole, too, and it would surprise me 
if I were alone in that. If you go to the trouble of photocopying them 
for Ray, what about extracting a promise from him to scan them 
into pdf's and upload them to some a (static) sourceforge openEEG  
page, if Joerg, Chris, et. al, approve? ( Sorry to "volunteer you", Ray.  ;-) )

I'm not a lawyer, but I am somewhat familiar with the "fair use" concept 
under United States copyright law, and I understand there are similar 
"fair dealing" laws in other countries re copyright. And I know professors 
copy and post chapters for their classes fairly often. It's my ( amateur )
opinion that this would be perfectly legitimate under U.S. law. I'd offer 
to do this myself, but would need to upgrade my computer first as I 
have only very slow USB 1.1 ports, and no scanner.  Or if Ray's not able 
to do this, let me know and it may be possible for me to get a friend to 
help get the chapters from the local University library and write them to 
.pdf files using one of the free pdf write utilities on the net.

--- Some probably "village idiot" suggestions to Chris, and questions:

You may have also seen the following pages by now, by clicking away 
from Bob Kemp's www.edfplus.info/companies/companies.html roster
of EDC-friendly hardware and software ... 

  ( Just occurred to me that you may want to use the button on the 
    above-mentioned page to ask Dr. Kemp - co-originator of EDF - 
    to add your BrainBay software to the page, btw. I see Jarek's BioEra
    software for openEEG is listed. For that matter, I guess it would be
    appropriate to list openEEG there, too, since with your or Jarek's 
    software, the resulting system will read & write EDF. I wonder if 
    you, Joerg, and your fellow admins would want openEEG there. )

... but if you haven't seen these following pages    

         www.librasch.org/librasch/index.html &
         www.librasch.org/librasch/manual/librasch_manual/c15.html  

for data-format abstraction-layer libraries for bio-signals, it occurs
to me they may be of interest to you for potential enhancement of 
BrainBay, to read & write obscure or proprietary formats. Might be 
of use as you interface BrainBay to new hardware, I'm guessing.

Also, re trying to create a (software) filter to pick ESES and CSWS out 
from Helen's sample data, I have a small, utterly obvious suggestion.  
The particular search string 

                   automatic seizure detection algorithm eeg 

submitted to google, google scholar, and PubMed searches gives fertile 
results, including some links to www.uspto.gov, the United States 
Patent and Trademark Office's web site.  I imagine the list of patents 
related to EEG that was put together on this list a short while ago would 
be of interest, too.

You are thinking of a software filter to call out these epileptic 
anomalies, rather than a hardware filter, correct? Would the idea then 
be to implement that filter on a PC that's in real-time communication 
via bluetooth with Joerg's "littler EEG", and have the PC provide any 
auditory alert that becomes necessary by playing a .wav file, or taking 
some other pre-determined action?

Or was the thought to instantiate the digital filter as an analog circuit
mounted on the cap or headset so that it's "downstream" of the (pre?-)
amp, and occurs in the signal path before data is transmitted to a host 
PC via bluetooth?  I guess what I'm trying to ask is what you and Helen 
had imagined for the overall product's signal path, and where do you  
anticipate the physical components of the system would best be 
located, whether at the on-head hardware, or at the PC? 

Of course, I did just now remember that Helen has said all this would 
have to be a project for her NEXT (academic) year. I suppose I've been 
engaging in the same kind of "salivating" about all this that she 
mentioned she was sometimes subject to herself.

--- About a very fantastic potential use for openEEG: 

If I understand the goal, Helen, you want to provide, through a non-
profit venture, the most essential capabilities of systems that companies
sell to hospitals for $12,000 and up, per patient bed, ( e.g. this system, 
among many similar systems from other manufacturers --> )   

    www.grasstechnologies.com/products/clinsystems/nsa.html

as a government-approved, robust, portable, wearable product, 
with not unacceptably-bad documentation, some adequate degree 
of product support for a non-technical user base, probably to include
software/firmware upgrades, to facilitate its manufacture, carry some 
inventory, arrange for enough publicity that people will know it exists, 
provide a way to respond to inquiries from the public, the press, 
healthcare professionals, and from regulators in multiple countries, 
accommodate possible contingencies like a government-ordered 
product recall, furnish ancillary functions like purchasing, logistics,
order-entry, arrange for shipping, billing/payment, and overall 
accounting functions, and engage enough legal advice so we won't 
all get our pants sued off for the next thirty years, and do this all 
for well under what, $1,000 per unit? 

Sounds like a pretty wild ride, but one I wouldn't like to miss, either.  
I do believe it's possible, in other words, for several good reasons, 
and would like to contribute to the effort where I can.  

--- About Getting European Data Format Samples of ESES to Chris:

>>  Does the maker of the equipment with which you captured 
>>  your ESES & CSWS data offer any format conversion utility?   
>
>  no no no, alas ... *

Yes, yes, yes, surely!*         <--- see below. 

A facility to export to European Data Format is Included in the current 
version of Xltek's NeuroWorks software, and in TWin by Grass Tech-
nologies, also.  Or so says each company, in print, at least. I'm guessing 
you became used to the lack of such a feature in previous software 
versions, and thus saw no reason to go looking for it in the depths of 
the menu hierarchy after your department upgraded. I've appended details 
about where to find the EDF export feature in NeuroWorks to the end of 
this post, along with info for Grass/TWin that's not quite so specific. 

 ______________________________

  * Asterisked sentences in the above text were sponsored in part by 
 a grant from the League for the Preservation of Victorian Speech Patterns  
 in Modern English, H. Barkan, North American Representative.   ;-)
 ___________________________________


---  Addendum - Detail re EDF Export from Grass Technologies EEG

>  no go for conversion there. ASCII all the way.  they may have EDF but 
>  they do not sell this version to us, and they are very closed-source. 

  "TWin export functions allow output of information 
   (raw data, graphics, and text) to standard formats 
   (including ASCII and EDF), ..."

   ( www.grasstechnologies.com/products/clinsystems/twineeg.html )

Hmm... I wonder if you were using some pared-down version of TWin 
that Grass cobbled quickly for use with Telefactor hardware when the
two companies merged?  Or perhaps the EDF export feature was added 
to TWin only just recently. 

It's included, I know, in their "Gamma® - Research Data Acquisition &
Analysis System" ( Which I understand to be the 16-32 channel app/ 
software "layer" that sits atop TWin, TWin being foundational to all their 
software products? ) Re Gamma®, the "review-analysis mode" section of 
www.grasstechnologies.com/products/researchsoft/gamma2.html says:

     "Features:
       • Export data to ASCII format for use in other applications
       • Supports EDF (European Data Format) import/export"
       • <snip>

The EDF-out facility is part of TWin now, according to the above, but 
it may be "buried" in a separately-run utility, or way down in a sub-sub-
menu or something. Dr. Kemp's list of EDF-friendly bio-signal hardware 
and software at www.edfplus.info/companies/companies.html , seems 
to imply that's so in Gamma®, anyway::

     GRASS: "Their software product Gamma version 4.4SP2 
     exchanges data in EDF via the File Utility version 6.1. 
     GrassLab 1.0 uses the same code. RSS version 2.1 reads EDF."

Don't know what "GrassLab" is/was - sounds illicit - but "RSS" is the
firm's standalone acquisition & analysis software designed for use in 
animal studies, I understand.

---  Addendum - Detail re EDF Export from Xltek EEG

Late-breaking-news: Can't provide much helpful detail here, 
after all. I had hoped to supply specific "how to" instructions, but the 
NeuroWorks pdf manual I downloaded from Xltek requires a password 
to open. I've sent them an e-mail requesting a password, but it's the 
weekend now, so no reply until Monday, I imagine.

Without the manual I have no definitive proof that Xltek can export  
both ascii and EDF. There's this, however: Xltek is listed this way 

    "XLTEK, USA. Their monitoring systems can export to EDF."

on http://www.edfplus.info/companies/companies.html, Dr. Kemp's 
web page for EDF-friendly hardware and software. And I also found a
document that appeared to be an Xltek-issued marketing brochure, in 
Dutch, entitled "XLTEK State-of-the-Art Electrophysiology". Under its 
"Software Modules" heading, it included a claim which translates to: 

  "EDF and ASCII export of your data are possible. XLTEK XCHANGE 
   makes it possible to give a study to a colleague who doesn't have 
   XLTEK software."

Hmm ... don't see much else on the web re Xltek + Xchange, besides 
the Dutch reference. More info on Monday, if needed.  

Cheers all, 

Nathan