Abstract: A method for measuring arterial diastolic blood pressure in a subject includes deriving values of a delay between pulses in two signals indicative of cardiac induced pulsatile variations of a cardiovascular parameter in a first region and a second region of the subject's body. A variable pressure applied to a region of the subject's body causes variation of the delay. A difference curve is calculated by subtracting from the delay values a monotonic mathematical function adjusted as a best-fit to the data. A value of the variable pressure for which the difference curve exhibits a stationary point is then identified as the diastolic blood pressure.

Abstract: A method for measuring systolic blood pressure includes raising the cuff pressure in such a manner that two conditions are satisfied: (1) The cuff air pressure takes sufficient time to reach the SBP value to avoid blood pressure in the arteries under the PPG sensor being too low, thereby avoiding collapse of the arterioles under the PPG sensor; and (2) The increase of the cuff air pressure between the DBP value and the SBP value is not overly slow in a manner which would cause a relatively high mean blood pressure in the arteries distal to the cuff, and could lead to reduced sensitivity in detecting the restart of blood flow when the cuff air pressure decreases to just below SBP value.

Abstract: A shutter for application over a window comprises a plurality of horizontal slats mounted in vertically-spaced relation, a tilting device for simultaneously tilting all the slats about their horizontal axes from horizontal positions to vertical positions, and a raising device for raising the slats from lowered positions to raised positions with respect to the window. The plurality of slats are mounted on shafts received within channels located at opposite sides of the window and guiding the movement of the shafts of the slats when the slats are tilted, raised and lowered.