Abstract: A combined bio-artificial liver support system, includes branch tubes that are connected in sequence: a blood input branch tube, an upstream tail end, a first plasma separation branch tube comprising at least a first plasma separator, a non-biological purification branch tube comprising at least a plasma perfusion device and a bilirubin adsorber, a biological purification branch tube comprising at least a hepatocyte culture cartridge assembly, and a plasma return branch tube, a downstream tail end of which is set as a blood output end.

Abstract: One embodiment is a method of extracting respiratory parameters from a short duration thoracic impedance (“TI”) signal, the method comprising preprocessing the TI measurement signal to obtain a respiratory signal therefrom; assessing the respiratory signal for at least one of signal quality and signal integrity; executing at least one of an autocorrelation algorithm and a time-domain zero-crossing algorithm on the respiratory signal to extract at least one respiratory parameter therefrom, the at least one respiratory parameter comprising at least one of respiration rate (“RR”) and tidal volume (“TV”).

Abstract: Heart rate monitors are plagued by noisy sensor data, which makes it difficult for the monitors to output a consistently accurate heart rate reading. To address the issue of noise, some monitors blindly discard sensor data which are too noisy, and stop producing heart rate readings. In some cases, if the monitors do not discard the noisy sensor data, the noisy sensor data can cause irregular heart rate readings. As a result, noisy data can lead to inaccurate heart rate readings or no heart rate readings at all. The present disclosure describes an improved technique for qualifying an input signal, i.e., determining whether a portion of the input signal is likely to result in an accurate heart rate reading, by assessing whether the frequency information of the input signal resembles a heartbeat. The resulting improved heart rate monitor is robust in tracking the heart rate in a noisy environment.

Abstract: An FFT operation is performed by dividing n time-domain input points into a plurality of groups of m points, performing a plurality of constant-geometry butterfly operations on each of the groups of m points, and finally performing at least one in-place butterfly operation on the group of n points.

Abstract: An FFT operation is performed by dividing n time-domain input points into a plurality of groups of m points, performing a plurality of constant-geometry butterfly operations on each of the groups of m points, and finally performing at least one in-place butterfly operation on the group of n points.

Abstract: A method converts an input data rate associated with N units of data to an output data rate associated with M units of data. The method includes calculating N write-control parameters each associated with one of M addresses of an output memory, directing each of N values of input data to an associated address of the output memory in response to the N calculated write-control parameters, and reading the output memory to provide output data associated with the output data rate. If N is greater than M, some of the N write-control parameters are associated with at least one shared address of the M addresses. If M is greater than N, all of the N write-control parameters are associated with different addresses of the M addresses. An apparatus is configured to implement this method.

Abstract: A method for deinterlacing an interlaced video signal is provided which employs a median single edge based line average field interpolation algorithm. The algorithm employs a median filter to determine whether motion occurred between scanning two fields of an interlaced frame and, based on the results, reconstructing intermediate lines in the display frame. The median performs a median computation by determining whether a target pixel value is a median value, rather than computing the median value and determining whether the target pixel value is equal to the computed median.

Abstract: A method converts an input data rate associated with N units of data to an output data rate associated with M units of data. The method includes calculating N write-control parameters each associated with one of M addresses of an output memory, directing each of N values of input data to an associated address of the output memory in response to the N calculated write-control parameters, and reading the output memory to provide output data associated with the output data rate. If N is greater than M, some of the N write-control parameters are associated with at least one shared address of the M addresses. If M is greater than N, all of the N write-control parameters are associated with different addresses of the M addresses. An apparatus is configured to implement this method.