Authors:
Paulo Santos
1
;
2
;
Valentina Vassilenko
1
;
2
;
Fábio Vasconcelos
1
and
Flávio Gil
2
Affiliations:
1
Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal
;
2
NMT, S.A., Portugal
Keyword(s):
Exhaled Air, Selective Air Acquisition, Air Sampling/Monitoring, Breath Rhythm Imposition, Modelled Breath Algorithm, Average Time of Expiration, Machine Learning Algorithm.
Abstract:
Economic and technologic progresses states the analysis of human’s exhaled air as a promising tool for
medical diagnosis and therapy monitoring. Challenges of most pulmonary breath acquisition devices are
related to the substances’ concentrations that are source (oral cavity, esophageal and alveolar) dependent and
their low values (in ppbv - pptv range). We introduce a prototype that is capable of collecting samples of
exhaled air according to the respiratory source and independent of the metabolic production of carbon dioxide.
It also allows to access the breathing cycle in real-time, detects the optimized sampling instants and selects
the collection pathway through the implementation of an algorithm containing a machine learning process. A
graphical interface allows the interaction between the operator/user and the process of acquisition making it
easy, quick and reliable. The imposition of breath rhythm led to improvements in accuracy of obtaining
samples from specific parts of th
e respiratory tract and it should be adapted according to their age and
physiological/health condition. The technology implemented in the proposed system should be taken into
consideration for further studies, since the prototype is suitable for selectively sampling exhaled air from
persons according to its age, genre and physiological condition.
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