Semester
Summer
Date of Graduation
2004
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
MS
College
Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources
Department
Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Committee Chair
Mark Jerabek
Committee Co-Chair
Dave Frazer.
Abstract
Human studies indicate that cough sound and flow analysis may be useful for diagnosing pulmonary abnormalities. The purpose of this study was to evaluate an animal model for cough sound and flow analysis. A system was designed to expose guinea pigs to aerosols of citric acid (0.39M) and record resulting coughs at different stages of chemically induced specific airway resistance (sRAW). Coughs were divided into three categories (low sRAW, n = 113; moderate sRAW, n = 143; high sR AW, n = 93). 124 cough sound parameters were derived from the analysis of the sound pressure waves recorded during the cough. A principal component analysis was performed on the acquired data, and the resulting parameters were used to train a single neuron feed-forward back propagation neural network. The classification system was able to correctly discriminate between members of the high and low airway constriction groups with an accuracy of 0.946 and a sensitivity and specificity of 0.893.
Recommended Citation
Day, Joshua W., "Acoustical and flow characteristics of a cough as an index of pulmonary function in the guinea pig" (2004). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 1484.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/1484