PhiTools: Software Tools for Physiology

PRANA Release Notes

Version 9.8 of 03-Jun-2010

03-Jun-2010 21:27:05
Bug Fix: Spectral and coherency arrays in the Viewer Trends panel now always display a correct frequency scale (hpn_plot).
27-May-2010 18:19:31
Improvement: Improved session opening/loading speed by discarding loading into memory spectral arrays not selected for display (pra_result).
Improvement: Event-related Waveform Analysis abd related plug-ins now properly export results into text file (pra_export and related functions).
18-May-2010 21:39:41
Bug Fix: Reviewing recordings by tenth of epoch while displaying the spectral panel of the Viewer without crash (spc_plot).
12-May-2010 16:27:29
Bug Fix: In Profiler, the rotation view angle of tri-dimensional graphical representations was not registered consistently across multiple platforms. The use of cartesian coordinates (azimut and elevation) expressed in degrees is now been adopted as a standard (profiler, pro_plot).
07-May-2010 23:45:02
Remider: As a convenient way to associate persistent montage/calibration settins to the recordings under review, the Viewer automatically loads montage (*.mtg) and calibration (*.cal) files when either requested as a default operation using the Software Setup, or when a associated within the session file at the time of saving montage/calibration settings. Remider: When creating new PRANA sessions, the software automatically recognizes the type of sensors used to record the signals based on the channel labels, and when appropriate, applies a review montage with type-specific channel settings such as default colors, bandpass filter frequencies, amplitude range, etc. (chn_montage, chn_sensitivity).
Bug Fix: The Viewer automatic channel montage now correctly applies the amplitude range and calibration factor for all channels including ECG and settings are consistent across sessions. (chn_montage).
Improvement: A new Display sub-menu allows the use of various channel montages and to quickly switch the display for different applications. (pra_menu, pra_display, chn_montage, chn_sensitivity).
Improvement: When working with new PRANA sessions, now more montage and calibration files are created, unless especially requested by the user. Automatic saving of montage (*.mtg) and calibration (*.cal) files now occurs only when users modify currently loaded montage/calibration files, and after prompting for the user agreement to overwrite changes. (chn_montage, chn_sensitivity).
04-May-2010 18:40:05
Improvement: When creating new PRANA sessions using the Embla Data-format, the software now automatically checks for the presence of Somnologica Export Scores files and, when appropriated, directly imports their contents (import_embla, pra_import).
03-May-2010 22:01:57
Improvement: Modifications of several menu-bar options and labels in the Viewer and Profiler GUIs, with subsequent adaptations in the software user guide (reviewer, profiler).
01-May-2010 11:26:22
Improvement: Function nanmean and nanstd replaced by internal functions mean_nan and std_nan to get rid of the MATLAB Statistical Toolbox dependency (z_score, p100value, diffvalue, hpn_stat_spc).
29-Apr-2010 11:21:18
Bug Fix: The Viewer montage edition interfaces have been protected to avoid an error while using montages with different sets of channels from one recording to another (chn_setting, chn_settings).
Improvement: According to recent literature data, the default value of the maximal interval criteria for REM epoch defining phases of REM sleep has changed from 15min to 20min. (hpn_criteria, setup).
New Reference: Single and sequential REM sleep episodes in humans: a phylogenetic left-over? Esposito et al. Neuroscience Letters 368:52-56, 2004.
New Reference: Sleep intervals distribution in healthy young adult subjects. Esposito et al. Sleep and Hypnosis 5:1-6, 2003.
Reference: Systematic trends across the night in human sleep cycles. Feinberg I and Floyd TC. Psychophysiology 16:283-291, 1979.
21-Apr-2010 18:57:08
Improvement: Default folder to pick result files such as scores and events to be imported into PRANA is now set to the software Record folder as specified from the Setup GUI. (pra_import).
Improvement: Support for Embla recording files now includes multiple recording sections and retrieves patient information (open_embla, read_embla).
Bug Fix: Support for Embla recording files now correctly displays the last page of recordings with channels using multiple sampling rates (read_embla).
08-Apr-2010 18:42:44
Improvement: In Artifact/Event Detection, the default threshold value for overflow detection is know determined taking into account signal calibration. The actual threshold value is set to 90% of the full amplifier range for selected channels. (ead_detect).
Improvement: In Spectral Power Analysis, the last stage consisting of frequency band feature extraction after Fourier transform and Welch averaging now includes the spectral entropy and spectral edge frequency at 95% for broad-band spectra. (spc_analysis).
Improvement: In Heart Rate Variability Analysis, NN-interval analysis now allows using alternate spectral estimate methods based on either discrete Fourier transform or auto-regressive modeling. (hrv_analysis).
31-Mar-2010 11:31:29
Improvement: In Profiler, the default setting for discarding unscored epoch has been disabled in order to display time series without score series. (spd_detect).
Improvement: In Sleep Spindle detection, the default setting for maximal duration criteria has changed from 5 to 3 sec. (spd_detect).
Improvement: In Rapid Eye-Movement detection, the default setting for maximal duration criteria has changed from 5 to 3 sec. (rem_detect).
Improvement: In Rapid Eye-Movement detection, the default setting for minimal amplitude criteria has changed from 10 to 25 uV. (rem_detect).
Improvement: In Rapid Eye-Movement detection, the default setting for minimal slope criteria has changed from 7.5 to 15 uV. (rem_detect).
28-Mar-2010 11:55:40
Bug Fix: Display and selection of PRANA session-related files from the Information interface. Selecting files from the list box now apply subsequent actions to the appropriate items (pra_info).
Improvement: Importing Somnologica Export Events and Scores now handles more flexible data formating export options such as additional column-wise information possibly including event channel location, associated sleep stage, body position, etc. Importing Somnologica Export Events and Scores now also automatically corrects for temporal imprecision related to a date format restriction (hh:mm:ss, day information is missing) with registration durations longer than 24hrs or spanning consecutive daily periods (pra_import).
Reminder: Importing Somnologica Export Events requires the corresponding event types to be declared as PRANA default or user-defined event types. Before importing new events, it may be necessary to create the corresponding new types of event using the Event Settings interface accessible from the Viewer Marking menu.
02-Mar-2010 18:58:30
Improvement: In Heart-Rate Variability analysis, spectrum estimates are now scaled such that total power from the one-sided spectrum (0-Fs/2, with Fs the NN-interval resampling frequency) is equal to the total variance of the resampled NN-intervals. Before, spectral estimates were scaled using the two-sided spectrum (hrv_analysis).
22-Feb-2010 00:52:01
Improvement: Profiler now supports the integration of frequency bands for spectral power files computed using different elementary window lengths / frequency resolutions (pro_compute).
15-Feb-2010 19:13:48
Improvement: Double signal filtering enabled as default setting with 0.5-45 Hz bandpass and 50-msec smoothing filters (hrv_analysis).
Improvement: Better noise peak elimination; local R-wave amplitude allow larger beat-to beat variation; no more elimination based on signal samplig rate (hrv_analysis).
Improvement: Better adjustment of the threshold for R-wave peak detection in case of flat or missing signal (hrv_analysis).
Bug Fix: Added test for equal up and down threshold crossings in case of flat or missing signal (hrv_analysis).
09-Feb-2010 12:45:31
Improvement: Audit/history log-file now includes software version and channel filtering information (pra_info, pra_log, setup, ead_detect, cyc_analysis, er_na_plugin, er_waveform_analysis, fex_analysis, hrv_analysis, rem_detect).
Bug Fix: The traces filtering order menu now correctly displays current filter order (pra_menu).
29-Jan-2010 14:16:30
Bug Fix: Statistics on event-related feature changes now don't crash when all data are missing (er_waveform_analysis).
25-Jan-2010 19:35:47
Improvement: Direct support of DSI Dataquest ASCII files now compatible with files using either comma or space character as delimiter (read_asciidsi).
Improvement: Creating new sessions with recordings shorter than the current reviewing duration is now supported (pra_open).
15-Jan-2010 18:11:37
Bug Fix: SOREM period detection validated against sleep cycles matching sleep phase criteria (pra_select).
21-Jan-2010 20:49:48
Bug Fix: Exporting waveforms extracted from the Event-related Waveform Analysis into ASCII files, the file format now uses the appropriate number of separators (er_waveform_analysis).
Bug Fix: When exporting results of the Event-related Waveform Analysis into ASCII files, the file type popupmenu now displays the appropriate options (er_waveform_analysis).
Bug Fix: Launching Interval Analysis from the Event Browser doesn't cause the program to crash anymore when the plug-in setting file doesn't exist (event_broser).
Bug Fix: Fixed mouse-clic access to event contextual menu (event).
Reminder: To mouse-clic access to event contextual menu, event must be currently selected on by simple mouse clic.
15-Jan-2010 18:11:37
Bug Fix: Software Release Notes and License Information GUIs could not be closed correctly when multiple instances were opened concurrently. Only one GUI instance can be opened now (pra_license, pra_notes).
14-Dec-2009 20:07:29
New Feature: The Sleep Criteria graphical interface now allows for the specification of a minimal duration criteria for NREM and REM phases that are used in the detection of sleep cycles and NREM and REM sleep phases (hpn_criteria, pra_select, hpn_stat).
New Feature: The Sleep Criteria graphical interface now allows for the specification of a duration criteria for the detection of skipped REM phases according to the definition used in the article of Jenni and Carskadon (hpn_criteria, pra_select, hpn_stat).
New Feature: Profiler, in its Profier Mode graphical interface, now offers a default option to discard time samples corresponding to epochs left unscored (profiler, pro_compute, pro_mode, pro_export).
New Feature: Profiler, in its Profier Mode graphical interface, now has separate options to discard samples corresponding to SOREM episodes and pseudo-cycles (profiler, pro_compute, pro_mode, pro_export).
Reminder: Pseudo-cycles represent sleep cycles (NREM-REM phases) interrrupted by light on or non-spontaneous awakening. To avoid biais, they are systematically excluded from average estimates of sleep cycles and NREM and REM phases duration.
08-Dec-2009 19:21:07
New Feature: Profiler now allows for the reduction of time series by sleep phases, yielding one value per sleep phase. Available time series reduction methods can be selected from the following functions: Sum, Mean, Area Under the Curve, Median, Standard Deviation, Slope (profiler, pro2file, pro_compute, pro_plot).
06-Dec-2009 21:50:39
Improvement: Scoring and Trend Report now includes data values for all sleep phases whether incomplete or not. The number of sleep and SOREM episodes is also provided. Parameters labels now include the source/channel when necessary. (pra_select, hpn_stat, hpn_stat_spc, hpn_report, pra_report).
03-Dec-2009 19:27:14
New Feature: New Viewer Settings menus and axes context-menus to hide/show Trends and Spectra Viewer panels (hpn_plot, spc_plot, reviewer, setup, pra_menu, pra_display).
26-Nov-2009 17:04:35
New Feature: New unified scoring display options, featuring selective filtering and shading of sleep/wake stages, available from Viewer Trends panel, Profiler, and external Scoring Browser (shade_score, hpn_plot, pra_plot, pro_shade).
New Feature: New Sleep Criteria options for Skipped REM Episodes and REM Episode duration, available from Viewer, Profiler, and external Scoring Browser (hpn_criteria, pra_select).
New Reference: Jenni O and Carskadon M. Spectral analysis of the sleep electroencephalogram during adolescence. Sleep. 2004, 27(4):774-783.
New Feature: Profiler Mode GUI now uses a serie of tabulated panels gathering the main program options in a single graphical interface (pro_mode, deleted functions of type pro_normalization, pro_smoothing, etc.).
20-Nov-2009 19:30:03
Improvement: Scoring and Trend Report generator now detect result files to report allowing batch-processing to use result files specified from GUIs (hpn_report, pra_report).
19-Nov-2009 20:26:30
New Feature: Profiler now gathers all displaying options within two tabulated panels accessible from a unique window (pro_mode).
Improvement: Profiler now performs block by block temporal data smoothing when sleep phases are normalized into bins, in order to avoid smoothing boundaries between different sleep phases (profiler, pro_compute).
05-Nov-2009 18:58:39
New Feature: PRANA version 09.07.03, built from source code compatible as of MATLAB R2006b, using:
MATLAB Version 7.5.0.342 (R2007b)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Version 5.1 (Build 2600: Service Pack 3)
Java VM Version: Java 1.6.0 with Sun Microsystems Inc. Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM mixed mode
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MATLAB Version 7.5 (R2007b)
MATLAB Compiler Version 4.7 (R2007b)
Neural Network Toolbox Version 5.1 (R2007b)
Signal Processing Toolbox Version 6.8 (R2007b)
Statistics Toolbox Version 6.1 (R2007b)
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Compatibility: For all Microsoft 32 and 64-bit operating systems, inclucing:
Windows 2000
Windows XP Pro
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Requirements: Hardware: 2.5GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor - 2GB of RAM - 250GB hard disk drive.
Monitor: 17" - Pitch 0.26 - 1280x1024 pixels - True colours display (ATI graphic borad not recommended).
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 32 or 64-bit platforms (2000, XP, Vista or 7).
Developer version: MATLAB p-code and m-files requiring an installed version of MATLAB R2007b.
Production version: Unique 32-bit standalone executable requiring the 32-bit MATLAB Compiler Runtime version 7.7 (.NET framework not necesserary, can be skipped if prompted during installation).

Version 9.7 of 04-Nov-2009

23-Oct-2009 19:11:43
New Feature: New set of icons for best compatibility with Windows Vista and Windows 7.
New Feature: Use of the home folder to store personal software settings.
Improvement: Setup nows automatically detects current operating system user path and offers to load/save PRANA default setup file there (setup, manager).
18-Oct-2009 12:28:24
Improvement: Viewer Toolbar is now automatically hidden when exporting screen capture (pra_export).
Improvement: Warning dialog now prompts user when a flat signal prevent blind source separation to operate (pra_ica).
Improvement: Test menu command added to Viewer Tools menu allowing simplified access to the Reviewer display speed Test tool (manager, pra_merge).
Improvement: Merger pushbutton added to Manager allowing simplified access to the Merger tool for Result files (manager, pra_merge).
Improvement: Viewer Traces Time Marks now specified in seconds instead of numbers (reviewer.fig, pra_menu).
Improvement: Viewer Toolbar now includes controls to display/change scoring style, event-related feature and waveform, reviewing start, end, section and sequences and traces denoising through blind source separation (reviewer.fig, pra_menu, pra_command, pra_goto).
17-Oct-2009 16:15:56
Improvement: Loading/Saving PRANA setting file (pra.*.ini) now only concerns Folders, Montage, Calibration and Records Format options (setup).
Improvement: Sleep stages added as event types into default event list (event).
Improvement: Feature histogram in the Trend panel now looks good even on long duration (hpn_plot).
Bug Fix: Artifact/Event Detection plug-in GUI now correctly updates the thresold popupmenu content (ead_detect).
16-Oct-2009 18:13:58
Improvement: Better control of active GUIs to avoid figure flickering (manager, setup, reviewer, event_browser, event_info, profiler, pro_mode, hpn_setting, pra_menu, pra_ica, pra_setfig).
Improvement: Adequate control of available filtering options in Heart-rate Variability Analysis plug-in (hrv_analysis).
Improvement: R-wave Peaks detection of Heart-rate Variability Analysis plug-in now optimizes detection time range according to the overlapping windowing used during Inter-beat Interval analysis (hrv_analysis).
Improvement: Tachycardia and bradycardia detection in Heart-rate Variability Analysis plug-in is now updated during Inter-beat Interval analysis (hrv_analysis).
Improvement: A question dialog now prompts users before erasing already existing R-wave Peaks, Tachycardia and Bradicaria events (hrv_analysis).
Bug Fix: Running steps 2 and 3 of Spectral Power Analysis plug-in without runnning step 1 simultaneously could prevent the plug-in to execute (spc_analysis).
14-Oct-2009 20:40:20
Bug Fix: Profiler Averager plug-in now supports dataset without any score file (pro_load).
08-Oct-2009 15:20:28
Bug Fix: Viewer Result files list is now correctly updated after Event and Score file deletion (pra_result).
New Feature: Channels displayd in the Viewer Traces panel now have right-click accessible context-menu to quickly append and insert new channels into current reviewing montage (pra_display, chn_settings, chn_setting, chn_montage).
New Feature: Viewer now shows time of each recording section for current session (reviewer, pra_menu, pra_command, pra_goto).
Improvement: Viewer now forces opening session either on pre-existing scoring epoch duration or according to the last recording section duration (pra_result).
Bug Fix: Spectral Power Analysis plug-in now correctly applies Artifact removal without removing all-channel events (spc_analysis).
30-Sep-2009 20:39:32
New Feature: Profiler offers new transformation function using cumulative sum (profiler, tfcumsum).
Improvement: Sleep Scoring now uses criteria for sleep episode detection expressed in minutes rather than epochs in order to keep criteria consistent between sessions using various scording epoch durations (pra_select, pra_report, hpn_report).
Improvement: Event Report now saves the label of scores during which events occur (event_report).
28-Sep-2009 22:43:22
Improvement: Viewer now shows current epoch date and stage label in Scoring mode (pra_display).
Improvement: Sleep Spindle Detection now takes the minimal duration criteria into account (spd_detect).
23-Sep-2009 22:48:32
Improvement: Viewer now sets Event Filter to display all types of events (Events, Artifacts and Markers) when Marking Mode is activated (event).
Bug Fix: To prevent a software crash, inserting a new channel in last montage position is now prohibited (chn_montage).
Bug Fix: Viewer now cares for non-integer acquisition sampling rates sometimes used with collection devices by resampling signals to the closest higher interger sampling rate (open_edf, read_edf, open_ultrasom, read_ultrasom).
Bug Fix: Some edit-boxes and list-boxes did not refreshed their contents correctly before parent figures were resized (pra_figcolor, pra_inputdlg, spc_analysis, coh_analysis, ead_detect, fex_analysis, er_waveform_analysis).
22-Sep-2009 01:24:05
Bug Fix: Sleep Report now works correcly in Sequential mode (hpn_stat).
Bug Fix: Statistical Thresholding mehod used in the Event/Artifact Detection plug-in now performs correctly (ead_detect).
02-Jul-2009 00:41:18
Major New Feature: Transition from MATLAb R2006b and MCRv75 to MATLAB R2007b and MCRv77 achieved.
New Feature: PRANA now uses its own graphical interfaces to select files or folders, providing cross-platform consistency and stability (pra_uigetfile, pra_getfile, pra_uiputfile, pra_putfile). Calls to the system's uigetfile and uiputfile functions were causing occasional crashes with MATLAB R2007b, MCRv77 or JVM.
23-Jun-2009 18:04:24
New Feature: Direct reading support of BrainVision Analyzer Export files (*.vhdr, *.eeg) from BrainProduct GMBH (open_bva, read_bva, read_asa, tokenize).
29-May-2009 18:11:59
Improvement: Profiler memorizes the selected dataset variables and when possible reloads the same set between different sessions. (pro_load, profiler).
Improvement: Profiler can skip pseudo-sleep cycles from any extraction modes (pro_mode, pro_compute, pro_update).
Reminder: Pseudo sleep cycles are either a sleep phase starting with a period of SOREM, or a sleep cycle with a missing NREM or REM phase, or a sleep cycle ending with a non-spontaneous arousal.
22-May-2009 18:01:32
Improvement: Profiler can compute averaged series by sleep phases and cycles (pro_mode, pro_compute, pro_update).
21-May-2009 19:05:31
Bug Fix: Code improvement to ensure saving of PRANA-generated Excel reports in the current report folder (hpn_report, pra_report).
19-May-2009 18:32:51
Improvement: Mouse-clicking the Manager GUI directly resets to blank the selection of sessions/files form the dedicated listbox (manager).
Improvement: Viewer Scoring mode allows for better control of scoring starting/ending times (hpn_score).
Improvement: Activating Viewer Scoring/Marking modes no more change current reviewing epoch and now allows running other plug-ins while scoring/marking (hpn_score, hpn_plot, pra_menu, pra_display).
Bug Fix: Annoying flickering between Viewer and Profiler GUIs fixed (setup).
Bug Fix: Viewer Toolbar does't keep focus anymore on keyboard keys (pra_command).
18-May-2009 18:25:45
Improvement: Profiler now add a channel suffix to exported ASCII text files when relevant (pro_menu, pro_export).
Bug Fix: Generic ASCII text file export from all PRANA programs is now fixed on Linux platforms (pra_out).
Bug Fix: Sleep Trend Report now calcultes correctly time series mean averages per stage and per cycles even with only one epoch per stage (hpn_stat_spc).
New Feature: New sleep criteria property to configure from the graphical interface how phasic REM sleep is defined and identified. (hpn_criteria).
New Feature: Rapid eye-movement detection plug-in detecting REMS from a transversal EOG channel nows automatically identifies during final event supervision phasic REM sleep periods from the detection results. (rem_detect).
New Feature: New event property to allow additional event supervision by deleting items containing artifact on the same channel. The purpose of this new peoperty is to avoid discarding EOG and EMG events occuring during generalized movement artifacts which don't affect EOG or EMG channels significantly (event, event_settings, rem_detect, spd_detect, event_supervise, event_supervision).
Improvement: Event supervision consisting of deleting event totally included into artifacted periods now also deletes events overlapping with artifacts ( event_supervision).
15-May-2009 18:02:14
Improvement: Manager directly opens score files (*.hpn) into a dedicated GUI when selected from Manager (profiler).
Bug Fix: Profiler was loading non-matchinng score files (*.hpn) when filenames started with and contained same name as the session (pro_load).
Bug Fix: Profiler was not correctly extracting sleep phases when hypnogram contained phases of consolidated wakefulness (pro_compute).
14-May-2009 19:52:50
Bug Fix: PRANA was not correctly detecting all phases of SOREMPS (Sleep Onset REM Periods) (hpn_stat).
11-May-2009 20:47:38
Reminder: In event marking mode, the keyboard key "/" registers an artifact for the whole reviewing page duration (event).
New Feature: If there is only one channel in current montage, the keyboard key "/" registers an artifact for the whole reviewing page duration only on the channel present in current montage. Otherwise, it registers a general artifact on all channels (event). This is useful when editing QRS-wave detection on a sinmgle ECG channel for HRV analysis.
08-May-2009 17:24:10
Reminder: Available transformation for signals in Viewer: Rectification, Derivative, Teager Energy Operator.
New Feature: New Teager Energy Operator transformation for signals in Viewer. (pra_display, pra_data).
Improvement: Unecessary calls to dongle suppressed. (pra_export).
Improvement: Viewer automatic montage now adequately adjusts the ECG amplitude range between +/-2.5mV. (chn_montage).
Bug Fix: Viewer now actually imports EDF+ scores when record file contains channel with name "Score" or "Hypnogram". (import_edf).
Bug Fix: Profiler New Time Series tools now allows creating composite variables from existing ones. (pro_ratio).
Bug Fix: Closing Event Settings GUI without dongle works now. (event_settings).
07-May-2009 18:09:20
Improvement: Correction of time series for the lag related to the use of an overlapping window in time-varying analysis. (hrv_analysis, iva_analysis, spc_analysis, coh_analysis).
16-Feb-2009 21:21:27
New Feature: Profiler, via the Profile mode GUI, offers new options to extract data accoring to various sleep/wake phase such as NREM sleep, REM sleep and consolidated wake. The timebase of dataset extracted by doing so can be normalized by interpolation using a fixed number of bins for each sleep/wake phases. For use with the Profiler temporal normalization method, there is an additional, graphically interfaced, option allowing to skip incomplete sleep phases such as SOREMPs and pseudo-cycles. This new option also allows to keep constant the number of phases extracted from session to session. (profiler, pro_compute, pro_mode, pro_update, pro_export).
15-Feb-2009 15:14:35
New Feature: Viewer and Profiler offer a new menu to export all Sleep Scoring Report variables into a single text-file using the standard ASCII format. This is very useful to aggregate individaula data into statistical worksheets (hpn_stat, hpn_report).
New Feature: Viewer and Profiler now use additional sleep/wake phase criteria and offer a new interface for adjustment and registration. The GUI includes criteria to define consolidated wake episodes, REM sleep phases, sleep onset REM periods, and sleep onset. These criteria are used in sleep reports and hypnogram displays (hpn_criteria).
Bug Fix: Profiler was selecting and displaying one extra sample of the time series while equalizing the data set (pro_compute).
09-Feb-2009 20:56:51
Reminder: Viewer Marking mode allows marking different types of events with a millisecond-precision directly on the traces of the Traces panel using the computer mouse functions. Drag-and-drop over traces on a selected period of time marks events and artifacts on the corresponding signals. Shift + right-click on a traces marks a instantaneous marker on the corresponding signal sample. Erasing events is achieved using the computer mouse drap-and-drop function while the Erasor mode is activated from the Viewer Toolbar, or by using the Delete keyboard key with the event to delete being currently selected.
Reminder: Drag-and-drop over traces on a selected period of time marks events and artifacts on the corresponding signals.
Reminder: Shift + right-click on a traces marks a instantaneous marker on the corresponding signal sample.
Reminder: Erasing events is achieved using the computer mouse drap-and-drop function while the Erasor mode is activated from the Viewer Toolbar, or by using the Delete keyboard key with the event to delete being currently selected.
Improvement: Erasing events can now be achieved using computer mouse shift key + mouse right-clic drag-and-drop over areas containing the event to delete (event). This avoids the need of constantly shifting between Event Marking and Event Erasing modes.
08-Feb-2009 19:12:24
Reminder: Profiler offers different modes to represent time series. The series temporal scale can be fully controlled and selected by users by using the Selected Time options. Various interpolation methods are offered to align data on a given time range and resolution.
Improvement: Additional option of the Selected Time mode with No Interpolation in order to align data on a user-specified time range/resolution using an index selection method on original data.
Improvement: Auto-adjustemnt of the series temporal scale in Selected Time mode when the user-specified upper and lower limits does not overlap with original data.
07-Feb-2009 21:24:46
Reminder: Keyboard keys allow fast and efficient browsing (left and right arrows) and deletion (Delete) of events.
Bug Fix: Deleting an event that has been selected using the Viewer Toolbar Next/Previous pushbutton using the keyboqrd Delete key now clears the event and not the pushbutton (event).
Improvement: Default FFT window length used in the Viewer Spectra panel is now 4 sec for increased low frequency resolution of 0.25 Hz (spc_plot).
05-Feb-2009 19:59:28
Improvement: Additional Viewer options to cancel session closing while montage has been edited to allow saving generic montage under a different name (pra_close).
Improvement: As a new default setting, event temporal density only include event types, and not artifact and marker types anymore, which was seldomely used anyway. Artifact and marker density analysis now requires changing event filter settings from the Event Browser interface before running analysis (event_density).
Bug Fix: Corrected event type filtering before density analysis (event_density).
04-Feb-2009 19:22:43
Bug Fix: Added test to avoid crashing while marking event by dropping mouse outside the Traces panel without any channel selected (event).
Bug Fix: Closing Profiler no more erase the X-axis labels of the Viewer Traces panel (pro_plot).
03-Feb-2009 19:51:04
Bug Fix: Zoom command of the Viewer Spectra panel now properly controls frequency axis (spc_plot).
Bug Fix: Viewer command Save as in the Session menu now effectively saves sequential sessions (pra_session).
02-Feb-2009 19:55:45
Bug Fix: Corrected some bugs in the automatic channel recognition before running each plug-in (/plugin/*, /user/*).
30-Jan-2009 19:27:41
Bug Fix: Viewer reading function for Neurofax - Nihon-Kohden does not crash while trying to retreive the last missing few samples (read_neurofax).
29-Jan-2009 19:09:42
Improvement: PRANA Setup now checks for unreachable folders while loading user setting files (setup).
Improvement: PRANA Setup now checks for unreachable records while reading traces and waits for reconnection after network interruptions (read_recording).
28-Jan-2009 19:30:37
Bug Fix: Out of memory error of PRANA transformation functions with NaN matrices now avoided by prior checksum (tf*).
27-Jan-2009 19:26:45
Improvement: Suppression of montage change warning message while closing Viewer without montage change (chn_settings, chn_setting).
New Feature: Additionnal Viewer functions and keyboards shortcut to alter current series in scoring mode (hpn_score, pra_keyfcn):
Ctrl + b: Shifts entire score serie backward by one epoch.
Ctrl + f: Shifts entire score serie forward by one epoch.
Ctrl + d: Deletes the current epoch and shifts the trailing score series backward by one epoch.
Ctrl + i: Inserts an empty scoring epoch and shifts the trailing score series forward by one epoch.
Ctrl + x: Deletes the heading scoring epoch and shifts the score series backward by one epoch.
Ctrl + v: Inserts an empty heading epoch and shifts the score series forward by one epoch.
Ctrl + h: Toggle starts/stops Viewer scoring mode.
Reminder: Readily available Viewer functions and keyboard shortcuts consist of:
Enter: Saves current event and score series (shortcut for OK command in all other GUIs).
Escape: Unselects current event or exits marking or scoring mode (shortcut for Cancel command in all other GUIs).
Delete: Deletes current event or set current epoch to unscored (the corresponding mode being needs to be activated).
Spacebar: Toggle starts/stops Viewer auto-paging mode.
Right arrow: Jumps to next scoring epoch or moves currently selected event ten samples forward.
Left arrow: Jumps to previous scoring epoch or moves currently selected event ten samples backward.
Up arrow: Jumps to next reviewing page or moves currently selected event one sample forward.
Down arrow: Jumps to previous reviewing page or moves currently selected event one sample backward.
/: In marking mode, marks the whole reviewing epoch as artifact.
+: Increases the size of traces on screen by decreasing montage amplitude range.
-: Decreases the size of traces on screen by increasing montage amplitude range.
Ctrl + s: Starts Viewer reviewing speed test.
Ctrl + t: Opens PRANA advanced tools GUI.
Ctrl + e: Toggle starts/stops Viewer marking mode.
26-Jan-2009 19:48:21
Improvement: Suppression of duplicate error message while opening Viewer sessions without USB dongle key (open_recording, read_header, open_*).
25-Jan-2009 19:30:35
Bug Fix: Improved recognition of channel labels in Viewer automatic montage (chn_montage).
23-Jan-2009 19:12:56
New Feature: New import function for Digitrace ASCII scores (pra_import).
15-Dec-2008 21:03:58
Bug Fix: The Profiler Averager plug-in while called using 3-D spectral arrays (pro_averager).
New Feature: An additional popup-menu item has been added to the Profiler settings to allow exclusion of Stage 1 data (profiler, pro_compute).
04-Dec-2008 19:47:31
New Feature: Viewer and Profiler command to export screen as images now allows for direct export as TIFF images and PDF documents. TIFF images alows high-quality resolution for publication-ready figures (pra_export, pra_out).
03-Dec-2008 19:37:57
Bug Fix: The default Score/Event files were erased when initiating Scoring/Marking while files were unselected (event, hpn_score).
Bug Fix: Reviewing montage with empty channels could crash the montage editor (pra_display, chn_setting, chn_settings).
01-Dec-2008 19:07:53
New Feature: Some improvements in the display of traces in the Traces panel (pra_display, reviewer).
18-Oct-2008 21:00:30
New Feature: Scoring Browser allows selecting a time range of interest in the scoring period by using a pair of sliders on top of the axe. After selection of a given time period, all further scoring reports and file exports (Excel-sheet report, JPEG-image, ASCII-text reports ad statistics) use the corresponding scoring subset (pra_plot).
10-Oct-2008 19:26:42
New Feature: Scoring Browser, an independent GUI for browsing score files, now offers several options to directly export scoring epochs, scoring statistics, and sleep reports (pra_plot).

Version 9.6 of 23-Sep-2008

23-Sep-2008 18:59:03
Bug Fix: The bug preventing loading scores and events into the Viewer is now fixed (pra_result.m).
19-Sep-2008 18:46:04
New Feature: The Event/Artifact detection plug-in now features the automatic detection of different frequency-specific events (ead_detect.m, ead_detect.waveforms.ini).
New Feature: The Spectra panel of the Viewer GUI now shows channel's magnitude in user-defined frequency bands using colors (spc_plot.m).
18-Sep-2008 19:59:02
New Feature: Importing scores contained into EDF+ binary record file is now possible (pra_import). When PRANA sessions are created, scores from EDF+ records are automatically imported (import_edf.m). According to the strict EDF+ dataformat specifications, scores must be coded as a separate channel purposedly labeled "Score".
17-Sep-2008 18:49:33
New Feature: Left/right mouse-click on the Trends X-axis legend changes the current scoring classification system to the next/previous one in the available classification system list (hpn_score.m, pra_plot.m).
New Feature: New function to compute and export basic scoring statistics, including stages count, proportion, episode, stability and latency as ASCII text file (hpn_score.m).
New Feature: New Viewer menu exporting current scoring into an independent GUI from where scoring-specific commands can be executed (reviewer.fig, pra_plot).
Bug Fix: Event display filtering using the Event Browser GUI now filters the different event types (artifact, event and marker) reliably (event_browser, event, pra_select, event_density).
10-Sep-2008 10:57:26
Bug Fix: Erasing events marked on specific channels now only erases the events of the selected set of channels (event).
09-Sep-2008 18:45:42
New Feature: General support for UNC pathnames and editing from Setup GUI (setup.m).
New Feature: New name auto-incrementation function for files and directories exported sequentially (pra_fullfile.m).
23-Aug-2008 19:38:13
New Feature: The Profiler now allows temporal detrending of time series using various options (pro_detrend, pra_detrend.m). In combination with the absolute amplitude and the local bacgkroung-dependent methods, this completes the post-processing possibilities.
22-Aug-2008 19:15:19
Improvement: The artifact detection plug-in offers a new channel-dependent thresholding method (Mean + X SD) allowing indentifying epochs based on their relative variations as compared to the total variation in the whole analyzed serie (awd_detect). In combination with the absolute amplitude and the local bacgkroung-dependent methods, this completes the detection possibilities.
20-Aug-2008 18:36:52
New Feature: Viewer scoring mode now offers support for up to 20-class systems including standard human and animal sleep staging systems, anaesthesic depth scoring systems, ICU coma states scoring systems, as well as combined coma and sleep scoring systems (plot_score.m, pra_plot.m, hpn_plot.m, hpn_score.m, hpn_update.m, hpn_stat.m, setup.m).
New Feature: Viewer has a new helper GUI to display the keyboard keys used for scoring stages according to the different expert classification systems and to score directly using the computer mouse (hpn_setting).
Warning: The new scoring system involves a change in the file structure of score files and thus score files generated with the current version will not be compatible with older software version. On the opposite the current version ensures backward compatibility with old score files and actually updates older score files according to the new file structure.
18-Aug-2008 19:28:03
Bug Fix: Marking events beyond record limits now registers events effectively adjusting their start time and duration (event, event_browser).
14-Aug-2008 19:38:30
Improvement: In the HRV analysis plug-in, a new GUI radio-button allows removal of the artifacts only from the specific single channel under analysis. This avoids rejection of generalized artifacts, as created during event supervision, which does not really affect the ECG channel (hrv_analysis).
03-Aug-2008 23:46:24
Bug Fix: To avoid several plug-in crashes with montage including duplicate channels, Viewer now cheks for the existence of duplicate labels in montage and perform label incremetation accordingly (unilabel).

Version 9.4 of 11-Sep-2008

11-Sep-2008 19:39:55
Bug Fix: Releases notes now accessible from GUIs.
Bug Fix: Now correctly deletes files from Manager GUI (manager.m, pra_questdlg.m).
Bug Fix: Now opens all channels from a record folder (open_embla.m).
Bug Fix: Now also opens Polysmith JE-912A records (open_neurofax.m).
01-Aug-2008 18:54:11
Bug Fix: Saving data files on a read-only partition or network share now returns a warning message rather than generating a software crash (pra_export).
Bug Fix: The Manager delete function now really stops deleting selected files when requested (manager).
29-Jul-2008 19:13:50
New Feature: The Profiler Saver plug-in, accessible from the PRANA Plug-in Launcher, allows saving a MATLAB mat-file (pro.*.mat) of the current Profiler data set according to the familiar WYSIWUG principle (pro_imager_plugin).
New Feature: The Profiler Imager plug-in, accessible from the PRANA Plug-in Launcher, allows exporting a JPEG image file (pro.*.jpg) of the current Profiler data set according to the familiar WYSIWUG principle (pro_imager_plugin).
New Feature: The Profiler Exporter plug-in, accessible from the PRANA Plug-in Launcher, allows exporting an ASCII text file (pro.*.txt) of the current Profiler data set according to the familiar WYSIWUG principle (pro_imager_plugin).
New Feature: The Profiler Averager plug-in now exports a complete set of descriptive statistics from the current Profiler 2/3-D time series (n, min, max, range, CV, IQR, sum, mean, median, SEM, standard deviation, variance, skewness, kurtosis and slope; pro_averager_plugin).
New Feature: The Profiler Averager, Saver, Imager and Exporter plug-ins now increments export filenames (pro.*.*, pro1.*.*, pro2.*.*, etc) when similar files already exist in the current Report folder. This now features sequential Profiler export using different options without erasing existing data (pro_export).
Improvement: The Plugin Launcher when opened for the first time now preserves settings of already used plug-ins (launcher, *_analysis, *_detect, *_plugin).

Version 9.2 of 01-May-2008

01-May-2008 21:01:44
New Feature: Manager now allows direct browsing of PSG records headers (manager, pra_info).
Improvement: Viewer and Profiler now synchronize their content automatically after changes being made by new computations or by loading different sessions/files (prana, profiler).
26-Apr-2008 23:42:27
Bug Fix: Power spectral plug-in channel selection listbox now correctly register added/removed channels (spc_analysis).
Bug Fix: Spectral coherency plug-in channel selection listbox now correctly register added/removed channels (coh_analysis).
Tips: Power spectral and spectral coherency plug-ins both require unique channel labels in montage to work efficiently.
23-Apr-2008 18:28:19
New Feature: Completely redesigned Profiler mode interface for better control of the various data displaying/selection/post-processing options (pro_mode, pro_update).
New Feature: Additional Timebase mode for data synchronization on various scoring triggers (pro_mode, pro_update, pro_compute).
02-Apr-2008 19:07:50
New Feature: Additional context-menus accessible via right mouse-click on each panels for a better and faster GUI control (pra_display, spc_plot, hpn_plot).
New Feature: Event marking mode directly applies event-specific properties such as min/max duration and interval (event).
Improvement: Single-channel event display as colored plot over corresponding channels to better reflect signal properties (event).
Improvement: Faster reviewing of traces and events in Viewer GUI (pra_display).
24-Mar-2008 20:52:28
New Feature: Auto-scaling or fixed-scale GUI options in Spectra panel settings for better assessment of spectral changes during reviewing (spc_plot).
19-Mar-2008 22:36:17
New Feature: Additional types of data normalization in Profiler. Relative changes (percentages or differences) from user-selectable baseline (profiler, pro_normalization).
New Feature: Additional types of statistical transformation in Profiler. Logit-transform for relative powers, Decimal log-transform for absolute powers (profiler, pro_transformation).
18-Mar-2008 20:07:39
Improvement: Embla data format - Select a record folder instead of a record file to create sessions. This ensures a better data format support and an increased flexibility for those record several animals simultaneously and undertaking analysis separately (pra_open, pra_load, open_embla, read_embla).
18-Mar-2008 20:07:39
Improvement: Conventional display of human ASDA and animal sleep/wake stages (hpn_plot, pra_command, viewer, etc.).
27-Feb-2008 19:08:28
New Feature: Additional algorithms for BSS denoising (pra_ica, /external).
26-Feb-2008 18:50:33
New Feature: Band-stop 50/60 Hz Notch filter added (pra_filter).
Reminder: Band-pass, high-pass and low-pass filters available using selectable cutoff frequency.
New Feature: Elliptic filter type added (pra_filter).
Elliptic filters offer steeper rolloff characteristics than Butterworth or Chebyshev filters, but are equiripple in both the pass- and stopbands. In general, elliptic filters meet given performance specifications with the lowest order of any filter type.
New Feature: Chebyshev Type I filter type added (pra_filter).
Chebyshev Type I filters are equiripple in the passband and monotonic in the stopband. Type I filters roll off faster than type II filters, but at the expense of greater deviation from unity in the passband.
New Feature: Chebyshev Type II filter type added (pra_filter).
Chebyshev Type II filters are monotonic in the passband and equiripple in the stopband. Type II filters do not roll off as fast as type I filters, but are free of passband ripple.
Reminder: Butterworth filter type available (pra_filter).
Butterworth filters are characterized by a magnitude response that is maximally flat in the passband and monotonic overall. Butterworth filters sacrifice rolloff steepness for monotonicity in the pass- and stopbands. Unless the smoothness of the Butterworth filter is needed, an elliptic or Chebyshev filter can generally provide steeper rolloff characteristics with a lower filter order.
Reminder: FFT/iFFT filter type available (pra_filter).
Combined used of FFT anf FFT inverse allows implementig Finite Impulse Response filters in the frequency domain. FFT/iFFT filters suffers from the limitations of the FFT method. Spectral leakage may results in waveform distortion.
22-Feb-2008 19:11:47
New Feature: Display of filtering settings in the Viewer traces panel (pra_display).
22-Feb-2008 18:39:03
New Feature: Interval variability analysis is now scriptable. It can be called from the command line with an input filename of from the Manager where it is associated with Inter-beat Intervals and Events files (manager, iva_analysis).
20-Feb-2008 19:16:04
Improvement: GUI screen export into JPEG image now always using portrait orientation (pra_export).
16-Feb-2008 19:16:41
New Feature: When folder structure has changed, Viewer automatically searches all subfolders of the default record folder to match the requested session record (pra_open, pra_load, pra_subdir).
14-Feb-2008 19:27:20
New Feature: New data format support for generic ASCII Raw Time Series (open_txt, read_txt).
08-Feb-2008 21:26:42
New Feature: Platform-independent archival and compression of all session-related results using 7zip (manager).
23-Jan-2008 21:52:37
New Feature: Support for network folders with read only permission. (functions copyfile, movefile, rmdir, mkdir, delete, save, hgsave, fopen).
22-Jan-2008 18:36:54
New Feature: Automatic generation of release notes (ASCII and HTML format; make.m).
Reminder: Available make script for automatic generation of released softwares.
18-Jan-2008 12:35:48
New feature: MD5 generation and verification function supporting all UNIX, GNU Linux and Windows OS (md5.m, md5.exe, md5.html).
17-Jan-2008 21:14:23
New feature: When marking mode is activated, pressing the keyboard's space bar nows marks current page as a generalized artifact (event.m, pra_keyfcn.m).
16-Jan-2008 21:13:42
New feature: While scoring mode activated and first epoch selected, the new "cut" command (keyboard shortcut: "ctrl + c") deletes the first epoch and shifts scoring start one epoch forward (hpn_score.m, pra_keyfcn.m).
Reminder: While scoring mode activated, the "delete" command (keyboard shortcut: "ctrl + d") deletes the current epoch which thus shortens scoring time range from one epoch.
Reminder: While scoring mode activated, the "insert" command (keyboard shortcut: "ctrl + i") inserts an undetermined epoch at the current epoch which thus lengthtens scoring time range from one epoch.
16-Jan-2008 19:09:21
Improvement: Hurst exponent feature extraction function now optimized and better reflects transitional stages (pra_hurst_exponent.m from Guillaume Becq).

Version 9.1 of 22-Dec-2007

21-Dec-2007 21:04:10
Bug fix: Delete events into artifacts and continuous artifact (event_supervision.m).
New feature: Event supervision extended with new rule: Generalize movement artifacts from concomittant artifacts (+/- 1/2 movement inteval duration) on at least one EMG and one of any EEG.
New feature: Event supervision extended with new rule: Merge artifacts of any subtype and set new type to Artifact.
21-Dec-2007 20:08:26
New feature: Muscular artifact detector on EEG with absolute-magnitude threshold from high-frequency RMS amplitude (awd_detect.m).
Improvement: Movement artifact detector on EMG with background-dependent high-frequency variance (awd_detect.m).
Improvement: Triangular moving averaging of backgroud-dependent threshold for more robust detection (awd_detect.m).
20-Dec-2007 18:23:18
Bug fix: Profiler time range sliders now allow complete control of displayed epochs (pro_setup.m).
20-Dec-2007 18:33:01
New feature: Whan a Viewer session is openened, Profiler update command now loads the analysis files of this session, if not already done (pro_menu.m display).
14-Dec-2007 21:22:24
Bug fix: In all function using montage, now using the correct channel index (problem occured only with complex montage settings including re-referencing).
13-Dec-2007 19:19:17
New feature: Supplementary event supervision rule: merging all artifacts, except movements, into a single artifact subtype. This allows merging together all artifacts (awd_detect.m, event_supervise.m).
13-Dec-2007 18:52:46
New feature: Adjustment for spectral band frequency limits with emphasis on avoiding overlap between frequency bands (pra_band.m, awd_detect.m).
10-Dec-2007 21:24:18
New feature: Viewer now indicates channel filtering information together with event and event-related information (event_info.m, event.m).
New feature: Event marking and event-related signal information now supports redundant channels in current montage (display, move, delete).
10-Dec-2007 20:04:42
New feature: Additional functions to compute mean/peak frequency and absolute power appended to the list of available features (fex_analysis.m, fex_computation.m, awd_detect.m, event_info.m, pra_mean_frequency.m, pra_peak_frequency.m, pra_absolute_power.m).
07-Dec-2007 19:01:44
Bug fix: Symbol "�" in channel physical unit replaced by "u" in all record open function to avoid unsuppported characters (open_*.m).
07-Dec-2007 19:16:54
Bug fix: record filename created (pra_export.m).
04-Dec-2007 19:50:08
Bug fix: Path separator (; vs : with Windows/UNIX) now uses a platform-dependent function (startup.m, pathsep.m).
04-Dec-2007 19:34:27
New feature: Display of user and host names under UNIX platforms (pra_about.m).
30-Nov-2007 19:01:17
New feature: Viewer now exports correct values for ASCII record file not containing physical/digital amplifier specifications (pra_export edf). 1Because EDF encoding uses interger16, encoded numerical values needs to be larger than 1. If needed, increasing calibration sensitivities prior export allows for correct encoding.
30-Nov-2007 18:58:27
New feature: Function to export audit trailing into ASCII file (pra_out.m, pra_export.m, pra_log.m).
28-Nov-2007 18:54:18
Bug fix: Event Browser clear pushbutton erased event without deleting the corresponding event file, which was then reloaded (event.m 'save').
27-Nov-2007 20:13:04
New feature: The Viewer trend panel timebase auto-adjusts its display range after accepting automatic scoring with a different epoch length than existing scoring session (hpn_analysis.m).
27-Nov-2007 18:59:51
Bug fix: Batch mode now checks for montage to locate analyzed channels according to their labels before launching plug-ins (awd_detect.m, user_plugin.m, fex_analysis.m, spc_analysis.m, coh_analysis.m, cyc_analysis.m, hrv_analysis.m, rem_detect.m, spd_detect.m, hpn_analysis.m, er_waveform_analysis.m).
26-Nov-2007 18:53:47
New feature: Protection dongle activated by default for use with EDF fileformat and display of license demo/registered status (pra_about.m, register.xls).
26-Nov-2007 19:18:27
Bug fix: Event Browser timebase popupmenu caused a bug in event density analysis. Its string is now automatically updated at GUI opening (event_browser.fig).
04-Sept-2007 18:02:54
New feature: OpenGL rendering is the defaut and fastest patch displaying mode (setup.m).
Warning: This can causes a X server crash (MATLAB bug ID 315468). A workaround is provided as follow: In the Viewer Export/Screen Setup with no opened session, set Rendering to zbuffer and reopen the Viewer.
July-2007
New feature: New functions equivalent to uiputfile/uigetfile without direct access to file system to protect guest users tampering analysis files (pra_uiputfile.m/pra_uigetfile.m).
June-2007
New feature: New multi-platform functions to control all post-export actions (file open, database registration, FTP archive) (pra_out.m).
June-2007
New feature: Registration of all bug fixes and new features in a dedicated HTML-exportable file (relnotes.m).
May-2007
New Feature: Automatic software sources archival and software installer generation (make.m).

Version 9.1 of 19-Feb-2007

Not available

Version 9.0 of 6-Jan-2007

Not available

Version 8.3 of 15-Jan-2006

Not available

PhiTools provides advanced software solutions and services for biosignal processing, sleep analysis, psychophysiological research and clinical trials. PhiTools, software tools and services for psychophysiology, polysmonography and chronobiology.

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