Release Notes

Version 9.6 of 05-Sep-2008

• 23-Aug-2008 14:38:13
  New Feature: The Profiler now allows temporal detrending of timeseries using various options (pro_detrend, pra_detrend.m).
  
• 22-Aug-2008 13:15:19
  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 22-class systems including human and animal sleep standard systems, ICU scoring system and ICU and sleep combined scoring system (hpn_plot, hpn_score, setup).
  New Feature: Viewer has a new helper GUI to show and use the keyboard keys for scoring stages according to the different expert classification systems (hpn_setting).
  
• 18-Aug-2008 18:28:03
  Bug Fix: Marking events beyond recording limits now registers events effectively adjusting their start time and duration (event, event_browser).
  
• 14-Aug-2008 02:38:30
  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 01-Aug-2008

• 01-Aug-2008 17:54:11
  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, pra_out).
  Bug Fix: The Manager delete function now really stops deleting selected files when requested (manager).
  
• 29-Jul-2008 14:13:50
  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 WYSIWIG 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 WYSIWIG 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 WYSIWIG 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).
  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 11:01:44
  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 19:07:39
  Improvement: Embla data format - Select a recording folder instead of a recording file to create sessions. This ensures a better data format support and an increased flexibility for those recording several animals simultaneously and undertaking analysis separately (pra_open, pra_load, open_embla, read_embla).
  
• 18-Mar-2008 19:07:39
  Improvement: Conventional display of human ASDA and animal sleep/wake stages (hpn_plot, pra_command, viewer, etc.).
  
• 27-Feb-2008 14:08:28
  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 18:11:47
  New Feature: Display of filtering settings in the Viewer traces panel (pra_display).
  
• 22-Feb-2008 15:39:03
  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 17:16:04
  Improvement: GUI screen export into JPEG image now always using portrait orientation (pra_export).
  
• 16-Feb-2008 17:16:41
  New Feature: When folder structure has changed, Viewer automatically searches all subfolders of the default recording folder to match the requested session recording (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; makefile.m).
  Reminder: Available makefile 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 18:14:23
  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 13:13:42
  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 08:09:21
  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 16:23:18
  Bug fix: Profiler time range sliders now allow complete control of displayed epochs (pro_setup.m).
  
• 20-Dec-2007 12:33:01
  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 15:52:46
  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 18:01:44
  Bug fix: Symbol "�" in channel physical unit replaced by "u" in all recording open function to avoid unsuppported characters (open_*.m).
  
• 07-Dec-2007 17:16:54
  Bug fix: recording 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 recording 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 14:58:27
  New feature: Function to export audit trailing into ASCII file (pra_out.m, pra_export.m, pra_log.m).
  
• 28-Nov-2007 14:54:18
  Bug fix: Event Browser clear pushbutton erased event without deleting the corresponding event file, which was then reloaded (event.m 'save').
  
• 27-Nov-2007 19:13:04
  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 16:59:51
  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, cex_analysis.m, hrv_analysis.m, rem_detect.m, spd_detect.m, hpn_analysis.m, er_waveform_analysis.m).
  
• 26-Nov-2007 16:53:47
  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 14:18:27
  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 12:02:54
  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 (makefile.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.