NAME

Aghermann -- a sleep research experiment manager and Achermann et al (1993) model simulator

SYNOPSIS

aghermann [-l LOG_FILE] [-n] [EXP_ROOT_DIR]

DESCRIPTION

Aghermann is a GTK+ program designed to run Process S simulations on Slow-Wave Activity profiles from EEG recordings as outlined in Achermann et al (1993). In this capacity, Aghermann produces a set of sleep homeostat parameters which can be used to describe and differentiate individual sleepers, such as short vs long sleepers, early vs late, etc.

Also provided are general-purpose facilities for displaying EEG and accompanying recordings, such as EOG and EMG, saved in EDF (European Data Format) files (plain EDF as well as EDF+C are supported). These recordings can then be conveniently scored; scores can be imported/exported in plain ASCII. Scoring can be outsourced to external scripts written in lua.

COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS

If run without arguments, your last session will be restored; an experiment located in EXP_ROOT_DIR will be selected otherwise.

With option -n (and an EXP_ROOT_DIR, which is non-optional in this case), the experiment session in that directory will be initialised and immediately closed, upon which Aghermann will exit. No windows will be open and no GTK+ code run; this option was implemented with the idea of running the core structural part of Aghermann under valgrind.

With option -l LOG_FILE, aghermann will write a log of its inner workings to LOG_FILE; if the latter is "-", stdout is used. By default, (almost all) logging is suppressed.

NOTE ON EDF FILE METADATA

For Aghermann to be able to manage an EDF file, all relevant fields in its header must be filled out correctly, as follows:

• patient_id uniquely identifies the subject;
• recording_id identifies the recording session (out of several other such sessions, each containing the same series of episodes) and the individual episode. These two items must appear in one of the following combinations:

•

recording_date and recording_time must not overlap with other episodes in the same session and not be too far removed from each other (more than 7 days).

FILES

~/.config/aghermann/sessionrc, contains a list of paths to recent experiment trees.

./.agherman.conf and ./.expdesign.conf, saved settings of the experiment located in

this tree.

SEE ALSO

edfhed-gtk(1), edfhed(1), edfcat(1).

The project’s git repository is kept on sf.net and also on github.com; more details on the Achermann model as well as on usage and project background can be found at http://johnhommer.com/academic/code/aghermann.

AUTHOR

Aghermann is written by Andrei Zavada <johnhommer@gmail.com>. Parts of the code have been borrowed from http://exstrom.com (in src/libexstrom); some bare algorithms in libsigfile/mc.* are those found in C# files zipped and posted at code.google.com/p/neuroloopgain.