What does SleepXML accomplish? With the help of several World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) XML standards, SleepXML does the following:

–Defines and creates new data in XML format – e.g. Events. This is done for Sleep Event Definitions by use of the XML Schema Definition Language. –Converts event data between different event definitions/displays. This is accomplished by use of Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) designed to convert XML do*****ent to another XML do*****ent. –Creates and links with databases; There are several commercial and open source XML databases available now, as well as tools to upload XML data to traditional relational databases, such as MS SQL Sever. –Defines displays for data in a web browser via XSLT transformation from XML to HTML; –Generates PSG reports in a web browser via XSLT transformation from XML to HTML; The main advantages of SleepXML as a complement to proprietary PSG systems and proprietary data formats are the following:

• Openness: No proprietary Data/Report formats;
• Flexibility: No hard-coded PSG Event/Statistic/Report definitions;
• Interchangeability: Enable Sleep Labs to freely exchange PSG data while maintaining their individuality in defining PSG events;
• Cross-Platform: Web browser-based data presentation;
• Automatic report generation;
• Compatibility with SQL-server and other Relational Database Management Systems (RDMS) for data storage;

We want to emphasize the fact that SleepXML is not a new format to describe events and other data; it is a common XML-based language that allows different labs or research groups to have different definitions of their data and still to be able to understand each other and exchange data.