Detecting variabilities of ECG signals by Lyapunov exponents

An approach based on the consideration that electrocardiogram (ECG) signals are chaotic signals was presented for automated diagnosis of electrocardiographic changes. This consideration was tested successfully using the nonlinear dynamics tools, like the computation of Lyapunov exponents. Multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPNN) architectures were formulated and used as basis for detection of variabilities of ECG signals. Four types of ECG beats (normal beat, congestive heart failure beat, ventricular tachyarrhythmia beat, atrial fibrillation beat) obtained from the Physiobank database were classified. The computed Lyapunov exponents of the ECG signals were used as inputs of the MLPNNs trained with backpropagation, delta-bar-delta, extended delta-bar-delta, quick propagation, and Levenberg–Marquardt algorithms. The performances of the MLPNN classifiers were evaluated in terms of classification accuracies. The results confirmed that the MLPNN trained with the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm has potential in detecting the variabilities of the ECG signals (total classification accuracy was 95.00%).     

A novel hybrid network of fusing rhythmic and morphological features for atrial fibrillation detection on mobile ECG signals

Neural Computing and Applications - Atrial fibrillation (AF) is one of the most common arrhythmia diseases, the incidence of which is ascendant with age increase. What’s more, AF is a...     

Syntactic recognition of ECG signals by attributed finite automata

A syntactic pattern recognition method of electrocardiograms (ECG) is described in which attributed automata are used to execute the analysis of ECG signals. An ECG signal is first encoded into a string of primitives and then attributed automata are used to analyse the string. We have found that we can perform fast and reliable analysis of ECG signals by attributed automata.     

Collecting Statistics over Runtime Executions

By collecting statistics over runtime executions of a program we can answer complex queries, such as “what is the average number of packet retransmissions” in a communication protocol, or “how often does process P₁ enter the critical section while process P₂ waits” in a mutual exclusion algorithm. We present an extension to linear-time temporal logic that combines the temporal specification with the collection of statistical data. By translating formulas of this language to alternating automata we obtain a simple and efficient query evaluation algorithm. We illustrate our approach with examples and experimental results.     

Robust automated cardiac arrhythmia detection in ECG beat signals

Nowadays, millions of people are affected by heart diseases worldwide, whereas a considerable amount of them could be aided through an electrocardiogram (ECG) trace analysis, which involves the study of arrhythmia impacts on electrocardiogram patterns. In this work, we carried out the task of automatic arrhythmia detection in ECG patterns by means of supervised machine learning techniques, being the main contribution of this paper to introduce the optimum-path forest (OPF) classifier to this context. We compared six distance metrics, six feature extraction algorithms and three classifiers in two variations of the same dataset, being the performance of the techniques compared in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. Although OPF revealed a higher skill on generalizing data, the support vector machines (SVM)-based classifier presented the highest accuracy. However, OPF shown to be more efficient than SVM in terms of the computational time for both training and test phases.

     

ECG signal classification via combining hand-engineered features with deep neural network features

The electrocardiogram (ECG) has been proven to be the most common and effective approach to investigate cardiovascular diseases because that it is simple, noninvasive and inexpensive. However, the differences among ECG signals are difficult to be distinguished. In this paper, hand-engineered ECG features and automatic ECG features extracted with deep neural networks are combined to generate high dimensional features. First, rich hand-engineered features were extracted using some extraction methods for common ECG features. Second, a convolutional neural network model was designed to extract the ECG features automatically. High dimensional feature set is obtained through combing hand-engineered features and automatic features. To get the most informative ECG feature combination, a feature selection method based on mutual information was proposed. An ensemble learning method was then used to build the classification model for abnormal ECG types. Six atrial arrhythmia subtypes’ ECG signals from the Chinese cardiovascular disease database dataset were analyzed through the proposed method. The precision of the classification results reaches 98.41%, which is higher than the results based on other current methods.

     

Study on fractal features of modulation signals

Based on fractal theory, the note presents a novel method of modulation signals classification that adopts box dimension and information dimension extracted from received signals as features of classification. These features contain the characteristics of magnitude, frequency and phase of signals, and collect discriminatory information among various modulation modes. They are effective features in classification sense, and are insensitive to noises interfering. The theoretical analysis also proves the above conclusion. The classifier design is very simple based on such features. The simulation results show that the performances of signal classification are superior.     

ECG variable cine: computer program for presentation of temporal changes in ECG variables over different number of ECG leads

The analysis of exercise electrocardiogram (ECG) is based on the alteration of the measured variables in the detection of coronary artery disease (CAD). In its existing form the analysis of the exercise ECG is laborious and requires much time. The temporal analysis of the ECG variable and the comparison between different phases of the exercise test is difficult and time consuming, especially the simultaneous examination of the variables over several leads. In this article we present a computer program, ECG Variable Cine, for the visualization of the temporal changes of values of exercise ECG variables over the selected ECG lead system. The program includes the stationary 3-D presentation for the variables' alteration simultaneously in all selected leads over the time of exercise test. In addition, the program determines two parameters; the average value of the variable over the selected leads at every sample moment, and the chronotropic index, a parameter that indicates heart rate response to exercise. According to the results the average value of ST-segment deviation at the end of the exercise over the leads and chronotropic index are clinically more competent than the maximum value of ST-segment depression in the detection of CAD.     

Feature extraction from ECG signals using wavelet transforms for disease diagnostics

This paper deals with a modified combined wavelet transform technique that has been developed to analyse multilead electrocardiogram signals for cardiac disease diagnostics. Two wavelets have been used, i.e. a quadratic spline wavelet (QSWT) for QRS detection and the Daubechies six coefficient (DU6) wavelet for P and T detection. After detecting the fundamental electrocardiogram waves, the desired electrocardiogram parameters for disease diagnostics are extracted. The software has been validated by extensive testing using the CSE DS-3 database and the MIT/BIH database. A procedure has been evolved using electrocardiogram parameters with a point scoring system for diagnosis of cardiac diseases, namely tachycardia, bradycardia left ventricular hypertrophy, and right ventricular hypertrophy. As the diagnostic results are not yet disclosed by the CSE group, two alternate diagnostic criteria have been used to check the diagnostic authenticity of the test results. The consistency and reliability of the identified and measured parameters were confirmed when both the diagnostic criteria gave the same results     

Analysis of human PPG,ECG and EEG signals by eigenvector methods

This paper presents eigenvector methods for analysis of the photoplethysmogram (PPG), electrocardiogram (ECG), electroencephalogram (EEG) signals recorded in order to examine the effects of pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) at extremely low frequency (ELF) upon the human electrophysiological signal behavior. The features representing the PPG, ECG, EEG signals were obtained by using the eigenvector methods. In addition to this, the problem of selecting relevant features among the features available for the purpose of discrimination of the signals was dealt with. Some conclusions were drawn concerning the efficiency of the eigenvector methods as a feature extraction method used for representing the signals under study.     

两类情感状态下心电与心率变异性信号的非线性分析

针对平静（无情感激发状态）和恐惧（有情感激发状态）这两类情感状态,采集了其心电信号数据样本,研究了有情感和没情感状态下心电信号中的情感信息。通过分析这两类情感状态下的心电信号的QT间期对RR间期的散点图、功率谱图的1/f分布以及心率变异性（HRV）信号的Poincare截面图,计算得到了这些非线性特征的关于两类情感状态的分类识别率,同时与心电信号统计特征的识别率做了对比。发现此种提取心电信号非线性特征的方法较于之前的统计特征方法,在识别有情感和没情感这两类情感状态时具有较好的识别效果。     

Pre-determination of OSA degree using morphological features of the ECG signal

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a very common, but a difficult sleep disorder to diagnose. Recurrent obstructions form in the airway during sleep, such that OSA can threaten a breathing capacity of patients. Clinically, continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is the most specific and effective treatment for this. In addition, these patients must be separated according to its degree, with CPAP treatment applied as a result. In this study, 30 OSA patients from two different databases were automatically classified using electrocardiogram (ECG) data, identified as mild, moderate, and severe. One of the databases was original recordings which had 9 OSA patients with 8303 epochs and the other one was Physionet benchmark database which had 21 patients with 20,824 epochs. Fifteen morphological features could be identified when apnea was seen, both before and after it presented. Five data groups in total for first dataset and second dataset were prepared with these features and 10-fold cross validation was used to effectively determine the test data. Then, sequential backward feature selection (SBFS) algorithm was applied to understand the more effective features. The prepared data groups were evaluated with artificial neural networks (ANN) to obtain optimum classification performance. All processes were repeated for ten times and error deviation was calculated for the accuracy. Furthermore, different classifiers which are frequently used in the literature were tested with selected features. The degree of OSA was estimated from three epochs in pre-apnea data, yielding the success rates of 97.20 ± 2.15% and 90.18 ± 8.11% with the SBFS algorithm for the first and second datasets, respectively. Also, SVM classifier followed ANN system in the success rates of 96.23 ± 3.48% and 88.75 ± 8.52% for used datasets.     

Application of principal component analysis to ECG signals for automated diagnosis of cardiac health

Electrocardiogram (ECG) is the P, QRS, T wave indicating the electrical activity of the heart. The subtle changes in amplitude and duration of ECG cannot be deciphered precisely by the naked eye, hence imposing the need for a computer assisted diagnosis tool. In this paper we have automatically classified five types of ECG beats of MIT-BIH arrhythmia database. The five types of beats are Normal (N), Right Bundle Branch Block (RBBB), Left Bundle Branch Block (LBBB), Atrial Premature Contraction (APC) and Ventricular Premature Contraction (VPC). In this work, we have compared the performances of three approaches. The first approach uses principal components of segmented ECG beats, the second approach uses principal components of error signals of linear prediction model, whereas the third approach uses principal components of Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) coefficients as features. These features from three approaches were independently classified using feed forward neural network (NN) and Least Square-Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM). We have obtained the highest accuracy using the first approach using principal components of segmented ECG beats with average sensitivity of 99.90%, specificity of 99.10%, PPV of 99.61% and classification accuracy of 98.11%. The system developed is clinically ready to deploy for mass screening programs.     

Discriminant analysis of multivariate time series: Application to diagnosis based on ECG signals

In analysing ECG data, the main aim is to differentiate between the signal patterns of healthy subjects and those of individuals with specific heart conditions. We propose an approach for classifying multivariate ECG signals based on discriminant and wavelet analyses. For this purpose we use multiple-scale wavelet variances and wavelet correlations to distinguish between the patterns of multivariate ECG signals based on the variability of the individual components of each ECG signal and on the relationships between every pair of these components. Using the results of other ECG classification studies in the literature as references, we demonstrate that our approach applied to 12-lead ECG signals from a particular database compares favourably. We also demonstrate with real and synthetic ECG data that our approach to classifying multivariate time series out-performs other well-known approaches for classifying multivariate time series.     

GABC based neuro-fuzzy classifier with hybrid features for ECG Beat classification

Multimedia Tools and Applications - The main objective of the proposed methodology is to classify an ECG signal as normal or abnormal using the optimal neuro-fuzzy classifier. The proposed work...     

Measuring saliency of features representing EEG signals using signal-to-noise ratios

Various methodologies of automated diagnosis have been adopted, however the entire process can generally be subdivided into a number of disjoint processing modules: pre-processing, feature extraction/selection, and classification. Features are used to represent patterns with minimal loss of important information. The feature vector, which is comprised of the set of all features used to describe a pattern, is a reduced-dimensional representation of that pattern. Medical diagnostic accuracies can be improved when the pattern is simplified through representation by important features. By identifying a set of salient features, the noise in a classification model can be reduced, resulting in more accurate classification. In this study, a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) saliency measure was employed to determine saliency of input features of probabilistic neural networks (PNNs) used in classification of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. In order to extract features representing the EEG signals, eigenvector methods were used. The PNNs used in the EEG signals classification were trained for the SNR screening method. The application results of the SNR screening method to the EEG signals demonstrated that classification accuracies of the PNNs with salient input features are higher than that of the PNNs with salient and non-salient input features.     

Analysis of efficient linear local features of digital signals and images

The paper presents the analysis of the efficiency of two original approaches to the construction of sets of linear local features (LLF) of digital signals. The first approach is based on the construction of the LLF set of separately constructed efficient LLFs, each of which has its own algorithm for the feature computation. The second approach involves the construction of an efficient LLF set that has a single algorithm for the simultaneous computation of all features. The analysis is carried out with respect to several indicators that characterize computing and qualitative properties of constructed LLFs. The two considered approaches are also experimentally compared with known solutions.     

Discrete-time demodulation of angle-modulated analog signals transmitted over fading channels

This paper deals with the problem of discrete-time demodulation of angle-modulated analog signals transmitted over fading channels, with emphasis on Rayleigh and Rician channels. First, analog and discrete communication models that represent both Rayleigh and Rician channels are presented. Then, various discrete nonlinear estimation techniques including the extended Kalman, iterated extended Kalman and truncated and Gaussian second-order filters are applied to the discrete communication model to obtain various digital quasi-optimum demodulator structures. The baseband forms of these structures are also developed.     

基于分形缝隙的短波突发信号暂态特征提取

对信号的暂态特征提取有利于通信电台的个体识别。针对分形维数在特征提取中存在的非普适性问题,提出了基于分形缝隙的短波突发信号暂态特征提取方法,该方法以幅度值为尺度计算缝隙值作为暂态特征,与分形维数相比,可以更有效地描述信号的暂态特性。在高斯白噪声和短波信道下进行了仿真分析,实验结果验证了缝隙值作为暂态特征的有效性。