Feature extraction for ECG heartbeats using higher order statistics of WPD coefficients

This paper describes feature extraction methods using higher order statistics (HOS) of wavelet packet decomposition (WPD) coefficients for the purpose of automatic heartbeat recognition. The method consists of three stages. First, the wavelet package coefficients (WPC) are calculated for each different type of ECG beat. Then, higher order statistics of WPC are derived. Finally, the obtained feature set is used as input to a classifier, which is based on k-NN algorithm. The MIT-BIH arrhythmia database is used to obtain the ECG records used in this study. All heartbeats in the arrhythmia database are grouped into five main heartbeat classes. The classification accuracy of the proposed system is measured by average sensitivity of 90%, average selectivity of 92% and average specificity of 98%. The results show that HOS of WPC as features are highly discriminative for the classification of different arrhythmic ECG beats.     

基于数学形态学及支持向量机的心率失常识别

为实现对不同类型的心电图自动分析,研究并提出了一种顺序筛选极大值的R波定位算法,并采用支持向量机(SVM)进行最后的心律失常心拍识别。定位算法以数学形态学为基础,结合心电图自身特点,定义R波筛选区间,避免了传统算法中的阈值选择;定位R波峰后以R波峰为中心提取不同类型的心率失常的心拍,选择径向基(RBF)支持向量机进行识别分类。使用MIT-BIH心率失常数据库文件进行实验仿真,结果表明,算法对含不同类型心拍的心电图R波峰正确检测率较高(99.36%),学习后的SVM能有效识别早搏、房颤、束支传导阻滞、正常等不用类型心拍,总体识别率达到99.75%。     

基于深度长短时记忆神经网络模型的心律失常检测算法

针对传统基于形态特征的心电检测算法存在特征提取不准确和高复杂性等问题,提出了一种多层的长短时记忆（LSTM）神经网络结构。结合传统LSTM模型在时序数据处理上的优势,该模型增加了反向和深度计算,避免了人工提取波形特征,提高了网络的学习能力。通过给定心拍序列和分类标签进行监督学习,然后实现对未知心拍的心律失常检测。通过对MIT-BIH数据库中的心律失常数据集进行实验验证,模型的总体准确率为98.34%。相比支持向量机（SVM）,该模型的准确率和F1值均有提高。     

Detection of electrocardiogram signals using an efficient method

Automatic detection of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals is very important for clinical diagnosis of heart disease. This paper investigates the design of a three-step system for recognition of the five types of ECG beat. In the first step, stationary wavelet transform (SWT) is used for noise reduction of the electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. Feature extraction module extracts higher order statistics of ECG signals in combination with three timing interval features. Then hybrid Bees algorithm-radial basis function (RBF_BA) technique is used to classify the five types of electrocardiogram (ECG) beat. The suggested method can accurately classify and discriminate normal (Normal) and abnormal heartbeats. Abnormal heartbeats include left bundle branch block (LBBB), right bundle branch block (RBBB), atrial premature contractions (APC) and premature ventricular contractions (PVC). Finally, the classification capability of five different classes of ECG signals is attained over eight files from the MIT/BIH arrhythmia database. Simulation results show that classification accuracy of 95.79% for the first dataset (4000 beats) and an overall accuracy of detection of 95.18% are achieved over eight files from the MIT/BIH arrhythmia database.     

ECG signal classification and arrhythmia detection using ELM-RNN

Arrhythmia is a unique type of heart disease which produces inefficient and irregular heartbeat. This is a cardiac disease which is diagnosed through electrocardiogram (ECG) procedure. Several studies have been focused on the speed and accuracy on the learning algorithm by applying pattern recognition, artificial intelligence in the classification algorithm. In this work a novel classification algorithm is planned based on ELM (Extreme Learning Machine) with Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) by using morphological filtering. The popular publicly available ECG arrhythmia database (MIT-BIH arrhythmia DB) is used to express the performance of the proposed algorithm where the level of accuracy is compared with the existing similar types of work. The comparative study shows that performance of our proposed model is much faster than the models working with RBFN (radial basis function network), BPBB(back propagation neural network) and Support Vector Machine. The experimental result with the MIT BIH database with hidden neurons of ELM with RNN, the accuracy is 96.41%, sensitivity 93.62% and specificity 92.66%. The classification methodology follows main four steps the heart beat detection, the ECG feature extraction, feature selection and the construction of the proposed classifier.

     

Combining recurrent neural networks with eigenvector methods for classification of ECG beats

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of the recurrent neural networks (RNNs) trained with Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm on the electrocardiogram (ECG) beats. Four types of ECG beats (normal beat, congestive heart failure beat, ventricular tachyarrhythmia beat, atrial fibrillation beat) obtained from the Physiobank database were analyzed. Decision making was performed in two stages: feature extraction by eigenvector methods and classification using the RNN trained on the extracted features. The RNNs were implemented for classification of the ECG beats using the statistical features as inputs. The ability of designed and trained Elman RNNs, combined with eigenvector methods, were explored to classify the ECG beats. The classification results demonstrated that the combined eigenvector methods/RNN approach can be useful in analyzing the ECG beats.     

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 beat classification by a novel hybrid neural network

This paper presents a novel hybrid neural network structure for the classification of the electrocardiogram (ECG) beats. Two feature extraction methods: Fourier and wavelet analyses for ECG beat classification are comparatively investigated in eight-dimensional feature space. ECG features are determined by dynamic programming according to the divergence value. Classification performance, training time and the number of nodes of the multi-layer perceptron (MLP), restricted Coulomb energy (RCE) and a novel hybrid neural network are comparatively presented. In order to increase the classification performance and to decrease the number of nodes, the novel hybrid structure is trained by the genetic algorithms (GAs). Ten types of ECG beats obtained from the MIT-BIH database and from a real-time ECG measurement system are classified with a success of 96% by using the hybrid structure.     

Classification of electrocardiogram signals with support vector machines and extreme learning machine

An Electrocardiogram or ECG is an electrical recording of the heart and is used in the investigation of heart disease. This ECG can be classified as normal and abnormal signals. The classification of the ECG signals is presently performed with the support vector machine. The generalization performance of the SVM classifier is not sufficient for the correct classification of ECG signals. To overcome this problem, the ELM classifier is used which works by searching for the best value of the parameters that tune its discriminant function and upstream by looking for the best subset of features that feed the classifier. The experiments were conducted on the ECG data from the Physionet arrhythmia database to classify five kinds of abnormal waveforms and normal beats. In this paper, a thorough experimental study was done to show the superiority of the generalization capability of the Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) that is presented and compared with support vector machine (SVM) approach in the automatic classification of ECG beats. In particular, the sensitivity of the ELM classifier is tested and that is compared with SVM combined with two classifiers, and they are the k-nearest Neighbor Classifier and the radial basis function neural network classifier, with respect to the curse of dimensionality and the number of available training beats. The obtained results clearly confirm the superiority of the ELM approach as compared with traditional classifiers.     

ECG arrhythmia recognition via a neuro-SVM-KNN hybrid classifier with virtual QRS image-based geometrical features

In this study, a new supervised noise-artifact-robust heart arrhythmia fusion classification solution, is introduced. Proposed method consists of structurally diverse classifiers with a new QRS complex geometrical feature extraction technique.Toward this objective, first, the events of the electrocardiogram (ECG) signal are detected and delineated using a robust wavelet-based algorithm. Then, each QRS region and also its corresponding discrete wavelet transform (DWT) are supposed as virtual images and each of them is divided into eight polar sectors. Next, the curve length of each excerpted segment is calculated and is used as the element of the feature space. Discrimination power of proposed classifier in isolation of different Gold standard beats was assessed with accuracy 98.20%. Also, proposed learning machine was applied to 7 arrhythmias belonging to 15 different records and accuracy 98.06% was achieved. Comparisons with peer-reviewed studies prove a marginal progress in computerized heart arrhythmia recognition technologies.     

QRS detection based on wavelet coefficients

Electrocardiogram (ECG) signal processing and analysis provide crucial information about functional status of the heart. The QRS complex represents the most important component within the ECG signal. Its detection is the first step of all kinds of automatic feature extraction. QRS detector must be able to detect a large number of different QRS morphologies. This paper examines the use of wavelet detail coefficients for the accurate detection of different QRS morphologies in ECG. Our method is based on the power spectrum of QRS complexes in different energy levels since it differs from normal beats to abnormal ones. This property is used to discriminate between true beats (normal and abnormal) and false beats. Significant performance enhancement is observed when the proposed approach is tested with the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database (MITDB). The obtained results show a sensitivity of 99.64% and a positive predictivity of 99.82%.     

Detection of electrocardiogram beats using a fuzzy similarity index

Abstract: A new approach based on the computation of a fuzzy similarity index (FSI) is presented for the detection of electrocardiogram (ECG) beats. Four types of ECG beats (normal beat, congestive heart failure beat, ventricular tachyarrhythmia beat, atrial fibrillation beat) obtained from the Physiobank database were analysed. The ECG signals were decomposed into time–frequency representations using the discrete wavelet transform and wavelet coefficients were calculated to represent the signals. The aim of the study is detection of ECG beats by the combination of wavelet coefficients and the FSI. Toward achieving this aim, fuzzy sets were obtained from the feature sets (wavelet coefficients) of the signals under study. The results demonstrated that the similarity between the fuzzy sets of the studied signals indicated the variabilities in the ECG signals. Thus, the FSI could discriminate the normal beat and the other three types of beats (congestive heart failure beat, ventricular tachyarrhythmia beat, atrial fibrillation beat).     

Integration of independent component analysis and neural networks for ECG beat classification

In this paper, we propose a scheme to integrate independent component analysis (ICA) and neural networks for electrocardiogram (ECG) beat classification. The ICA is used to decompose ECG signals into weighted sum of basic components that are statistically mutual independent. The projections on these components, together with the RR interval, then constitute a feature vector for the following classifier. Two neural networks, including a probabilistic neural network (PNN) and a back-propagation neural network (BPNN), are employed as classifiers. ECG samples attributing to eight different beat types were sampled from the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database for experiments. The results show high classification accuracy of over 98% with either of the two classifiers. Between them, the PNN shows a slightly better performance than BPNN in terms of accuracy and robustness to the number of ICA-bases. The impressive results prove that the integration of independent component analysis and neural networks, especially PNN, is a promising scheme for the computer-aided diagnosis of heart diseases based on ECG.     

Statistics over features of ECG signals

This paper presented the usage of statistics over the set of the features representing the electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. Since classification is more accurate when the pattern is simplified through representation by important features, feature extraction and selection play an important role in classifying systems such as neural networks. Multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPNN) architectures were formulated and used as basis for detection of variabilities of the 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 selected Lyapunov exponents, wavelet coefficients and the power levels of power spectral density (PSD) values obtained by eigenvector methods of the ECG signals were used as inputs of the MLPNN trained with Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm. The classification results confirmed that the proposed MLPNN has potential in detecting the variabilities of the ECG signals.     

Adaptive wavelet network for multiple cardiac arrhythmias recognition

This paper proposes a method for electrocardiogram (ECG) heartbeat detection and recognition using adaptive wavelet network (AWN). The ECG beat recognition can be divided into a sequence of stages, starting with feature extraction from QRS complexes, and then according to characteristic features to identify the cardiac arrhythmias including the supraventricular ectopic beat, bundle branch ectopic beat, and ventricular ectopic beat. The method of ECG beats is a two-subnetwork architecture, Morlet wavelets are used to enhance the features from each heartbeat, and probabilistic neural network (PNN) performs the recognition tasks. The AWN method is used for application in a dynamic environment, with add-in and delete-off features using automatic target adjustment and parameter tuning. The experimental results used from the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed non-invasive method. Compared with conventional multi-layer neural networks, the test results also show accurate discrimination, fast learning, good adaptability, and faster processing time for detection.     

Feature elimination based random subspace ensembles learning for ECG arrhythmia diagnosis

Various methods for ensembles selection and classifier combination have been designed to optimize the performance of ensembles of classifiers. However, use of large number of features in training data can affect the classification performance of machine learning algorithms. The objective of this paper is to represent a novel feature elimination (FE) based ensembles learning method which is an extension to an existing machine learning environment. Here the standard 12 lead ECG signal recordings data have been used in order to diagnose arrhythmia by classifying it into normal and abnormal subjects. The advantage of the proposed approach is that it reduces the size of feature space by way of using various feature elimination methods. The decisions obtained from these methods have been coalesced to form a fused data. Thus the idea behind this work is to discover a reduced feature space so that a classifier built using this tiny data set would perform no worse than a classifier built from the original data set. Random subspace based ensembles classifier is used with PART tree as base classifier. The proposed approach has been implemented and evaluated on the UCI ECG signal data. Here, the classification performance has been evaluated using measures such as mean absolute error, root mean squared error, relative absolute error, F-measure, classification accuracy, receiver operating characteristics and area under curve. In this way, the proposed novel approach has provided an attractive performance in terms of overall classification accuracy of 91.11 % on unseen test data set. From this work, it is shown that this approach performs well on the ensembles size of 15 and 20.     

ECG waveform analysis by significant point extraction. I. Data reduction

We present a new technique for automatic data reduction and pattern recognition of time-domain signals such as electrocardiogram (ECG) waveforms. Data reduction is important because only a few significant features of each heart beat are of interest in pattern analysis, while the patient data collection system acquires an enormous number of data samples. We present a significant point extraction algorithm, based on the analysis of curvature, that identifies data samples that represent clinically significant information in the ECG waveform. Data reduction rates of up to 1:10 are possible without significantly distorting the appearance of the waveform. This method is unique in that common procedures help in both data reduction as well as pattern recognition. Part II of this work deals specifically with pattern analysis of normal and abnormal heart beats.     

An improved procedure for detection of heart arrhythmias with novel pre‐processing techniques

The objective of this study is to develop an algorithm to detect and classify six types of electrocardiogram (ECG) signal beats including normal beats (N), atrial pre‐mature beats (A), right bundle branch block beats (R), left bundle branch block beats (L), paced beats (P), and pre‐mature ventricular contraction beats (PVC or V) using a neural network classifier. In order to prepare an appropriate input vector for the neural classifier several pre‐processing stages have been applied. Initially, a signal filtering method is used to remove the ECG signal baseline wandering. Continuous wavelet transform is then applied in order to extract features of the ECG signal. Next, principal component analysis is used to reduce the size of the data. A well‐known neural network architecture called the multi‐layered perceptron neural network is then utilized as the final classifier to classify each ECG beat as one of six groups of signals under study. Finally, the MIT‐BIH database is used to evaluate the proposed algorithm, resulting in 99.5% sensitivity, 99.66% positive predictive accuracy and 99.17% total accuracy.     

Wearable ECG signal processing for automated cardiac arrhythmia classification using CFASE-based feature selection

Classification of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals is obligatory for the automatic diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. With the recent advancement of low-cost wearable ECG device, it becomes more feasible to utilize ECG for cardiac arrhythmia classification in daily life. In this paper, we propose a lightweight approach to classify five types of cardiac arrhythmia, namely, normal beat (N), atrial premature contraction (A), premature ventricular contraction (V), left bundle branch block beat (L), and right bundle branch block beat (R). The combined method of frequency analysis and Shannon entropy is applied to extract appropriate statistical features. Information gain criterion is employed to select features that the results show that 10 highly effective features can obtain performance measures comparable to those obtained by using the complete features. The selected features are then fed to the input of Random Forest, K-Nearest Neighbour, and J48 for classification. To evaluate classification performance, tenfold cross validation is used to verify the effectiveness of our method. Experimental results show that Random Forest classifier demonstrates significant performance with the highest sensitivity of 98.1%, the specificity of 99.5%, the precision of 98.1%, and the accuracy of 98.08%, outperforming other representative approaches for automated cardiac arrhythmia classification.     

ECG arrhythmia classification based on optimum-path forest

An important tool for the heart disease diagnosis is the analysis of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals, since the non-invasive nature and simplicity of the ECG exam. According to the application, ECG data analysis consists of steps such as preprocessing, segmentation, feature extraction and classification aiming to detect cardiac arrhythmias (i.e., cardiac rhythm abnormalities). Aiming to made a fast and accurate cardiac arrhythmia signal classification process, we apply and analyze a recent and robust supervised graph-based pattern recognition technique, the optimum-path forest (OPF) classifier. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that OPF classifier is used to the ECG heartbeat signal classification task. We then compare the performance (in terms of training and testing time, accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity) of the OPF classifier to the ones of other three well-known expert system classifiers, i.e., support vector machine (SVM), Bayesian and multilayer artificial neural network (MLP), using features extracted from six main approaches considered in literature for ECG arrhythmia analysis. In our experiments, we use the MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database and the evaluation protocol recommended by The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation. A discussion on the obtained results shows that OPF classifier presents a robust performance, i.e., there is no need for parameter setup, as well as a high accuracy at an extremely low computational cost. Moreover, in average, the OPF classifier yielded greater performance than the MLP and SVM classifiers in terms of classification time and accuracy, and to produce quite similar performance to the Bayesian classifier, showing to be a promising technique for ECG signal analysis.