EMPIRICAL MODE DECOMPOSITION METHOD FOR MEG PHANTOM DATA ANALYSIS

With the development of nondestructive detection, the emerging testing techniques provide new challenges to signal analysis and interpretation approach applied to the inspection evaluation. Some researchers have developed the methods that focus on feature analysis of detected signals. This article presents a new feature analysis by the Independent Component Analysis (ICA) approach to evaluate the defects tested by the pulsed eddy current (PEC) technique. ICA is a high-order statistics technique used to separate multi-unknown sources, which has been successfully applied to facial image identification and separation of the components of 1D signal. In this article, the ICA approach is utilized to project the response signals of various defects into the independent components (ICs) feature subspace by signal representation model. Dependent on the selected ICs, each defect is represented by different projected coefficients, which are proposed to discriminate and classify the defects that belong to three categories. The improved ICA model is proposed to improve the classification of two similar categories of single defects: metal loss and subsurface defects. The evaluation using the series of experimental data has validated the classification of single defects and the defects with lift-off effect by our ICA approach. The comparison with Principal component analysis (PCA)–based approach further verified the better performance of the ICA-based model.

The impact of outliers on signal separation performance of an independent component analysis (ICA) algorithm is an important factor when selecting an ICA algorithm. If an ICA estimator has the property of B-robustness, the influence of an extreme point is bounded, leading to good separation performance in the presence of outliers. Since this property is binary, it does not give the degree of influence an outlier has on the separation performance. To address this issue, a Mamdani-type fuzzy inference, based on the location of a potential outlier and on the skewness of the data set, has been developed. It creates an outlier sensitivity map for an ICA algorithm. The implication of this work is a criterion to switch from one ICA algorithm to another in real time, as determined by the algorithms sensitivity to the data set under consideration. This paper describes estimation of the outlier impact on the separation performance of the non-B-robust FastICA algorithm using a Mamdani-type fuzzy inference. In simulations with data sets contaminated by outliers, the FastICA sensitivity map resembles the separation performance measured by the Amari performance index.

The higher-order statistics based independent component analysis (ICA) algorithm can extract natural image features. Based on the maximum likelihood ICA criterion, and using the weighted orthogonal constrained natural gradient, a new ICA algorithm is proposed. Natural image feature extraction simulation results show that, compared with other ICA algorithms, the proposed algorithm has faster convergence rate, most of the extracted basis vectors are localized in space, frequency, and orientation, which can describe the features of the natural images well, and the corresponding coefficients are very sparse, obey stronger super-Gaussian distribution with very high kurtosis.

Our goal is to develop a novel BCI based on an eye movements system employing EEG signals on-line. Most of the analysis on EEG signals has been performed using ensemble averaging approaches. However,It is suitable to analyze raw EEG signals in signal processing methods for BCI. In order to process raw EEG signals, we used independent component analysis(ICA). However, we do not know which ICA algorithms have good performance. It is important to check which ICA algorithms have good performance to develop BCIs. Previous paper presented extraction rate of saccade-related EEG signals by five ICA algorithms and eight window size. However, three ICA algorithms, the FastICA, the NG-FICA and the JADE algorithms, are based on 4th order statistic and AMUSE algorithm has an improved algorithm named SOBI.Therefore, we must re-select ICA algorithms. In this paper, we add new algorithms; the SOBI and the MILCA. The SOBI is an improved algorithm based on the AMUSE and uses at least two covariance matrices at different time steps. The MILCA use the independency based on mutual information. Using the Fast ICA, the JADE, the AMUSE, the SOBI, and the MILCA, we extract saccade-related EEG signals and check extracting rates. Secondly, in order to get more robustness against EOG noise, we use improved FastICA with reference signals and check extracting rates.

Electroencephalograph (EEG) is brain activity measurement technique that it is widely used by placing electrode on the scalp. The EEG recording signals are vulnerably contaminated by noise. Thus, it can lead to misperception in analyzing EEG signals. One of the noise that has major influence on the recorded EEG signals is ocular artifacts (OAs). In this paper, a new method to remove OAs automatically is proposed by combining between Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (CEEMD) and Independent Component Analysis (ICA). CEEMD-ICA-OD removes OAs based on the concentration of noise that is calculated by calculating entropy for every CEEMD decomposition. Every selected decomposition of CEEMD will be used as input to the ICA method. Then, ICA will decompose selected CEEMD decomposition into independent components (ICs). Then, Chauvenet Criterion (CC) as Outlier Detection (OD) method is used to detect OAs pattern. Every detected OAs pattern will be eliminated by zeroing process on OAs pattern so that the EEG signal information remains secure. The proposed method were compared with Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD), Ensemble EMD (EEMD) and Complete EEMD (CEEMD) with zeroing ICA combination for every comparison method. The performance measure of the proposed method and the benchmark method is calculated by using Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) to show the performance quality in eliminating OAs. The experiment results show that the proposed method is successfully removing OAs better than the other methods with RMSE value and SNR value are 0.2491 and -0.3449, respectively.

As an important factor in the fast fixed-point algorithm of independent component analysis (ICA), noise has a significant influence on the separate performance of ICA. Unfortunately, the traditional algorithm of noisy ICA did not address the influence of impulsive components. Because the sources were signals mixed with impulsive noise, the Gaussian noisy algorithm will be invalid for separating the sources. In general, those measurements that significantly deviate from the normal pattern of sensed data are considered impulses. In this paper, we introduce a non-linear function based on the S-estimator to identify the impulsive components in the observed data. This approach guarantees that the impulse noise can be detected from the observed signal. Furthermore, a threshold for the impulse components and methods to remove impulse noise and reconstruct the signal is proposed. The proposed technique improves the separate performance of the traditional algorithm for Gaussian noisy ICA. With the proposed method, the fast fixed-point algorithm of ICA is more reliable for noisy situations. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

In special application scenarios, such as portable anesthesia depth monitoring, portable emotional state recognition and portable sleep monitoring, electroencephalogram (EEG) signal acquisition equipment is required to be convenient and easy to use. It is difficult to remove electrooculogram (EOG) artifacts when the number of EEG acquisition channels is small, especially when the number of observed signals is less than that of the source signals, and the overcomplete problem will arise. The independent component analysis (ICA) algorithm commonly used for artifact removal requires the number of basis vectors to be smaller than the dimension of the input data due to a set of standard orthonormal bases learned during the convergence process, so it cannot be used to solve the overcomplete problem. The empirical mode decomposition method decomposes the signal into several independent intrinsic mode functions so that the number of observed signals is more than that of the source signals, solving the overcomplete problem. However, when using this method to solve overcompleteness, the modal aliasing problem will arise, which is caused by abnormal events such as sharp signals, impulse interference, and noise. Aiming at the above problems, we propose a novel EEG artifact removal method based on discrete wavelet transform, complete empirical mode decomposition for adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) and ICA in this paper. First, the input signals are transformed by discrete wavelet (DWT), and then CEEMDAN is used to solve the overcomplete and mode aliasing problems, meeting the a priori conditions of the ICA algorithm. Finally, the components belonging to EOG artifacts are removed according to the sample entropy value of each independent component. Experiments show that this method can effectively remove EOG artifacts while solving the overcomplete and modal aliasing problems.

Current analytical techniques applied to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data require a priori knowledge or specific assumptions about the time courses of processes contributing to the measured signals. Here we describe a new method for analyzing fMRI data based on the independent component analysis (ICA) algorithm of Bell and Sejnowski ([1995]: Neural Comput 7:1129-1159). We decomposed eight fMRI data sets from 4 normal subjects performing Stroop color-naming, the Brown and Peterson work/number task, and control tasks into spatially independent components. Each component consisted of voxel values at fixed three-dimensional locations (a component "map"), and a unique associated time course of activation. Given data from 144 time points collected during a 6-min trial, ICA extracted an equal number of spatially independent components. In all eight trials, ICA derived one and only one component with a time course closely matching the time course of 40-sec alternations between experimental and control tasks. The regions of maximum activity in these consistently task-related components generally overlapped active regions detected by standard correlational analysis, but included frontal regions not detected by correlation. Time courses of other ICA components were transiently task-related, quasiperiodic, or slowly varying. By utilizing higher-order statistics to enforce successively stricter criteria for spatial independence between component maps, both the ICA algorithm and a related fourth-order decomposition technique (Comon [1994]: Signal Processing 36:11-20) were superior to principal component analysis (PCA) in determining the spatial and temporal extent of task-related activation. For each subject, the time courses and active regions of the task-related ICA components were consistent across trials and were robust to the addition of simulated noise. Simulated movement artifact and simulated task-related activations added to actual fMRI data were clearly separated by the algorithm. ICA can be used to distinguish between nontask-related signal components, movements, and other artifacts, as well as consistently or transiently task-related fMRI activations, based on only weak assumptions about their spatial distributions and without a priori assumptions about their time courses. ICA appears to be a highly promising method for the analysis of fMRI data from normal and clinical populations, especially for uncovering unpredictable transient patterns of brain activity associated with performance of psychomotor tasks.

We apply the independent component analysis (ICA) algorithm to uncover intrinsic noise in the beam position monitor (BPM) system. Numerical simulations found that ICA is efficient in the BPM noise estimation. The ICA algorithm is applied to the turn-by-turn data at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. We found the distribution of the BPM noise level, which is consistent with the Johnson-Nyquist thermal noise model. The ICA analysis of turn-by-turn data can be used in neuronetwork feasibility of monitoring a storage ring parasitically.

The performance of a conventional single user DS-CDMA receiver is severely limited by multiple access interference (MAI) and near---far effects. This severity has motivated research into adaptive filtering, near---far resistant detectors and power control strategies for DS-CDMA systems. In this paper, we propose a near---far resistant detector based on independent component analysis (ICA) of the received signal. Since ICA is a blind technique, the proposed ICA based detector has the potential to combat the near---far problem. The ICA is a higher order statistical technique based on the assumption of independence of source signals. The assumptions in ICA algorithm are the realistic conditions in a DS-CDMA system and therefore ICA algorithm can be applied successfully to detect the signal of the desired user. The focus of this paper is to illustrate the near---far resistance capability of the ICA based detector. Simulation studies performed on the proposed detector show that it is resistant to the near-far problem and has low bit error rate.

Objective: Magnetoencephalography source imaging (MSI) of interictal epileptiform discharges (IED) is a useful presurgical tool in the evaluation of drug-resistant frontal lobe epilepsy (FLE) patients. Yet, failures in MSI can arise related to artifacts and to interference of background activity. Independent component analysis (ICA) is a popular denoising procedure but its clinical application remains challenging, as the selection of multiple independent components (IC) is controversial, operator dependent, and time consuming. We evaluated whether selecting only one IC of interest based on its similarity with the average IED field improves MSI in FLE.Methods: MSI was performed with the equivalent current dipole (ECD) technique and two distributed magnetic source imaging (dMSI) approaches: minimum norm estimate (MNE) and coherent Maximum Entropy on the Mean (cMEM). MSI accuracy was evaluated under three conditions: (1) ICA of continuous data (Cont_ICA), (2) ICA at the time of IED (IED_ICA), and (3) without ICA (No_ICA). Localization performance was quantitatively measured as actual distance of the source maximum in relation to the focus (Dmin), and spatial dispersion (SD) for dMSI.Results: After ICA, ECD Dmin did not change significantly (p > 0.200). For both dMSI techniques, ICA application worsened the source localization accuracy. We observed a worsening of both MNE Dmin (p < 0.05, consistently) and MNE SD (p < 0.001, consistently) for both ICA approaches. A similar behaviour was observed for cMEM, for which, however, Cont_ICA seemed less detrimental.Conclusion: We demonstrated that a simplified ICA approach selecting one IC of interest in combination with distributed magnetic source imaging can be detrimental. More complex approaches may provide better results but would be rather difficult to apply in real-world clinical setting. In a broader perspective, caution should be taken in applying ICA for source localization of interictal activity. To ensure optimal and useful results, effort should focus on acquiring good quality data, minimizing artifacts, and determining optimal candidacy for MEG, rather than counting on data cleaning techniques.

Methods for analysis of magnetoencephalography (MEG) data are diverse in their implementation, but traditionally involve inverse modeling of brain activity from data acquired at the sensors. Preprocessing methods vary depending on the specific type of MEG data acquired, but normally involve filtering/removal of noise signals from the data, and may also require the co-registration of coordinate spaces between MEG head positioning systems and structural data. Depending on the variables to be compared, analysis of MEG data can range from simple to complex, and computational demand for data analysis can be minor or substantial. Processing and analysis may include things such as stimulus averaging, time-frequency analysis, source analysis, or a combination thereof. Analyses can be restricted to the cortex or allowed to span the brain volume, and can be focused to predefined regions of interest or examined across all sensors/brain areas. In this chapter, we review basic MEG analysis methods, beginning with preprocessing and closing with source-level MEG analysis.

When the independent sources are known to be nonnegative and well-grounded, which means that they have a non-zero pdf in the region of zero, a few nonnegative independent component analysis (ICA) algorithms have been proposed to separate these positive sources. In this paper, by using the property of skew-symmetry matrix, rigorous convergence proof of a nonnegative ICA algorithm on Stiefel manifold is given. And sufficient convergence conditions are presented. Simulations are employed to confirm our convergence theory. Our techniques may be useful to analyze general ICA algorithms on Stiefel manifold.

Optimization of an independent component analysis approach for artifact identification and removal in magnetoencephalographic signals.

THINGS-data reflects three large-scale neuroimaging and behavioral datasets of object processing in humans, comprising densely sampled functional MRI and magnetoencephalographic recordings, as well as 4.70 million similarity judgments in response to thousands of photographic images for up to 1854 objects.