Multi-stream Bi-GRU network to extract a comprehensive feature set for ECG signal classification

Millions of people around the world are affected by arrhythmias, which are abnormal activities of the functioning of the heart. Most arrhythmias are harmful to the heart and can suddenly become life-threatening. The electrocardiogram (ECG) is an important non-invasive tool in cardiology for the diagnosis of arrhythmias. This work proposes a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system to automatically classify different types of arrhythmias from ECG signals. First, the auto-encoder convolutional network (ACN) model is used, which is based on a one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN)that automatically learns the best features from the raw ECG signals. After that, the support vector machine (SVM) classifier is applied to the features learned by the ACN model to improve the detection of arrhythmic beats. This classifier detects four different types of arrhythmias, namely the left bundle branch block (LBBB), right bundle branch block (RBBB), paced beat (PB), and premature ventricular contractions (PVC), along with the normal sinus rhythms (NSR). Among these arrhythmias, PVC is particularly a dangerous type of heartbeat in ECG signals. The performance of the model is measured in terms of accuracy, sensitivity, and precision using a tenfold cross-validation strategy on the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database. The obtained overall accuracy of the SVM classifier was 98.84%. The result of this model is portrayed as a better performance than in other literary works. Thus, this approach may also help in further clinical studies of cardiac cases.

Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals are significantly distorted during recording by muscle artifact (MA), causing signal frequency overlap and making it difficult to interpret ECG data correctly. Deep learning (DL) methods for signal processing have shown promising results. However, there is a significant necessity in building proper DL models with appropriate datasets. We propose an enhanced hybrid deep learning framework called HRGB-Net based on residual neural network (ResNet), global channel attention block (GCAB), and bidirectional-long-short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) blocks for filtering the MA noise from ECG by using three distinctive MIT-BIH real-time datasets from the PhysioNet repository by creating suitable datasets for training. We use both raw ECG data and short-time Fourier-transformed (STFT) ECG data for comparative analysis with three neural network models: a convolutional neural Network (CNN), a fully connected neural network (FCNN), and a regression-based LSTM (Reg-LSTM-DNN) model to assess the proposed model. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of noisy ECG signals is varied from - 7dB to 2dB to analyze the mean square error (MSE) and correlation coefficient (CC) performances after the denoising process. Our proposed method utilizes the regression ability to remove MA noise and generate a clean ECG signal with improved values of these signal parameters. The STFT-trained and tested ECG data shows better results than the raw ECG data for efficiently eliminating the MA with a 98.82% correlation coefficient and optimal MSE value of 0.053068. The results prove our proposed HRGB-Net model's remarkable ability to outperform the neural network models and other standard techniques.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) and congestive heart failure (CHF) are the most prevalent types of cardiovascular disorders as the leading cause of death due to delayed diagnosis. Early diagnosis of these cardiac conditions is possible by manually analyzing electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. However, manual diagnosis is complex, owing to the various characteristics of ECG signals. An accurate classification system for AF and CHF has the potential to save patient lives. Therefore, this study proposed an ECG signal classification system for AF and CHF using a one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1-D CNN) to provide a robust classification system performance. This study used ECG signal recording of AF, CHF, and NSR, which can be accessed on the Physionet website. A total of 5600 ECG signal segments were obtained from 56 subjects, divided into train sets from 42 subjects (N = 4200 ECG segments), and test sets from 14 subjects (N = 1400). We applied for leave-one-out cross-validation in training to select the best model. The proposed 1-D CNN algorithm successfully classified raw data of ECG signals into normal sinus rhythm (NSR), AF, and CHF by providing the highest classification accuracy of 99.643%, f1-score, recall, and precision of 0.996, respectively, with an AUC score of 0.999. The results showed that the proposed method extracted the ECG signal information directly without needing several preprocessing steps and feature extraction methods that potentially reduce the information contained in the ECG signals. Furthermore, the proposed method outperformed previous studies in classifying AF, CHF, and NSR. Therefore, this approach can be considered as an adjunct for medical personnel to diagnose AF, CHF, and NSR.

The rapid development in the wearable sensors helped develop the healthcare-based Internet of Things (IoT) platforms for continuous monitoring of chronic disease. As per the World Health Organization (WHO) 85% of the Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is preventable with proper monitoring for symptoms and awareness. The electrocardiogram (ECG) signal refers to a recording of electrical activity that is generated by the human heart. An analysis of the ECG signal helps in building models that can make an automatic classification of various CVDs. Deep neural network is found to be efficient to make an automatic classification of the primary signals of the ECG. These ECG signals to the arrhythmia classes were grouped by using the Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). The 9 Layers of the CNN techniques are employed in state-of-the-art modern research to classify the signal. The Tabu Search (TS) algorithm with the CNN, Hybrid Optimization Algorithm known as the CNN with ABC-TS, and CNN with Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) is used to optimize the CNN in this work for classifying ECG signals. An evaluation of the technique was made on the basis of metrics of performance evaluation that are capable of producing enhanced outcomes.

Effective and powerful methods for denoising real electrocardiogram (ECG) signals are important for wearable sensors and devices. Deep Learning (DL) models have been used extensively in image processing and other domains with great success but only very recently have been used in processing ECG signals. This paper presents several DL models namely Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM) together with the more conventional filtering methods (low pass filtering, high pass filtering, Notch filtering) and the standard wavelet-based technique for denoising EEG signals. These methods are trained, tested and evaluated on different synthetic and real ECG datasets taken from the MIT PhysioNet database and for different simulation conditions (i.e. various lengths of the ECG signals, single or multiple records). The results show the CNN model is a performant model that can be used for off-line denoising ECG applications where it is satisfactory to train on a clean part of an ECG signal from an ECG record, and then to test on the same ECG signal, which would have some high level of noise added to it. However, for real-time applications or near-real time applications, this task becomes more cumbersome, as the clean part of an ECG signal is very probable to be very limited in size. Therefore the solution put forth in this work is to train a CNN model on 1 second ECG noisy artificial multiple heartbeat data (i.e. ECG at effort), which was generated in a first instance based on few sequences of real signal heartbeat ECG data (i.e. ECG at rest). Afterwards it would be possible to use the trained CNN model in real life situations to denoise the ECG signal.

This paper presents a resource-saving system to extract a few important features of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. In addition, real-time classifiers are proposed as well to classify different types of arrhythmias via these features. The proposed feature extraction system is based on two delta-sigma modulators adopting 250Hz sampling rate and three wave detection algorithms to analyze outputs of the modulators. It extracts essential details of each heartbeat, and the details are encoded into 68 bits data that is only 1.48% of the other comparable methods. To evaluate our classification, we use a novel patient-specific training protocol in conjunction with the MIT-BIH database and the recommendation of the AAMI to train the classifiers. The classifiers are random forests that are designed to recognize two major types of arrhythmias. They are supraventricular ectopic beats (SVEB) and ventricular ectopic beats (VEB). The performance of the arrhythmia classification reaches to the F1 scores of 81.05% for SVEB and 97.07% for VEB, which are also comparable to the state-of-the-art methods. The method provides a reliable and accurate approach to analyze ECG signals. Additionally, it also possesses time-efficient, low-complexity, and low-memory-usage advantages. Benefiting from these advantages, the method can be applied to practical ECG applications, especially wearable healthcare devices and implanted medical devices, for wave detection and arrhythmia classification.

Electrocardiogram (ECG) signal processing aims basically 1) at artifact reduction to make the ECG signals cleaner and better interpretable by human or machine observers, 2) at revealing aspects not immediately observable in plain measured ECG signals even after artifact reduction, or 3) at diagnostics decision support and automated ECG signal interpretation, including classification of ECG signals into different classes associated with normal or pathological heart function. Thus, sports related applications aside, body surface ECG signal processing aims at enhancing ECG based diagnostics. In this Chapter, we review and demonstrate a statistical signal processing approach, independent component analysis (ICA), which is inherently very suitable for ECG signal processing regarding the aims 1) and 2) above, and also equally applicable as a component in systems aimed at accomplishing the aim 3). For more on general ECG signal processing, the reader is directed to the textbook written by Sornmo & Laguna (2005), and for a thorough treatment of ICA to the Hyvarinen’s book (Hyvarinen et al., 2001). A concise review on ICA in ECG signal processing has been presented by Castells et al. (2007a). In this Chapter, we describe and illustrate several widely adopted applications of ICA in ECG signal processing, and discuss associated practical aspects, some of which are not generally found in the literature. The treatment of the matter is aimed at conceptual and practical understanding, leaving the mathematical derivations and proofs far mostly for the interested reader to find in the references. ICA (Castells et al., 2007a; Comon, 1994; Hyvarinen et al., 2001; Hyvarinen & Oja, 2000; Naik & Kumar, 2011) is a statistical signal processing method for decomposing a set of signals into a set of mutually independent component signals. In general, in the applications of ICA, including in ECG signal processing, the objective is that the resulting independent component signals are the original source signals. Since ICA operates purely based on the input signals and a few assumptions, ICA belongs to the class of methods called blind source separation methods. For ICA, a source signal is called an independent component (IC). The terms ‘IC’ and ‘source signal’ are here used interchangeably. For ECG, the source signals are the bioelectrical signals generated by the heart, and all the possible artifact signals. Generally, ICA input signals are the observed signals, which may be measurement time series, such as sampled voltage values in time as in the case of ECGs, image pixel values, or basically any sets of values fulfilling the assumptions of ICA. In the sequel, the term

In the detection of arrhythmia using deep learning, most methods train neural networks to categorize input electrocardiogram (ECG) signals into typical arrhythmia signals using annotated training ECG data. Such methods can neither detect unknown arrhythmias nor explain why the signals are considered as arrhythmic. To detect arrhythmia automatically, this study proposes a method that learns normal ECG signals and can explain the assessment for the signals clearly. Our method builds a model of normal ECG signals using a convolutional neural network and long short-term memory. The model inputs normal ECG signals and performs training to predict the succeeding normal ECG signals. If an abnormal ECG signal is provided, the model predicts the succeeding ECG signal far from the actual ECG signal and can assess whether the input is abnormal. This means that our method can judge any arrhythmia because it requires no prior knowledge regarding the annotations. Experimental results confirm that the proposed method can detect arrhythmias appropriately without learning them. Furthermore, we propose a GUI that can display the location where abnormality is suspected to the user.

This paper presents a novel maximum margin clustering method with immune evolution (IEMMC) for automatic diagnosis of electrocardiogram (ECG) arrhythmias. This diagnostic system consists of signal processing, feature extraction, and the IEMMC algorithm for clustering of ECG arrhythmias. First, raw ECG signal is processed by an adaptive ECG filter based on wavelet transforms, and waveform of the ECG signal is detected; then, features are extracted from ECG signal to cluster different types of arrhythmias by the IEMMC algorithm. Three types of performance evaluation indicators are used to assess the effect of the IEMMC method for ECG arrhythmias, such as sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Compared with K-means and iterSVR algorithms, the IEMMC algorithm reflects better performance not only in clustering result but also in terms of global search ability and convergence ability, which proves its effectiveness for the detection of ECG arrhythmias.

Present paper deals with design and development of digital FIR filters. Heart diseases, which are one of the death reasons, are among the several serious problems in this century and as per the latest survey, 60% of the patients die due to Heart diseases. Electrocardiogram (ECG) signal plays a vital role in the monitoring and diagnosis of the health conditions of human heart. The basic ECG signal has the frequency range from .5Hz to 100Hz. The most significant noises that corrupt ECG signal are power line interference and baseline wanders. It becomes difficult for the Specialist to diagnose the diseases if artifacts are present in the ECG signal. Designing digital filters to reduce these noises is very important in ECG signal processing. In this work a digital FIR filter for reducing 50Hz power line noise in ECG signal is designed and implemented with different windowing methods as of Hamming, Kaiser, and Chebyshev. The work has been done in MATLAB environment. The result obtained for all FIR filters are compared by comparing the waveforms of the original and filtered ECG signals. The filter which gives the best results is the one using Chebyshev Window.

This paper presents the analysis of heart diseases that are categorized as arrhythmia based on Electrocardiogram (ECG). ECG database of different disease conditions was analyzed. The ECG signals are filtered to remove noise which is caused due to powerline interface or Electromyogram. This filtered signal is segmented to smaller pieces of ECG so that feature extraction is accurate. The features extracted are Peak to peak Interval (R-R Interval), BPM (Beats per minute), P wave to QRS peak. The data set is classified using an SVM classifier algorithm. This algorithm classifies the input ECG signal with varying feature parameters to two different types of arrhythmia. This approach has achieved an accuracy of 91% and the performance regarding other criteria such as precision, recall and F1 score were significantly better indicating the success of the proposed method.

Real time monitoring and detection of abnormal heart rhythms, specifically through acquisition of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals for extended periods (24 to 48 hours) have been sought by many researchers. Abnormal ECG signals could appear any time in the day during regular patient activities. Spurious noise associated with motion and muscular contraction is usually coupled with the acquired ECG signal. Cancelling muscle contraction and motion artifacts from real time ECG signals is extremely vital for accurate ECG signal classification for analysis by trained medical specialists. The intent of this research was to develop a bi-electrode wireless acquisition system that captured and transmitted ECG signals and motion acceleration information to a host computer system for data capture and analysis. The designed wireless ECG system includes a 3-axis micro electromechanical (MEMS) accelerometer for motion detection.

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is one of the most common causes of heart ailments; many patients with CAD do not exhibit initial symptoms. An electrocardiogram (ECG) is a diagnostic tool widely used to capture the abnormal activity of the heart and help with diagnoses. Assessing ECG signals may be challenging and time-consuming. Identifying abnormal ECG morphologies, especially in low amplitude curves, may be prone to error. Hence, a system that can automatically detect and assess the ECG and treadmill test ECG (TMT-ECG) signals will be helpful to the medical industry in detecting CAD. In the present work, we developed an intelligent system that can predict CAD, based on ECG and TMT signals more accurately than any other system developed thus far. The distinct convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture deals with single-lead and multi-lead (12-lead) ECG and TMT-ECG data effectively. While most artificial intelligence-based systems rely on the universal dataset, the current work used clinical lab data collected from a renowned hospital in the neighborhood. ECG and TMT-ECG graphs of normal and CAD patients were collected in the form of scanned reports. One-dimensional ECG data with all possible features were extracted from the scanned report with the help of a modified image processing method. This feature extraction procedure was integrated with the optimized architecture of the CNN model leading to a novel prediction system for CAD. The automated computer-assisted system helps in the detection and medication of CAD with a high prediction accuracy of 99%.

This paper investigates the application of the newly proposed Kronecker-based method for the reconstruction of compressively sensed electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. By applying the Kronecker-based method, ECG signal acquisition is done in smaller lengths. Collection of smaller length of ECG signals leads to fewer arithmetic operations during the compression phase. Instead of recovering individually in smaller lengths, recovery is done over several concatenated segments. This newly proposed recovery method improves the quality of the reconstructed signal when compared to the traditional recovery done without concatenation. Two random measurement matrices, namely the Gaussian and the Bernoulli matrices, are considered as sensing matrices in this study and the methodology is evaluated using 10 ECG signals acquired from the MIT arrhythmia database. The random Bernoulli matrix is found to provide better quality of recovered compressed ECG signal even with the traditional compressive recovery techniques. Recovery by the newly proposed Kroneckerbased method results in higher SNR in all the ECG signals when the compression ratio (CR) is 25% or 50% and when the CR is 75%, improvement is observed in majority of the ECG signals. Lower CRs provide better reconstruction than higher CRs. The Kronecker-based recovery method may be useful for wearable ECG devices.

Chapter 10 - Electrocardiogram (ECG) arrhythmia classification