ECG Signal Delineation And

Compression
Chapters 6.2.6 6.3
18th November
T-61.181 Biomedical Signal Processing
Outline
I. ECG signal delineation
Definition (What)
Clinical and biophysical background (Why)
Delineation as a signal processing (How)
II. ECG signal compression
General approach to data compression
ECG signal compression
(Intrabeat/Interbeat/Interlead)
III. Summary
Part I.
EGC signal delineation
Delineation - Overview
Aim Automatically decide/find onsets and
offsets for every wave (P, QRS, and T) from ECG
signal (PQRST-complex)
Note! Experts (Cardiologist) use manual/visual
approach
Why?
Why Clinically relevant parameters such
as time intervals between waves, duration of
each wave or composite wave forms, peak
amplitudes etc. can be derived
To understand this look how ECG signal is
generated
ECG Signal Generation
What Are We Measuring?
ECG gives (clinical) information from
generation and propagation of electric
signals in the heart.
Abnormalities related to generation
(arrhythmia) and propagation (ischemia,
infarct etc.) can be seen in ECG-signal
Also localization of abnormality is possible
(12 lead systems and BSM)
Clinically Relevant Parameters
PR interval
SA ventricles


QT interval
ventricular
fibrillation

ST segment
ischemia
QRS duration
Bundle brand block
depolarization
Signal Processing Approach to
Delineation (How)
Clinical importance should now be clear
Delineation can also be done manually by
experts (cardiologist) expensive and time
consuming. We want to do delineation
automatically (signal processing)
No analytical solution performance has
to be evaluated with annotated databases

Building Onset/Offset Detector
Many algorithms simulate cardiologist
manual delineation (ground truth) process:
Experts look 1) where the slope reduce to
flat line 2) respect maximum upward,
downward slope
Simulate this: define the boundary
according to relative slope reduction with
respect maximum slope LPD approach
Low-Pass Differentiated (LPD)
Signal is 1) low-pass filtered i.e. high
frequency noise is removed (attenuated) and
2) differentiated dv/dt
New signal is proportional to slope
Operations can be done using only one FIR
filter :

) ( * ) ( ) ( n h n x n y =
LPD cont.
Each wave has a unique frequency band
thus different low-pass (LP) filtering
(impulse) responses are needed for each
wave (P, QRS, and T)
Design cut-off frequencies using Power
Spectral Density (PSD)
Differentiation amplifies (high freq.) noise
and thus LP filtering is required
LPD cont..
Waves w={P,QRS,T} are segmented from
the i:th heart beat.


Using initial and final extreme points
thresholds for can be derived

+ =
=
oteherwise
W W n n y
yw
e i i
i
, 0

,...,

) (
0
u u
w K w y w
w K w y w
e
i
e
i
e
o
i
o
i
o
/
/
=
=
q
q
LPD cont...
Constants are control the boundary detection they
can be learnt from annotated database
Search backwards from initial extreme point.
When threshold is crossed onset has been
detected
Search forward from last extreme point and when
threshold is crossed offset is detected.
Part II.
EGC signal compression
General Data Compression
The idea is represent the signal/information
with fewer bits
Any signal that contains some redundancy
can be compressed
Types of compression: lossless and lossy
compression
In lossy compression preserve those
features which carry (clinical) information

ECG Data Compression
1) Amount of data is increasing: databases,
number of ECG leads, sampling rate,
amplitude resolution etc.
2) ECG signal transmission
3) Telemetry
ECG Data Compression
Redundancy in ECG data: 1) Intrabeat 2)
Interbeat, and 3) Interlead
Sampling rate, number of bits, signal
bandwidth, noise level and number of leads
influence the outcome of compression
Waveforms are clinically important
(preserve them) whereas isoelectric
segments are not (so) relevant

Intrabeat Lossless Compression
Not efficient has mainly historical value
Sample is predicted as a linear combination
of past samples and only prediction error is
stored (smaller magnitude):
) (

) (
) ( ... ) 1 ( ) (

1
n x n x e
p n x a n x a n x
p p
p p
=
+ + =
Intrabeat Lossy Compression
Direct Method
Basic idea: Subsample the signal using
parse sampling for flat segments and dense
sampling for waves:
(n,x(n)), n=0,...,N-1 (nk,x(nk)), k=0,...,K-1


Example AZTEC
Last sampled time point is in n0
Increment time (n) As long as signal in
within certain amplitude limits (flat)

)) ( ) ( (
2
1
) (
) ( ) (
)} ( , ), 1 ( ), ( max{ ) (
)} ( , ), 1 ( ), ( min{ ) (
max min
min max
0 0 max
0 0 min
k k k
n x n x n y
n x n x
n x n x n x n x
n x n x n x n x
+ =
<
+ =
+ =
c

Intrabeat Lossy Compression

Transform Based Methods
Signal is represented as an expansion of
basis functions:

Only coefficients need to be restored
Requirement: Partition of signal is needed
(QRS-detectors)
Method provides noise reduction

=
=
N
k
k k
w x
1

Interbeat Lossy Compression
Heart beats are almost identical (requires
QRS detection, fiducial point)
Subtract average beat and code residuals
(linear prediction or transform)

1 ,..., 0 ) (

) (
)

(
1
) (

1 ,..., 0 )

( ) (
1
= =
+ =
= + =

N n n s n x y
n x
L
n s
N n n X n x
i i i
j i
L
j
i
i i
u
u
Interlead Compression
Multilead (e.g. 12-lead) systems measure
same event from different angles
redundancy
Extend direct and transform based method
to multilead environment
Extended AZTEC
Transform concatenated signals
(
(
(
(

=
12
2
1
x
x
x
x

Summary - part I
Delineation = automatically detect waves
and their on- and offsets (What)
Clinically important parameters are
obtained (Why)
Design algorithm that looks relative slope
reduction (How)
LPD-method Differentiate low-pass
filtered signal
Summary - part II
Compression = remove redundancy:
intrabeat, interbeat, and interlead
Why Large amount of data, transmission
and telemetry
Lossless (historical) and lossy compression
Notice which features are lost (isoelectric
segments dont carry any clinical
information)
Summary - part II cont.
Intrabeat 1) direct and 2) transform based
methods
1) Subsample signal with non-uniform way
2) Use basis function (save only weights)
Interbeat subtract average beat and code residuals
(linear prediction or transform-coding)
Interlead extend intrabeat methods to multilead
environment
Thank you!