Miad Faezipour

Progress and challenges in intelligent vehicle area networks

Vehicle area networks form the backbone of future intelligent transportation systems.

A Patient-Adaptive Profiling Scheme for ECG Beat Classification

Recent trends in clinical and telemedicine applications highly demand automation in electrocardiogram (ECG) signal processing and heart beat classification. A patient-adaptive cardiac profiling scheme using repetition-detection concept is proposed in this paper. We first employ an efficient wavelet-based beat-detection mechanism to extract precise fiducial ECG points. Then, we implement a novel local ECG beat classifier to profile each patients normal cardiac behavior. ECG morphologies vary from person to person and even for each person, it can vary over time depending on the persons physical condition and/or environment. Having such profile is essential for various diagnosis (e.g., arrhythmia) purposes. One application of such profiling scheme is to automatically raise an early warning flag for the abnormal cardiac behavior of any individual. Our extensive experimental results on the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database show that our technique can detect the beats with 99.59% accuracy and can identify abnormalities with a high classification accuracy of 97.42%.

Bed posture classification for pressure ulcer prevention

Pressure ulcer is an age-old problem imposing a huge cost to our health care system. Detecting and keeping record of the patients posture on bed, help care givers reposition patient more efficiently and reduce the risk of developing pressure ulcer. In this paper, a commercial pressure mapping system is used to create a time-stamped, whole-body pressure map of the patient. An image-based processing algorithm is developed to keep an unobtrusive and informative record of patients bed posture over time. The experimental results show that proposed algorithm can predict patients bed posture with up to 97.7% average accuracy. This algorithm could ultimately be used with current support surface technologies to reduce the risk of ulcer development.

Wire-Speed TCAM-Based Architectures for Multimatch Packet Classification

Most conventional packet classifiers find only the highest priority filter that matches the arriving packet. However, new networking applications such as network intrusion detection systems and load balancers require all (or the first few) matching packets during classification. In this paper, two TCAM-based architectures for multi-match search are introduced. The first one is a renovated TCAM design that can find all or the first r matches in a packet filter set. The second architecture is a novel partitioning scheme based on filter intersection properties allowing us to use off-the-shelf TCAMs for multi-match packet classification. Our classifier engine finds all matches in exactly one conventional TCAM cycle while reducing the power consumption by at least two orders of magnitude, which is far better than the existing hardware based designs.

Detection of obstructive sleep apnea through ECG signal features

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common disorder in which individuals stop breathing during their sleep. Most of sleep apnea cases are currently undiagnosed because of expenses and practicality limitations of overnight polysomnography (PSG) at sleep labs, where an expert human observer is needed to work over night. New techniques for sleep apnea classification are being developed by bioengineers for most comfortable and timely detection. In this paper, an automated classification algorithm is presented which processes short duration epochs of the electrocardiogram (ECG) data. The automated classification algorithm is based on support vector machines (SVM) and has been trained and tested on sleep apnea recordings from subjects with and without OSA. The results show that our automated classification system can recognize epochs of sleep disorders with a high degree of accuracy, approximately 96.5%. Moreover, the system we developed can be used as a basis for future development of a tool for OSA screening.

Wavelet-based denoising and beat detection of ECG signal

This paper presents the design and implementation of an automatic ECG beat detection system. We proposed modifications to the existing Pan-Tompkins algorithm by introducing only one set of adaptive threshold computations to reduce the amount of data processing significantly. LabVIEW signal processing tools were used to test the performance of wavelet based analysis for denoising and feature extraction of the ECG signal. Our design achieved an overall accuracy of 99.51% when applied on the MIT/BIH Arrhythmia Database, which is far better than the old method of digital filtering.

Obstructive sleep apnea detection using SVM-based classification of ECG signal features

Sleep apnea is the instance when one either has pauses of breathing in their sleep, or has very low breath while asleep. This pause in breathing can range in frequency and duration. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the common form of sleep apnea, which is currently tested through polysomnography (PSG) at sleep labs. PSG is both expensive and inconvenient as an expert human observer is required to work over night. New sleep apnea classification techniques are nowadays being developed by bioengineers for most comfortable and timely detection. This paper focuses on an automated classification algorithm which processes short duration epochs of the electrocardiogram (ECG) data. The presented classification technique is based on support vector machines (SVM) and has been trained and tested on sleep apnea recordings from subjects with and without OSA. The results show that our automated classification system can recognize epochs of sleep disorders with a high accuracy of 96.5% or higher. Furthermore, the proposed system can be used as a basis for future development of a tool for OSA screening.

A Neural Network System for Detection of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Through SpO2 Signal Features

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common disorder in which individuals stop breathing during their sleep. These episodes last 10 seconds or more and cause oxygen levels in the blood to drop. Most of sleep apnea cases are currently undiagnosed because of expenses and practicality limitations of overnight polysomnography (PSG) at sleep labs, where an expert human observer is required. New techniques for sleep apnea classification are being developed by bioengineers for most comfortable and timely detection. In this study, we develop and validate a neural network (NN) using SpO2 measurements obtained from pulse oximetry to predict OSA. The results show that the NN is useful as a predictive tool for OSA with a high performance and improved accuracy, approximately 93.3%, which is better than reported techniques in the literature.

A smart bed platform for monitoring & Ulcer prevention

The focus of this paper is to develop a software-hardware platform that addresses one of the most costly, acute health conditions, pressure ulcers — or bed sores. Caring for pressure ulcers is extremely costly, increases the length of hospital stays and is very labor intensive. The proposed platform collects information from various sensors incorporated into the bed, analyzes the data to create a time-stamped, whole-body pressure distribution map, and commands the beds actuators to periodically adjust its surface profile to redistribute pressure over the entire body. These capabilities are combined to form a cognitive support system, that augments the ability of a care giver, allowing them to provide better care to more patients in less time. For proof of concept, we have implemented algorithms and architectures that cover four key aspects of this platform: 1) data collection, 2) modeling & profiling, 3) machine learning, and 4) acting.

A Scalable Wireless Body Area Network for Bio-Telemetry

In this paper, we propose a framework for the real-time monitoring of wireless biosensors. This is a scalable platform that requires minimum human interaction during set-up and monitoring. Its main components include a biosensor, a smart gateway to automatically set up the body area network, a mechanism for delivering data to an Internet monitoring server, and automatic data collection, profiling and feature extraction from bio-potentials. Such a system could increase the quality of life and significantly lower healthcare costs for everyone in general, and for the elderly and those with disabilities in particular.