http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/5610941/5624686/05624745.pdf

Power electronics

Computer and Robot Vision Vol. 1, by R.M. Haralick and Linda G. Shapiro, Addison-Wesley, 1992, ISBN 0-201-10887-1.

Computer and Robot Vision

The QRS complex is the most striking waveform within the electrocardiogram (ECG). Since it reflects the electrical activity within the heart during the ventricular contraction, the time of its occurrence as well as its shape provide much information about the current state of the heart. Due to its characteristic shape it serves as the basis for the automated determination of the heart rate, as an entry point for classification schemes of the cardiac cycle, and often it is also used in ECG data compression algorithms. In that sense, QRS detection provides the fundamentals for almost all automated ECG analysis algorithms. Software QRS detection has been a research topic for more than 30 years. The evolution of these algorithms clearly reflects the great advances in computer technology. Within the last decade many new approaches to QRS detection have been proposed; for example, algorithms from the field of artificial neural networks genetic algorithms wavelet transforms, filter banks as well as heuristic methods mostly based on nonlinear transforms. The authors provide an overview of these recent developments as well as of formerly proposed algorithms.

/pdf/the-principles-of-software-qrs-detection-1vgts9f7g6.pdf

The principles of software QRS detection

Time-Frequency Analysis.

The wavelet transform has emerged over recent years as a powerful time-frequency analysis and signal coding tool favoured for the interrogation of complex nonstationary signals. Its application to biosignal processing has been at the forefront of these developments where it has been found particularly useful in the study of these, often problematic, signals: none more so than the ECG. In this review, the emerging role of the wavelet transform in the interrogation of the ECG is discussed in detail, where both the continuous and the discrete transform are considered in turn.

/pdf/wavelet-transforms-and-the-ecg-a-review-36a6zg0xg1.pdf

Wavelet transforms and the ECG: a review.

Blindness is a state of lacking the visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors. The partial blindness represents the lack of integration in the growth of the optic nerve or visual centre of the eye, and total blindness is the full absence of the visual light perception. In this work, a simple, cheap, friendly user, smart blind guidance system is designed and implemented to improve the mobility of both blind and visually impaired people in a specific area. The proposed work includes a wearable equipment consists of head hat and mini hand stick to help the blind person to navigate alone safely and to avoid any obstacles that may be encountered, whether fixed or mobile, to prevent any possible accident. The main component of this system is the infrared sensor which is used to scan a predetermined area around blind by emitting-reflecting waves. The reflected signals received from the barrier objects are used as inputs to PIC microcontroller. The microcontroller is then used to determine the direction and distance of the objects around the blind. It also controls the peripheral components that alert the user about obstacle's shape, material, and direction. The implemented system is cheap, fast, and easy to use and an innovative affordable solution to blind and visually impaired people in third world countries.

/pdf/a-smart-infrared-microcontroller-based-blind-guidance-system-2vfgdzr2kx.pdf

A Smart Infrared Microcontroller-Based Blind Guidance System

The author proposed an effective wavelet-based ECG compression algorithm (Rajoub, 2002). The reported extraordinary performance motivated us to explore the findings and to use it in our research activity. During the implementation of the proposed algorithm several important points regarding accuracy, methodology, and coding were found to be improperly substantiated. This paper discusses these findings and provides specific subjective and objective measures that could improve the interpretation of compression results in these research-type problems.

Comments on "An efficient coding algorithm for the compression of ECG signals using the wavelet transform"

Objectives: Current estimates cite more than 100,000 casualties from war in Syria, with 5,000 deaths reported each month since the violence escalated in the summer of 2012. With up to 3,500 Syrians crossing the borders every day, the rate at which refugees have poured over Syria's southern border has outstripped the ability of the Jordanian government and the international community to ensure adequate access to health services for refugees living inside Zaatari, the main refugee camp, and those dispersed throughout Jordan. Study design: The purpose of our study is to explore refugees' attitudes towards health services (i.e. evaluation of the adequacy of health care services and the degree of their satisfaction by the services provided). Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. Data collection with the use of questionnaires took place from August 1 to October 30, 2013 in Irbid, Jordan. The questionnaires consisted of questions concerning demographic information (e.g. age, gender, marital status, education etc.), medical information about the state of their health, and problems they encounter during their stay in the camp, as well as questions related to evaluation of their access to health services (self-reported questionnaires). The sample population is 120 refugees (65% females, 35% males). Results: Approximately 75% of people in the refugee camp argued that they received insufficient health care services, with a 43% of people predicted that their health condition in future will significantly exacerbate. The probability of someone with poor health status to report an inadequate health service highly increases by 41.1 percentage points compared to someone that have a good health status. A strong association was found between a negative evaluation of health services and future projections of health status. Those who believed that would have an exacerbation in their health status increased their probability to report poor health services by 36.2 percentage points, while the probability of reporting positive health care services evaluation decreased by 16.2 percentage points. Conclusions: The provision of health services to Syrian refuges in Jordan is in fairly good level. This is shown by the survey results, although in some cases there are several weaknesses and problems that certainly need to be addressed. One of the most positive is the safety that these people feel to their new place of residence. However, the challenges are enough and can only be solved with the international community help.

The Provision of Health Services in Jordan to Syrian Refugees

Lung cancer represents the second most commonly diagnosed cancer among Jordanian population. Evidence that early detection of lung cancer may allow for more timely therapeutic intervention has provided the momentum for lung cancer screening programs around the world. In this study, a computer aided detection (CAD) system is proposed in an attempt to detect the lung cancer areas using computed tomography (CT) images. It is implemented as a “second reader” to help radiologists focus their attention on regions that might be missed during visual interpretation. The proposed CAD system has three main stages; Segmentation by thresholding the CT images, labeling the founded regions and then extracting some diagnostic features of each region for further analysis and interpretation. The study is trained, tested, and validated using images obtained from forty five patients. The obtained results perfectly match the radiologist's diagnosis in detecting the defected areas and quantitatively measuring its size, location, borders as well as displaying its other diagnostic characteristics. Moreover, the proposed system can detect misclassified regions.

/pdf/automated-detection-of-lung-cancer-using-statistical-and-51fiwgk404.pdf

Automated detection of lung cancer using statistical and morphological image processing techniques

Atrial and ventricular arrhythmias are symptoms of the main common causes of rapid death. The severity of these arrhythmias depends on their occurrence either within the atria or ventricles. These abnormalities of the heart activity may cause an immediate death or cause damage of the heart. In this paper, a new algorithm is proposed for the classification of life threatening cardiac arrhythmias including atrial fibrillation (AF), ventricular tachycardia (VT) and ventricular fibrillation (VF). The proposed technique uses a simple signal processing technique for analysing the non-linear dynamics of the ECG signals in the time domain. The classification algorithm is based upon the distribution of the attractor in the reconstructed phase space (RPS). The behaviour of the ECG signal in the reconstructed phase space is used to determine the classification features of the whole classifier. It is found that different arrhythmias occupy different regions in the reconstructed phase space. Three regions in t...

Amjed S. Al-Fahoum

Papers

A Smart Infrared Microcontroller-Based Blind Guidance System

Comments on "An efficient coding algorithm for the compression of ECG signals using the wavelet transform"

The Provision of Health Services in Jordan to Syrian Refugees

Automated detection of lung cancer using statistical and morphological image processing techniques

A practical reconstructed phase space approach for ECG arrhythmias classification.