Both the fast Fourier transform and discrete wavelet transform have been used extensively for signal denoising. Therefore, comparing the two for the purpose of denoising an electrocardiogram is of high interest. In this report, we outline the theory that both methods are built on, as well as develop MATLAB codes able to denoise an electrocardiogram using both methods. It was shown that the discrete wavelet transform performed significantly better in this context, which shows why it is the preferred method.

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a time-varying electrical signal that interprets the electrical activity of the heart. It is obtained by a non-invasive technique known as surface electromyography (EMG), used widely in hospitals. There are many clinical contexts in which ECGs are used, such as medical diagnosis, physiological therapy and arrhythmia monitoring. In medical diagnosis, medical conditions are interpreted by examining information and features in ECGs. Physiological therapy involves the control of some aspect of the physiological effort of a patient, such as the use of a pacemaker to regulate the beating of the heart. Moreover, arrhythmia monitoring involves observing and detecting life-threatening conditions, such as myocardial infarction or heart attacks, in a patient. ECG signals are usually corrupted with various types of unwanted interference such as muscle artifacts, electrode artifacts, power line noise and respiration interference, and are distorted in such a way that it can be difficult to perform medical diagnosis, physiological therapy or arrhythmia monitoring. Consequently signal processing on ECGs is required to remove noise and interference signals for successful clinical applications. Existing signal processing techniques can remove some of the noise in an ECG signal, but are typically inadequate for extraction of the weak ECG components contaminated with background noise and for retention of various subtle features in the ECG. For example, the noise from the EMG usually overlaps the fundamental ECG cardiac components in the frequency domain, in the range of 0.01 Hz to 100 Hz. Simple filters are inadequate to remove noise which overlaps with ECG cardiac components. Sameni et al. have proposed a Bayesian filtering framework to resolve these problems, and this gives results which are clearly superior to the results obtained from application of conventional signal processing methods to ECG. However, a drawback of this Bayesian filtering framework is that it must run offline, and this of course is not desirable for clinical applications such as arrhythmia monitoring and physiological therapy, both of which re- quire online operation in near real-time. To resolve this problem, in this thesis we propose a dynamical model which permits the Bayesian filtering framework to function online. The framework with the proposed dynamical model has less than 4% loss in performance compared to the previous (offline) version of the framework. The proposed dynamical model is based on theory from fixed-lag smoothing.

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a time-varying electrical signal that interprets the electrical activity of the heart. It is obtained by a non-invasive technique known as surface electromyography (EMG), used widely in hospitals. There are many clinical contexts in which ECGs are used, such as medical diagnosis, physiological therapy and arrhythmia monitoring. In medical diagnosis, medical conditions are interpreted by examining information and features in ECGs. Physiological therapy involves the control of some aspect of the physiological effort of a patient, such as the use of a pacemaker to regulate the beating of the heart. Moreover, arrhythmia monitoring involves observing and detecting life-threatening conditions, such as myocardial infarction or heart attacks, in a patient. ECG signals are usually corrupted with various types of unwanted interference such as muscle artifacts, electrode artifacts, power line noise and respiration interference, and are distorted in such a way that it can be difficult to perform medical diagnosis, physiological therapy or arrhythmia monitoring. Consequently signal processing on ECGs is required to remove noise and interference signals for successful clinical applications. Existing signal processing techniques can remove some of the noise in an ECG signal, but are typically inadequate for extraction of the weak ECG components contaminated with background noise and for retention of various subtle features in the ECG. For example, the noise from the EMG usually overlaps the fundamental ECG cardiac components in the frequency domain, in the range of 0.01 Hz to 100 Hz. Simple filters are inadequate to remove noise which overlaps with ECG cardiac components. Sameni et al. have proposed a Bayesian filtering framework to resolve these problems, and this gives results which are clearly superior to the results obtained from application of conventional signal processing methods to ECG. However, a drawback of this Bayesian filtering framework is that it must run offline, and this of course is not desirable for clinical applications such as arrhythmia monitoring and physiological therapy, both of which re- quire online operation in near real-time. To resolve this problem, in this thesis we propose a dynamical model which permits the Bayesian filtering framework to function online. The framework with the proposed dynamical model has less than 4% loss in performance compared to the previous (offline) version of the framework. The proposed dynamical model is based on theory from fixed-lag smoothing.

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Les maladies cardiovasculaires sont l'une des principales causes de mortalité chez l'homme. Une façon de diagnostiquer des maladies cardiaques et des anomalies est le traitement de signaux cardiaques tels que le ECG. Dans beaucoup de ces traitements, des caractéristiques inter-battements et intra-battements de signaux ECG doivent être extraites. Ces caractéristiques comprennent les points de repère des ondes de l’ECG (leur début, leur fin et leur point de pic), les intervalles significatifs et les segments qui peuvent être définis pour le signal ECG. L'extraction des points de référence de l'ECG consiste à identifier l'emplacement du pic, de début et de la fin de l'onde P, du complexe QRS et de l'onde T. Ces points véhiculent des informations cliniquement utiles, mais la segmentation precise de chaque battement de l'ECG est une tâche difficile, même pour les cardiologues expérimentés.Dans cette thèse, nous utilisons un cadre bayésien basé sur le modèle dynamique d'ECG proposé par McSharry. Depuis ce modèle s'appuyant sur la morphologie des ECG, il peut être utile pour la segmentation et l'analyse d'intervalles d'ECG. Afin de tenir compte de la séquentialité des ondes P, QRS et T, nous utiliserons également l'approche de Markov et des modèles de Markov cachés (MMC). En bref dans cette thèse, nous utilisons un modèle dynamique (filtre de Kalman), un modèle séquentiel (MMC) et leur combinaison (commutation de filtres de Kalman (SKF)). Nous proposons trois méthodes à base de filtres de Kalman, une méthode basée sur les MMC et un procédé à base de SKF. Nous utilisons les méthodes proposées pour l'extraction de points de référence et l'analyse d'intervalles des ECG. Le méthodes basées sur le filtrage de Kalman sont également utilisés pour le débruitage d'ECG, la détection de l'alternation de l'onde T, et la détection du pic R de l'ECG du foetus.Pour évaluer les performances des méthodes proposées pour l'extraction des points de référence de l'ECG, nous utilisons la base de données "Physionet QT", et une base de données "Swine" qui comprennent ECG annotations de signaux par les médecins. Pour le débruitage d'ECG, nous utilisons les bases de données "MIT-BIH Normal Sinus Rhythm", "MIT-BIH Arrhythmia" et "MIT-BIH noise stress test". La base de données "TWA Challenge 2008 database" est utilisée pour la détection de l'alternation de l'onde T. Enfin, la base de données "Physionet Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2013 database" est utilisée pour la détection du pic R de l'ECG du feotus. Pour l'extraction de points de reference, la performance des méthodes proposées sont évaluées en termes de moyenne, écart-type et l'erreur quadratique moyenne (EQM). Nous calculons aussi la sensibilité des méthodes. Pour le débruitage d'ECG, nous comparons les méthodes en terme d'amélioration du rapport signal à bruit. / Cardiovascular diseases are one of the major causes of mortality in humans. One way to diagnose heart diseases and abnormalities is processing of cardiac signals such as ECG. In many of these processes, inter-beat and intra-beat features of ECG signal must be extracted. These features include peak, onset and offset of ECG waves, meaningful intervals and segments that can be defined for ECG signal. ECG fiducial point (FP) extraction refers to identifying the location of the peak as well as the onset and offset of the P-wave, QRS complex and T-wave which convey clinically useful information. However, the precise segmentation of each ECG beat is a difficult task, even for experienced cardiologists.In this thesis, we use a Bayesian framework based on the McSharry ECG dynamical model for ECG FP extraction. Since this framework is based on the morphology of ECG waves, it can be useful for ECG segmentation and interval analysis. In order to consider the time sequential property of ECG signal, we also use the Markovian approach and hidden Markov models (HMM). In brief in this thesis, we use dynamic model (Kalman filter), sequential model (HMM) and their combination (switching Kalman filter (SKF)). We propose three Kalman-based methods, an HMM-based method and a SKF-based method. We use the proposed methods for ECG FP extraction and ECG interval analysis. Kalman-based methods are also used for ECG denoising, T-wave alternans (TWA) detection and fetal ECG R-peak detection.To evaluate the performance of proposed methods for ECG FP extraction, we use the "Physionet QT database", and a "Swine ECG database" that include ECG signal annotations by physicians. For ECG denoising, we use the "MIT-BIH Normal Sinus Rhythm", "MIT-BIH Arrhythmia" and "MIT-BIH noise stress test" databases. "TWA Challenge 2008 database" is used for TWA detection and finally, "Physionet Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2013 database" is used for R-peak detection of fetal ECG. In ECG FP extraction, the performance of the proposed methods are evaluated in terms of mean, standard deviation and root mean square of error. We also calculate the Sensitivity for methods. For ECG denoising, we compare methods in their obtained SNR improvement.