Clifford wavelets for fetal ECG extraction

Analysis of the fetal heart rate during pregnancy is essential for monitoring the proper development of the fetus. Current fetal heart monitoring techniques lack the accuracy in fetal heart rate monitoring and features acquisition, resulting in diagnostic medical issues. The challenge lies in the extraction of the fetal ECG from the mother's ECG during pregnancy. This approach has the advantage of being a reliable and non-invasive technique. For this aim, we propose in this paper a wavelet/multi-wavelet method allowing to extract perfectly the feta ECG parameters from the abdominal mother ECG. The method is essentially due to the exploitation of Clifford wavelets as recent variants in the field. We prove that these wavelets are more efficient and performing against classical ones. The experimental results are therefore due to two basic classes of wavelets and multi-wavelets. A first-class is the classical Haar Schauder, and a second one is due to Clifford valued wavelets and multi-wavelets. These results showed that wavelets/multiwavelets are already good bases for the FECG processing, provided that Clifford ones are the best.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl

Investigation of iris recognition in the visible spectrum

mong the biometric systems that have been developed so far, iris recognition systems have emerged as being one of the most reliable. In iris recognition, most of the research was conducted on operation under near infrared illumination. For unconstrained scenarios of iris recognition systems, the iris images are captured under visible light spectrum and therefore incorporate various types of imperfections. In this thesis the merits of fusing information from various sources for improving the state of the art accuracies of colour iris recognition systems is evaluated. An investigation of how fundamentally different fusion strategies can increase the degree of choice available in achieving certain performance criteria is conducted. Initially, simple fusion mechanisms are employed to increase the accuracy of an iris recognition system and then more complex fusion architectures are elaborated to further enhance the biometric system’s accuracy. In particular, the design process of the iris recognition system with reduced constraints is carried out using three different fusion approaches: multi-algorithmic, texture and colour fusion and multiple classifier systems. In the first approach, one novel iris feature extraction methodology is proposed and a multi-algorithmic iris recognition system using score fusion, composed of 3 individual systems, is benchmarked. In the texture and colour fusion approach, the advantages of fusing information from the iris texture with data extracted from the eye colour are illustrated. Finally, the multiple classifier systems approach investigates how the robustness and practicability of an iris recognition system operating on visible spectrum images can be enhanced by training individual classifiers on different iris features. Besides the various fusion techniques explored, an iris segmentation algorithm is proposed and a methodology for finding which colour channels from a colour space reveal the most discriminant information from the iris texture is introduced. The contributions presented in this thesis indicate that iris recognition systems that operate on visible spectrum images can be designed to operate with an accuracy required by a particular application scenario. Also, the iris recognition systems developed in the present study are suitable for mobile and embedded implementations

Robust density modelling using the student's t-distribution for human action recognition

The extraction of human features from videos is often inaccurate and prone to outliers. Such outliers can severely affect density modelling when the Gaussian distribution is used as the model since it is highly sensitive to outliers. The Gaussian distribution is also often used as base component of graphical models for recognising human actions in the videos (hidden Markov model and others) and the presence of outliers can significantly affect the recognition accuracy. In contrast, the Student's t-distribution is more robust to outliers and can be exploited to improve the recognition rate in the presence of abnormal data. In this paper, we present an HMM which uses mixtures of t-distributions as observation probabilities and show how experiments over two well-known datasets (Weizmann, MuHAVi) reported a remarkable improvement in classification accuracy. © 2011 IEEE

Optics in Our Time

Optics, Lasers, Photonics, Optical Devices; Quantum Optics; Popular Science in Physics; History and Philosophical Foundations of Physic

Recent Developments in Smart Healthcare

Medicine is undergoing a sector-wide transformation thanks to the advances in computing and networking technologies. Healthcare is changing from reactive and hospital-centered to preventive and personalized, from disease focused to well-being centered. In essence, the healthcare systems, as well as fundamental medicine research, are becoming smarter. We anticipate significant improvements in areas ranging from molecular genomics and proteomics to decision support for healthcare professionals through big data analytics, to support behavior changes through technology-enabled self-management, and social and motivational support. Furthermore, with smart technologies, healthcare delivery could also be made more efficient, higher quality, and lower cost. In this special issue, we received a total 45 submissions and accepted 19 outstanding papers that roughly span across several interesting topics on smart healthcare, including public health, health information technology (Health IT), and smart medicine

Third International Workshop on Squeezed States and Uncertainty Relations

The purpose of these workshops is to bring together an international selection of scientists to discuss the latest developments in Squeezed States in various branches of physics, and in the understanding of the foundations of quantum mechanics. At the third workshop, special attention was given to the influence that quantum optics is having on our understanding of quantum measurement theory. The fourth meeting in this series will be held in the People's Republic of China

Understanding Quantum Technologies 2022

Understanding Quantum Technologies 2022 is a creative-commons ebook that provides a unique 360 degrees overview of quantum technologies from science and technology to geopolitical and societal issues. It covers quantum physics history, quantum physics 101, gate-based quantum computing, quantum computing engineering (including quantum error corrections and quantum computing energetics), quantum computing hardware (all qubit types, including quantum annealing and quantum simulation paradigms, history, science, research, implementation and vendors), quantum enabling technologies (cryogenics, control electronics, photonics, components fabs, raw materials), quantum computing algorithms, software development tools and use cases, unconventional computing (potential alternatives to quantum and classical computing), quantum telecommunications and cryptography, quantum sensing, quantum technologies around the world, quantum technologies societal impact and even quantum fake sciences. The main audience are computer science engineers, developers and IT specialists as well as quantum scientists and students who want to acquire a global view of how quantum technologies work, and particularly quantum computing. This version is an extensive update to the 2021 edition published in October 2021.Comment: 1132 pages, 920 figures, Letter forma

Safety and Reliability - Safe Societies in a Changing World

The contributions cover a wide range of methodologies and application areas for safety and reliability that contribute to safe societies in a changing world. These methodologies and applications include: - foundations of risk and reliability assessment and management - mathematical methods in reliability and safety - risk assessment - risk management - system reliability - uncertainty analysis - digitalization and big data - prognostics and system health management - occupational safety - accident and incident modeling - maintenance modeling and applications - simulation for safety and reliability analysis - dynamic risk and barrier management - organizational factors and safety culture - human factors and human reliability - resilience engineering - structural reliability - natural hazards - security - economic analysis in risk managemen