Software design for analysis of multichannel intracardial and body surface electrocardiograms

Analysis of multichannel ECG recordings (body surface maps (BSMs) and intracardial maps) requires special software. We created a software package and a user interface on top of a commercial data analysis package (MATLAB) by a combination of high-level and low-level programming. Our software was created to satisfy the needs of a diverse group of researchers. It can handle a large variety of recording configurations. It allows for interactive usage through a fast and robust user interface, and batch processing for the analysis of large amounts of data. The package is user-extensible, includes routines for both common and experimental data processing tasks, and works on several computer platforms. The source code is made intelligible using software for structured documentation and is available to the users. The package is currently used by more than ten research groups analysing ECG data worldwide. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserve

Continuous localization of cardiac activation sites using a database of multichannel ECG recordings

Monomorphic ventricular tachycardia and ventricular extrasystoles have a specific exit site that can be localized using the multichannel surface electrocardiogram (ECG) and a database of paced ECG recordings. An algorithm is presented that improves on previous methods by providing a continuous estimate of the coordinates of the exit site instead of selecting one out of 25 predetermined segments. The accuracy improvement is greatest, and most useful, when adjacent pacing sites in individual patients are localized relative to each other. Important advantages of the new method are the objectivity and reproducibility of the localization result

Conversion of left ventricular

endocardial positions from patient-independent co-ordinates into biplane fluoroscopic projection

The Cascode and Differential Amplifier Stages

Single active devices often have a rather poor behavior regarding accuracy of their transfers, high-frequency behavior, linearity, etc. To improve the accuracy of the transfers, special combinations of active devices have been developed. These combinations often consist of two active devices connected in such a way that the total behavior of the combination is that of one active device with improved behavior

EMI-resilient amplifier circuits

This book enables circuit designers to reduce the errors introduced by the fundamental limitations and electromagnetic interference (EMI) in negative-feedback amplifiers.  The authors describe a systematic design approach for application specific negative-feedback amplifiers, with specified signal-to-error ratio (SER).  This approach enables designers to calculate noise, bandwidth, EMI, and the required bias parameters of the transistors used in  application specific amplifiers in order to meet the SER requirements.   ·         Describes design methods that incorporate electromagnetic interference (EMI) in the design of application specific negative-feedback amplifiers; ·         Provides designers with a structured methodology to avoid the use of trial and error in meeting signal-to-error ratio (SER) requirements; ·         Equips designers to increase EMI immunity of the amplifier itself, thus avoiding filtering at the input, reducing the number of components and avoiding detrimental effects on noise and stability.  

Conversion of left ventricular endocardial positions from patient-independent co-ordinates into biplane fluoroscopic projections

Electrocardiographic body surface mapping is used clinically to guide catheter ablation of cardiac arrhythmias by providing an estimate of the site of origin of an arrhythmia. The localisation methods used in our group produce results in left-ventricular cylinder co-ordinates (LVCCs), which are patient-independent but hard to interpret during catheterisation in the electrophysiology laboratory. It is preferable to provide these results as three-dimensional (3D) co-ordinates which can be presented as projections in the biplane fluoroscopic views that are used routinely to monitor the catheter position. Investigations were carried out into how well LVCCs can be converted into fluoroscopic projections with the limited anatomical data available in contemporary clinical practice. Endocardial surfaces from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of 24 healthy volunteers were used to create an appropriate model of the left-ventricular endocardial wall. Methods for estimation of model parameters from biplane fluoroscopic images were evaluated using simulated biplane data created from these surfaces. In addition, the conversion method was evaluated, using 107 catheter positions obtained from eight patients, by computing LVCCs from biplane fluoroscopic images and reconstructing the 3D positions using the model. The median 3D distance between reconstructed positions and measured positions was 4.3 m