A clustering-based method for single-channel fetal heart rate monitoring

Non-invasive fetal electrocardiography (ECG) is based on the acquisition of signals from abdominal surface electrodes. The composite abdominal signal consists of the maternal electrocardiogram along with the fetal electrocardiogram and other electrical interferences. These recordings allow for the acquisition of valuable and reliable information that helps ensure fetal well-being during pregnancy. This paper introduces a procedure for fetal heart rate extraction from a single-channel abdominal ECG signal. The procedure is composed of three main stages: a method based on wavelet for signal denoising, a new clustering-based methodology for detecting fetal QRS complexes, and a final stage to correct false positives and false negatives. The novelty of the procedure thus relies on using clustering techniques to classify singularities from the abdominal ECG into three types: maternal QRS complexes, fetal QRS complexes, and noise. The amplitude and time distance of all the local maxima followed by a local minimum were selected as features for the clustering classification. A wide set of real abdominal ECG recordings from two different databases, providing a large range of different characteristics, was used to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method. The accuracy achieved shows that the proposed technique exhibits a competitve performance when compared to other recent works in the literature and a better performance over threshold-based techniques.This work has been partially funded by Banco Santander and Centro Mixto UGR-MADOC through project SIMMA (code 2/16). The contribution of Antonio García has been partially funded by Spain's Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (Programa Estatal de Promoción del Talento y su Empleabilidad en I+D+i, Subprograma Estatal de Movilidad, within Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2013-2016) under a "Salvador de Madariaga" grant (PRX17/00287)

Current status of the 12 MeV UPC race-track microtron

A com­pact race-track mi­crotron (RTM) with the max­i­mal out­put en­er­gy 12 MeV is under con­struc­tion at the Uni­ver­si­tat Politècnica de Catalun­ya (UPC) in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Sko­belt­syn In­sti­tute of Nu­cle­ar Physics of the Moscow State Uni­ver­si­ty, CIEMAT and a few Span­ish in­dus­tri­al com­pa­nies and med­i­cal cen­ters. The RTM end mag­nets are four-pole sys­tems with the mag­net­ic field cre­at­ed by a rare-earth per­ma­nent mag­net ma­te­ri­al. As a source of elec­trons a 3D off-ax­is elec­tron gun is used. These el­e­ments to­geth­er with a C-band ac­cel­er­at­ing struc­ture, dipole mag­nets, which allow to ex­tract the elec­tron beam with en­er­gy from 6 MeV to 12 MeV in 2 MeV step, and a fo­cus­ing quadrupole are placed in­side a vac­u­um cham­ber. We re­port on the cur­rent sta­tus of the tech­ni­cal de­sign and re­sults of tests of some of the com­po­nents.Postprint (published version

The record of the latter glacial and interglacial periods in the Guadalquivir marshlands (Mari López drilling, S.W. Spain)

El estudio de un sondeo de 65 m en las marismas del Guadalquivir permite reconocer siete intervalos que reflejan cambios climáticos y eustáticos e intensa neotectónica durante tres periodos ¡nterglaciares (IS 71, 5 y i) y dos glaciares (IS 6-Riss-, IS 4, 3 y 2-WQrm). Se discute el valor de las 'vetas' como indicadores paleogeográficosPeer reviewe

The record of the lalter glacial and interglacial periods in the Guadalquivir marshlands (Mari López drilling, S.W. Spain)

El estudio de un sondeo de 65 m en las marismas del Guadalquivir permite reconocer siete intervalos que reflejan cambios climáticos y eustáticos e intensa neotectónica durante tres periodos interglaciares (IS 7?, 5 Y 1) Y dos glaciares (15 6-Riss-, 154, 3 Y 2-Würm). Se discute el valor de las 'vetas' como indicadores paleogeográficos

Quaternary palaeoenvironmental changes in South Spain

This paper presents the existing differences between the evolution of the Holocene landscape of the Southeastern and Southwestern areas of the Iberian Peninsula. Moreover, some palaeoenvironmental characteristics of OIS 4 and OIS 3 of the western Andalusia appear. The five presented sequences have been analyzed from palynological and geomorphological point of view. The obtained results show that during the Holocene no significant forest cover existed in the eastern area and that the different phases identified mainly show an alternation of shrub and steppe communities, taking place during the fifth millennium a radical transformation of the landscape and the definitive establishment of the semi-desert conditions that are registered at the present time. In the western area the evolution of the landscape is determined basically by the changes of geomorphological conditions of the coast and the marshland zones of the Guadalquivir and the Tinto-Odiel systems, registering diverse moments of increase of the aridity conditions, without remarkable changes in the vegetal landscape. Sequences obtained do not provide evidence of indicators of human intervention that might be clearly attributable to the pattern of human activities established in the area until a the two millennium ago

Current status of the 12 MeV UPC race-track microtron

A com­pact race-track mi­crotron (RTM) with the max­i­mal out­put en­er­gy 12 MeV is under con­struc­tion at the Uni­ver­si­tat Politècnica de Catalun­ya (UPC) in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Sko­belt­syn In­sti­tute of Nu­cle­ar Physics of the Moscow State Uni­ver­si­ty, CIEMAT and a few Span­ish in­dus­tri­al com­pa­nies and med­i­cal cen­ters. The RTM end mag­nets are four-pole sys­tems with the mag­net­ic field cre­at­ed by a rare-earth per­ma­nent mag­net ma­te­ri­al. As a source of elec­trons a 3D off-ax­is elec­tron gun is used. These el­e­ments to­geth­er with a C-band ac­cel­er­at­ing struc­ture, dipole mag­nets, which allow to ex­tract the elec­tron beam with en­er­gy from 6 MeV to 12 MeV in 2 MeV step, and a fo­cus­ing quadrupole are placed in­side a vac­u­um cham­ber. We re­port on the cur­rent sta­tus of the tech­ni­cal de­sign and re­sults of tests of some of the com­po­nents

Current status of the 12 MeV UPC race-track microtron

A com­pact race-track mi­crotron (RTM) with the max­i­mal out­put en­er­gy 12 MeV is under con­struc­tion at the Uni­ver­si­tat Politècnica de Catalun­ya (UPC) in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Sko­belt­syn In­sti­tute of Nu­cle­ar Physics of the Moscow State Uni­ver­si­ty, CIEMAT and a few Span­ish in­dus­tri­al com­pa­nies and med­i­cal cen­ters. The RTM end mag­nets are four-pole sys­tems with the mag­net­ic field cre­at­ed by a rare-earth per­ma­nent mag­net ma­te­ri­al. As a source of elec­trons a 3D off-ax­is elec­tron gun is used. These el­e­ments to­geth­er with a C-band ac­cel­er­at­ing struc­ture, dipole mag­nets, which allow to ex­tract the elec­tron beam with en­er­gy from 6 MeV to 12 MeV in 2 MeV step, and a fo­cus­ing quadrupole are placed in­side a vac­u­um cham­ber. We re­port on the cur­rent sta­tus of the tech­ni­cal de­sign and re­sults of tests of some of the com­po­nents