The purpose of this document is to present a comparative study of five algorithms of heart sound localization, one of which, is a method based on radial basis function networks applied in a novel approach. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are evaluated according to a data base of 50 subjects in which there are 25 healthy subjects selected from the University Hospital of Strasbour...

There is no standardized mnethod for the calibration of total energy conducted to the surface of the chest caused by the cardiac sounds. Loudness is a subjective term which is dependent upon total energy, frequency of the main components and the specific sensitivity of the human hearing mechanism. A method is described in which the amplitude of the chief component of the heart sounds is compare...

BACKGROUND The third and fourth heart sound (S3 and S4) are two abnormal heart sound components which are proved to be indicators of heart failure during diastolic period. The combination of using diastolic heart sounds with the standard ECG as a measurement of ventricular dysfunction may improve the noninvasive diagnosis and early detection of myocardial ischemia. METHODS In this paper, an a...

This paper proposes a novel approach for the classification of phonocardiograms based on statistical properties of the PCG signal energy envelograms using fuzzy inference system. Fuzzification of features is done to remove absolute boundaries and assign a degree of association to every segment of the signal with the corresponding heart sound. Since heart sound signals are highly nonstationary, ...

In this study, four channels' heart sounds of normal persons and patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) were detected by a highly sensitive sound sensors array placed on special positions of body's thorax, the acquired signals were analyzed using wavelet transform and neural networks. Wavelet transform is a highly applicable method to separate the complicated heart sounds into various freq...

Heart diseases caused by the heart and blood vessels disorders are world’s largest killers. Hence early detection and monitoring of heart abnormalities is essential for diagnosis and effective treatment of heart diseases. This project aims to develop a low cost portable digital stethoscope. The primary function of this system is to work exactly like a normal stethoscope, but having an added adv...

We report noninvasive and invasive studies designed to clarify the mechanism of the third heart sound (S3) in humans. The noninvasive observations were made using a miniature accelerometer attached to the skin surface at the cardiac apex. In subjects with no S3, the tracings were either flat or showed very low undulations throughout diastole. Those with an S3, however, demonstrated a distinct r...

Heart sounds, the acoustic vibrations produced by the mechanical processes of the cardiac cycle, are modulated by respiratory activity. We have used computational techniques of cluster analysis and classification to study the effects of the respiratory phase and the respiratory resistive load on the temporal and morphological properties of the first (S1) and second heart sounds (S2), acquired f...