Verification and comparison of MIT-BIH arrhythmia database based on number of beats

<span lang="EN-US">The ECG signal processing methods are tested and evaluated based on many databases. The most ECG database used for many researchers is the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database. The QRS-detection algorithms are essential for ECG analyses to detect the beats for the ECG signal. There is no standard number of beats for this database that are used from numerous researches. Different beat numbers are calculated for the researchers depending on the difference in understanding the annotation file. In this paper, the beat numbers for existing methods are studied and compared to find the correct beat number that should be used. We propose a simple function to standardize the beats number for any ECG PhysioNet database to improve the waveform database toolbox (WFDB) for the MATLAB program. This function is based on the annotation's description from the databases and can be added to the Toolbox. The function is removed the non-beats annotation without any errors. The results show a high percentage of 71% from the reviewed methods used an incorrect number of beats for this database.</span>

Constrained transformer network for ECG signal processing and arrhythmia classification

Background Heart disease diagnosis is a challenging task and it is important to explore useful information from the massive amount of electrocardiogram (ECG) records of patients. The high-precision diagnostic identification of ECG can save clinicians and cardiologists considerable time while helping reduce the possibility of misdiagnosis at the same time.Currently, some deep learning-based methods can effectively perform feature selection and classification prediction, reducing the consumption of manpower. Methods In this work, an end-to-end deep learning framework based on convolutional neural network (CNN) is proposed for ECG signal processing and arrhythmia classification. In the framework, a transformer network is embedded in CNN to capture the temporal information of ECG signals and a new link constraint is introduced to the loss function to enhance the classification ability of the embedding vector. Results To evaluate the proposed method, extensive experiments based on real-world data were conducted. Experimental results show that the proposed model achieve better performance than most baselines. The experiment results also proved that the transformer network pays more attention to the temporal continuity of the data and captures the hidden deep features of the data well. The link constraint strengthens the constraint on the embedded features and effectively suppresses the effect of data imbalance on the results. Conclusions In this paper, an end-to-end model is used to process ECG signal and classify arrhythmia. The model combine CNN and Transformer network to extract temporal information in ECG signal and is capable of performing arrhythmia classification with acceptable accuracy. The model can help cardiologists perform assisted diagnosis of heart disease and improve the efficiency of healthcare delivery.