Signals, Volume 4, Issue 3 (September 2023) – 10 articles

Reliable prognostic biomarkers are needed to support the early diagnosis of brain injury in extremely preterm infants, and to develop effective neuroprotective protocols that are tailored to the progressing phases of injury. Experimental and clinical research shows that severity of neuronal damage is correlated with changes in the electroencephalogram (EEG) after hypoxic-ischemia (HI). We have previously reported that micro-scale sharp-wave EEG waveforms have prognostic utility within the early hours of post-HI recordings in preterm fetal sheep, before injury develops. This article aims to investigate whether these subtle EEG patterns are translational in the early hours of life in clinical recordings from extremely preterm newborns. This work evaluates the existence and morphological similarity of the sharp-waves automatically identified throughout the entire duration of EEG data from a cohort of fetal sheep 6 h after HI (n = 7, at 103 ± 1 day gestation) and in recordings commencing before 6 h of life in extremely preterm neonates (n = 7, 27 ± 2.0 weeks gestation). We report that micro-scale EEG waveforms with similar morphology and characteristics (r = 0.94) to those seen in fetal sheep after HI are also present after birth in recordings started before 6 h of life in extremely preterm neonates. This work further indicates that the post-HI sharp-waves show rapid morphological evolution, influenced by age and/or severity of neuronal loss, and thus that automated algorithms should be validated against such signal variations. Finally, this article discusses the need for more focused research on the early assessment of EEG changes in preterm infants to help determine the timing of brain injury to identify biomarkers that could assist in targeting novel therapies for particular phases of injury. Full article

This paper addresses the problem of designing an adaptive Kalman consensus filter (a-KCF) which embedded in multiple mobile agents that are distributed in a 2D domain. The role of such filters is to provide adaptive estimation of the states of a dynamic linear system through communication over a wireless sensor network. It is assumed that each sensing device (embedded in each agent) provides partial state measurements and transmits the information to its instant neighbors in the communication topology. An adaptive consensus algorithm is then adopted to enforce the agreement on the state estimates among all connected agents. The basis of a-KCF design is derived from the classic Kalman filtering theorem; the adaptation of the consensus gain for each local filter in the disagreement terms improves the convergence of the associated difference between the estimation and the actual states of the dynamic linear system, reducing it to zero with appropriate norms. Simulation results testing the performance of a-KCF confirm the validation of our design. Full article

In recent years, accessibility has become a topic of great interest on a global scale across the scientific, business, and policy sectors. There are two primary reasons for this growing trend. Firstly, accessibility serves as a vital indicator reflecting the social performance of communities, and the public is increasingly aware of critical social issues such as accessibility. Secondly, accessibility is essential for the sustainable development of regions and civil settings, facilitating inclusion and business growth. In this regard, information and communications technologies can play a crucial role in facilitating the accessibility of spaces by disabled people. Numerous digital tools and smart applications are already available to serve this purpose. This study presents a novel digital tool called ‘Seek & Go’, a comprehensive aid application designed specifically for disabled individuals. The app features a GPS navigation system that caters to pedestrians with disabilities and unique accessibility requirements. The present study documents the models underlying the development of ‘Seek & Go’, discusses technical aspects of the application, and presents user experience insights. Full article

To balance the information security and energy harvest for massive internet-of-things (IoT) devices, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)–assisted secure communication model is proposed in this paper. We extend the secure transmission model with physical layer security (PLS) to simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) technology and optimize the UAV trajectory, transmission power, and power splitting ratio (PSR). The nonconvex object function is decomposed into three subproblems. Then a robust iterative suboptimal algorithm based on the block coordinate descent (BCD) method is proposed to solve the subproblems. Numerical simulation results are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. These results clearly illustrate that our resource allocation schemes surpass baseline schemes in terms of both transmit power and ratio of harvesting energy, while maintaining an approximately instantaneous secrecy rate. Full article

In this paper, a new optimization method for the design of nearly linear-phase two-dimensional infinite impulse (2D IIR) digital filters with a separable denominator is proposed. A design framework for 2D IIR digital filters is formulated as a nonlinear constrained optimization problem where the group delay deviation in the passband is minimized under prescribed soft magnitude constraints and hard stability requirements. To achieve this goal, sub-level sets of the group delay deviations are utilized to generate a sequence of filters, from which the one with the best performance is selected. The quality of the obtained filter is evaluated using three quality factors, namely, the passband magnitude quality factor $Q_h$ and the group delay deviation quality factor $Q_{\tau }$, while the third one is a new quality factor $Q_s$ that assesses the performance in the stopband relative to the minimum filter gain in the passband. The proposed framework is implemented using the interior-point (IP) method in a MATLAB environment, and the experimental results show that filters designed using the proposed method have good magnitude response and low group delay deviation. The performance of the resulting filters is compared with the results of other methods. Full article

Structural deterioration is a primary long-term concern resulting from material wear and tear, events, solicitations, and disasters that can progressively compromise the integrity of a cement-based structure until it suddenly collapses, becoming a potential and latent danger to the public. For many years, manual visual inspection has been the only viable structural health monitoring (SHM) solution. Technological advances have led to the development of sensors and devices suitable for the early detection of changes in structures and materials using automated or semi-automated approaches. Recently, solutions based on computer vision, imaging, and video signal analysis have gained momentum in SHM due to increased processing and storage performance, the ability to easily monitor inaccessible areas (e.g., through drones and robots), and recent progress in artificial intelligence fueling automated recognition and classification processes. This paper summarizes the most recent studies (2018–2022) that have proposed solutions for the SHM of infrastructures based on optical devices, computer vision, and image processing approaches. The preliminary analysis revealed an initial subdivision into two macro-categories: studies that implemented vision systems and studies that accessed image datasets. Each study was then analyzed in more detail to present a qualitative description related to the target structures, type of monitoring, instrumentation and data source, methodological approach, and main results, thus providing a more comprehensive overview of the recent applications in SHM and facilitating comparisons between the studies. Full article

This paper presents a study of an automated system for identifying planktic foraminifera at the species level. The system uses a combination of deep learning methods, specifically convolutional neural networks (CNNs), to analyze digital images of foraminifera taken at different illumination angles. The dataset is composed of 1437 groups of sixteen grayscale images, one group for each foraminifera specimen, that are then converted to RGB images with various processing methods. These RGB images are fed into a set of CNNs, organized in an ensemble learning (EL) environment. The ensemble is built by training different networks using different approaches for creating the RGB images. The study finds that an ensemble of CNN models trained on different RGB images improves the system’s performance compared to other state-of-the-art approaches. The main focus of this paper is to introduce multiple colorization methods that differ from the current cutting-edge techniques; novel strategies like Gaussian or mean-based techniques are suggested. The proposed system was also found to outperform human experts in classification accuracy. Full article

We present an algorithm for extracting basis functions from the chaotic Lorenz system along with timing and bit-sequence statistics. Previous work focused on modifying Lorenz waveforms and extracting the basis function of a single state variable. Importantly, these efforts initiated the development of solvable chaotic systems with simple matched filters, which are suitable for many spread spectrum applications. However, few solvable chaotic systems are known, and they are highly dependent upon an engineered basis function. Non-solvable, Lorenz signals are often used to test time-series prediction schemes and are also central to efforts to maximize spectral efficiency by joining radar and communication waveforms. Here, we provide extracted basis functions for all three Lorenz state variables, their timing statistics, and their bit-sequence statistics. Further, we outline a detailed algorithm suitable for the extraction of basis functions from many chaotic systems such as the Lorenz system. These results promote the search for engineered basis functions in solvable chaotic systems, provide tools for joining radar and communication waveforms, and give an algorithmic process for modifying chaotic Lorenz waveforms to quantify the performance of chaotic time-series forecasting methods. The results presented here provide engineered test signals compatible with quantitative analysis of predicted amplitudes and regular timing. Full article

This study investigates the use of empirical mode decomposition (EMD) to extract intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) for the spectral analysis of EEG signals in healthy individuals and its possible biological interpretations. Unlike traditional EEG analysis, this approach does not require the establishment of arbitrary band limits. The study uses a multivariate EMD algorithm (APIT-MEMD) to extract IMFs from the EEG signals of 34 healthy volunteers. The first six IMFs are analyzed using two different methods, based on FFT and HHT, and the results compared using the ANOVA test and the Bland–Altman method for agreement test. The outcomes show that the frequency values of the first six IMFs fall within the range of classic EEG bands (1.72–52.4 Hz). Although there was a lack of agreement in the mean weighted frequency values of the first three IMFs between the two methods (>3 Hz), both methods showed similar results for power spectral density (<5% normalized units, %, of power spectral density). The HHT method is found to have better frequency resolution than APIT-MEMD associated with FTT that produce less overlapping between IMF3 and 4 (p = 0.0046) and it is recommended for analyzing the spectral properties of IMFs. The study concludes that the HHT method could help to avoid the assumption of strict frequency band limits, and that the potential impact of EEG physiological phenomenon on mode-mixing interpretation, particularly for the alpha and theta ranges, must be considered in future research. Full article

Experimental data from the SACLANTCEN 1993 Mediterranean Experiment are reviewed to assess the reduction of the search space for the localization and tracking of an acoustic source in a three-dimensional environment. Key to this goal is the availability of an initial estimate of source range and depth (called the 2D initial guess); an ambiguous estimate of source bearing can be obtained from the 2D initial guess through Environmental Signal Processing, and the ambiguity can be removed by searching for the source only in the range/bearing regions where bearing estimates are higher. This search provides a new estimate of source range and a single bearing, which together with the estimate for source depth constitute the center of the reduced search space for source localization and tracking. The suggested approach is tested on experimental data from the SACLANTCEN experiment considering different frequencies, as well as a stationary and a moving source. Full article