Time-frequency distribution technique in biological signal processing

Time-frequency distribution (TFD) has gained wide acceptance for deterministic non-stationary signal processing, particularly for biological signals, in both basic research and commercial production. This paper presents the results of a comparison of the TFD technique with other methods for determining physiologic parameters, particularly the ventricular ejection time (VET) and (dZ/dtmax), the differentiation of the thoracic-fluid signal Z0 from non-stationary impedence cardiography dZ/dt. The TFD technique was found to be more accurate--in terms of both time and signal magnitude--than traditional methods such as the baseline and ensemble-averaging techniques when compared with phonocardiograms and hand calculations by experts in the field. It is shown that TFD can also reduce ventilatory/respiratory noise, electrical and muscle noise, and patient-motion artifacts. Correlation analysis and regression analysis as well as Bland-Altman studies showed stronger correlational methods tested.