Barry Cardiff

Li Xiaolin, Fang Xiang, Rajesh C. Panicker et al.

Sudden cardiac death and arrhythmia account for a large percentage of all deaths worldwide. Electrocardiography (ECG) is the most widely used screening tool for cardiovascular diseases. Traditionally, ECG signals are classified manually, requiring experience and great skill, while being time-consuming and prone to error. Thus machine learning algorithms have been widely adopted because of their ability to perform complex data analysis. Features derived from the points of interest in ECG - mainly Q, R, and S, are widely used for arrhythmia detection. In this work, we demonstrate improved performance for ECG classification using hybrid features and three different models, building on a 1-D convolutional neural network (CNN) model that we had proposed in the past. An RR interval features based model proposed in this work achieved an accuracy of 98.98%, which is an improvement over the baseline model. To make the model immune to noise, we updated the model using frequency features and achieved good sustained performance in presence of noise with a slightly lower accuracy of 98.69%. Further, another model combining the frequency features and the RR interval features was developed, which achieved a high accuracy of 99% with good sustained performance in noisy environments. Due to its high accuracy and noise immunity, the proposed model which combines multiple hybrid features, is well suited for ambulatory wearable sensing applications.

Qingyuan Wang, Barry Cardiff, Antoine Frappé et al.

This paper introduces TinySaver, an early-exit-like dynamic model compression approach which employs tiny models to substitute large models adaptively. Distinct from traditional compression techniques, dynamic methods like TinySaver can leverage the difficulty differences to allow certain inputs to complete their inference processes early, thereby conserving computational resources. Most existing early exit designs are implemented by attaching additional network branches to the model's backbone. Our study, however, reveals that completely independent tiny models can replace a substantial portion of the larger models' job with minimal impact on performance. Employing them as the first exit can remarkably enhance computational efficiency. By searching and employing the most appropriate tiny model as the computational saver for a given large model, the proposed approaches work as a novel and generic method to model compression. This finding will help the research community in exploring new compression methods to address the escalating computational demands posed by rapidly evolving AI models. Our evaluation of this approach in ImageNet-1k classification demonstrates its potential to reduce the number of compute operations by up to 90\%, with only negligible losses in performance, across various modern vision models.

Qingyuan Wang, Barry Cardiff, Antoine Frappé et al.

Conventional deep learning (DL) model compression and scaling methods focus on altering the model's components, impacting the results across all samples uniformly. However, since samples vary in difficulty, a dynamic model that adapts computation based on sample complexity offers a novel perspective for compression and scaling. Despite this potential, existing dynamic models are typically monolithic and model-specific, limiting their generalizability as broad compression and scaling methods. Additionally, most deployed DL systems are fixed, unable to adjust their scale once deployed and, therefore, cannot adapt to the varying real-time demands. This paper introduces DyCE, a dynamically configurable system that can adjust the performance-complexity trade-off of a DL model at runtime without requiring re-initialization or redeployment on inference hardware. DyCE achieves this by adding small exit networks to intermediate layers of the original model, allowing computation to terminate early if acceptable results are obtained. DyCE also decouples the design of an efficient dynamic model, facilitating easy adaptation to new base models and potential general use in compression and scaling. We also propose methods for generating optimized configurations and determining the types and positions of exit networks to achieve desired performance and complexity trade-offs. By enabling simple configuration switching, DyCE provides fine-grained performance tuning in real-time. We demonstrate the effectiveness of DyCE through image classification tasks using deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs). DyCE significantly reduces computational complexity by 23.5% for ResNet152 and 25.9% for ConvNextv2-tiny on ImageNet, with accuracy reductions of less than 0.5%.

Qingyuan Wang, Guoxin Wang, Barry Cardiff et al.

This paper presents ORXE, a modular and adaptable framework for achieving real-time configurable efficiency in AI models. By leveraging a collection of pre-trained experts with diverse computational costs and performance levels, ORXE dynamically adjusts inference pathways based on the complexity of input samples. Unlike conventional approaches that require complex metamodel training, ORXE achieves high efficiency and flexibility without complicating the development process. The proposed system utilizes a confidence-based gating mechanism to allocate appropriate computational resources for each input. ORXE also supports adjustments to the preference between inference cost and prediction performance across a wide range during runtime. We implemented a training-free ORXE system for image classification tasks, evaluating its efficiency and accuracy across various devices. The results demonstrate that ORXE achieves superior performance compared to individual experts and other dynamic models in most cases. This approach can be extended to other applications, providing a scalable solution for diverse real-world deployment scenarios.

Xiaolin Li, Binhua Huang, Barry Cardiff et al.

DCentNet is a novel decentralized multistage signal classification approach designed for biomedical data from IoT wearable sensors, integrating early exit points (EEP) to enhance energy efficiency and processing speed. Unlike traditional centralized processing methods, which result in high energy consumption and latency, DCentNet partitions a single CNN model into multiple sub-networks using EEPs. By introducing encoder-decoder pairs at EEPs, the system compresses large feature maps before transmission, significantly reducing wireless data transfer and power usage. If an input is confidently classified at an EEP, processing stops early, optimizing efficiency. Initial sub-networks can be deployed on fog or edge devices to further minimize energy consumption. A genetic algorithm is used to optimize EEP placement, balancing performance and complexity. Experimental results on ECG classification show that with one EEP, DCentNet reduces wireless data transmission by 94.54% and complexity by 21%, while maintaining original accuracy and sensitivity. With two EEPs, sensitivity reaches 98.36%, accuracy 97.74%, wireless data transmission decreases by 91.86%, and complexity is reduced by 22%. Implemented on an ARM Cortex-M4 MCU, DCentNet achieves an average power saving of 73.6% compared to continuous wireless ECG transmission.

Xiaolin Li, Rajesh Panicker, Barry Cardiff et al.

Using smart wearable devices to monitor patients electrocardiogram (ECG) for real-time detection of arrhythmias can significantly improve healthcare outcomes. Convolutional neural network (CNN) based deep learning has been used successfully to detect anomalous beats in ECG. However, the computational complexity of existing CNN models prohibits them from being implemented in low-powered edge devices. Usually, such models are complex with lots of model parameters which results in large number of computations, memory, and power usage in edge devices. Network pruning techniques can reduce model complexity at the expense of performance in CNN models. This paper presents a novel multistage pruning technique that reduces CNN model complexity with negligible loss in performance compared to existing pruning techniques. An existing CNN model for ECG classification is used as a baseline reference. At 60% sparsity, the proposed technique achieves 97.7% accuracy and an F1 score of 93.59% for ECG classification tasks. This is an improvement of 3.3% and 9% for accuracy and F1 Score respectively, compared to traditional pruning with fine-tuning approach. Compared to the baseline model, we also achieve a 60.4% decrease in run-time complexity.

Arlene John, Koushik Kumar Nundy, Barry Cardiff et al.

The abnormal pause or rate reduction in breathing is known as the sleep-apnea hypopnea syndrome and affects the quality of sleep of an individual. A novel method for the detection of sleep apnea events (pause in breathing) from peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2) signals obtained from wearable devices is discussed in this paper. The paper details an apnea detection algorithm of a very high resolution on a per-second basis for which a 1-dimensional convolutional neural network -- which we termed SomnNET -- is developed. This network exhibits an accuracy of 97.08% and outperforms several lower resolution state-of-the-art apnea detection methods. The feasibility of model pruning and binarization to reduce the computational complexity is explored. The pruned network with 80% sparsity exhibited an accuracy of 89.75%, and the binarized network exhibited an accuracy of 68.22%. The performance of the proposed networks is compared against several state-of-the-art algorithms.

Arlene John, Barry Cardiff, Deepu John

Internet of Things (IoT) enabled wearable sensors for health monitoring are widely used to reduce the cost of personal healthcare and improve quality of life. The sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome, characterized by the abnormal reduction or pause in breathing, greatly affects the quality of sleep of an individual. This paper introduces a novel method for apnea detection (pause in breathing) from electrocardiogram (ECG) signals obtained from wearable devices. The novelty stems from the high resolution of apnea detection on a second-by-second basis, and this is achieved using a 1-dimensional convolutional neural network for feature extraction and detection of sleep apnea events. The proposed method exhibits an accuracy of 99.56% and a sensitivity of 96.05%. This model outperforms several lower resolution state-of-the-art apnea detection methods. The complexity of the proposed model is analyzed. We also analyze the feasibility of model pruning and binarization to reduce the resource requirements on a wearable IoT device. The pruned model with 80\% sparsity exhibited an accuracy of 97.34% and a sensitivity of 86.48%. The binarized model exhibited an accuracy of 75.59% and sensitivity of 63.23%. The performance of low complexity patient-specific models derived from the generic model is also studied to analyze the feasibility of retraining existing models to fit patient-specific requirements. The patient-specific models on average exhibited an accuracy of 97.79% and sensitivity of 92.23%. The source code for this work is made publicly available.

Conor Smyth, Guoxin Wang, Rajesh Panicker et al.

Over the past several years, the electrocardiogram (ECG) has been investigated for its uniqueness and potential to discriminate between individuals. This paper discusses how this discriminatory information can help in continuous user authentication by a wearable chest strap which uses dry electrodes to obtain a single lead ECG signal. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first such work which deals with continuous authentication using a genuine wearable device as most prior works have either used medical equipment employing gel electrodes to obtain an ECG signal or have obtained an ECG signal through electrode positions that would not be feasible using a wearable device. Prior works have also mainly dealt with using the ECG signal for identification rather than verification, or dealt with using the ECG signal for discrete authentication. This paper presents a novel algorithm which uses QRS detection, weighted averaging, Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), and a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier to determine whether the wearer of the device should be positively verified or not. Zero intrusion attempts were successful when tested on a database consisting of 33 subjects.