Abstract
This paper studies the use of deep convolutional neural networks to segment heart sounds into their main components. The proposed methods are based on the adoption of a deep convolutional neural network architecture, which is inspired by similar approaches used for image segmentation. Different temporal modeling schemes are applied to the output of the proposed neural network, which induce the output state sequence to be consistent with the natural sequence of states within a heart sound signal (S1, systole, S2, diastole). In particular, convolutional neural networks are used in conjunction with underlying hidden Markov models and hidden semi-Markov models to infer emission distributions. The proposed approaches are tested on heart sound signals from the publicly available PhysioNet dataset, and they are shown to outperform current state-of-the-art segmentation methods by achieving an average sensitivity of 93.9 and an average positive predictive value of 94 in detecting S1 and S2 sounds.

Abstract
This paper studies the use of non-invasive acoustic emission recordings for clinical device tracking. In particular, audio signals recorded at the proximal end of a needle are used to detect perforation events that occur when the needle tip crosses internal tissue layers. A comparative study is performed to assess the capacity of different features and envelopes in detecting perforation events. The results obtained from the considered experimental setup show a statistically significant correlation between the extracted envelopes and the perforation events, thus leading the way for future development of perforation detection algorithms.

Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases are one of the leading causes of death in the world. In low income countries, heart auscultation is of capital importance since it is an efficient and low cost method to monitor the heart. In this paper, we propose a multi-spot system that aims to detect cardiac anomalies and to support a diagnosis in remote areas with limited heath care response. Our proposed solutions exploits data collected from the four main auscultation spots: Mitral, Pulmonary, Tricuspid and Aorta in a asynchronous way. From the several multi-spot systems implemented, the best results were obtained using a bi-modal system that only processes the Mitral and the Pulmonary spot simultaneously. Using these two spots we have achieved an accuracy between 85.7% (smallest value, using ANN) and the best value of 91.4% (obtained with a logistic regression algorithm). Taking into a account the pediatric population and the incident cardiac pathologies, it happens to be the spots where the observed murmurs were most audible. We have also find out that when using four auscultation spots, the choice of the algorithm is of secondary priority, which does not seem to be the case for a single auscultation spot system. With one single auscultation we have an average of 4% of difference between the results obtained with the algorithms and with four auscultation spots we have a smaller average of 2.1%.

Abstract
Respiratory diseases are among the leading causes of death worldwide. Preventive measures are essential to avoid and increase the odds of a successful recovery. An important screening tool is pulmonary auscultation, an inexpensive, noninvasive and safe method to assess the mechanics and dynamics of the lungs. On the other hand, it is a difficult task for a human listener since some lung sound events have a spectrum of frequencies outside of the human hearing ability. Thus, computer assisted decision systems might play an important role in the detection of abnormal sounds, such as crackle or wheeze sounds. In this paper, we propose a novel system, which is not only able to detect abnormal lung sound events, but it is also able to classify them. Furthermore, our system was trained and tested using the publicly available ICBHI 2017 challenge dataset, and using the metrics proposed by the challenge, thus making our framework and results easily comparable. Using a Mel Spectrogram as an input feature for our convolutional neural network, our system achieved results in line with the current state of the art, an accuracy of 43 %, and a sensitivity of 51%.

Abstract
Cardiac auscultation is the key screening procedure to detect and identify cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). One of many steps to automatically detect CVDs using auscultation, concerns the detection and delimitation of the heart sound boundaries, a process known as segmentation. Whether to include or not a segmentation step in the signal classification pipeline is nowadays a topic of discussion. Up to our knowledge, the outcome of a segmentation algorithm has been used almost exclusively to align the different signal segments according to the heartbeat. In this paper, the need for a heartbeat alignment step is tested and evaluated over different machine learning algorithms, including deep learning solutions. From the different classifiers tested, Gate Recurrent Unit (GRU) Network and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) algorithms are shown to be the most robust. Namely, these algorithms can detect the presence of heart murmurs even without a heartbeat alignment step. Furthermore, Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Random Forest (RF) algorithms require an explicit segmentation step to effectively detect heart sounds and murmurs, the overall performance is expected drop approximately 5% on both cases.

Abstract
Cardiac auscultation is one of the most cost-effective techniques used to detect and identify many heart conditions. Computer-assisted decision systems based on auscultation can support physicians in their decisions. Unfortunately, the application of such systems in clinical trials is still minimal since most of them only aim to detect the presence of extra or abnormal waves in the phonocardiogram signal, i.e., only a binary ground truth variable (normal vs abnormal) is provided. This is mainly due to the lack of large publicly available datasets, where a more detailed description of such abnormal waves (e.g., cardiac murmurs) exists. To pave the way to more effective research on healthcare recommendation systems based on auscultation, our team has prepared the currently largest pediatric heart sound dataset. A total of 5282 recordings have been collected from the four main auscultation locations of 1568 patients, in the process, 215780 heart sounds have been manually annotated. Furthermore, and for the first time, each cardiac murmur has been manually annotated by an expert annotator according to its timing, shape, pitch, grading, and quality. In addition, the auscultation locations where the murmur is present were identified as well as the auscultation location where the murmur is detected more intensively. Such detailed description for a relatively large number of heart sounds may pave the way for new machine learning algorithms with a real-world application for the detection and analysis of murmur waves for diagnostic purposes.