De-noising of Phonocardiograms using the

new modified wavelet threshold method

M. Vishwanath Shervegar Ganesh V Bhat
Assistant Professor, E&C Department Principal
MIT, Kundapura, Udupi, Karnataka CEC, Mangalore, D.K., Karnataka
vishwa@hotmail.co.in ganeshvbhat@yahoo.com

Abstract:
Objective:To improve the effects of de-noising of Phonocardiogram, this work introduces
the basic principles of wavelet threshold de-noising and traditional structures threshold
functions. Meanwhile, it proposes wavelet threshold function and fixed threshold formula
which are both improved here. Methods and materials:First, this work studies the problems
existing in the traditional wavelet threshold functions and introduces the adjustment factors to
construct the new threshold function basis on soft threshold function. Then, it studies the
fixed threshold and introduces the logarithmic function of layer number of wavelet
decomposition to design the new fixed threshold formula. Finally, this work uses hard
threshold, soft threshold, Garrote threshold, and improved threshold function to de-noise
heart sound signals. Results: Experimental results showed that the proposed approach could
improve soft threshold functions with constant deviation and hard threshold function with
discontinuous function problems. The proposed approach could improve the different
decomposition scales that adopt the same threshold value to deal with the noise problems,
also effectively filter the noise in the signals, and improve the SNR and reduce the MSE of
output signals. Conclusion: The new modified threshold method outperforms traditional de-
noising methods in terms of SNR and MSE.
Keywords: SNR,MSE, Phonocardiogram, Wavelet transform, denoising.

1. Introduction
Heart sounds are acoustic waves recorded
from the chest and the backside. These are
transient signals generated by the vibration
of the heart valves as closure and opening
occur, and/or by the vibration of the whole
myocardium and associated structures.
Heart auscultation is widely used by
physicians to evaluate heart valve
functions in medical examinations and
detect the presence of abnormalities. It is
not easy to acquire the skill to perform
auscultation, especially in noise and
disturbance environments. The disturbance
referred to in this work is the impulsive
noise or interference characterized by a
short time duration. Noise and disturbance,
such as ambient noise, the friction between
the chest-piece and skin, as well as lung
expiration and inspiration, are usually
unavoidable in the recording of heart
sounds. The accuracy of auscultation
becomes questionable if the noise and
disturbance are heavy. It is thus desirable
to develop noise and disturbance reduction
algorithms to help physicians and medical
students.Literature survey reveals various
methods that have been proposed to reduce
noise in heart sounds. Adaptive noise
cancellation was successfully used to
enhance heart sounds, but an additional
reference to the noise signal was required
[1], [2]. Meanwhile, the reduced-order
From heart sounds [3]. Spectral
subtraction, which is well known and
widely used in speech enhancement, may
be used to enhance heart sounds [4], [5].
The modified version of spectral
subtraction was later used to improve noise
reduction in [6]. It is found that the noise
reduction of heart sounds was performed
in the time domain and/or the frequency
domain, while a few were done in the
cycle-frequency domain. The performance
may degrade if noise and disturbance are
non-Gaussian, nonstationary, or coloured.
Robust methods for the noise reduction of
heart sounds are therefore needed. Wavelet
based de-noising methods are also popular
with respect to heart sounds. Wavelet
threshold de-noising method was proposed
by American scholar Donohue. The
method is simple to calculate and the noise
can be suppressed to a large extent. At the
sametime, singular information of the
original signal can be preserved well, so it
is a simple and effective method [14].
Various authors [7]-[13] have used
discrete wavelet transform in various
forms. Whether wavelet threshold de-
noising method is good or bad depends on
two decisive factors. One is threshold 𝜆
and the other important factor is the
selection of the threshold function [15].As
the most basic threshold function, both
hard and soft threshold functions have
their own defects. The breakpoint problem
of the hard threshold function makes it
have no continuity [16]. In the process of
reconstructing heart sound signal,
proneness to volatility and pseudo-Gibbs
effect will make the signal distorted while
the hard threshold function can keep
singular information of the original signal.
And the constant deviation problem which
is born with the soft threshold function
cannot be overcome by itself, which means
that the reconstructed signal is too smooth
Kalman filter was applied to remove noise
and there are constant deviations compared
with the original signals. All the above
mentioned defects cause part of the high
frequency signal information to be
missing, which influence the final
processing results[17]. In order to
overcome the defects of hard and soft
threshold function perspective, this work
constructs a new modified wavelet
threshold function by increasing the
adjustment factor. In order to overcome
the problem that the same threshold is used
to deal with the different decomposition
scales, this work designs a new variable
threshold formula by introducing the
logarithmic functions of layer number of
wavelet decomposition.
2. Methods and Materials
2.1 The Principle of Wavelet
Threshold De-noising
Noise signals usually appear as high
frequency signals in signal processing, but
useful signals appear as either low
frequency or more smooth signals. The
signals with noise have the features of the
above.So when the signals are decomposed
by wavelet, the signals with noise in the
high frequency wavelet coefficients,
through threshold quantization threshold
processing, high frequency wavelet
coefficients to reconstruct the signals can
eliminate the noise with the signals. One
dimensional signal de-noising process is as
follows: the one dimensional signal is
decomposed by wavelet decomposition,
selecting threshold and threshold function
to quantify the high frequency coefficients
of wavelet decomposition and reconstruct
the one dimensional wavelet. The
keyfactors affecting the quality of de-
noising are de-noising threshold and the
selection of threshold function [18].
 2.2 Wavelet Threshold Function
2.2.1. Classical Threshold expressions such ̅̅̅̅̅
as𝜔 𝑗,𝑘 =
Function. 𝜆2
𝜔𝑗,𝑘 − 𝜔 , |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 | ≥ 𝜆
{ 𝑗,𝑘 } (3)
The hard threshold function sets the 0, |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 | < 𝜆
decomposition coefficient to zero which is
less than the threshold value under 2.2.2 New threshold
different scale spaces and preserves the Function
decomposition coefficient which is greater
than the threshold [19]. This method does The continuity in the soft threshold
not change the local properties of the function is much better, but it has a
signal, but because of the discontinuity, it constant deviation. So, in order to
leads to a certain fluctuation in the overcome its short comings, the soft and
reconstruction of the original signal. hard threshold algorithms are
𝜔𝑗,𝑘, |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 | ≥ 𝜆 compromised. The semisoft threshold
Consider̅̅̅̅̅̅
𝜔𝑗,𝑘 = { } function [22] (4) has been shown in the
0, |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 | < 𝜆
formula
(1)
̅̅̅̅̅
𝜔 𝑗,𝑘 =
The soft threshold function assigns the 𝑠𝑔𝑛(𝜔𝑗,𝑘 ) − (|𝜔𝑗,𝑘 | − 𝑇𝜆), |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 | ≥ 𝜆
specified threshold value of the { }(4)
0, |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 | < 𝜆
decomposition coefficient to zero. After
the algorithm, the decomposition We propose a new threshold method by
coefficient is coherent, but it loses a part of replacing the T parameter by a complex
the high frequency coefficients above the exponential function. Among the soft and
threshold [20].Consider𝜔 ̅̅̅̅̅
𝑗,𝑘 = hard threshold functions, the value of 𝑇 is
𝜆 taken between 0 and 1. Even if the result
𝜔𝑗,𝑘 − 𝜔 , |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 | ≥ 𝜆
{ 𝑗,𝑘 } (2) of semisoft threshold function is between
0, |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 | < 𝜆 them, the value of 𝑇 is fixed. So, there will
still be fixed bias. Consider
Parameter𝜔𝑗,𝑘 is the representation of
𝜔𝑗,𝑘 =
̅̅̅̅̅
estimated wavelet coefficients.Parameter
𝜔𝑗,𝑘 is the representation of the wavelet
coefficients after decomposition.𝜆 is the 𝜆
𝑠𝑔𝑛(𝜔𝑗,𝑘 ) − |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 | − 𝛼 , |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 | ≥ 𝜆
𝛼(|𝜔𝑗,𝑘 |−𝜆)
representation of threshold, and sgn(∗) is [
𝜆
]
the symbolic piecewise function in the ( 𝑒 )
above two formulas[21]. In order to { 0, |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 | < 𝜆 }
overcome the shortcomings of above two
(5)
methods, GaoHongYe proposed Garrote
threshold function in which the de-noising The adjustment factor of the new function
effect is the best compared with above two (5) is different from the semisoft threshold
kinds of traditional threshold functions and function. It consists of a complex
it is better in continuity with the exponential function shown above which
has more adaptability; 𝛼 is the normal
number which can be adjusted freely and
the values of 𝛼 are different with the
and when |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 |→𝜆 , ̅̅̅̅̅
𝜔𝑗,𝑘 →0.Therefore,
continuously in place of 𝜆,the new
threshold function has the characteristics
of soft threshold function; when |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 |→∞ ,
𝜔𝑗,𝑘 →𝜔𝑗,𝑘 improved threshold function
̅̅̅̅̅
based on ̅̅̅̅̅
𝜔𝑗,𝑘 =𝜔𝑗,𝑘 as the asymptotic line;
it can be seen that, with the increase of
𝜔𝑗,𝑘 , ̅̅̅̅̅
𝜔𝑗,𝑘 will gradually be close to
𝜔𝑗,𝑘 ;when 𝜔𝑗,𝑘 becomes infinite, 𝜔̅̅̅̅̅
𝑗,𝑘 and
𝜔𝑗,𝑘 can be approximated as equal. That
will not only reduce the discreteness of the
hard threshold function, but can also avoid
the constant problem in soft threshold
function at the same time. The variables 𝛼
in the formula are also really important,
and the change of the value of 𝛼 affects the
noise directly. When 𝛼=0, the function will
express soft threshold function and when
𝛼=∞, the function will express hard
threshold function. We now show that soft,
hard, Garrote, new threshold function and
new modified threshold function in the
form of graphics intuitive. Here, the
parameter threshold functionofeachtake 𝜆
= 0.6, 𝛼=10,and−1.5 ≤𝜔𝑗,𝑘 ≤ 1.5. As
shown in Fig 1, the hard threshold function
is not continuous at the threshold point, so
that there are fluctuations in the recovery
of the original signal.Compared with the
hard threshold function, though there are
no discontinuity problems in the soft
threshold function, there are still some
differences between the original signal and
the reconstructed signal, because of the
constant problems inherent in the soft
threshold function. The new threshold
function has continuity and when the
coefficient is reaching 𝜆 it gradually
becomes close to zero. Therefore, the new
threshold function overcomes the
deficiencies of discontinuous and constant
deviation. So, de-noisingeffectisbetter.
different signal. When |𝜔𝑗,𝑘 |= ,𝜔
̅̅̅̅̅
𝑗,𝑘 =0
2.3 The Improved Fixed
Threshold 𝜆
The threshold value 𝜆 is a very important
parameter in the wavelet threshold de-
noising algorithm. The performance of
wavelet denoising will directly be affected
by threshold selection. There are some
thresholds, such as rigrsure, heursure,
sqtwolog, and minimaxi [15]. The fixed
threshold isused commonly. Its expression
is 𝜆 = 𝜎𝑛 √2𝑙𝑛𝑁, 𝜎𝑛 is the noise standard
variance, and 𝑁 is the length of the signal.
When the same threshold value 𝜆 is used
to deal with the different decomposition
scales𝑗, the enhancement effect is not
ideal. This paper proposes the improved
fixed threshold based on the fixed
threshold. Its expression is 𝜆 =
𝜎𝑛 √2𝑙𝑛𝑁(𝑙𝑜𝑔2 𝑗) with the increasing of
decomposition scale 𝑗, the value of the
improved threshold 𝜆 is gradually reduced.
And it is consistent with the propagation
characteristics of the noise in different
scales of the wavelet transform.
3. Resultsand discussion
3.1 Dataset
Heart sound present in the Physionet heart
sound database [23] were taken from
several people around the world, collected
at either a clinical or nonclinical
environment, from pathological patients.
The Challenge training set consists of five
databases (A through E) containing a total
of over 3000 heart sound recordings. The
duration of heart sound varies from 5
seconds to just over 120 seconds. The
heart sound recordings were obtained from
different locations on the body. Four
locations used for acquisition are aortic
area, pulmonic area, tricuspid area and
mitral area. Abnormal heart sounds were
taken from patients with a confirmed
cardiac diagnosis. The patients suffered
from a variety of illnesses such as heart
valve defects and coronary artery disease.
Heart valve defects cover mitral valve
prolapse, mitral regurgitation, aortic
stenosis and valvular surgery. Pathological
patients included both children and adults.
Each subject/patient have
contributedbetween one and six heart
sound recordings. All recordings have a
sampling rate of 2,000 Hz and are in .wav
format.
3.2 De-noising Procedure
There are two important bases for judging
the effect of de-noising. One indicator is
SNR, and another is MSE [20]. SNR is the
proportion of the energy of the signal and
noise inthenoisysignal.MSEandde-
noisingeffecthaveaninversely proportional
relationship. It is a means to measure
average errors[21]. The heart sound is
carefully selected from the Physionet
database and subjected to de-noising
procedure. The discrete wavelet transform
of the heart sound is calculated and the
signal decomposed into different levels.
We threshold the coefficients using
various techniques described above. The
wavelet family and the number of
decomposition levels are selected
arbitrarily. The inverse discrete wavelet
transform is calculated on these
coefficients. This gives the de-noised
signal. Additional noise can be added to
compare the results with the original
signal. The denoising procedure adopted is
applied to both normal and pathological
sounds.Fig 1 shows the comparison of the
various de-noising methods. Fig 2 shows
the plot of the normal heart sound. Fig 3
shows the plot of heart sound after it has
been corrupted with noise. The noise can
be colored or white, Gaussian or non-
Gaussian, stationary or non-stationary. Fig
4, Fig 5 and Fig 6 show the effect of de-
noising of normal heart sounds using Soft
threshold, Hard threshold and Garrote
threshold methods. The de-noising can be
visualised by the smoothness observed in
the plots. The noisy sound has many
redundant peaks. Fig 7 shows the de-
noising of heart sound by the new
threshold method. Fig 8 shows the plot of
abnormal heart sound, while fig 9 shows
the plot of the noisy abnormal heart sound.
Fig 10, Fig 11 and Fig 12 show the effect
of de-noising of abnormal heart sounds
using Soft threshold, hard threshold and
Garrote threshold methods. Fig 13 shows
the effect of de-noising using the new
modified threshold method. The
comparison between different methods of
de-noisingis shown in Table 1 (Normal
HS) and Table 2 (Abnormal HS) in terms
of average Signal to noise ratio (SNR) and
average Mean Square Error (MSE) for all
sounds. From Table 1 it is clear that the
average SNR obtained for the proposed
method is 1.44 times higher than soft
threshold method, 1.12 times higher than
Garrote threshold and 1.03 times higher
than Hard threshold method. Also the
average MSE obtained for proposed
method is 3.94 times lower than soft
threshold method, 1.94 times lower than
Garrote threshold and 1.28 times lower
than hard threshold method. From Table 2
it is clear that the SNR obtained for the
proposed method is 1.52 times higher than
soft threshold method, 1.14 times higher
than Garrote threshold and 1.02 times
higher than Hard threshold method. Also
the MSE obtained for proposed method is
6.32 times lower than soft threshold
method, 2.06 times lower than Garrote
threshold and 1.16 times lower than hard
threshold method.The same results hold
good to all types of wavelet families and
all decomposition levels. These
observation suggest that the proposed
method outperforms the other methods.
4. Conclusion
This work first introduced the wavelet
threshold de-noising in the traditional
threshold function and then proposed the
new wavelet threshold function according
to the function curve of the de-noising
performance analysis to improve the
function, through the increase in soft
threshold function adjustment factor. This
work studied the fixed threshold and
introduced the logarithmic function of
layer number of wavelet decomposition to
design a new threshold formula. The
proposed method can make the threshold
estimation more accurate and lead to better
de-noising effects. Experimental results
showed that the proposed method
improves the SNR of the output signal and
reduce the MSE of the output signal. It
thus improves the soft threshold function
with constant deviation and the hard
threshold with discontinuous function
problem. It also improves the different
decomposition scales to adopt the same
threshold value to deal with the noise
problem, and verifies that the proposed
method is practical, effective, and feasible,
compared with the traditional method of
de-noising threshold function in filtering
the noise present in the signal.
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Fig 1 Comparison of Noise Threshold methods Fig 2

Origi
nal
Nor
mal
HS

Fig 3 Noisy Normal HS Fig 4 Soft ThresholdNormal HS

Fig 5 Hard Threshold Normal HS Fig 6 Garrote Threshold Normal HS

 Fig 7 New Threshold Normal HS Fig 8 Abnormal HS

Fig 9 Noisy Abnormal HS Fig 10 Soft threshold abnormal HS

Fig 11 Hard Threshold Abnormal HS Fig 12 Garrote Threshold Abnormal HS

Fig 13 New Threshold Abnormal HS

Average Hard Threshold Soft threshold Garrote Threshold New Threshold

SNR 13.3313 9.594 12.2569 13.8125
MSE 0.00018874 0.00058072 0.0002864 0.00014724
Table 1 Results of SNR and MSE after Normal Heart Sound Denoising

Average Hard Threshold Soft threshold Garrote Threshold New Threshold

SNR 20.8484 14.153 18.7712 21.4634
MSE 0.00038803 0.0021157 0.00068919 0.00033528
Table 2 Results of SNR and MSE after Abnormal Heart Sound Denoising