Effect of Importance Sampling on Robust Segmentation of Audio-cough events in Noisy Environments

Jesús Monge-Álvarez, Carlos Hoyos-Barcelo, Javier Escudero, Paul Lesso, Keshav Dahal, Pablo Casaseca-de-la-Higuera

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

This paper proposes a new cough detection system based on audio signals acquired from conventional smartphones. The system relies on local Hu moments to characterize cough events and a k-NN classifier to distinguish cough events from non-cough ones (speech, laugh, sneeze, etc.) and noisy sounds. To deal with the unbalance between classes, we employ Distinct-Borderline2 Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique and a bespoke cost matrix. The system additionally features a post-processing module to avoid isolated false negatives and, this way, increases sensitivity. Evaluation has been carried out using a database comprising a variety of cough and non-cough events and different types of background noise. In this study, we specifically focused on noise likely to appear when the user is carrying the smartphone in daily activities. Different Signal to Noise Ratio values were tested ranging between -15 and 0 dB. Our experiments confirm that local Hu moments are suitable not only for characterizing cough events but also for coping with noisy environments. Results show a sensitivity of 94.17% and a specificity of 92.16% at -15 dB. Thus, our system shows potential as a reliable and place-ubiquitous monitoring device that helps patients self-manage their own respiratory diseases and avoids unreported or fabricated symptoms.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 38th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
Pages3740-3744
Number of pages5
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-4577-0220-4/16
Publication statusPublished - 18 Aug 2016
Event38th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society - Florida, Orlando, United States
Duration: 16 Aug 201620 Aug 2016
https://embc.embs.org/2016/

Conference

Conference38th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
Abbreviated titleEMBC 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityOrlando
Period16/08/1620/08/16
Internet address

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