Blind Source Separation for the Aggregation of Machine Learning Algorithms: An Arrhythmia Classification Case

Abstract

In this work, we present an application of the blind source separation (BSS) algorithm to reduce false arrhythmia alarms and to improve the classification accuracy of artificial neural networks (ANNs). The research was focused on a new approach for model aggregation to deal with arrhythmia types that are difficult to predict. The data for analysis consisted of five-minute-long physiological signals (ECG, BP, and PLETH) registered for patients with cardiac arrhythmias. For each patient, the arrhythmia alarm occurred at the end of the signal. The data present a classification problem of whether the alarm is a true one—requiring attention or is false—should not have been generated. It was confirmed that BSS ANNs are able to detect four arrhythmias—asystole, ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation, and tachycardia—with higher classification accuracy than the benchmarking models, including the ANN, random forest, and recursive partitioning and regression trees. The overall challenge scores were between 63.2 and 90.7.