Articles

The accurate estimation of Individual Wave Components (IWC) is crucial for automated diagnosis of the human digestive system in a clinical setting. However, this process can be challenging due to signal contamination by other signal sources in the body, such as the lungs and heart, as well as environmental noise. To address this issue, various denoising techniques are commonly employed in bowel sound signal processing. While denoising is important, it can increase computational complexity, making it challenging for portable devices. Therefore, signal processing algorithms often require a trade-off between fidelity and computational complexity. This study aims to evaluate an IWC parameter extraction algorithm that was previously developed and reconstruct the IWC without denoising using synthetic and clinical data. To that end, the role of a reliable model in creating synthetic data is paramount. The rigorous testing of the algorithm is limited by the availability of quality and quantity recorded data. To overcome this challenge, a mathematical model has been proposed to generate synthetic bowel sound data that can be used to test new algorithms. The proposed algorithm’s robust performance is evaluated using both synthetic and clinically recorded data. We perform time-frequency analysis of original and reconstructed bowel sound signals in various digestive system states and characterize the performance using Monte Carlo simulation when denoising is not applied. Overall, our study presents a promising algorithm for accurate IWC estimation that can be useful for predicting anomalies in the digestive system.

<i>Musanga cecrepoides</i> is an interesting wood species due to its diverse utility ranging from medicine, shade, ornaments etc. Research has been conducted on other properties of this wood species with little information about its acoustic properties. Thus, the evaluation of its acoustic properties is pertinent so as to increase the information bank of its properties. This study assessed the acoustic properties of <i>Musanga cecrepoides</i> wood obtained from selected states and locations in the Niger Delta region of Nigerian viz a vis, Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta States. Test samples were collected from different stem positions axially (top, middle, base) and radially (inner and outer) and analyzed using the statistical software package IBM SPSS Statistics, Version 23 (IBM Corporation, New York, USA). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed at 5% level of significance to determine whether the assessed acoustic properties were significantly different among different stem positions. Results showed that sound frequency (f) at top wood (3061.71 Hz) and outer wood (3096.06 Hz) had significantly higher resonance frequency compared with the bottom wood (2768.01 Hz) and inner wood (2349.54 Hz) respectively. The mean sound velocity (v) at both the axial (2069.59 m/s) and radial (1905.96 m/s) stem positions fell short of the estimated mean v of other wood species when compared. However, such result is suitable for other acoustic purposes with moderate sound velocity. The sound radiation coefficient (R) values were highest at the bottom (4.18) axially and outer (4.13) radially when compared to other stem orientations of the wood. Whereas axially at the top (1561815.86 Kg/(m<SUP>2</SUP>s)) and radially at the outer position (1558292.53 Kg/(m<SUP>2</SUP>s) Sound Impedance (z) was highest when compared with other stem positions of the <i>Musanga cecrepoides</i> wood.