title: Invariant heart beat span versus variant heart beat intervals and its application to fetal ECG extraction.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The fundamental assumptions for various kinds of fetal electrocardiogram (fECG) extraction methods are not consistent with each other, which is a very important problem needed to be ascertained.
  
  
  METHODS
  Based on two public databases, the regularity on ECG wave durations for normal sinus rhythm is investigated statistically. Taking the ascertained regularity as an assumption, a new fECG extraction algorithm is proposed, called Partial R-R interval Resampling (PRR).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Both synthetic and real abdominal ECG signals are used to test the algorithm. The results indicate that the PRR algorithm has better performance over the whole R-R interval resampling based comb filtering method (RR) and linear template method (LP), which takes advantages of both LP and RR.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The final drawn conclusion is: (1) the proposition should be true that the individual's heart beat span is invariable for normal sinus rhythm; (2) the proposed PRR fetal ECG extraction algorithm can estimate the maternal ECG (mECG) more accurately and stably even in the condition of large HRV, finally resulting in better fetal ECG extraction.
authors.forename: Huawen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Xianlin Campus, Nanjing 210023, China. njhxliu@nju.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Hongxing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Xiaolin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Junfeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Si
authors.forename: Tiebing
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004562:Electrocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005323:Fetal Monitoring / Q000379:methods; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology*; D006339:Heart Rate; D006340:Heart Rate, Fetal; D006801:Humans; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D011247:Pregnancy; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted