Signals and Systems Analysis In Biomedical Engineering, Second Edition

Book Preface

In this second edition of Signals and Systems Analysis in Biomedical Engineering, the author has preserved and updated Chapters 1 through 10, dealing with the powerful mathematical tools of linear systems analysis applied to physiological and biochemical systems. Chapter 7 deals with joint time-frequency (JTF) analysis of linear, time-variant (nonstationary) systems and emphasizes the utility of this method in the description and analysis of nonstationary biomedical signals. Chapter 8 is all about noise, how to describe it, and how it propagates through linear and nonlinear systems. Chapter 8 also describes signal averaging, the lock-in amplifier, and data “scrubbing,” and introduces the application of statistics to genomic systems. In Chapter 9, physiological systems (PSs) are considered as examples of nonstationary nonlinear systems, and analysis of PSs are reviewed by describing function analysis and Gaussian noise-based techniques.

In Chapter 11, an all-new chapter, nonlinear biochemical systems, mass action equations for chemical kinetics, and parametric regulation of biochemical systems are introduced. The phase plane is presented as a means of describing the dynamics of nonlinear biochemical systems, including chemical oscillators. Transport lags are shown to be destabilizing in both linear and nonlinear, negative- and positive-feedback systems. Several important models for biochemical oscillators (BCOs) are presented as well as models for the synchronization of large groups of cellular BCOs. This chapter includes the following topics: general properties of nonlinear systems, parametric regulation in nonlinear biological systems, approaches to nonlinear analysis, the phase plane, as well as chaos, stability, and limit cycles in nonlinear biological systems.

Because many biochemical, physiological, and ecological systems are complex, I have written a new Chapter 12 to introduce the reader to the analysis and modeling strategies for complex systems. This chapter includes various topics relating to complex systems.

In addition to the 12 chapters described above, this text has extensive appendices: Simnon® Programs Used in Chapters 11 and 12 (Appendix A), How to Use Root Locus to Determine the Stability of SISO Linear Systems (Appendix B), Signal Flow Graphs and Mason’s Rule (Appendix C), and Computational Tools for Biomedical Signal Processing and Systems Analysis (Appendix D). There is also an extensive Glossary, which includes a list of widely used acronyms in biochemical, physiological, and genomic systems, as well as important, defined terms in the same areas. These are supplemented by a robust listing of sources (both bound and Internet) in the References as well as a detailed Index.

To extract maximum information from this text, the reader should have had college courses in algebra, calculus, and introductory differential equations, as well as basic courses in physics and chemistry. Background courses in engineering systems analysis, biochemistry, and introductory cell biology (or equivalent) are also important.