By now, as far as I can judge, a paradoxical situation has emerged in the field of sound reproduction. Though there are amplifiers and acoustic systems with very good characteristics and even with moderate prices, there is a considerable number of the consumers not satisfied with the result. All the users can be provisionally split into four groups.
Let us consider the death of a person, determined by the effect of marginotomy, as a timely catastrophe; and the sudden death or disability as premature. It is obvious that, using such criteria, the diagnostic value of telemedicine becomes non-zero only in case of the prevention of a premature catastrophe.
Modern low-speed speech codecs provide the satisfactory quality of signal transmission up to the speed of about 600 bps. High speech quality is obtained at the speed of more than 1200 bps, speeds of 200 and less are practically not used, because the intelligibility rapidly falls after the values of about 300 bps.
For the lidar signal detection in a radar warning receiver (RWR) very simple design solutions like a single-limit comparator after the input amplifier are often used. Further processing is conducted with the help of the built-in processor, which uses only the values of time intervals between pulses for the analysis. It is clear that such an approach to the detection problem solving has multiple disadvantages. For example, the comparator output signal has passed a non-linear and irreversible transformation and the pulse amplitude information is lost irreversibly.
Currently, our obviously underestimated estimates, by means of "Telecard" they give not less than 100 000 telemedicine consultations per year in Russia and Ukraine. Even if we assume that only one of hundreds transmitted electrocardiograms is really vital, and the probability of a correct decision on the provision of emergency assistance is 1/2, then not less than five hundred people a year do not give up the ghost or become disabled as a result of a timely remote diagnosis. Naturally, loss of the state decreases also - according to official data, about 15,000 USD per one person - a total of 15000х500=7.5 million cabbage annually.
In spite of the fact that some people, having read glossy ads of various firms, think that there are no problems in ECG recording, severe practice of post-soviet (and other as well) medical institutions reveal, sometimes-somewhere, the trends. Especially during Holter examinations. And they considerably hamper the medical analysis. What concerns radio monitoring systems and bedside monitors, the trend for them is especially unpleasant, as the analysis is real-time by definition. All the more the operator reacts to what he sees on the screen here and now. And when the curves are spread all over the screen or, even worse, have reached its boundaries, the situation becomes disgusting indeed.
