3. My independent research ability
As a recognized gifted student, I was one of the first students in my year to be given the opportunity of taking part in actual research. In July 1996, I joined the research group for biomedical instrumentation and signal processing, led by Professor Cheng Jiajie, a noted Chinese term EEG signals. A joint project between Professor Cheng and the National Research Center for Engineering and Technology on Appliance for Medical Treatment and Health Care, the system was to consist of two sub-systems. One was for sampling and recording the EEG and other physiological signals, and the other was for reviewing and analyzing the signals. I was involved in the development of both.
I first built a double-T band-stop filter network for ultra-weak signals to serve as an essential part of the EEG hardware. As brain waves are extremely weak signals, only from tens to hundreds microvolt, the whole system, including the filter network, had to meet extremely stringent standards. I designed the circuit and its components meticulously. After painstaking efforts, I successfully set up the filter network.
After that, professor Cheng assigned me to perfect the clinical EEG software in recognition of my computer skills. In a Windows-based EEG review and analysis software system, I integrated various functions of automatic and manual data scrolling, annotation, grouping, montage, block marking, data discarding and transferring into diskette, filter design and filtering, compress spectrum array, brain electrical activity map, power spectrum estimation, twelve quantity
EEG analysis and statistics. This cleared away a major hassle for doctors working in the hospitals. The software system also adopts background data loading and re-sampling of data while displaying to speed up the scrolling process and reduce the doctors’ waiting time.
Through this project, I was solidly trained in independent research, much more so than most of my classmates.