Reliability-Evidence Fusion for Selective Heart-Rate Estimation from Wearable PPG: A Transformation-Aware Cross-Cohort Study

Hang Thi Phuong Nguyen, Hieyong Jeong

Summary

Frames PPG HR reliability as fusion of reliability evidence around a fixed HR estimate: signal-quality scores, learned heteroscedastic scale, and structured-output dispersion are fused to rank windows for retain/abstain without changing the estimate. Proves weak oracle dominance and decomposes AURC gain. Shows that for reciprocal pulse-interval→HR conversion the scale ratio is (ĥ/h)², which can cause operating-range-dependent ranking reversal — the propagated model-scale channel reversed ordering at a reference HR split of 110 bpm.