Section: Overall Objectives

Overall Objectives

GEOSTAT is a research project which investigates the analysis of some classes of natural complex signals (physiological time series, turbulent universe and earth observation data sets) by determining, in acquired signals, the properties that are predicted by commonly admitted or new physical models best fitting the phenomenon. Consequently, when statistical properties discovered in the signals do not match closely enough those predicted by accepted physical models, we question the validity of existing models or propose, whenever possible, modifications or extensions of existing models. We will give, in the sequel, a detailed example of this approach and methodology.

An important aspect of this methodological approach is that we don't rely on a predetermined "universal" signal processing model to analyze natural complex signals. Instead, we take into consideration existing approaches in nonlinear signal processing (wavelets, multifractal analysis tools such as log-cumulants or micro-canonical multifractal formalism, time frequency analysis etc.) which are used to determine the micro structures or other micro features inside the acquired signals. Then, statistical analysis of these micro data are determined and compared to expected behaviour from theoretical physical models used to describe the phenomenon from which the data is acquired. From there different possibilities can be contemplated:

• The statistics match behaviour predicted by the model: complexity parameters predicted by the model are extracted from signals to analyze the dynamics of underlying phenomena. Examples: analysis of turbulent data sets in Oceanography and Astronomy.

• The signals displays statistics that cannot be attainable by the common lore of accepted models: how to extend or modify the models according to the behaviour of observed signals ? Example: electrical activity of heart signal analysis (see infra).

GEOSTAT is a research project in nonlinear signal processing which develops on these considerations: it considers the signals as the realizations of complex extended dynamical systems. The driving approach is to describe the relations between complexity (or information content) and the geometric organization of information in a signal. For instance, for signals which are acquisitions of turbulent fluids, the organization of information may be related to the effective presence of a multiscale hierarchy of coherent structures, of multifractal nature, which is strongly related to intermittency and multiplicative cascade phenomena ; the determination of this geometric organization unlocks key nonlinear parameters and features associated to these signals; it helps understand their dynamical properties and their analysis. We use this approach to derive novel solution methods for super-resolution and data fusion in Universe Sciences acquisitions [12]. Another example can be found in signal analysis of the electrical activity of the heart, where we find the distribution of activation points in a signal during episodes of atrial fibrilation (with strengthening from feature selection and Bayesian learning see below). Specific advances are obtained in GEOSTAT in using this type of statistical/geometric approach to get validated dynamical information of signals acquired in Universe Sciences, e.g. Oceanography or Astronomy. The research in GEOSTAT encompasses nonlinear signal processing and the study of emergence in complex systems, with a strong emphasis on geometric approaches to complexity. Consequently, research in GEOSTAT is oriented towards the determination, in real signals, of quantities or phenomena, usually unattainable through linear methods, that are known to play an important role both in the evolution of dynamical systems whose acquisitions are the signals under study, and in the compact representations of the signals themselves.

Signals studied in GEOSTAT belong to two broad classes:

• Acquisitions in Astronomy and Earth Observation.

• Physiological time series.