The human ECG - nonlinear deterministic versus stochastic aspects

We discuss aspects of randomness and of determinism in electrocardiographic signals. In particular, we take a critical look at attempts to apply methods of nonlinear time series analysis derived from the theory of deterministic dynamical systems. We will argue that deterministic chaos is not a likely explanation for the short time variablity of the inter-beat interval times, except for certain pathologies. Conversely, densely sampled full ECG recordings possess properties typical of deterministic signals. In the latter case, methods of deterministic nonlinear time series analysis can yield new insights.Comment: 6 pages, 9 PS figure

Nonlinear projective filtering I: Background in chaos theory

We derive a locally projective noise reduction scheme for nonlinear time series using concepts from deterministic dynamical systems, or chaos theory. We will demonstrate its effectiveness with an example with known deterministic dynamics and discuss methods for the verification of the results in the case of an unknown deterministic system.Comment: 4 pages, PS figures, needs nolta.st

Nonlinear time-series analysis revisited

In 1980 and 1981, two pioneering papers laid the foundation for what became known as nonlinear time-series analysis: the analysis of observed data---typically univariate---via dynamical systems theory. Based on the concept of state-space reconstruction, this set of methods allows us to compute characteristic quantities such as Lyapunov exponents and fractal dimensions, to predict the future course of the time series, and even to reconstruct the equations of motion in some cases. In practice, however, there are a number of issues that restrict the power of this approach: whether the signal accurately and thoroughly samples the dynamics, for instance, and whether it contains noise. Moreover, the numerical algorithms that we use to instantiate these ideas are not perfect; they involve approximations, scale parameters, and finite-precision arithmetic, among other things. Even so, nonlinear time-series analysis has been used to great advantage on thousands of real and synthetic data sets from a wide variety of systems ranging from roulette wheels to lasers to the human heart. Even in cases where the data do not meet the mathematical or algorithmic requirements to assure full topological conjugacy, the results of nonlinear time-series analysis can be helpful in understanding, characterizing, and predicting dynamical systems

Nonlinear projective filtering I: Application to real time series

We discuss applications of nonlinear filtering of time series by locally linear phase space projections. Noise can be reduced whenever the error due to the manifold approximation is smaller than the noise in the system. Examples include the real time extraction of the fetal electrocardiogram from abdominal recordings.Comment: 4 pages, PS figures, needs nolta.st

Differential Landauer's principle

Landauer's principle states that the erasure of information must be a dissipative process. In this paper, we carefully analyze the recording and erasure of information on a physical memory. On the one hand, we show that in order to record some information, the memory has to be driven out of equilibrium. On the other hand, we derive a differential version of Landauer's principle: We link the rate at which entropy is produced at every time of the erasure process to the rate at which information is erased.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Recurrence time analysis, long-term correlations, and extreme events

The recurrence times between extreme events have been the central point of statistical analyses in many different areas of science. Simultaneously, the Poincar\'e recurrence time has been extensively used to characterize nonlinear dynamical systems. We compare the main properties of these statistical methods pointing out their consequences for the recurrence analysis performed in time series. In particular, we analyze the dependence of the mean recurrence time and of the recurrence time statistics on the probability density function, on the interval whereto the recurrences are observed, and on the temporal correlations of time series. In the case of long-term correlations, we verify the validity of the stretched exponential distribution, which is uniquely defined by the exponent $\gamma$, at the same time showing that it is restricted to the class of linear long-term correlated processes. Simple transformations are able to modify the correlations of time series leading to stretched exponentials recurrence time statistics with different $\gamma$, which shows a lack of invariance under the change of observables.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Continuous-time random walk theory of superslow diffusion

Superslow diffusion, i.e., the long-time diffusion of particles whose mean-square displacement (variance) grows slower than any power of time, is studied in the framework of the decoupled continuous-time random walk model. We show that this behavior of the variance occurs when the complementary cumulative distribution function of waiting times is asymptotically described by a slowly varying function. In this case, we derive a general representation of the laws of superslow diffusion for both biased and unbiased versions of the model and, to illustrate the obtained results, consider two particular classes of waiting-time distributions.Comment: 4 page