Inferring Information Across Scales in Acquired Complex Signals

Abstract

Transmission of information across the scales of a complex signal has some interesting potential, notably in the derivation of sub-pixel information, cross-scale inference and data fusion. It follows the structure of complex signals themselves, when they are considered as acquisitions of complex systems. In this work we contemplate the problem of cross-scale information inference through the determination of appropriate multiscale decomposition. Our goal is to derive a generic methodology that can be applied to propagate information across the scales in a wide variety of complex signals. Consequently, we first focus on the determination of appropriate multiscale characteristics, and we show that singularity exponents computed in microcanonical formulations are much better candidates for the characterization of transitions in complex signals: they outperform the classical “linear filtering” approach of the state-of-the-art edge detectors (for the case of 2D signals). This is a fundamental topic as edges are usually considered as important multiscale features in an image. The comparison is done within the formalism of reconstructible systems. Critical exponents, naturally associated to phase transitions and used in complex systems methods in the framework of criticality are key notions in Statistical Physics that can lead to the complete determination of the geometrical cascade properties in complex signals. We study optimal multiresolution analysis associated to critical exponents through the concept of “optimal wavelet”. We demonstrate the usefulness of multiresolution analysis associated to critical exponents in two decisive examples: the reconstruction of perturbated optical phase in Adaptive Optics (AO) and the generation of high resolution ocean dynamics from low resolution altimetry data.