This paper addresses the noise estimation in the digital domain and proposes a noise estimator based on the step signal model. It is efficient for any distribution of noise because it does not rely only on the smallest amplitudes in the signal or image. The proposed approach uses polarized/directional derivatives and a nonlinear combination of these derivatives to estimate the noise distribution (e.g., Gaussian, Poisson, speckle, etc.). The moments of this measured distribution can be computed and are also calculated theoretically on the basis of noise distribution models. The 1D performances are detailed, and as this paper is mostly dedicated to image processing, a 2D extension is proposed. The 2D performances for several noise distributions and noise models are presented and are compared with selected other methods.

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The most prominent type of artifact contaminating electroencephalogram (EEG) signals is the eye blink (EB) artifact. Hence, EB artifact detection is one of the most crucial preprocessing step in EEG signal processing before this artifact can be removed. In this work, an approach that identifies EB artifacts without human supervision and automated varying threshold setting is proposed and evaluated. The algorithm functions on the basis of correlation between two EEG electrodes, Fp1 and Fp2, followed by EB artifact threshold determination utilizing the amplitude displacement from the mean. The proposed approach is validated and evaluated in terms of accuracy and error rate in detecting events of EB artifacts in EEG signals. Analysis has revealed that the proposed approach achieved an average of 96.6% accuracy compared to a conventional method of identifying EB artifacts with a fixed constant threshold.