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IOP PUBLISHING MEASUREMENT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Meas. Sci. Technol. 24 (2013) 065004 (9pp) doi:10.1088/0957-0233/24/6/065004

A multiscale products technique for

denoising of DNA capillary
electrophoresis signals
Qingwei Gao, Yixiang Lu, Dong Sun and Dexiang Zhang
School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, People’s Republic of
China
E-mail: qingweigao@ahu.edu.cn

Received 15 November 2012, in final form 5 April 2013

Published 14 May 2013
Online at stacks.iop.org/MST/24/065004

Abstract
Since noise degrades the accuracy and precision of DNA capillary electrophoresis (CE)
analysis, signal denoising is thus important to facilitate the postprocessing of CE data. In this
paper, a new denoising algorithm based on dyadic wavelet transform using multiscale products
is applied for the removal of the noise in the DNA CE signal. The adjacent scale wavelet
coefficients are first multiplied to amplify the significant features of the CE signal while
diluting noise. Then, noise is suppressed by applying a multiscale threshold to the multiscale
products instead of directly to the wavelet coefficients. Finally, the noise-free CE signal is
recovered from the thresholded coefficients by using inverse dyadic wavelet transform. We
compare the performance of the proposed algorithm with other denoising methods applied to
the synthetic CE and real CE signals. Experimental results show that the new scheme achieves
better removal of noise while preserving the shape of peaks corresponding to the analytes in
the sample.
Keywords: capillary electrophoresis, signal denoising, multiscale products, dyadic wavelet
transform

1. Introduction various shapes are typical non-stationary signals. Thus, these

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) [1, 2] is a well-developed
technology and is widely used in chemistry and biomedical
application. Due to high sensitivity, small injection volumes
and reduced consumption of solvent and samples, CE is also
used for sequencing and separation of high-throughput DNA
[3]. However, CE signals are often corrupted by random noise
resulting from the variation of instrument and the physical–
chemical processes of separation. Therefore, it is important to
suppress the noise for further application of this technology.
Many filtering or denoising algorithms, such as Savitzky–
Golay (SG) [4] and low-pass filtering based on Fourier
transform (FT) [5], have been proposed in the past few
years. Because they are simple and easy to implement, these
traditional denoising techniques are commonly used for signal
denoising, and a satisfactory result usually can be achieved by
using them for stationary signals. The CE signals which span
wide ranges in both time and frequency and contain peaks of
filters do not work well for the processing of CE signals.
The difficulty in CE signal denoising lies in the fact that the
frequency band of noise overlaps with the frequency band
of peaks belonging to the underlying signal. When the CE
signals are denoised by using these filters, either the peaks
tend to be flattened out or a portion of noise is not removed.
This is because these traditional filters deal with the CE signals
only in a single domain, namely spatial domain or frequency
domain. In order to improve the performance of noise removal,
time-windowed FT, which is also called short-time FT (STFT)
[6], was introduced to the field of CE signal analysis. Due to
the use of the fixed window in STFT, the denoised results still
exhibit some limitations.
Recently, wavelet transform (WT) has been proposed in
many scientific fields [7, 8]. As a new technique, wavelets
employ a more flexible window which is particularly useful
for processing of non-stationary signals to analyze the signal.
For the application of signal denoising, WT directly utilizes the

0957-0233/13/065004+09$33.00 1 © 2013 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK & the USA
Meas. Sci. Technol. 24 (2013) 065004
soft or hard threshold to remove noise [9, 10]. It has been shown
in [7] that the wavelet thresholding algorithms can provide a
better reduction of noise as compared with traditional filters.
However, because the peaks of CE signals are very sharp and
their frequencies are very high, the peaks and noise cannot be
distinguished efficiently through the application of a general
threshold. Moreover, these wavelet-based denoising methods
fail to take into account the spatial dependence of wavelet
coefficients, and thus the obtained results usually exhibit visual
artifacts and pseudo-Gibbs phenomena in the neighborhood of
the discontinuities.
In this paper, we propose a CE signal denoising algorithm
based on the combination of dyadic WT [11] and multiscale
products [12], which can achieve both noise reduction
and peak preservation. The products of the adjacent scale
subbands, which represent the interscale dependences, amplify
the significant features of underlying signal while dilute
noise. Consequently, we apply an appropriate multiscale
product threshold to distinguish the signal from noise directly.
Moreover, a new threshold incorporating the signal-to-noise
ratio (SNR) is also designed in this work.
2. Dyadic wavelet transform and multiscale products
2.1. Dyadic wavelet transform
The WT can be designed as a multiscale edge detector to
enhance the signal’s instantaneous features by choosing an
appropriate smoothing function and a wavelet function [13].
If a differentiable function θ (x) meets the conditions that its
integral is equal to 1 and it converges to 0 at infinity, we call
θ (x) a smoothing function. We define ψ (x) as the first-order
derivative of θ (x):
dθ (x)
ψ (x) = . (1)
dx
 +∞the function ψ (x) can be considered as a
It is apparent that
wavelet due to −∞ ψ (x)dx = 0.
If we denote ψs (x) the dilation of the wavelet ψ (x) by
a scaling factor s, ψs (x) = 1s ψ ( xs ), the WT of a 1D signal
f (x) ∈ L2 (R) at scale s and position x can be defined as
Ws f (x) = f (x) ∗ ψs (x). (2)
Substituting (1) into (2) and using the differential property of
convolution, Ws f (x) can be written as
 
dθs (x) d everywhere. The following theorem proved by Meyer [16]
Ws f (x) = f (x) ∗ s = s ( f (x) ∗ θs (x)). (3)
dx dx
It can be seen that the WT Ws f (x) is the first derivative of the
signal f (x) smoothed by θ (x) at the scale s. In particular, when
θ (x) is a Gaussian function, the local extremum detection of
Ws f (x) is equivalent to the well-known Canny edge detection.
For the sake of fast numerical implementations, a discrete
WT is obtained from a continuous WT by discretizing
dilation and translation parameters such that the resulting
set of wavelets constitutes a frame. The dilation parameter
is typically discretized by exponential sampling with a fixed
dilation step and the translation parameter by integer multiples
of a dilation-dependent step. Unfortunately, the resulting
transform is variant under translations, a property which makes
2
Q Gao et al
it less attractive for the analysis of non-stationary signals. In
order to analyze the CE signal, we employ the dyadic WT
proposed by Mallat and Zhong [13] to decompose the signal.
By sampling the translation parameter with the same
sampling period as the input function to the discrete WT, the
dyadic WT of the function f (x) can be expressed as a sequence
of functions:
{W2 j f (x)} j∈Z , (4)
−j −j
where W2 j f (x) = f (x) ∗ ψ2 j (x), and ψ2 j (x) = 2 ψ (2 x)
is the dilation of the wavelet ψ (x) by a scaling factor 2 j . The
function f (x) can also be reconstructed from its dyadic WT
with the summation
+∞

f (x) = W2 j f (x) ∗ χ2 j (x), (5)
j=−∞
where χ (x) is any reconstructing wavelet whose FT satisfies
[13]
+∞

ψ̂ (2 j ω)χ̂ (2 j ω) = 1, (6)
j=−∞
where ψ̂ and χ̂ denote the FTs of ψ and χ , respectively.
The discrete version of the dyadic WT and the
corresponding filter banks are discussed in detail in [13];
here, we only illustrate the discrete decomposition and
reconstruction algorithms of the 1D dyadic WT in figure 1.
2.2. Multiscale products
The spatial correlation was carried out by calculating the
multiscale wavelet products in [14, 15]. This, multiplying
the adjacent scale wavelet coefficients, is intended to
enhance multiscale peaks resulting from discontinuities while
suppressing noise. The products of adjacent–decomposition
subbands present very interesting properties. Signal and
noise have totally different behavior in the wavelet domain.
According to [13], this behavior is often measured with the
mathematical concept of Lipschitz regularity. For example,
the Lipschitz regularity of a step function in the neighborhood
of discontinuity is 0. If a function is smoother than a step,
then it has positive Lipschitz regularity. Otherwise, it will
have negative Lipschitz regularity. The Lipschitz regularity
of the delta function is −1, and white Gaussian noise has
a Lipschitz regularity of −1/2 because it is almost singular
shows the relation between the Lipschitz regularity and the
WT.
Theorem 1. A function f (x) is uniformly Lipschitz α over
[a, b], if and only if there exists a constant K > 0 such that for
all x ∈ [a, b], the WT satisfies
|W2 j f (x)|  K(2 j )α . (7)
The above theorem implies that if the uniform Lipschitz
regularity α of a signal is positive, then the amplitudes of
the WT should increase with increasing scale. In contrast,
the corresponding WT magnitudes should decrease with
increasing scale. As mentioned above, the signal and noise
Meas. Sci. Technol. 24 (2013) 065004
Figure 1. The discrete decomposition and reconstruction algorithms of 1D dyadic WT (two levels shown). Where ∗ is a conjugation operator.
have opposite Lipschitz regularity. Thus, the multiplication
of the DWT coefficients at adjacent scales can lead to the
enhancement of edge structures while weakening noise. In
this paper, the multiscale products are defined as

k2
Pj f (x) = W j+i f (x), (8)
i=k1
where k1 and k2 are non-negative integers.
It is sufficient to implement the multiplication at two
adjacent scales in practice [17], so if we let k1 = 0 and k1 = 1,
then the multiscale products are
Pj f (x) = W j f (x) · W j+1 f (x), (9)
where j is the scale.
3. Threshold estimation and denoising algorithm
3.1. Threshold estimation
In the wavelet-based threshold denoising scheme, an
appropriate threshold should be estimated to distinguish the
signal from noise. However, finding a good threshold is
not an easy task. The commonly used thresholds such as
universal threshold, Sure threshold and SureShrink threshold
are obviously not suitable for our denoising scheme. On
one hand, the signal of DNA CE is very complicated due
to sophisticated DNA sequencing and the DNA separation
process. Consequently, peaks in the CE signal are very dense,
and there are many discontinuities. These threshold schemes
fail to accurately estimate the noise level and establish a
threshold. On the other hand, these thresholds are originally
designed for the single-scale wavelet coefficients and not for
the products of the adjacent scales. To achieve the purpose of
noise removal, we propose a new threshold to suppress the
noise of the CE signal on the basis of the studies of Bao and
Zhang [12, 17] in this paper.
To establish the multiscale products threshold, a noise
level denoted by σ j for each subband is first estimated.
According to the preceding discussion, we know that σ =
Median(|d(x)|)/0.6745, d(x) ∈ H1 involved in the universal
threshold is inaccurate for the CE signal. To compute σ j , the
model of the signal is assumed as
f = g + ε, (10)
where f , g and ε are the observed CE signal, the noise-free CE
signal and the noise with Gaussian distribution, respectively.
Since the noise ε is independent of the noise-free CE signal
3
Q Gao et al
g, it can be derived that σ f2 = σg2 + σ 2 . We divide the finest
scale coefficients W of the dyadic WT into two parts: the first
part Wa consists of points |W (·)| > σ f , and thesecond part
 of points |W (·)|  σ . Let σW = E[Wa ] and
Wb consists a 2
σWb = E[Wb2 ]. Generally, the noise energy is concentrated
on Wb and σWb can be considered as an approximation of the
noise standard deviation σ ; then the standard deviation of the
noise-free CE signal is estimated as [17]

σ̂g =
2
σWa − 2.9σWb .
2
(11)
Obviously, σ̂g will be equal to zero if W is generated totally by
noise. Contrarily, σ̂g will be greater if the signal contains more
details in Wa . In this case, σ̂g can be seen as an approximated
estimation of σg. Finally, the noise standard deviation can be
estimated as

2
σ̂ j = ψ j  σ f / 1 + σ̂g/σWb , (12)

where ψ j  = ψ 2j (x)dx.
Since the dyadic WT is a linear transform, after its
operation, formula (10) becomes W j f = W j g + W j ε. Let
Pj g = W j g·W j+1 g and Pj ε = W j ε·W j+1 ε denote the multiscale
products of the noise-free signal and the noise at j scale,
respectively; then we have by means of Pj ε and Pj g [17]
μ j ε = ρ j+1, j σ j σ j+1 (13)
μ j g = E[Pj f ] − E[Pj ε] = μ j f − μ j ε, (14)
where
ρ j+1, j = ψ j (x) · ψ j+1 (x) dx/ ψ 2j (x) dx · ψ 2j+1 (x)) dx
is the correlation coefficient of W j ε and W j+1 ε.
We set the multiscale product threshold as
t j p = c · σ j σ j+1 (1 + μ j ε/μ j g), (15)
where c is any positive constant obtained after some trial run.
In our experiments, c ≈ 15 yields the best results. The ratio
μ j ε/μ j g in (15) can be used to adjust the threshold t j p applied
to the multiscale products Pj f . For example, when the noise
is much stronger compared with the signal at fine scales, the
value of the ratio of μ j ε/μ j g is higher too. Thus, the threshold
t j p will be large enough to suppress the noise. Contrarily, the
threshold t j p will be at an appropriate level to remove the
corresponding noise while preserving signal structures.
Meas. Sci. Technol. 24 (2013) 065004
3.2. Summary of denoising algorithm
In the CE denoising algorithm, we apply the threshold t j p to
the multiscale products Pj f (x) instead of directly to the dyadic
wavelet coefficients of the signal. The proposed algorithm is
summarized as follows.
(i) Apply the dyadic WT to the noisy CE signal f (x) up to J
scale.
(ii) Multiply the adjacent scale coefficients to obtain the
multiscale products Pj f (x) = W j f (x) · W j+1 f (x), j =
1, 2, . . . , J.
(iii) Compute the threshold t j p using (15) and apply it to
Pj f (x) to identify the Ŵ j f (x) by
W j f (x), Pj f (x)  t j p
Ŵ j f (x) = , j = 1, 2, . . . , J −1.
0, Pj f (x) < t j p
(16)
As for the coefficients of the last scale, we adopt the
following thresholding strategy to remove the noise, that
is,
√ the shapes of peaks must be well preserved in the process of
WJ f (x), WJ f (x)  σJ√ 2 ln N
ŴJ f (x) = (17)
0, WJ f (x) < σJ 2 ln N,
where N is the length of the input signal.
(iv) Recover the signal from the thresholded wavelet
coefficients Ŵ j f (x) and ŴJ f (x) obtained in step (iii).
4. Experimental details
4.1. Simulated signal
Proper signal denoising requires knowledge of the nature of
noise occurring in the data. Overlooking the nature of the
noise will lead to an inappropriate processing of the signal.
The nature of noise in the wavelet domain has been studied by
Mittermayr et al. In this work, a simulated signal was produced
by adding white noise with Gaussian distribution to a pure CE
signal.
4.2. Experimental signal
The real CE signals were acquired by separating the DNA
samples with CE techniques. The experimental procedure,
equipment and detection apparatus are the same as used in
[9]. But the analytes and corresponding specific experimental
conditions are different from those in [9]. For the first real
signal, the specific conditions are as follows: (1) the quasi-
IPN is 2.5%; (2) the effective length and diameter of capillary
are 40 cm and 75 μm, respectively; (3) the injection is at
75 V cm−1 for 8 s; (4) the electric field strength is 150 V cm−1 ;
(5) the temperature is 45 ◦ C. And the specific conditions of the
second real signal are as follows: (1) the quasi-IPN is 2.5%;
(2) the effective length and diameter of capillary are 40 cm
and 75 μm, respectively; (3) the injection is at 75 V cm−1
for 8 s; (4) the electric field strength is 200 V cm−1 ; (5) the
temperature is 60 ◦ C.
4
Q Gao et al
5. Results and discussion
We investigate the performances of the proposed algorithm
by comparing the results obtained by our approach with
the SG method and Bayesian thresholding method based on
the stationary WT which is used in [9]. For convenience,
we referred to these two methods as SG and SWT-Bayes,
respectively.
5.1. Simulated CE examples
CE signals are non-stationary and are characterized by sharp
peaks with different areas and heights (i.e. shapes). The
peaks carry very important information (e.g. what analytes
are present and the corresponding concentrations) related to
the analytes in the analyzed samples. Noise blurs the base of a
peak making it difficult to locate where it starts and ends and
therefore where to measure the area, and affects the amplitude
of the maximum point, making it hard to determine the
height. For further application of the CE signal, such as peak
detection, peak resolution, peak extraction and quantification,
noise reduction. In the simulation test, we are interested in
performing experiments on the DNA CE signal with different
peaks to obtain results. If the proposed algorithm outperforms
other mentioned methods, we could claim to be general
enough. Figure 2(a) illustrates a pure (noiseless) CE signal.
It is created by using the apparatus described in [9] to separate
DNA, but with the following special treatments: (1) the process
was operated by an experienced technician under an ‘ideal’
condition which is determined empirically; (2) the data were
obtained at a sampling rate of 5 points s−1 ; (3) the obtained data
were preprocessed artificially using the MATLAB toolbox. To
obtain the noisy signal, we added synthetic noise to the pure
CE signal. In our experiment, we considered five different
noise levels, with SNR = 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30, respectively.
In the proposed denoising method, the MZ wavelet
constructed by Mallat and Zhong [13] was used to decompose
the signal and the decomposition level was 4. This wavelet
is a quadratic spline that approximates the first derivative of
Gaussian. Thus, the dyadic WT behaves like a Canny edge
detector. The Haar wavelet was used in the experiment of
SWT-Bayes, and its decomposition level was also 4. In the
case of SG denoising, the degree of the polynomial function
was set to 2 and the moving window size was set to 7.
To assess the performance of these denoising approaches,
we computed the SNR and the root-mean-square error (RMSE)
to evaluate the quality of noise suppression. The SNR is defined
as
 N  N 
 
SNRdB = 10 log10 2
si (ŝi − si ) ,
2
(18)
i=1 i=1
where s is the original signal, ŝ is the denoised signal and N is
the length of the signal. The RMSE can be defined as
N
i=1 (ŝi − si )
2
RMSE = . (19)
N
Meas. Sci. Technol. 24 (2013) 065004 Q Gao et al

25

2
(a)
1
20

15

Amplitude
10

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000
Time

25 25

(b) (c)
20 20

15 15
Amplitude

Amplitude

10 10

5 5

0 0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000
Time Time

25 25

(d) (e)
20 20

15 15
Amplitude

Amplitude

10 10

5 5

0 0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000
Time Time

Figure 2. Denoising of the simulated CE signal (SNR= 15). (a) Pure CE signal. (b) Noisy CE signal. (c) Denoised CE signal using SG.
(d) Denoised CE signal using SWT-Bayes. (e) Denoised CE signal using the proposed method.

The relation between formulas (18) and (19) shows that the
smaller the value of RMSE, the larger the value of SNR, and
the better the denoising performance.
In addition to the above evaluation measures, we also used
a parameter, the ratio of the reconstructed signal peak height
to the pure signal peak height (η), to evaluate the performance
of peak preservation. It is defined as [18]
Iˆ
η= ,
I
where Iˆ and I are the peak heights of the denoised signal and
the pure signal, respectively. Obviously, η is a simple strategy
for the evaluation of the peak preservation of the algorithms.
As an optimal filter, the value of η should be infinitely close
to 1. Otherwise, the signal will be distorted after denoising.
In our experiment, we chose two representative peaks marked
with numbers to compute the values of η.
The values of RMSE, SNR and η obtained by applying
(20) all the methods to the noisy signal are listed in table 1. It
can be seen from table 1 that the proposed method provides

5
Meas. Sci. Technol. 24 (2013) 065004 Q Gao et al
10000

9000
(a)

8000

7000

Amplitude
6000

5000

4000

3000

2000

0 500 1000 1500 2000

Time

10000 400

9000
(b) 300
(e)

8000 200

7000 100
Amplitude

Amplitude
6000 0

5000 −100

4000 −200

3000 −300

2000 −400

0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000

Time Time

10000 400

9000
(c) 300
(f)

8000 200

7000 100
Amplitude

Amplitude

6000 0

5000 −100

4000 −200

3000 −300

2000 −400

0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000

Time Time
10000 400

9000
(d) 300
(g)

8000 200

7000 100
Amplitude

Amplitude

6000 0

5000 −100

4000 −200

3000 −300

2000 −400

0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000

Time Time

Figure 3. Denoising of the real CE signal at the temperature of 45 ◦ C. (a) Real CE signal. (b) Denoised CE signal using SG. (c) Denoised
CE signal using SWT-Bayes. (d) Denoised CE signal using the proposed methods. (e) The difference between the real signal and denoised
signal using SG. ( f ) The difference between the real signal and denoised signal using SWT-Bayes. (g) The difference between the real
signal and denoised signal using the proposed method.

6
Meas. Sci. Technol. 24 (2013) 065004 Q Gao et al

5000

(a)
4500

4000

Amplitude
3500

3000

2500

2000
0 500 1000 1500 2000
Time

5000 400
(e)
(b) 300
4500
200

4000 100
Amplitude

Amplitude
0
3500

−100

3000
−200

2500 −300

−400
2000
0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000
Time Time
5000 400
(f)
(c) 300
4500
200

4000 100
Amplitude

Amplitude

0
3500

−100

3000
−200

2500 −300

−400
2000
0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000
Time Time
5000 400
(g)
(d) 300
4500
200

4000 100
Amplitude
Amplitude

0
3500

−100

3000
−200

2500 −300

−400
2000
0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000
Time Time

Figure 4. Denoising of the real CE signal at the temperature of 60 ◦ C. (a) Real CE signal. (b) Denoised CE signal using SG. (c) Denoised
CE signal using SWT-Bayes. (d) Denoised CE signal using the proposed method. (e) The difference between the real signal and denoised
signal using SG. ( f ) The difference between the real signal and denoised signal using SWT-Bayes. (g) The difference between the real
signal and denoised signal using the proposed method.

7
Meas. Sci. Technol. 24 (2013) 065004 Q Gao et al

Table 1. The values of RMSE, SNR, η1 and η1 obtained by different proposed method demonstrates that noise on the CE signal
denoising methods applied to the pure CE signal with different noise is removed without distorting the peak shapes, and that the
levels.
characteristics of the pure CE signal are recovered perfectly.
Noise level Method RMSE SNR η1 η2 This seems to be consistent with the values of RMSE, SNR
SG 0.61 22.69 1.014 0.957 and η measures.
SNR = 5 SWT-Bayes 0.47 24.98 1.013 0.974
Proposed 0.46 25.14 1.002 0.989
5.2. Real CE examples
SG 0.57 23.28 1.034 0.975
SNR = 10 SWT-Bayes 0.41 25.85 1.031 1.000 Two real CE signals generated from separating DNA samples
Proposed 0.32 26.96 1.002 1.000
are shown in figures 3(a) and 4(a), respectively. To verify
SG 0.56 23.36 1.025 0.970 the validity of the proposed method for real CE signals, the
SNR = 15 SWT-Bayes 0.29 30.39 1.009 1.003
Proposed 0.23 31.06 0.992 1.001 wavelet, the moving window size and other settings are the
same as the preceding simulation experiment. Since noise-
SG 0.57 23.33 1.023 0.963
SNR = 20 SWT-Bayes 0.21 31.80 0.985 1.003 free signals are not available, the evaluation of the denoised
Proposed 0.22 31.76 0.989 1.000 results mainly depends on the visual comparison.
SG 0.51 23.37 1.022 0.964 The results obtained by the proposed method are
SNR = 30 SWT-Bayes 0.09 33.93 1.004 1.003 illustrated in figures 3(d) and 4(d), respectively. Form the
Proposed 0.12 33.16 0.997 0.999 figures, it can be seen that very good noise removal is
achieved for the two signals and that the shapes of peaks
and characteristics of the signal are preserved after denoising.
larger values of the SNR and smaller values of the RMSE
For the sake of comparison, the denoised results obtained by
in comparison to other methods in the case of strong noise
SWT-Bayes and SG are also shown in figures 3(b) and (c)
corruption. However, for weak noise, the SWT-Bayes filter
and 4(b) and (c). It can be observed clearly that less
is slightly superior to our proposed method. This is not
surprising; in the case of strong noise, peaks and noise effective performance of noise reduction is achieved by the
contribute the competitive detail coefficients and the estimate other two methods and a portion of noise still remains in
of threshold of SWT-Bayes slants small. Thus, a portion the reconstructed signals after filtering by SWT-Bayes and
of noise has not been removed in the denoised signal after SG methods. The shapes of peaks are slightly distorted
SWT-Bayes filtering. Conversely, for weak noise, the data- when the signals are processed by the SWT-Bayes method,
driven estimation accurately reflects the characteristics of especially for the overlapping peaks. To further evaluate the
the underlying signal, and thus achieved a slightly better performance of the proposed scheme, the error signals which
performance than the proposed algorithm. The values of η are the differences between the reconstructed signal and the
reported in table 1 also show that those obtained by our original signal are illustrated in figures 3(e)–(g) and 4(e)–(g),
proposed method are closer to 1 than those obtained by other respectively. It can be seen that the error signal obtained by the
methods at all noise level. It means that the peaks are well proposed method is more homogeneous than the others, and it
preserved in the process of noise removal. This is a benefit of indicates that only the noise is removed. It must be noticed that
the multiscale products distinguishing the underlying signal the error signal illustrated in figure 3( f ) demonstrates clearly
from noise well. Obviously, a similar denoising effect using the fact of insufficiency of noise removal.
wavelet thresholding and SG could not be achieved without
dramatic damage to the peaks. However, it should be noted
that the value of η1 belonging to the isolated peak as peak 1 is 6. Conclusion
quite different from the value η2 belonging to the overlapping
peak as peak 2 in the case of the SG method. This is because In this paper, a new method using multiscale products based
of the different contributions of the filter coefficients to the on the dyadic wavelet transform (WT) has been proposed to
estimated points. The values of η1 and η2 obtained by SWT- remove the noise of DNA CE signals. The performance of
Bayes are larger than 1 in most cases. This can be attributed the algorithm has been evaluated by performing experiments
to two aspects: one is that the small threshold results in a on both synthetic data and real DNA CE signals. According
portion of noise still remaining in the denoised signal; the to the obtained results, we found that our method is superior
other is the absence of incorporating the spatial dependence of to some of the existing methods in terms of RMSE, SNR
wavelet coefficients in the process of denoising operation and and η, especially in the case of strong noise corruption. The
some undesired artifacts are generated in the neighborhood of algorithm is more computationally demanding than the SG
discontinuities. and SWT-Bayes methods. This is mainly because of the use
For a visual comparison, a noisy signal with SNR = of multiplication of subband and the estimation of threshold.
15 and the corresponding denoised results are shown in Moreover, only the interscale dependence is considered in
figures 2(b) and (e), respectively. From figure 2(d), it can be this work; in fact, the dependence also exists in the intrascale
seen that a portion of noise is still remaining in the denoised subband. A more sophisticated approach is to consider the
signal and this corresponds to the values of η. Comparing interscale dependence on the denoising filter, and the related
with SWT-Bayes and SG, the denoised signal obtained by the work is being undertaken.

8
Meas. Sci. Technol. 24 (2013) 065004
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation (NNSF) of China (nos 51177002 and 61032007).
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