9415283 Lander The objective of this proposal is to develop an optimal filtering methodology based on the concept of the A posteriori Wiener filter applied to a time frequency representation of a noisy signal, and to quantify the performance characteristics on high resolution electrocardiographic signals. Frequently, in the analysis of biological and other repetitive signals, it is necessary to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. Ensemble averaging is universally used to reduce noise for estimating these signals. A posteriori Wiener filters are a class of optimal filters which can be applied to any ensemble of deterministic, repetitive, noisy signals. They have the potential to improve very significantly upon the performance of ensemble averaging, with applications in many areas of signal processing. In practice, optimal filters have yet to realize their full potential with biological and other signals. This is due to their nonstationarity for which no adequate mathematical description exists. The work carried out as described is expected to produce fundamental knowledge in the field of biomedical signal processing, and has considerable intrinsic scientific merit beyond the specific application proposed for investigation. ***