Attempt to distinguish electric signals of a dichotomous nature

Three types of electric signals were analyzed: Ion current fluctuations in membrane channels (ICFMC), Seismic electric signals activities (SES), and “artificial” noises (AN). The wavelet transform, when applied to the conventional time domain, does not allow a classification of these signals, but does so in the “natural” time domain. A classification also becomes possible, if we study <χ^q>-<χ>^q versus q, where χ stands for the “natural” time. For q values approximately between 1 and 2 the signals are classified and ICFMC lies between the other two types. For q=1, the “entropy” S≡<χlnχ>-<χ>ln<χ> of ICFMC almost equals that of a “uniform” distribution, while the AN and SES have larger and smaller S values, respectively. The recent [P. Varotsos, N. Sarlis, and E. Skordas, Phys. Rev. E 67, 021109 (2003)] finding that, in short time scales, both SES and AN (which are shown to be non-Markovian) result in comparable detrended fluctuation analysis exponents α∈(1.0,1.5) is revisited. Even a Markovian dichotomous time series, in short time scales, leads to similar α exponents.