[Signal smoothing and differentiation with a single operator]

For the filtering and subsequent processing of of very noisy force curves obtained in studies of isolated heart muscles, an operator derived from the rules used in the construction of Bézier curves has been tested. The advantage of using the latter is that despite major changes in one sample as compared with another, the resulting curve changes only slightly. The derived operator permits either smoothing only or can be extended for both smoothing and differentiation simultaneously. With the filtering operation "smoothing and differentiation", even very noisy signals can be successfully processed. The operator is insensitive to signal interference and has advantages in terms of speed and complexity.