2,230 research outputs found
Exploiting Nonlinear Recurrence and Fractal Scaling Properties for Voice Disorder Detection
Background: Voice disorders affect patients profoundly, and acoustic tools can potentially measure voice function objectively. Disordered sustained vowels exhibit wide-ranging phenomena, from nearly periodic to highly complex, aperiodic vibrations, and increased "breathiness". Modelling and surrogate data studies have shown significant nonlinear and non-Gaussian random properties in these sounds. Nonetheless, existing tools are limited to analysing voices displaying near periodicity, and do not account for this inherent biophysical nonlinearity and non-Gaussian randomness, often using linear signal processing methods insensitive to these properties. They do not directly measure the two main biophysical symptoms of disorder: complex nonlinear aperiodicity, and turbulent, aeroacoustic, non-Gaussian randomness. Often these tools cannot be applied to more severe disordered voices, limiting their clinical usefulness.

Methods: This paper introduces two new tools to speech analysis: recurrence and fractal scaling, which overcome the range limitations of existing tools by addressing directly these two symptoms of disorder, together reproducing a "hoarseness" diagram. A simple bootstrapped classifier then uses these two features to distinguish normal from disordered voices.

Results: On a large database of subjects with a wide variety of voice disorders, these new techniques can distinguish normal from disordered cases, using quadratic discriminant analysis, to overall correct classification performance of 91.8% plus or minus 2.0%. The true positive classification performance is 95.4% plus or minus 3.2%, and the true negative performance is 91.5% plus or minus 2.3% (95% confidence). This is shown to outperform all combinations of the most popular classical tools.

Conclusions: Given the very large number of arbitrary parameters and computational complexity of existing techniques, these new techniques are far simpler and yet achieve clinically useful classification performance using only a basic classification technique. They do so by exploiting the inherent nonlinearity and turbulent randomness in disordered voice signals. They are widely applicable to the whole range of disordered voice phenomena by design. These new measures could therefore be used for a variety of practical clinical purposes.

Stability analysis and control of DC-DC converters using nonlinear methodologies
PhD ThesisSwitched mode DC-DC converters exhibit a variety of complex behaviours in power
electronics systems, such as sudden changes in operating region, bifurcation and
chaotic operation. These unexpected random-like behaviours lead the converter to
function outside of the normal periodic operation, increasing the potential to generate
electromagnetic interference degrading conversion efficiency and in the worst-case
scenario a loss of control leading to catastrophic failure.
The rapidly growing market for switched mode power DC-DC converters demands
more functionality at lower cost. In order to achieve this, DC-DC converters must
operate reliably at all load conditions including boundary conditions. Over the last
decade researchers have focused on these boundary conditions as well as nonlinear
phenomena in power switching converters, leading to different theoretical and
analytical approaches. However, the most interesting results are based on abstract
mathematical forms, which cannot be directly applied to the design of practical
systems for industrial applications.
In this thesis, an analytic methodology for DC-DC converters is used to fully
determine the inherent nonlinear dynamics. System stability can be indicated by the
derived Monodromy matrix which includes comprehensive information concerning
converter parameters and the control loop. This methodology can be applied in
further stability analysis, such as of the influence of parasitic parameters or the effect
of constant power load, and can furthermore be extended to interleaved operating
converters to study the interaction effect of switching operations. From this analysis,
advanced control algorithms are also developed to guarantee the satisfactory
performance of the converter, avoiding nonlinear behaviours such as fast- and slowscale
bifurcations. The numerical and analytical results validate the theoretical
analysis, and experimental results with an interleaved boost converter verify the
effectiveness of the proposed approach.Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council (EPSRC), China Scholarship Council (CSC), and school of
Electrical and Electronic Engineerin
Fractional dynamical model for the generation of ECG like signals from filtered coupled Van-der Pol oscillators
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.In this paper, an incommensurate fractional order (FO) model has been proposed to generate ECG like waveforms. Earlier investigation of ECG like waveform generation is based on two identical Van-der Pol (VdP) family of oscillators, which are coupled by time delays and gains. In this paper, we suitably modify the three state equations corresponding to the nonlinear cross-product of states, time delay coupling of the two oscillators and low-pass filtering, using the concept of fractional derivatives. Our results show that a wide variety of ECG like waveforms can be simulated from the proposed generalized models, characterizing heart conditions under different physiological conditions. Such generalization of the modelling of ECG waveforms may be useful to understand the physiological process behind ECG signal generation in normal and abnormal heart conditions. Along with the proposed FO models, an optimization based approach is also presented to estimate the VdP oscillator parameters for representing a realistic ECG like signal.The work presented in this paper was supported by the E.U. ARTEMIS Joint Undertaking under the Cyclic and Person-Centric Health Management: Integrated appRoach for hOme, mobile and clinical eNvironments – (CHIRON) Project, Grant Agreement # 2009-1-100228
Polynomial Curve Slope Compensation for Peak-Current-Mode-Controlled Power Converters
Linear ramp slope compensation (LRC) and quadratic slope compensation (QSC) are commonly implemented in peak-current-mode-controlled dc-dc converters in order to minimize subharmonic and chaotic oscillations. Both compensating schemes rely on the linearized state-space averaged model (LSSA) of the converter. The LSSA ignores the impact that switching actions have on the stability of converters. In order to include switching events, the nonlinear analysis method based on the Monodromy matrix was introduced to describe a complete-cycle stability. Analyses on analog-controlled dc-dc converters applying this method show that system stability is strongly dependent on the change of the derivative of the slope at the time of switching instant. However, in a mixed-signal-controlled system, the digitalization effect contributes differently to system stability. This paper shows a full complete-cycle stability analysis using this nonlinear analysis method, which is applied to a mixed-signal-controlled converter. Through this analysis, a generalized equation is derived that reveals for the first time the real boundary stability limits for LRC and QSC. Furthermore, this generalized equation allows the design of a new compensating scheme, which is able to increase system stability. The proposed scheme is called polynomial curve slope compensation (PCSC) and it is demonstrated that PCSC increases the stable margin by 30% compared to LRC and 20% to QSC. This outcome is proved experimentally by using an interleaved dc-dc converter that is built for this work
Entropy in Dynamic Systems
In order to measure and quantify the complex behavior of real-world systems, either novel mathematical approaches or modifications of classical ones are required to precisely predict, monitor, and control complicated chaotic and stochastic processes. Though the term of entropy comes from Greek and emphasizes its analogy to energy, today, it has wandered to different branches of pure and applied sciences and is understood in a rather rough way, with emphasis placed on the transition from regular to chaotic states, stochastic and deterministic disorder, and uniform and non-uniform distribution or decay of diversity. This collection of papers addresses the notion of entropy in a very broad sense. The presented manuscripts follow from different branches of mathematical/physical sciences, natural/social sciences, and engineering-oriented sciences with emphasis placed on the complexity of dynamical systems. Topics like timing chaos and spatiotemporal chaos, bifurcation, synchronization and anti-synchronization, stability, lumped mass and continuous mechanical systems modeling, novel nonlinear phenomena, and resonances are discussed
Dissipative Kerr solitons in optical microresonators
This chapter describes the discovery and stable generation of temporal
dissipative Kerr solitons in continuous-wave (CW) laser driven optical
microresonators. The experimental signatures as well as the temporal and
spectral characteristics of this class of bright solitons are discussed.
Moreover, analytical and numerical descriptions are presented that do not only
reproduce qualitative features but can also be used to accurately model and
predict the characteristics of experimental systems. Particular emphasis lies
on temporal dissipative Kerr solitons with regard to optical frequency comb
generation where they are of particular importance. Here, one example is
spectral broadening and self-referencing enabled by the ultra-short pulsed
nature of the solitons. Another example is dissipative Kerr soliton formation
in integrated on-chip microresonators where the emission of a dispersive wave
allows for the direct generation of unprecedentedly broadband and coherent
soliton spectra with smooth spectral envelope.Comment: To appear in "Nonlinear optical cavity dynamics", ed. Ph. Grel
Memristor models for machine learning
In the quest for alternatives to traditional CMOS, it is being suggested that
digital computing efficiency and power can be improved by matching the
precision to the application. Many applications do not need the high precision
that is being used today. In particular, large gains in area- and power
efficiency could be achieved by dedicated analog realizations of approximate
computing engines. In this work, we explore the use of memristor networks for
analog approximate computation, based on a machine learning framework called
reservoir computing. Most experimental investigations on the dynamics of
memristors focus on their nonvolatile behavior. Hence, the volatility that is
present in the developed technologies is usually unwanted and it is not
included in simulation models. In contrast, in reservoir computing, volatility
is not only desirable but necessary. Therefore, in this work, we propose two
different ways to incorporate it into memristor simulation models. The first is
an extension of Strukov's model and the second is an equivalent Wiener model
approximation. We analyze and compare the dynamical properties of these models
and discuss their implications for the memory and the nonlinear processing
capacity of memristor networks. Our results indicate that device variability,
increasingly causing problems in traditional computer design, is an asset in
the context of reservoir computing. We conclude that, although both models
could lead to useful memristor based reservoir computing systems, their
computational performance will differ. Therefore, experimental modeling
research is required for the development of accurate volatile memristor models.Comment: 4 figures, no tables. Submitted to neural computatio
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