Can Computer Algebra be Liberated from its Algebraic Yoke ?

So far, the scope of computer algebra has been needlessly restricted to exact algebraic methods. Its possible extension to approximate analytical methods is discussed. The entangled roles of functional analysis and symbolic programming, especially the functional and transformational paradigms, are put forward. In the future, algebraic algorithms could constitute the core of extended symbolic manipulation systems including primitives for symbolic approximations.Comment: 8 pages, 2-column presentation, 2 figure

Validated exponential analysis for harmonic sounds

In audio spectral analysis, the Fourier method is popular because of its stability and its low computational complexity. It suffers however from a time-frequency resolution trade off and is not particularly suited for aperiodic signals such as exponentially decaying ones. To overcome their resolution limitation, additional techniques such as quadratic peak interpolation or peak picking, and instantaneous frequency computation from phase unwrapping are used. Parametric methods on the other hand, overcome the time frequency trade off but are more susceptible to noise and have a higher computational complexity. We propose a method to overcome these drawbacks: we set up regularized smaller sized independent problems and perform a cluster analysis on their combined output. The new approach validates the true physical terms in the exponential model, is robust in the presence of outliers in the data and is able to filter out any non-physical noise terms in the model. The method is illustrated in the removal of electrical humming in harmonic sounds

On the O(1) Solution of Multiple-Scattering Problems

In this paper, we present a multiple-scattering solver for nonconvex geometries such as those obtained as the union of a finite number of convex surfaces. For a prescribed error tolerance, this algorithm exhibits a fixed computational cost for arbitrarily high frequencies. At the core of the method is an extension of the method of stationary phase, together with the use of an ansatz for the unknown density in a combined-field boundary integral formulation