Speech Communication

Contains research objectives and summary of research on six research projects and reports on three research projects.National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 RO1 NS04332-13)National Institutes of Health (Fellowship 1 F22 MH5825-01)National Institutes of Health (Grant 1 T32 NS07040-01)National Institutes of Health (Fellowship 1 F22 NS007960)National Institutes of Health (Fellowship 1 F22 HD019120)National Institutes of Health (Fellowship 1 F22 HD01919-01)U. S. Army (Contract DAAB03-75-C-0489)National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 RO1 NS04332-12

The Vimos VLT Deep Survey: Global properties of 20000 galaxies in the I_AB<=22.5 WIDE survey

The VVDS-Wide survey has been designed with the general aim of tracing the large-scale distribution of galaxies at z~1 on comoving scales reaching ~100Mpc/h, while providing a good control of cosmic variance over areas as large as a few square degrees. This is achieved by measuring redshifts with VIMOS at the ESO VLT to a limiting magnitude I_AB=22.5, targeting four independent fields with size up to 4 sq.deg. each. The whole survey covers 8.6 sq.deg., here we present the general properties of the current redshift sample. This includes 32734 spectra in the four regions (19977 galaxies, 304 type I AGNs, and 9913 stars), covering a total area of 6.1 sq.deg, with a sampling rate of 22 to 24%. The redshift success rate is above 90% independently of magnitude. It is the currently largest area coverage among redshift surveys reaching z~1. We give the mean N(z) distribution averaged over 6.1 sq.deg. Comparing galaxy densities from the four fields shows that in a redshift bin Deltaz=0.1 at z~1 one still has factor-of-two variations over areas as large as ~0.25 sq.deg. This level of cosmic variance agrees with that obtained by integrating the galaxy two-point correlation function estimated from the F22 field alone, and is also in fairly good statistical agreement with that predicted by the Millennium mocks. The variance estimated over the survey fields shows explicitly how clustering results from deep surveys of even ~1 sq.deg. size should be interpreted with caution. This paper accompanies the public release of the first 18143 redshifts of the VVDS-Wide survey from the 4 sq.deg. contiguous area of the F22 field at RA=22h, publicly available at http://cencosw.oamp.frComment: Accepted for publication on Astronomy & Astrophysic

Voltage stabilization in DC microgrids: an approach based on line-independent plug-and-play controllers

We consider the problem of stabilizing voltages in DC microGrids (mGs) given by the interconnection of Distributed Generation Units (DGUs), power lines and loads. We propose a decentralized control architecture where the primary controller of each DGU can be designed in a Plug-and-Play (PnP) fashion, allowing the seamless addition of new DGUs. Differently from several other approaches to primary control, local design is independent of the parameters of power lines. Moreover, differently from the PnP control scheme in [1], the plug-in of a DGU does not require to update controllers of neighboring DGUs. Local control design is cast into a Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) problem that, if unfeasible, allows one to deny plug-in requests that might be dangerous for mG stability. The proof of closed-loop stability of voltages exploits structured Lyapunov functions, the LaSalle invariance theorem and properties of graph Laplacians. Theoretical results are backed up by simulations in PSCAD

Higher Order Derivatives in Costa's Entropy Power Inequality

Let $X$ be an arbitrary continuous random variable and $Z$ be an independent Gaussian random variable with zero mean and unit variance. For $t~>~0$, Costa proved that $e^{2h(X+\sqrt{t}Z)}$ is concave in $t$, where the proof hinged on the first and second order derivatives of $h(X+\sqrt{t}Z)$. Specifically, these two derivatives are signed, i.e., $\frac{\partial}{\partial t}h(X+\sqrt{t}Z) \geq 0$ and $\frac{\partial^2}{\partial t^2}h(X+\sqrt{t}Z) \leq 0$. In this paper, we show that the third order derivative of $h(X+\sqrt{t}Z)$ is nonnegative, which implies that the Fisher information $J(X+\sqrt{t}Z)$ is convex in $t$. We further show that the fourth order derivative of $h(X+\sqrt{t}Z)$ is nonpositive. Following the first four derivatives, we make two conjectures on $h(X+\sqrt{t}Z)$: the first is that $\frac{\partial^n}{\partial t^n} h(X+\sqrt{t}Z)$ is nonnegative in $t$ if $n$ is odd, and nonpositive otherwise; the second is that $\log J(X+\sqrt{t}Z)$ is convex in $t$. The first conjecture can be rephrased in the context of completely monotone functions: $J(X+\sqrt{t}Z)$ is completely monotone in $t$. The history of the first conjecture may date back to a problem in mathematical physics studied by McKean in 1966. Apart from these results, we provide a geometrical interpretation to the covariance-preserving transformation and study the concavity of $h(\sqrt{t}X+\sqrt{1-t}Z)$, revealing its connection with Costa's EPI.Comment: Second version submitted. https://sites.google.com/site/chengfancuhk