Structure-Preserving Model Reduction of Physical Network Systems

This paper considers physical network systems where the energy storage is naturally associated to the nodes of the graph, while the edges of the graph correspond to static couplings. The first sections deal with the linear case, covering examples such as mass-damper and hydraulic systems, which have a structure that is similar to symmetric consensus dynamics. The last section is concerned with a specific class of nonlinear physical network systems; namely detailed-balanced chemical reaction networks governed by mass action kinetics. In both cases, linear and nonlinear, the structure of the dynamics is similar, and is based on a weighted Laplacian matrix, together with an energy function capturing the energy storage at the nodes. We discuss two methods for structure-preserving model reduction. The first one is clustering; aggregating the nodes of the underlying graph to obtain a reduced graph. The second approach is based on neglecting the energy storage at some of the nodes, and subsequently eliminating those nodes (called Kron reduction).</p

Modeling Systems from Measurements of their Frequency Response

The problem of modeling systems from frequency response measurements is of interest to many engineers. In electronics, we wish to construct a macromodel from tabulated impedance, admittance or scattering parameters to incorporate it into a circuit simulator for performing circuit analyses. Structural engineers employ frequency response functions to determine the natural frequencies and damping coefficients of the underlying structure. Subspace identification, popular among control engineers, and vector fitting, used by electronics engineers, are examples of algorithms developed for this problem. This thesis has three goals. 1. For multi-port devices, currently available algorithms arc expensive. This thesis therefore proposes an approach based on the Loewner matrix pencil constructed in the context of tangential interpolation with several possible implementations. They are fast, accurate, build low dimensional models, and are especially designed for a large number of terminals. For noise-free data, they identify the underlying system, rather than merely fitting the measurements. For noisy data, their performance is analyzed for different noise levels introduced in the measurements and an improved version, which identifies an approximation of the original system even for large noise values, is proposed. 2. This thesis addresses the problem of generating parametric models from measurements performed with respect to the frequency, but also with respect to one or more design parameters, which could relate to geometry or material properties. These models are suited for performing optimization over the design variables. The proposed approach generalizes the Loewner matrix to data depending on two variables. 3. This thesis analyzes the convergence properties of vector fitting, an iterative algorithm that relocates the poles of the model, given some "starting poles" chosen heuristically. It was recognized as a reformulation of the Sanathanan-Koerner iteration and several authors attempted to improve its convergence properties, but a thorough convergence analysis has been missing. Numerical examples show that for high signal to noise ratios, the iteration is convergent, while for low ones, it may diverge. Hence, incorporating a Newton step aims at making the iteration always convergent for "starting poles" chosen close to the solution. A connection between vector fitting and the Loewner framework is exhibited, which resolves the issue of choosing the starting poles

Several Problems Concerning Multivariate Functions and Associated Operators

This dissertation examines two distinct problems about multivariate functions and their associated operators. It first discusses the structure of Agler decompositions, which give useful ways to represent two-variable Schur functions on the bidisk using positive kernels. An elementary proof of the existence of Agler decompositions is provided, which uses special shift-invariant subspaces of the Hardy space. These shift-invariant subspaces are specific cases of Hilbert spaces that can be defined from Agler decompositions and their properties are analyzed. More specific results are obtained for certain classes of polynomials and rational inner functions. Secondly, this dissertation examines differentiation of matrix-valued functions. Specifically, multivariate, real-valued functions induce matrix-valued functions defined on the space of d-tuples of n x n pairwise-commuting self-adjoint matrices. The geometry of this space of matrix tuples is characterized, and it is shown that the best notion of differentiation of these matrix-valued functions is differentiation along curves. The main result states that real-valued m-times continuously differentiable functions induce matrix-valued functions that can be m-times continuously differentiated along m-times continuously differentiable curves

Scattering systems with several evolutions and formal reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces

A Schur-class function in $d$ variables is defined to be an analytic contractive-operator valued function on the unit polydisk. Such a function is said to be in the Schur--Agler class if it is contractive when evaluated on any commutative $d$-tuple of strict contractions on a Hilbert space. It is known that the Schur--Agler class is a strictly proper subclass of the Schur class if the number of variables $d$ is more than two. The Schur--Agler class is also characterized as those functions arising as the transfer function of a certain type (Givone--Roesser) of conservative multidimensional linear system. Previous work of the authors identified the Schur--Agler class as those Schur-class functions which arise as the scattering matrix for a certain type of (not necessarily minimal) Lax--Phillips multievolution scattering system having some additional geometric structure. The present paper links this additional geometric scattering structure directly with a known reproducing-kernel characterization of the Schur--Agler class. We use extensively the technique of formal reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces that was previously introduced by the authors and that allows us to manipulate formal power series in several commuting variables and their inverses (e.g., Fourier series of elements of $L^2$ on a torus) in the same way as one manipulates analytic functions in the usual setting of reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces

The Analytic Theory of Matrix Orthogonal Polynomials

We give a survey of the analytic theory of matrix orthogonal polynomials.Comment: 85 page

Putting Chinese natural knowledge to work in an eighteenth-century Swiss canton: the case of Dr Laurent Garcin

Symposium: S048 - Putting Chinese natural knowledge to work in the long eighteenth centuryThis paper takes as a case study the experience of the eighteenth-century Swiss physician, Laurent Garcin (1683-1752), with Chinese medical and pharmacological knowledge. A Neuchâtel bourgeois of Huguenot origin, who studied in Leiden with Hermann Boerhaave, Garcin spent nine years (1720-1729) in South and Southeast Asia as a surgeon in the service of the Dutch East India Company. Upon his return to Neuchâtel in 1739 he became primus inter pares in the small local community of physician-botanists, introducing them to the artificial sexual system of classification. He practiced medicine, incorporating treatments acquired during his travels. taught botany, collected rare plants for major botanical gardens, and contributed to the Journal Helvetique on a range of topics; he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, where two of his papers were read in translation and published in the Philosophical Transactions; one of these concerned the mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), leading Linnaeus to name the genus Garcinia after Garcin. He was likewise consulted as an expert on the East Indies, exotic flora, and medicines, and contributed to important publications on these topics. During his time with the Dutch East India Company Garcin encountered Chinese medical practitioners whose work he evaluated favourably as being on a par with that of the Brahmin physicians, whom he particularly esteemed. Yet Garcin never went to China, basing his entire experience of Chinese medical practice on what he witnessed in the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia (the ‘East Indies’). This case demonstrates that there were myriad routes to Europeans developing an understanding of Chinese natural knowledge; the Chinese diaspora also afforded a valuable opportunity for comparisons of its knowledge and practice with other non-European bodies of medical and natural (e.g. pharmacological) knowledge.postprin