Linear response of partially ionized, dense plasmas

We propose a new formalism to electronic polarizability of dense, partially ionized plasmas. This formalism is based upon the density functional theory for the electronic equilibrium, the random phase approximation for the density response of electrons, and the cluster expansion in the averaging over ionic configurations. The first term in the final cluster expansion for the imaginary part of electron polarizability corresponds to the Lindhard dielectric function formula. The second term contains the electronic states of the average atom. The additional effects that result from this theory are: channel mixing (screening), "inverse Bremstrahlung” corrections, and free-bound electronic transitions. Our approach allows the plasma (collective) and atomic physics phenomena to be treated in the frame of one formalism. The theory can be applied for stopping power and opacity calculation

Sequential blind source separation based exclusively on second-order statistics developed for a class of periodic signals

A sequential algorithm for the blind separation of a class of periodic source signals is introduced in this paper. The algorithm is based only on second-order statistical information and exploits the assumption that the source signals have distinct periods. Separation is performed by sequentially converging to a solution which in effect diagonalizes the output covariance matrix constructed at a lag corresponding to the fundamental period of the source we select, the one with the smallest period. Simulation results for synthetic signals and real electrocardiogram recordings show that the proposed algorithm has the ability to restore statistical independence, and its performance is comparable to that of the equivariant adaptive source separation (EASI) algorithm, a benchmark high-order statistics-based sequential algorithm with similar computational complexity. The proposed algorithm is also shown to mitigate the limitation that the EASI algorithm can separate at most one Gaussian distributed source. Furthermore, the steady-state performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with that of EASI and the block-based second-order blind identification (SOBI) method

Comparison between the Torquato-Rintoul theory of the interface effect in composite media and elementary results

We show that the interface effect on the properties of composite media recently proposed by Torquato and Rintoul (TR) [Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 4067 (1995)] is in fact elementary, and follows directly from taking the limit in the dipolar polarizability of a coated sphere: the TR ``critical values'' are simply those that make the dipolar polarizability vanish. Furthermore, the new bounds developed by TR either coincide with the Clausius-Mossotti (CM) relation or provide poor estimates. Finally, we show that the new bounds of TR do not agree particularly well with the original experimental data that they quote.Comment: 13 pages, Revtex, 8 Postscript figure

Speech Denoising Using Non-Negative Matrix Factorization with Kullback-Leibler Divergence and Sparseness Constraints

Proceedings of: IberSPEECH 2012 Conference, Madrid, Spain, November 21-23, 2012.A speech denoising method based on Non-Negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) is presented in this paper. With respect to previous related works, this paper makes two contributions. First, our method does not assume a priori knowledge about the nature of the noise. Second, it combines the use of the Kullback-Leibler divergence with sparseness constraints on the activation matrix, improving the performance of similar techniques that minimize the Euclidean distance and/or do not consider any sparsification. We evaluate the proposed method for both, speech enhancement and automatic speech recognitions tasks, and compare it to conventional spectral subtraction, showing improvements in speech quality and recognition accuracy, respectively, for different noisy conditions.This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Government grants TSI-020110-2009-103 and TEC2011-26807.Publicad

Neural networks for real-time estimation of parameters of signals in power systems

The purpose of this paper is to present new algorithms and along with them new architectures of analogue neuron-like adaptive processors for online estimation of parameters of sinusoidal signals, which are distorted by higher harmonics and corrupted by noise. For steady-state conditions we have developed neural networks which enable us to estimate the amplitudes and the frequency of the fundamental component of signals. When estimating the basic waveform of currents during short circuits the exponential DC component distorts the results. Assuming the known frequency, we have developed adaptive neural networks which enable us to estimate the amplitudes of the basic components as well as the amplitudes and the time constant of a DC component. The problem of estimation of signal parameters is formulated as an unconstrained optimization problem and solved by using the gradient descent continuous-time method. Basing on this approach we have developed systems of nonlinear differential equations that can be implemented by analog adaptive neural networks. The solution of the optimization problem bases on some principles given by Tank and Hopfield [ 4 ] as well as by Kennedy and Chua. The developed networks contain elements which are similar to the adaptive threshold elements of the perceptron presented by Widrow

Adaptive Neural Networks for Robust Estimation of parameters of Noisy Harmonic Signals

In many applications, very fast methods are required for estimating and measurement of parameters of harmonic signals distorted by noise. This follows from the fact that signals have often time varying amplitudes. Most of the known digital algorithms are not fully parallel, so that the speed of processing is quite limited. In this paper we propose new parallel algorithms, which can be implemented by analogue adaptive circuits employing some neural network principles. The problem of estimation is formulated as an optimization problem and solved by using the gradient descent method. Algorithms based on the least-squares (LS), the total least-squares (TLS) and the robust TLS criteria are developed and compared. The networks process samples of observed noisy signals and give as a solution the desired parameters of signal components. Extensive computer simulations confirm the validity and performance of the proposed algorithm

Neural networks for real-time estimation of parameters of signals in power systems

Fast determination of parameters of the fundamental waveform of voltages and currents is essential for the control and protection of electrical power systems. Most of the known digital algorithms are not fully parallel, so that the speed of processing is quite limited. New parallel algorithms, which can be implemented by analogue adaptive circuits employing some neural networks principles, are proposed. The problem of estimation is formulated as an optimization problem and solved by using the gradient descent method. Algorithms based on the least absolute value, the minimax, the least-squares and the robust leastsquares criteria are developed and compared. The networks process samples of observed noisy signals (voltages or currents) and give as a solution the desired parameters of signal components. Extensive computer simulations confirm the validity and performance of the proposed algorithms and neural network realizations. The proposed methods seem to be particularly useful for real-time, high-speed estimation of parameters of sinusoidal signals in electrical power systems

EEG filtering based on blind source separation (BSS) for early detection of Alzheimer's disease

Objective: Development of an EEG preprocessing technique for improvement of detection of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The technique is based on filtering of EEG data using blind source separation (BSS) and projection of components which are possibly sensitive to cortical neuronal impairment found in early stages of AD. Method: Artifact-free 20 s intervals of raw resting EEG recordings from 22 patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) who later proceeded to AD and 38 age-matched normal controls were decomposed into spatio-temporally decorrelated components using BSS algorithm ‘AMUSE’. Filtered EEG was obtained by back projection of components with the highest linear predictability. Relative power of filtered data in delta, theta, alpha1, alpha2, beta1, and beta 2 bands were processed with Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). Results: Preprocessing improved the percentage of correctly classified patients and controls computed with jack-knifing cross-validation from 59 to 73% and from 76 to 84%, correspondingly. Conclusions: The proposed approach can significantly improve the sensitivity and specificity of EEG based diagnosis. Significance: Filtering based on BSS can improve the performance of the existing EEG approaches to early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. It may also have potential for improvement of EEG classification in other clinical areas or fundamental research. The developed method is quite general and flexible, allowing for various extensions and improvements. q 2004 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. on behalf of International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology

Least Dependent Component Analysis Based on Mutual Information

We propose to use precise estimators of mutual information (MI) to find least dependent components in a linearly mixed signal. On the one hand this seems to lead to better blind source separation than with any other presently available algorithm. On the other hand it has the advantage, compared to other implementations of `independent' component analysis (ICA) some of which are based on crude approximations for MI, that the numerical values of the MI can be used for: (i) estimating residual dependencies between the output components; (ii) estimating the reliability of the output, by comparing the pairwise MIs with those of re-mixed components; (iii) clustering the output according to the residual interdependencies. For the MI estimator we use a recently proposed k-nearest neighbor based algorithm. For time sequences we combine this with delay embedding, in order to take into account non-trivial time correlations. After several tests with artificial data, we apply the resulting MILCA (Mutual Information based Least dependent Component Analysis) algorithm to a real-world dataset, the ECG of a pregnant woman. The software implementation of the MILCA algorithm is freely available at http://www.fz-juelich.de/nic/cs/softwareComment: 18 pages, 20 figures, Phys. Rev. E (in press