Journal Staff

In this contribution we describe some of the basic new features of MathWork's System Identification toolbox, version 4.0, which was released in May 1995. The main addition is a graphical user interface (GUI), which allows the user to perform identification, data and model analysis, as well as model validation by less click and mouseless operations. The ideas behind the GUI are explained and its relative merits compared to command driven operations are discussed

Right to Hearing in License Renewal Proceeding When Allegation is the Subject of Concurrent Rule-Making Proceeding

An overview of central model quality results is given. The focus is on the variance of transfer functions. We look in particular into two questions: (1) Can the variance be smaller than that obtained by direct prediction error/output error? and (2) Can closed loop experiments give estimates with lower variance than open loop ones? The answer to both questions is yes

Regularized system identification using orthonormal basis functions

Most of existing results on regularized system identification focus on regularized impulse response estimation. Since the impulse response model is a special case of orthonormal basis functions, it is interesting to consider if it is possible to tackle the regularized system identification using more compact orthonormal basis functions. In this paper, we explore two possibilities. First, we construct reproducing kernel Hilbert space of impulse responses by orthonormal basis functions and then use the induced reproducing kernel for the regularized impulse response estimation. Second, we extend the regularization method from impulse response estimation to the more general orthonormal basis functions estimation. For both cases, the poles of the basis functions are treated as hyperparameters and estimated by empirical Bayes method. Then we further show that the former is a special case of the latter, and more specifically, the former is equivalent to ridge regression of the coefficients of the orthonormal basis functions.Comment: 6 pages, final submission of an contribution for European Control Conference 2015, uploaded on March 20, 201

Professor Scheppele’s Middle Way: On Minimizing Normativity and Economics in Securities Law

Direct prediction error identification of systems operating in closed loop may lead to biased results due to the correlation between the input and the output noise. The authors study this error, what factors affect it, and how it may be avoided. In particular, the role of the noise model is discussed and the authors show how the noise model should be parameterized to avoid the bias. Apart from giving important insights into the properties of the direct method, this provides a nonstandard motivation for the indirect method

Contracting Nonlinear Observers: Convex Optimization and Learning from Data

A new approach to design of nonlinear observers (state estimators) is proposed. The main idea is to (i) construct a convex set of dynamical systems which are contracting observers for a particular system, and (ii) optimize over this set for one which minimizes a bound on state-estimation error on a simulated noisy data set. We construct convex sets of continuous-time and discrete-time observers, as well as contracting sampled-data observers for continuous-time systems. Convex bounds for learning are constructed using Lagrangian relaxation. The utility of the proposed methods are verified using numerical simulation.Comment: conference submissio

The Political Subdivision Exception of the National Labor Relations Act and the Board‘s Discretionary Authority

Modern modeling tools often give descriptor or DAE models, i.e., models consisting of a mixture of differential and algebraic relationships. The introduction of stochastic signals into such models in connection with filtering problems raises several questions of well-posedness. The main problem is that the system equations may contain hidden relationships affecting variables defined as white noise. The result might be that certain physical variables get infinite variance or contain formal differentiations of white noise. The paper gives conditions for well-posedness in terms of certain subspaces defined by the system matrices

Discussion

In this contribution aspects of inter-sample input signal behavior are examined. The starting point is that parametric identication always is performed on basis of discrete-time data. This is valid for identication of discrete-time models as well as continuous-time models. The usual assumptions on the input signal are; i) it is band-limited, ii) it is piecewise constant or iii) it is piecewise linear. One point made in this paper is that if a discrete-time model is used, the best possible (in the model structure) adjustment to data is made. This is independent of the assumption on the input signal. However, a transformation of the obtained discrete model to a continuous one is not possible without additional assumptions on the input signal. The other point made is that the frequency functions of the discrete models very well coincides with the frequency functions of the discretized continuous time models and the continuous time transfer function fitted in the frequency domain

Foreword

In this paper, we show that the consistency of closed-loop subspace identification methods (SIMs) can be achieved through innovation estimation. Based on this analysis, a sufficient condition for the consistency of a new proposed closed-loop SIM is given, A consistent estimate of the Kalman gain under closed-loop conditions is also provided based on the algorithm. A multi-input-multi-output simulation shows that itis consistent under closed-loop conditions, when traditional SIMs fail to provide consistent estimates

The Nonprofit Hospital Exemption of the National Labor Relations Act: Application to the University-Operated Hospital in Duke University

This work extends our recent work on proving that the particle filter converge for unbounded function to a more general case. More specifically, we prove that the particle filter converge for unbounded functions in the sense of L p-convergence, for an arbitrary p greater than 1. Related to this, we also provide proofs for the case when the function we are estimating is bounded. In the process of deriving the main result we also established a new Rosenthal type inequality

Bayesian topology identification of linear dynamic networks

In networks of dynamic systems, one challenge is to identify the interconnection structure on the basis of measured signals. Inspired by a Bayesian approach in [1], in this paper, we explore a Bayesian model selection method for identifying the connectivity of networks of transfer functions, without the need to estimate the dynamics. The algorithm employs a Bayesian measure and a forward-backward search algorithm. To obtain the Bayesian measure, the impulse responses of network modules are modeled as Gaussian processes and the hyperparameters are estimated by marginal likelihood maximization using the expectation-maximization algorithm. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of this method