Asymptotic spectral theory for nonlinear time series

We consider asymptotic problems in spectral analysis of stationary causal processes. Limiting distributions of periodograms and smoothed periodogram spectral density estimates are obtained and applications to the spectral domain bootstrap are given. Instead of the commonly used strong mixing conditions, in our asymptotic spectral theory we impose conditions only involving (conditional) moments, which are easily verifiable for a variety of nonlinear time series.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/009053606000001479 the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Fast spatially-resolved electrical modelling and quantitative characterisation of photovoltaic devices

An efficient and flexible modelling and simulation toolset for solving spatially-resolved models of photovoltaic (PV) devices is developed, and its application towards a quantitative description of localised electrical behaviour is given. A method for the extraction of local electrical device parameters is developed as a complementary approach to the conventional characterisation techniques based on lumped models to meet the emerging demands of quantitative spatially-resolved characterisation in the PV community. It allows better understanding of the effects of inhomogeneities on performance of PV devices. The simulation tool is named PV-Oriented Nodal Analysis (PVONA). This is achieved by integrating a specifically designed sparse data structure and a graphics processing unit (GPU)-based parallel conjugate gradient algorithm into a PV-oriented numerical solver. It allows more efficient high-resolution spatially-resolved modelling and simulations of PV devices than conventional approaches based on SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis) tools in terms of computation time and memory usage. In tests, mega-sub-cell level test cases failed in the latest LTSpice version (v4.22) and a PSpice version (v16.6) on desktop PCs with mainstream hardware due to a memory shortage. PVONA efficiently managed to solve the models. Moreover, it required up to only 5% of the time comparing the two SPICE counterparts. This allows the investigation of inhomogeneities and fault mechanisms in PV devices with high resolution on common computing platforms. The PVONA-based spatially-resolved modelling and simulation is used in various purposes. As an example, it is utilised to evaluate the impacts of nonuniform illumination profiles in a concentrator PV unit. A joint optical and electrical modelling framework is presented. Simulation results suggest that uncertainties introduced during the manufacturing and assembly of the optical components can significantly affect the performance of the system in terms of local voltage and current distribution and global current-voltage characteristics. Significant series resistance and shunt resistance effects are found to be caused by non-uniformity irradiance profiles and design parameters of PV cells. The potential of utilising PVONA as a quality assessment tool for system design is discussed. To achieve quantitative characterisation, the PVONA toolset is then used for developing a 2-D iterative method for the extraction of local electrical parameters of spatially-resolved models of thin-film devices. The method employs PVONA to implement 2-D fitting to reproduce the lateral variations in electroluminescence (EL) images, and to match the dark current-voltage characteristic simultaneously to compensate the calibration factor in EL characterisations. It managed to separate the lateral resistance from the overall series resistance effects. The method is verified by simulations. Experimental results show that pixellation of EL images can be achieved. Effects of local shunts are accurately reproduced by a fitting algorithm. The outcomes of this thesis provide valuable tools that can be used as a complementary means of performance evaluation of PV devices. After proper optimisation, these tools can be used to assist various analysis tasks during the whole lifecycle of PV products

System combination with extra alignment information

This paper provides the system description of the IHMM team of Dublin City University for our participation in the system combination task in the Second Workshop on Applying Machine Learning Techniques to Optimise the Division of Labour in Hybrid MT (ML4HMT-12). Our work is based on a confusion network-based approach to system combination. We propose a new method to build a confusion network for this: (1) incorporate extra alignment information extracted from given meta data, treating them as sure alignments, into the results from IHMM, and (2) decode together with this information. We also heuristically set one of the system outputs as the default backbone. Our results show that this backbone, which is the RBMT system output, achieves an 0.11% improvement in BLEU over the backbone chosen by TER, while the extra information we added in the decoding part does not improve the results

A Scalable, FPGA-Based Implementation of the Unscented Kalman Filter

Autonomous aerospace systems may well soon become ubiquitous pending an increase in autonomous capability. Greater autonomous capability means there is a need for high-performance state estimation. However, the desire to reduce costs through simplified development processes and compact form factors can limit performance. A hardware-based approach, such as using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), is common when high performance is required, but hardware approaches tend to have a more complicated development process when compared to traditional software approaches; greater development complexity, in turn, results in higher costs. Leveraging the advantages of both hardware-based and software-based approaches, a hardware/software (HW/SW) codesign of the unscented Kalman filter (UKF), based on an FPGA, is presented. The UKF is split into an application-specific part, implemented in software to simplify the development process, and a non-application-specific part, implemented in hardware as a parameterisable ‘black box’ module (i.e. IP core) to increase performance. Simulation results demonstrating a possible nanosatellite application of the design are presented; implementation (synthesis, timing, power) details are also presented

Development of European Small and Medium Sized Enterprises for Reference in China

The small and medium sized enterprises which are predominantly economic superior in the European small countries mainly produce, process, import and export advanced technical products with high added value and scientific content. They facilitate the development of the economy through technical creation, which is also benefited from the highly efficient economy system established cooperatively by government, bank, and non-government organizations. The experience in Europe provides instructive reference for the development of middle and small sized enterprises in China. Key words: small and medium sized enterprises; economy with high efficiency; reference Résumé: Le nombre des PME occupe une place prépondérante dans l’économie européenne. La plupart d’entre elles se spécialisent dans la production, dans la transformation et dans l'importation et l'exportation des produits de haute valeur ajoutée, ou de haute technologie. Elles s'appuient sur l'innovation technologique afin de promouvoir le développement économique. Une économie efficace fondée sur la base d’une coopération étroite entre le gouvernement, les banques, les organisations non gouvernementales a jouéégalement un rôle très important. Le succès de l'expérience européenne est une référence utile pour le développement des PME en Chine. Mots-clés: PME; économie efficace; références 摘 要：歐洲小國經濟中數量占絕對優勢的中小企業以生產、加工和進出口附加值高、科技含量大的高新技術產 品為主，並依靠技術創新推動經濟發展，政府、銀行、非政府機構密切合作建立起的高效率經濟也起了極大的促 進作用。歐洲的成功經驗給中國中小企業發展提供了有益借鑒。 關鍵詞： 中小企業；高效率經濟；借