On the asymptotics of minimum disparity estimation

Inference procedures based on the minimization of divergences are popular statistical tools. Beran (Ann stat 5(3):445–463, 1977) proved consistency and asymptotic normality of the minimum Hellinger distance (MHD) estimator. This method was later extended to the large class of disparities in discrete models by Lindsay (Ann stat 22(2):1081–1114, 1994) who proved existence of a sequence of roots of the estimating equation which is consistent and asymptotically normal. However, the current literature does not provide a general asymptotic result about the minimizer of a generic disparity. In this paper, we prove, under very general conditions, an asymptotic representation of the minimum disparity estimator itself (and not just for a root of the estimating equation), thus generalizing the results of Beran (Ann stat 5(3):445–463, 1977) and Lindsay (Ann stat 22(2):1081–1114, 1994). This leads to a general framework for minimum disparity estimation encompassing both discrete and continuous models.     

High quantum efficiency, long wavelength InP/InGaAs microcavity photodiode

There is a inherent tradeoff between the quantum efficiency and bandwidth of conventional PIN photodiodes. In the case of devices based on III-V semiconductors, an absorption region thickness of approximately 2 mu m is required to achieve quantum efficiencies greater than 80%, although this limits the transit-time-limited bandwidth to less than 15 GHz. It has recently been shown that a microcavity photodiode can circumvent this performance tradeoff and achieve both high quantum efficiency and large bandwidths. The fabrication of a microcavity PIN photodiode with a high quantum efficiency near 1.55 mu m is described. An external quantum efficiency of 82% at 1480 nm has been achieved with an InGaAs absorption layer only 2000 AA thick embedded in a resonant cavity grown by metal organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE).<>     

Delta-doped avalanche photodiodes for high bit-rate lightwavereceivers

The authors estimate the GB (grain bandwidth) product limits and the noise performance of a new SAGM-APD (separate avalanche, grating, and multiplication avalanche photodiode) structure: the δ-doped SAGM-APD. It is shown that GB products in excess of 140 GHz for a 0.2-μm-thick multiplication layer and possibly larger GB products for smaller widths can be obtained. While recent calculations have predicted increased GB products for this δ-doped SAGM-APD structure, the authors explicitly prove using conventional theory that this is possible only with a concomitant increase in the multiplication noise. It is further demonstrated that it is essential to optimize the width of the multiplication layer for a given bit-rate to achieve minimum multiplication noise consistent with a GB product high enough to accommodate the requisite frequency response at the optimum gain. It is shown that the δ-doped SAGM-APD structure is a very good candidate for high bit-rate receiver applications     

Low-voltage high-gain resonant-cavity avalanche photodiode

For p-i-n photodiodes and avalanche photodiodes (APDs) in the low-gain regime, there is a performance tradeoff between the transit-time contribution to the bandwidth and the quantum efficiency. A new photodetector structure is demonstrated that alleviates limitations imposed by this tradeoff. This structure utilizes a thin ( approximately=900 AA) depleted absorbing layer to reduce the transit time and achieve avalanche gain at low bias voltage (V/sub b/ approximately=9 V). The external quantum efficiency has been enhanced ( eta /sub e/>49%) by incorporating the structure into a resonant cavity.<>     

A methodology for fast scheduling of partitioned systolic algorithms

Various methods for mapping signal processing algorithms into systolic arrays have been developed in the past few years. In this paper, efficient scheduling techniques are developed for the partitioning problem, i.e. problems with size that do not match the array size. In particular, scheduling for the Locally Parallel-Globally Sequential (LPGS) technique and the Locally Sequential-Globally Parallel (LSGP) technique are developed. The scheduling procedure developed exploits the fact that after LPGS and LSGP partitioning, the locality constraints are less stringent allowing for more flexibility in the choice of algorithms and inter-processor communication. A flexible scheduling order is developed that is useful in evaluating the trade-off between execution time and size of storage buffers. The benefits of the scheduling techniques are illustrated with the help of matrix multiplication and least squares examples. This work was supported in part by the UCSD/NSF Integrated Circuits And Systems Research Center and by the ARMY Research Office under Grant No. DAAL-03-90-G-0095.     

An optimal two stage feature selection for speech emotion recognition using acoustic features

Feature Fusion plays an important role in speech emotion recognition to improve the classification accuracy by combining the most popular acoustic features for speech emotion recognition like energy, pitch and mel frequency cepstral coefficients. However the performance of the system is not optimal because of the computational complexity of the system, which occurs due to high dimensional correlated feature set after feature fusion. In this paper, a two stage feature selection method is proposed. In first stage feature selection, appropriate features are selected and fused together for speech emotion recognition. In second stage feature selection, optimal feature subset selection techniques [sequential forward selection (SFS) and sequential floating forward selection (SFFS)] are used to eliminate the curse of dimensionality problem due to high dimensional feature vector after feature fusion. Finally the emotions are classified by using several classifiers like Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Regularized Discriminant Analysis (RDA), Support Vector Machine (SVM) and K Nearest Neighbor (KNN). The performance of overall emotion recognition system is validated over Berlin and Spanish databases by considering classification rate. An optimal uncorrelated feature set is obtained by using SFS and SFFS individually. Results reveal that SFFS is a better choice as a feature subset selection method because SFS suffers from nesting problem i.e it is difficult to discard a feature after it is retained into the set. SFFS eliminates this nesting problem by making the set not to be fixed at any stage but floating up and down during the selection based on the objective function. Experimental results showed that the efficiency of the classifier is improved by 15–20 % with two stage feature selection method when compared with performance of the classifier with feature fusion.     

Optically-coupled mirror-quantum well InGaAs-GaAs light emitting diode

Data are presented showing that it is possible to optically couple a semiconductor quantum well to a mirror, and thus influence its spontaneous emission lifetime, for mirror to quantum well spacings of less than an optical wavelength. Light emitting diodes with various mirror to quantum well spacings corresponding to quantum well placement at either interference nodes or antinodes are characterised in terms of light output efficiency and frequency response.<>     

Membrane-derived second messenger regulates x-ray-mediated tumor necrosis factor alpha gene induction

Cells adapt to adverse environmental conditions through a wide range of responses that are conserved throughout evolution. Physical agents such as ionizing radiation are known to initiate a stress response that is triggered by the recognition of DNA damage. We have identified a signaling pathway involving the activation of phospholipase A2 and protein kinase C in human cells that confers x-ray induction of the tumor necrosis factor alpha gene. Treatment of human cells with ionizing radiation or H2O2 was associated with the production of arachidonic acid. Inhibition of phospholipase A2 abolished radiation-mediated arachidonate production as well as the subsequent activation of protein kinase C and tumor necrosis factor alpha gene expression. These findings demonstrate that ionizing radiation-mediated gene expression in human cells is regulated in part by extranuclear signal transduction. One practical application of phospholipase A2 inhibitors is to ameliorate the adverse effects of radiotherapy associated with tumor necrosis factor alpha production.