Generalized power method for sparse principal component analysis

In this paper we develop a new approach to sparse principal component analysis (sparse PCA). We propose two single-unit and two block optimization formulations of the sparse PCA problem, aimed at extracting a single sparse dominant principal component of a data matrix, or more components at once, respectively. While the initial formulations involve nonconvex functions, and are therefore computationally intractable, we rewrite them into the form of an optimization program involving maximization of a convex function on a compact set. The dimension of the search space is decreased enormously if the data matrix has many more columns (variables) than rows. We then propose and analyze a simple gradient method suited for the task. It appears that our algorithm has best convergence properties in the case when either the objective function or the feasible set are strongly convex, which is the case with our single-unit formulations and can be enforced in the block case. Finally, we demonstrate numerically on a set of random and gene expression test problems that our approach outperforms existing algorithms both in quality of the obtained solution and in computational speed. © 2010 Michel Journée, Yurii Nesterov, Peter Richtárik and Rodolphe Sepulchre.

A general design method for electric machines using magnetic circuit model considering the flux saturation problem

This paper proposes an analytical approach that is generalized for the design of various types of electric machines based on a physical magnetic circuit model. Conventional approaches have been used to predict the behavior of electric machines but have limitations in accurate flux saturation analysis and hence machine dimensioning at the initial design stage. In particular, magnetic saturation is generally ignored or compensated by correction factors in simplified models since it is difficult to determine the flux in each stator tooth for machines with any slot-pole combinations. In this paper, the flux produced by stator winding currents can be calculated accurately and rapidly for each stator tooth using the developed model, taking saturation into account. This aids machine dimensioning without the need for a computationally expensive finite element analysis (FEA). A 48-slot machine operated in induction and doubly-fed modes is used to demonstrate the proposed model. FEA is employed for verification.