Research

Current Research Activities of
Mathukumalli Vidyasagar
Cecil & Ida Green Chair in
Systems Biology Science


Notes

I specifically chose the above photo, crow's feet and all, just to highlight the point that research should be fun!

This page contains a description of my current research interests, papers awaiting publication, and recent seminar presentations. Reprints of scientific papers that are already published can be found under "publications" while other writings can be found under (what else?) "other writings."

Contents

Current research interests
Recent Papers (updated frequently)
Slides of some recent talks

Current Research Interests

My research interests are in the broad area of system and control theory, and its applications. After spending an entire lifetime "ducking" probability theory, at the moment I am working on problems in stochastic realization, specifically approximating high-order Markov and hidden Markov processes by lower-order processes, and the large deviation properties of such processes.

On the applications front, I am interested in applying these (or any other appropriate) ideas to problems in computational biology with emphasis on cancer. When time permits, I also try to think about heavy-tailed random variables and their applications in quantitative finance.

Recent Papers

Journal Papers

  • M. Vidyasagar, "The complete realization problem for hidden Markov models: A survey and some new results", Mathematics of Control, Signals and Systems, 23(1), 1-65, 2011. PDF
  • M. Vidyasagar, "Probabilistic methods in cancer biology", European Journal of Control, 17(5-6), 483-511, September - December 2011. PDF
  • M. Vidyasagar, "A metric between probability distributions on finite sets of different cardinalities and applications to order reduction", to appear in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. PDF
    For a longer version with more details, see the arXiv version

Conference Papers

  • M. Vidyasagar, "A metric between probability distributions on IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, and European Control Conference, Orlando, FL, 710-715, December 2011. PDF
  • M. Vidyasagar, "Optimal order reduction of probability distributions by maximizing mutual information", IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, and European Control Conference, Orlando, FL, 716-721, December 2011. PDF
  • Yutaka Yamamoto and M. Vidyasagar, "Compact sets in the graph topology and applications to approximation of system design", IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, and European Control Conference, Orlando, FL, 621-626, December 2011. PDF
  • Kun Deng, Prashant G. Mehta, Sean P. Meyn and M. Vidyasagar, "A recursive learning algorithm for model reduction of hidden Markov models", IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, and European Control Conference, Orlando, FL, 4674-4679, December 2011 PDF

Slides of Some Recent Talks

  • "Metric Distances Between Probability Distributions of Different Sizes", talk given at Johns Hopkins University on 20th October 2011. PDF
  • "Four Decades of Control: A Journey of Reinventions", Harry H. Nyquist Lecture, Division of Dynamical Systems, Measurement and Control, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Washington, DC, 01 November 2011. PDF
  • "Probabilistic Methods in Cancer Biology", Plenary Talk at the 2011 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control and 20th European Control Conference, Orlando, FL, 14 December 2011. PDF