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Lecture

Probability and Stochastic Processes: Fundamentals and Applications

Description

This lecture covers the fundamentals of probability and stochastic processes, focusing on random variables and their properties. The instructor begins by reviewing the Z-transform and LTI systems, emphasizing the importance of finite difference equations for realizable systems. The discussion then shifts to random variables, defining them as quantities that take values from a specific set. The cumulative distribution function (CDF) is introduced as a key concept, illustrating how it describes the probabilistic behavior of random variables. The instructor explains the differences between discrete and continuous random variables, including their respective probability density functions. The lecture further explores moments of random variables, including expected values and variances, and introduces the concept of independence between random variables. The instructor also discusses discrete time stochastic processes, their laws, and the significance of correlation and covariance. The lecture concludes with an introduction to wide sense stationarity and the power spectral density, highlighting their relevance in statistical signal processing and pattern analysis.

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Instructor

I am a professor of Signal Processing and Communication Technologies at Bern University of Applied Sciences. Since 2004 I hold a lecturer position at EPFL, teaching “Mathematical Principles of Signal Processing” (Doctoral School, 2004 – 2011), “Statistical Signal and Data Processing through Applications” (Master Program, (2004 – ongoing), and Signal Processing and Machine Learning for Digital Humanities (Master, 2017 – 2019, co-taught with Mathieu Salzmann). Previously, I have been working as Project Manager and R&D Engineer at EPFL (2011-2014), coordinating the LCAV activities within the NSF – Nanotera project Opensense, and as Project Manager and R&D Engineer with the biomedical signal processing group at CSEM (2006-2011).

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Related concepts (32)

Random variable

A random variable (also called random quantity, aleatory variable, or stochastic variable) is a mathematical formalization of a quantity or object which depends on random events. The term 'random variable' can be misleading as it is not actually random nor a variable, but rather it is a function from possible outcomes (e.g., the possible upper sides of a flipped coin such as heads and tails ) in a sample space (e.g., the set ) to a measurable space (e.g., in which 1 corresponding to and −1 corresponding to ), often to the real numbers.

Probability distribution

In probability theory and statistics, a probability distribution is the mathematical function that gives the probabilities of occurrence of different possible outcomes for an experiment. It is a mathematical description of a random phenomenon in terms of its sample space and the probabilities of events (subsets of the sample space). For instance, if X is used to denote the outcome of a coin toss ("the experiment"), then the probability distribution of X would take the value 0.5 (1 in 2 or 1/2) for X = heads, and 0.

Convergence of random variables

In probability theory, there exist several different notions of convergence of random variables. The convergence of sequences of random variables to some limit random variable is an important concept in probability theory, and its applications to statistics and stochastic processes. The same concepts are known in more general mathematics as stochastic convergence and they formalize the idea that a sequence of essentially random or unpredictable events can sometimes be expected to settle down into a behavior that is essentially unchanging when items far enough into the sequence are studied.

Independent and identically distributed random variables

In probability theory and statistics, a collection of random variables is independent and identically distributed if each random variable has the same probability distribution as the others and all are mutually independent. This property is usually abbreviated as i.i.d., iid, or IID. IID was first defined in statistics and finds application in different fields such as data mining and signal processing. Statistics commonly deals with random samples. A random sample can be thought of as a set of objects that are chosen randomly.

Exchangeable random variables

In statistics, an exchangeable sequence of random variables (also sometimes interchangeable) is a sequence X1, X2, X3, ... (which may be finitely or infinitely long) whose joint probability distribution does not change when the positions in the sequence in which finitely many of them appear are altered. Thus, for example the sequences both have the same joint probability distribution. It is closely related to the use of independent and identically distributed random variables in statistical models.