id
stringlengths
9
16
title
stringlengths
4
278
categories
stringlengths
5
104
abstract
stringlengths
6
4.09k
1108.1695
Algebraic Approach to Physical-Layer Network Coding
cs.IT math.IT
The problem of designing physical-layer network coding (PNC) schemes via nested lattices is considered. Building on the compute-and-forward (C&F) relaying strategy of Nazer and Gastpar, who demonstrated its asymptotic gain using information-theoretic tools, an algebraic approach is taken to show its potential in practical, non-asymptotic, settings. A general framework is developed for studying nested-lattice-based PNC schemes---called lattice network coding (LNC) schemes for short---by making a direct connection between C&F and module theory. In particular, a generic LNC scheme is presented that makes no assumptions on the underlying nested lattice code. C&F is re-interpreted in this framework, and several generalized constructions of LNC schemes are given. The generic LNC scheme naturally leads to a linear network coding channel over modules, based on which non-coherent network coding can be achieved. Next, performance/complexity tradeoffs of LNC schemes are studied, with a particular focus on hypercube-shaped LNC schemes. The error probability of this class of LNC schemes is largely determined by the minimum inter-coset distances of the underlying nested lattice code. Several illustrative hypercube-shaped LNC schemes are designed based on Construction A and D, showing that nominal coding gains of 3 to 7.5 dB can be obtained with reasonable decoding complexity. Finally, the possibility of decoding multiple linear combinations is considered and related to the shortest independent vectors problem. A notion of dominant solutions is developed together with a suitable lattice-reduction-based algorithm.
1108.1730
Entropy Density and Mismatch in High-Rate Scalar Quantization with Renyi Entropy Constraint
cs.IT math.IT
Properties of scalar quantization with $r$th power distortion and constrained R\'enyi entropy of order $\alpha\in (0,1)$ are investigated. For an asymptotically (high-rate) optimal sequence of quantizers, the contribution to the R\'enyi entropy due to source values in a fixed interval is identified in terms of the "entropy density" of the quantizer sequence. This extends results related to the well-known point density concept in optimal fixed-rate quantization. A dual of the entropy density result quantifies the distortion contribution of a given interval to the overall distortion. The distortion loss resulting from a mismatch of source densities in the design of an asymptotically optimal sequence of quantizers is also determined. This extends Bucklew's fixed-rate ($\alpha=0$) and Gray \emph{et al.}'s variable-rate ($\alpha=1$) mismatch results to general values of the entropy order parameter $\alpha$.
1108.1766
Activized Learning: Transforming Passive to Active with Improved Label Complexity
stat.ML cs.LG math.ST stat.TH
We study the theoretical advantages of active learning over passive learning. Specifically, we prove that, in noise-free classifier learning for VC classes, any passive learning algorithm can be transformed into an active learning algorithm with asymptotically strictly superior label complexity for all nontrivial target functions and distributions. We further provide a general characterization of the magnitudes of these improvements in terms of a novel generalization of the disagreement coefficient. We also extend these results to active learning in the presence of label noise, and find that even under broad classes of noise distributions, we can typically guarantee strict improvements over the known results for passive learning.
1108.1780
Temporal Networks
nlin.AO cs.SI physics.data-an physics.soc-ph
A great variety of systems in nature, society and technology -- from the web of sexual contacts to the Internet, from the nervous system to power grids -- can be modeled as graphs of vertices coupled by edges. The network structure, describing how the graph is wired, helps us understand, predict and optimize the behavior of dynamical systems. In many cases, however, the edges are not continuously active. As an example, in networks of communication via email, text messages, or phone calls, edges represent sequences of instantaneous or practically instantaneous contacts. In some cases, edges are active for non-negligible periods of time: e.g., the proximity patterns of inpatients at hospitals can be represented by a graph where an edge between two individuals is on throughout the time they are at the same ward. Like network topology, the temporal structure of edge activations can affect dynamics of systems interacting through the network, from disease contagion on the network of patients to information diffusion over an e-mail network. In this review, we present the emergent field of temporal networks, and discuss methods for analyzing topological and temporal structure and models for elucidating their relation to the behavior of dynamical systems. In the light of traditional network theory, one can see this framework as moving the information of when things happen from the dynamical system on the network, to the network itself. Since fundamental properties, such as the transitivity of edges, do not necessarily hold in temporal networks, many of these methods need to be quite different from those for static networks.
1108.1824
The Thinking machine: a psychological view of Mawxwell's demon mind
cs.IT math.IT
Recently, in a letter to Nature, del Rio et al.8 exploited the quantum viewpoint of the old but well-known thought experiment of Maxwell's demon, a tiny "man-machine" that processes only a single unit of information. In their work, they showed that the thermodynamic cost for Maxwell's demon to erase quantum information decreases as the amount it "knows" increases. Indeed, as the authors themselves concluded, that finding has the ability to strengthen the link between information theory and statistical physics. However, the factual link between information theory and psychology remains unknown. There may be no better way to investigate to this issue than to subject this dual natured creature to psychological treatment! In this work, we propose an Ausubel-inspired ansatz to map the thermodynamic mind of Maxwell's demon, addressing information processing from a cognitive perspective9-12. The main calculation presented in this short report shows that the Ausubelian assimilation theory13-15 leads to a Shannon-Hartley-like model1,2 that, in turn, converges exactly to the Landauer limit16-18 when one single information is discarded from the demon's memory. This result indicates that both a thermodynamic device and an intelligent being "think" in the same way when one bit of information is processed. Consequently, this finding links information theory to the "psychological features" of the thermodynamic engine through the Landauer limit, which opens a new path towards the conception of a multi-bit reasoning machine.
1108.1841
Onion structure and network robustness
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
In a recent work [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 108, 3838 (2011)], Schneider et al. proposed a new measure for network robustness and investigated optimal networks with respect to this quantity. For networks with a power-law degree distribution, the optimized networks have an onion structure-high-degree vertices forming a core with radially decreasing degrees and an over-representation of edges within the same radial layer. In this paper we relate the onion structure to graphs with good expander properties (another characterization of robust network) and argue that networks of skewed degree distributions with large spectral gaps (and thus good expander properties) are typically onion structured. Furthermore, we propose a generative algorithm producing synthetic scale-free networks with onion structure, circumventing the optimization procedure of Schneider et al. We validate the robustness of our generated networks against malicious attacks and random removals.
1108.1873
Turbo Lattices: Construction and Error Decoding Performance
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper a new class of lattices called turbo lattices is introduced and established. We use the lattice Construction D to produce turbo lattices. This method needs a set of nested linear codes as its underlying structure. We benefit from turbo codes as our basis codes. Therefore, a set of nested turbo codes based on nested interleavers (block interleavers) and nested convolutional codes is built. To this end, we employ both tail-biting and zero-tail convolutional codes. Using these codes, along with construction D, turbo lattices are created. Several properties of Construction D lattices and fundamental characteristics of turbo lattices including the minimum distance, coding gain and kissing number are investigated. Furthermore, a multi-stage turbo lattice decoding algorithm based on iterative turbo decoding algorithm is given. We show, by simulation, that turbo lattices attain good error performance within $\sim1.25 dB$ from capacity at block length of $n=1035$. Also an excellent performance of only $\sim.5 dB$ away from capacity at SER of $10^{-5}$ is achieved for size $n=10131$.
1108.1897
Avalanche transmission and critical behavior in load bearing hierarchical networks
cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI physics.soc-ph
The strength and stability properties of hierarchical load bearing networks and their strengthened variants have been discussed in recent work. Here, we study the avalanche time distributions on these load bearing networks. The avalanche time distributions of the V- lattice, a unique realization of the networks, show power-law behavior when tested with certain fractions of its trunk weights. All other avalanche distributions show Gaussian peaked behavior. Thus the V- lattice is the critical case of the network. We discuss the implications of this result.
1108.1925
Rule-based Construction of Matching Processes
cs.DB
Mapping complex metadata structures is crucial in a number of domains such as data integration, ontology alignment or model management. To speed up that process automatic matching systems were developed to compute mapping suggestions that can be corrected by a user. However, constructing and tuning match strategies still requires a high manual effort by matching experts as well as correct mappings to evaluate generated mappings. We therefore propose a self-configuring schema matching system that is able to automatically adapt to the given mapping problem at hand. Our approach is based on analyzing the input schemas as well as intermediate matching results. A variety of matching rules use the analysis results to automatically construct and adapt an underlying matching process for a given match task. We comprehensively evaluate our approach on different mapping problems from the schema, ontology and model management domains. The evaluation shows that our system is able to robustly return good quality mappings across different mapping problems and domains.
1108.1933
An Achievable Rate Region for Cognitive Radio Channel With Common Message
cs.IT math.IT
The cognitive radio channel with common message (CRCC) is considered. In this channel, similar to the cognitive radio channel (CRC), we have a cognitive user which has full non-causal knowledge of the primary message, and like the interference channel with common message (ICC), the information sources at the two transmitters are statistically dependent and the senders need to transmit not only the private message but also certain common message to their corresponding receivers. By using a specific combination of superposition coding, binning scheme and simultaneous decoding, we propose a unified achievable rate region for the CRCC which subsumes the several existing results for the CRC, ICC, interference channel without common message (IC), strong interference channel and compound multiple access channel with common information (SICC and CMACC).
1108.1940
An Optimization-Based Model for Full-body Reaching Movements
cs.SY math.OC
Background The development of a simulation model of full body reaching tasks that can predict endeffector trajectories and joint excursions consistent with experimental data is a non-trivial task. Because of the kinematic redundancy inherent in these multi-joint tasks there are an infinite number of postures that could be adopted to complete them. By developing models to simulate full-body reaching movements in 3D space we can begin to explore cost functions that may be used by the central nervous system to plan and execute these movements. Methods A robust simulation model was developed using 1) graphic-based modeling tools to generate an inverse dynamics controller (SimMechanics), 2) controller parameterization methods, and 3) cost function criteria. An adaptive weight coefficient based on the final motor task error (i.e. distance between end-effector and target at the end of movement) was proposed to balance motor task error and physiological cost terms (e.g. joint power). The output of the simulation models using different cost controller functions based on motor task error or motor task error and various physiological cost terms (e.g. joint power, center of mass displacement) were compared to experimental data from 15 healthy participants performing full body reaching movements. Results In sum, the best fit to the experimental data was obtained by minimizing motor task error, joint power, and center of mass displacement. Simulation and experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method is effective for the simulation of large-scale human skeletal systems. Conclusions This method can reasonably predict the whole body reaching movements including final postures, joint power and movement of COM using simple algebraic calculations of inverse dynamics and forward kinematics.
1108.1956
Factorization-based Lossless Compression of Inverted Indices
cs.IR
Many large-scale Web applications that require ranked top-k retrieval such as Web search and online advertising are implemented using inverted indices. An inverted index represents a sparse term-document matrix, where non-zero elements indicate the strength of term-document association. In this work, we present an approach for lossless compression of inverted indices. Our approach maps terms in a document corpus to a new term space in order to reduce the number of non-zero elements in the term-document matrix, resulting in a more compact inverted index. We formulate the problem of selecting a new term space that minimizes the resulting index size as a matrix factorization problem, and prove that finding the optimal factorization is an NP-hard problem. We develop a greedy algorithm for finding an approximate solution. A side effect of our approach is increasing the number of terms in the index, which may negatively affect query evaluation performance. To eliminate such effect, we develop a methodology for modifying query evaluation algorithms by exploiting specific properties of our compression approach. Our experimental evaluation demonstrates that our approach achieves an index size reduction of 20%, while maintaining the same query response times. Higher compression ratios up to 35% are achievable, however at the cost of slightly longer query response times. Furthermore, combining our approach with other lossless compression techniques, namely variable-byte encoding, leads to index size reduction of up to 50%.
1108.1966
A Concise Query Language with Search and Transform Operations for Corpora with Multiple Levels of Annotation
cs.CL
The usefulness of annotated corpora is greatly increased if there is an associated tool that can allow various kinds of operations to be performed in a simple way. Different kinds of annotation frameworks and many query languages for them have been proposed, including some to deal with multiple layers of annotation. We present here an easy to learn query language for a particular kind of annotation framework based on 'threaded trees', which are somewhere between the complete order of a tree and the anarchy of a graph. Through 'typed' threads, they can allow multiple levels of annotation in the same document. Our language has a simple, intuitive and concise syntax and high expressive power. It allows not only to search for complicated patterns with short queries but also allows data manipulation and specification of arbitrary return values. Many of the commonly used tasks that otherwise require writing programs, can be performed with one or more queries. We compare the language with some others and try to evaluate it.
1108.1977
Dynamic Index Coding for Wireless Broadcast Networks
cs.IT math.IT
We consider a wireless broadcast station that transmits packets to multiple users. The packet requests for each user may overlap, and some users may already have certain packets. This presents a problem of broadcasting in the presence of side information, and is a generalization of the well known (and unsolved) index coding problem of information theory. Rather than achieving the full capacity region, we develop a code-constrained capacity region, which restricts attention to a pre-specified set of coding actions. We develop a dynamic max-weight algorithm that allows for random packet arrivals and supports any traffic inside the code-constrained capacity region. Further, we provide a simple set of codes based on cycles in the underlying demand graph. We show these codes are optimal for a class of broadcast relay problems.
1108.1986
A Knowledge Mining Model for Ranking Institutions using Rough Computing with Ordering Rules and Formal Concept analysis
cs.AI cs.IR
Emergences of computers and information technological revolution made tremendous changes in the real world and provides a different dimension for the intelligent data analysis. Well formed fact, the information at right time and at right place deploy a better knowledge.However, the challenge arises when larger volume of inconsistent data is given for decision making and knowledge extraction. To handle such imprecise data certain mathematical tools of greater importance has developed by researches in recent past namely fuzzy set, intuitionistic fuzzy set, rough Set, formal concept analysis and ordering rules. It is also observed that many information system contains numerical attribute values and therefore they are almost similar instead of exact similar. To handle such type of information system, in this paper we use two processes such as pre process and post process. In pre process we use rough set on intuitionistic fuzzy approximation space with ordering rules for finding the knowledge whereas in post process we use formal concept analysis to explore better knowledge and vital factors affecting decisions.
1108.1989
A Distributed Newton Approach for Joint Multi-Hop Routing and Flow Control: Theory and Algorithm
cs.NI cs.IT cs.SY math.IT math.OC
The fast growing scale and heterogeneity of current communication networks necessitate the design of distributed cross-layer optimization algorithms. So far, the standard approach of distributed cross-layer design is based on dual decomposition and the subgradient algorithm, which is a first-order method that has a slow convergence rate. In this paper, we focus on solving a joint multi-path routing and flow control (MRFC) problem by designing a new distributed Newton's method, which is a second-order method and enjoys a quadratic rate of convergence. The major challenges in developing a distributed Newton's method lie in decentralizing the computation of the Hessian matrix and its inverse for both the primal Newton direction and dual variable updates. By appropriately reformulating, rearranging, and exploiting the special problem structures, we show that it is possible to decompose such computations into source nodes and links in the network, thus eliminating the need for global information. Furthermore, we derive closed-form expressions for both the primal Newton direction and dual variable updates, thus significantly reducing the computational complexity. The most attractive feature of our proposed distributed Newton's method is that it requires almost the same scale of information exchange as in first-order methods, while achieving a quadratic rate of convergence as in centralized Newton methods. We provide extensive numerical results to demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed algorithm. Our work contributes to the advanced paradigm shift in cross-layer network design that is evolving from first-order to second-order methods.
1108.2054
Uncertain Nearest Neighbor Classification
cs.LG cs.AI
This work deals with the problem of classifying uncertain data. With this aim the Uncertain Nearest Neighbor (UNN) rule is here introduced, which represents the generalization of the deterministic nearest neighbor rule to the case in which uncertain objects are available. The UNN rule relies on the concept of nearest neighbor class, rather than on that of nearest neighbor object. The nearest neighbor class of a test object is the class that maximizes the probability of providing its nearest neighbor. It is provided evidence that the former concept is much more powerful than the latter one in the presence of uncertainty, in that it correctly models the right semantics of the nearest neighbor decision rule when applied to the uncertain scenario. An effective and efficient algorithm to perform uncertain nearest neighbor classification of a generic (un)certain test object is designed, based on properties that greatly reduce the temporal cost associated with nearest neighbor class probability computation. Experimental results are presented, showing that the UNN rule is effective and efficient in classifying uncertain data.
1108.2095
Mobile Agent as an Approach to Improve QoS in Vehicular Ad Hoc Network
cs.NI cs.SI
Vehicular traffic is a foremost problem in modern cities. Huge amount of time and resources are wasted while traveling due to traffic congestion. With the introduction of sophisticated traffic management systems, such as those incorporating dynamic traffic assignments, more stringent demands are being placed upon the available real time traffic data. In this paper we have proposed mobile agent as a mechanism to handle the traffic problem on road. Mobile software agents can be used to provide the better QoS (Quality of Service) in vehicular ad hoc network to improve the safety application and driver comfort.
1108.2096
Reputation-based Incentive Protocols in Crowdsourcing Applications
cs.AI cs.GT cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Crowdsourcing websites (e.g. Yahoo! Answers, Amazon Mechanical Turk, and etc.) emerged in recent years that allow requesters from all around the world to post tasks and seek help from an equally global pool of workers. However, intrinsic incentive problems reside in crowdsourcing applications as workers and requester are selfish and aim to strategically maximize their own benefit. In this paper, we propose to provide incentives for workers to exert effort using a novel game-theoretic model based on repeated games. As there is always a gap in the social welfare between the non-cooperative equilibria emerging when workers pursue their self-interests and the desirable Pareto efficient outcome, we propose a novel class of incentive protocols based on social norms which integrates reputation mechanisms into the existing pricing schemes currently implemented on crowdsourcing websites, in order to improve the performance of the non-cooperative equilibria emerging in such applications. We first formulate the exchanges on a crowdsourcing website as a two-sided market where requesters and workers are matched and play gift-giving games repeatedly. Subsequently, we study the protocol designer's problem of finding an optimal and sustainable (equilibrium) protocol which achieves the highest social welfare for that website. We prove that the proposed incentives protocol can make the website operate close to Pareto efficiency. Moreover, we also examine an alternative scenario, where the protocol designer aims at maximizing the revenue of the website and evaluate the performance of the optimal protocol.
1108.2115
The Ditmarsch Tale of Wonders - The Dynamics of Lying
cs.AI cs.LO
We propose a dynamic logic of lying, wherein a 'lie that phi' (where phi is a formula in the logic) is an action in the sense of dynamic modal logic, that is interpreted as a state transformer relative to the formula phi. The states that are being transformed are pointed Kripke models encoding the uncertainty of agents about their beliefs. Lies can be about factual propositions but also about modal formulas, such as the beliefs of other agents or the belief consequences of the lies of other agents. We distinguish (i) an outside observer who is lying to an agent that is modelled in the system, from (ii) one agent who is lying to another agent, and where both are modelled in the system. For either case, we further distinguish (iii) the agent who believes everything that it is told (even at the price of inconsistency), from (iv) the agent who only believes what it is told if that is consistent with its current beliefs, and from (v) the agent who believes everything that it is told by consistently revising its current beliefs. The logics have complete axiomatizations, which can most elegantly be shown by way of their embedding in what is known as action model logic or the extension of that logic to belief revision.
1108.2126
Multi-Modal Local Sensing and Communication for Collective Underwater Systems
cs.RO cs.SY math.OC
This paper is devoted to local sensing and communication for collective underwater systems used in networked and swarm modes. It is demonstrated that a specific combination of modal and sub-modal communication, used simultaneously for robot-robot and robot-object detection, can create a dedicated cooperation between multiple AUVs. These technologies, platforms and experiments are shortly described, and allow us to make a conclusion about useful combinations of different signaling approaches for collective underwater systems.
1108.2187
On Noncoherent Fading Relay Channels at High Signal-to-Noise Ratio
cs.IT math.IT
The capacity of noncoherent fading relay channels is studied where all terminals are aware of the fading statistics but not of their realizations. It is shown that if the fading coefficient of the channel between the transmitter and the receiver can be predicted more accurately from its infinite past than the fading coefficient of the channel between the relay and the receiver, then at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) the relay does not increase capacity. It is further shown that if the fading coefficient of the channel between the transmitter and the relay can be predicted more accurately from its infinite past than the fading coefficient of the channel between the relay and the receiver, then at high SNR one can achieve communication rates that are within one bit of the capacity of the multiple-input single-output fading channel that results when the transmitter and the relay can cooperate.
1108.2234
Smart Meter Privacy: A Utility-Privacy Framework
cs.IT math.IT
End-user privacy in smart meter measurements is a well-known challenge in the smart grid. The solutions offered thus far have been tied to specific technologies such as batteries or assumptions on data usage. Existing solutions have also not quantified the loss of benefit (utility) that results from any such privacy-preserving approach. Using tools from information theory, a new framework is presented that abstracts both the privacy and the utility requirements of smart meter data. This leads to a novel privacy-utility tradeoff problem with minimal assumptions that is tractable. Specifically for a stationary Gaussian Markov model of the electricity load, it is shown that the optimal utility-and-privacy preserving solution requires filtering out frequency components that are low in power, and this approach appears to encompass most of the proposed privacy approaches.
1108.2237
Competitive Privacy in the Smart Grid: An Information-theoretic Approach
cs.IT math.IT
Advances in sensing and communication capabilities as well as power industry deregulation are driving the need for distributed state estimation in the smart grid at the level of the regional transmission organizations (RTOs). This leads to a new competitive privacy problem amongst the RTOs since there is a tension between sharing data to ensure network reliability (utility/benefit to all RTOs) and withholding data for profitability and privacy reasons. The resulting tradeoff between utility, quantified via fidelity of its state estimate at each RTO, and privacy, quantified via the leakage of the state of one RTO at other RTOs, is captured precisely using a lossy source coding problem formulation for a two RTO network. For a two-RTO model, it is shown that the set of all feasible utility-privacy pairs can be achieved via a single round of communication when each RTO communicates taking into account the correlation between the measured data at both RTOs. The lossy source coding problem and solution developed here is also of independent interest.
1108.2283
A survey on independence-based Markov networks learning
cs.AI cs.LG
This work reports the most relevant technical aspects in the problem of learning the \emph{Markov network structure} from data. Such problem has become increasingly important in machine learning, and many other application fields of machine learning. Markov networks, together with Bayesian networks, are probabilistic graphical models, a widely used formalism for handling probability distributions in intelligent systems. Learning graphical models from data have been extensively applied for the case of Bayesian networks, but for Markov networks learning it is not tractable in practice. However, this situation is changing with time, given the exponential growth of computers capacity, the plethora of available digital data, and the researching on new learning technologies. This work stresses on a technology called independence-based learning, which allows the learning of the independence structure of those networks from data in an efficient and sound manner, whenever the dataset is sufficiently large, and data is a representative sampling of the target distribution. In the analysis of such technology, this work surveys the current state-of-the-art algorithms for learning Markov networks structure, discussing its current limitations, and proposing a series of open problems where future works may produce some advances in the area in terms of quality and efficiency. The paper concludes by opening a discussion about how to develop a general formalism for improving the quality of the structures learned, when data is scarce.
1108.2338
Embedded Model Control approach to robust control
cs.SY math.OC
Robust control design is mainly devoted to guarantee closed-loop stability of a model-based control law in presence of parametric and structural uncertainties. The control law is usually a complex feedback law which is derived from a (nonlinear) model, possibly complemented with some mathematical envelope of the model uncertainty. Stability may be guarantee with the help of some ignorance coefficients and restricting the feedback control effort with respect to the model-based design. Embedded Model Control shows that under certain conditions, the model-based control law must and can be kept intact under uncertainty, if the controllable dynamics is complemented by a suitable disturbance dynamics capable of real-time encoding the different uncertainties affecting the 'embedded model', i.e. the model which is both the design source and the core of the control unit. To be real-time updated the disturbance state is driven by an unpredictable input vector, called noise, which can be only estimated from the model error. The uncertainty (or plant)-based design concerns the noise estimator, as the model error may convey into the embedded model uncertainty components (parametric, cross-coupling, neglected dynamics) which are command-dependent and thus prone to destabilize the controlled plant. Separation of the components into the low and high frequency domain by the noise estimator allows to recover and guarantee stability, and to cancel the low frequency ones from the plant. Among the advantages, control algorithms are neatly and univocally related to the embedded model, the embedded model provides a real-time image of the plant, all control gains are tuned by fixing closed-loop eigenvalues. Last but not least, the resulting control unit has modular structure and algorithms, thus facilitating coding. A simulated case study helps to understand the key assets of the methodology.
1108.2376
Heisenberg uncertainty relation and statistical measures in the square well
nlin.AO cs.IT math.IT quant-ph
A non stationary state in the one-dimensional infinite square well formed by a combination of the ground state and the first excited one is considered. The statistical complexity and the Fisher-Shannon entropy in position and momentum are calculated with time for this system. These measures are compared with the Heisenberg uncertainty relation, \Delta x\Delta p. It is observed that the extreme values of \Delta x\Delta p coincide in time with extreme values of the other two statistical magnitudes.
1108.2393
Binary Error Correcting Network Codes
cs.IT math.IT
We consider network coding for networks experiencing worst-case bit-flip errors, and argue that this is a reasonable model for highly dynamic wireless network transmissions. We demonstrate that in this setup prior network error-correcting schemes can be arbitrarily far from achieving the optimal network throughput. We propose a new metric for errors under this model. Using this metric, we prove a new Hamming-type upper bound on the network capacity. We also show a commensurate lower bound based on GV-type codes that can be used for error-correction. The codes used to attain the lower bound are non-coherent (do not require prior knowledge of network topology). The end-to-end nature of our design enables our codes to be overlaid on classical distributed random linear network codes. Further, we free internal nodes from having to implement potentially computationally intensive link-by-link error-correction.
1108.2462
Enhanced public key security for the McEliece cryptosystem
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT
This paper studies a variant of the McEliece cryptosystem able to ensure that the code used as the public key is no longer permutation-equivalent to the secret code. This increases the security level of the public key, thus opening the way for reconsidering the adoption of classical families of codes, like Reed-Solomon codes, that have been longly excluded from the McEliece cryptosystem for security reasons. It is well known that codes of these classes are able to yield a reduction in the key size or, equivalently, an increased level of security against information set decoding; so, these are the main advantages of the proposed solution. We also describe possible vulnerabilities and attacks related to the considered system, and show what design choices are best suited to avoid them.
1108.2475
Undithering using linear filtering and non-linear diffusion techniques
cs.CV cs.IT math.IT
Data compression is a method of improving the efficiency of transmission and storage of images. Dithering, as a method of data compression, can be used to convert an 8-bit gray level image into a 1-bit / binary image. Undithering is the process of reconstruction of gray image from binary image obtained from dithering of gray image. In the present paper, I propose a method of undithering using linear filtering followed by anisotropic diffusion which brings the advantage of smoothing and edge enhancement. First-order statistical parameters, second-order statistical parameters, mean-squared error (MSE) between reconstructed image and the original image before dithering, and peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) are evaluated at each step of diffusion. Results of the experiments show that the reconstructed image is not as sharp as the image before dithering but a large number of gray values are reproduced with reference to those of the original image prior to dithering.
1108.2486
Feature Extraction for Change-Point Detection using Stationary Subspace Analysis
cs.LG
Detecting changes in high-dimensional time series is difficult because it involves the comparison of probability densities that need to be estimated from finite samples. In this paper, we present the first feature extraction method tailored to change point detection, which is based on an extended version of Stationary Subspace Analysis. We reduce the dimensionality of the data to the most non-stationary directions, which are most informative for detecting state changes in the time series. In extensive simulations on synthetic data we show that the accuracy of three change point detection algorithms is significantly increased by a prior feature extraction step. These findings are confirmed in an application to industrial fault monitoring.
1108.2489
Lexicographic products and the power of non-linear network coding
cs.IT math.CO math.IT
We introduce a technique for establishing and amplifying gaps between parameters of network coding and index coding. The technique uses linear programs to establish separations between combinatorial and coding-theoretic parameters and applies hypergraph lexicographic products to amplify these separations. This entails combining the dual solutions of the lexicographic multiplicands and proving that they are a valid dual of the product. Our result is general enough to apply to a large family of linear programs. This blend of linear programs and lexicographic products gives a recipe for constructing hard instances in which the gap between combinatorial or coding-theoretic parameters is polynomially large. We find polynomial gaps in cases in which the largest previously known gaps were only small constant factors or entirely unknown. Most notably, we show a polynomial separation between linear and non-linear network coding rates. This involves exploiting a connection between matroids and index coding to establish a previously unknown separation between linear and non-linear index coding rates. We also construct index coding problems with a polynomial gap between the broadcast rate and the trivial lower bound for which no gap was previously known.
1108.2562
The transversality conditions in infinite horizon problems and the stability of adjoint variable
math.OC cs.SY
This paper investigates the necessary conditions of optimality for uni- formly overtaking optimal control on infinite horizon with free right endpoint. Clarke's form of the Pontryagin Maximum Principle is proved without the as- sumption on boundedness of total variation of adjoint variable. The transversality condition for adjoint variable is shown to become necessary if the adjoint variable is partially Lyapunov stable. The modifications of this condition are proposed for the case of unbounded adjoint variable. The Cauchy-type formula for the adjoint variable proposed by S. M. Aseev and A. V. Kryazhimskii is shown to complement relations of the Pontryagin Maximum Principle up to the complete set of necessary conditions of optimality if the improper integral in the formula converges conditionally and continuously depends on the original position. The results are extended to an unbounded objective functional (described by a non- convergent improper integral), unbounded constraint on the control, and uniformly sporadically catching up optimal control.
1108.2568
A Minimax Linear Quadratic Gaussian Method for Antiwindup Control Synthesis
cs.SY math.OC
In this paper, a dynamic antiwindup compensator design is proposed which augments the main controller and guarantees robust performance in the event of input saturation. This is a two stage process in which first a robust optimal controller is designed for an uncertain linear system which guarantees the internal stability of the closed loop system and provides robust performance in the absence of input saturation. Then a minimax linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) compensator is designed to guarantee the performance in certain domain of attraction, in the presence of input saturation. This antiwindup augmentation only comes into action when plant is subject to input saturation. In order to illustrate the effectiveness of this approach, the proposed method is applied to a tracking control problem for an air-breathing hypersonic flight vehicle (AHFV).
1108.2580
Efficient Multicore Collaborative Filtering
cs.LG cs.DC
This paper describes the solution method taken by LeBuSiShu team for track1 in ACM KDD CUP 2011 contest (resulting in the 5th place). We identified two main challenges: the unique item taxonomy characteristics as well as the large data set size.To handle the item taxonomy, we present a novel method called Matrix Factorization Item Taxonomy Regularization (MFITR). MFITR obtained the 2nd best prediction result out of more then ten implemented algorithms. For rapidly computing multiple solutions of various algorithms, we have implemented an open source parallel collaborative filtering library on top of the GraphLab machine learning framework. We report some preliminary performance results obtained using the BlackLight supercomputer.
1108.2585
Malthusian assumptions, Boserupian response in models of the transitions to agriculture
q-bio.PE cs.MA nlin.AO
In the many transitions from foraging to agropastoralism it is debated whether the primary drivers are innovations in technology or increases of population. The driver discussion traditionally separates Malthusian (technology driven) from Boserupian (population driven) theories. I present a numerical model of the transitions to agriculture and discuss this model in the light of the population versus technology debate and in Boserup's analytical framework in development theory. Although my model is based on ecological -Neomalthusian- principles, the coevolutionary positive feedback relationship between technology and population results in a seemingly Boserupian response: innovation is greatest when population pressure is highest. This outcome is not only visible in the theory-driven reduced model, but is also present in a corresponding "real world" simulator which was tested against archaeological data, demonstrating the relevance and validity of the coevolutionary model. The lesson to be learned is that not all that acts Boserupian needs Boserup at its core.
1108.2590
A network analysis of countries' export flows: firm grounds for the building blocks of the economy
physics.soc-ph cs.SI physics.comp-ph physics.data-an
In this paper we analyze the bipartite network of countries and products from UN data on country production. We define the country-country and product-product projected networks and introduce a novel method of filtering information based on elements' similarity. As a result we find that country clustering reveals unexpected socio-geographic links among the most competing countries. On the same footings the products clustering can be efficiently used for a bottom-up classification of produced goods. Furthermore we mathematically reformulate the "reflections method" introduced by Hidalgo and Hausmann as a fixpoint problem; such formulation highlights some conceptual weaknesses of the approach. To overcome such an issue, we introduce an alternative methodology (based on biased Markov chains) that allows to rank countries in a conceptually consistent way. Our analysis uncovers a strong non-linear interaction between the diversification of a country and the ubiquity of its products, thus suggesting the possible need of moving towards more efficient and direct non-linear fixpoint algorithms to rank countries and products in the global market.
1108.2632
Compressive Imaging using Approximate Message Passing and a Markov-Tree Prior
cs.CV
We propose a novel algorithm for compressive imaging that exploits both the sparsity and persistence across scales found in the 2D wavelet transform coefficients of natural images. Like other recent works, we model wavelet structure using a hidden Markov tree (HMT) but, unlike other works, ours is based on loopy belief propagation (LBP). For LBP, we adopt a recently proposed "turbo" message passing schedule that alternates between exploitation of HMT structure and exploitation of compressive-measurement structure. For the latter, we leverage Donoho, Maleki, and Montanari's recently proposed approximate message passing (AMP) algorithm. Experiments with a large image database suggest that, relative to existing schemes, our turbo LBP approach yields state-of-the-art reconstruction performance with substantial reduction in complexity.
1108.2684
Gabor frames with rational density
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the frame property of the Gabor system G(g, {\alpha}, {\beta}) = {e2{\pi}i{\beta}nt g(t - {\alpha}m) : m, n \in Z} for the case of rational oversampling, i.e. {\alpha}, {\beta} \in Q. A 'rational' analogue of the Ron-Shen Gramian is constructed, and prove that for any odd window function g the system G(g, {\alpha}, {\beta}) does not generate a frame if {\alpha}{\beta} = (n-1)/n. Special attention is paid to the first Hermite function h_1(t) = te^(-{\pi}t^2).
1108.2685
Efficient Query Rewrite for Structured Web Queries
cs.IR
Web search engines and specialized online verticals are increasingly incorporating results from structured data sources to answer semantically rich user queries. For example, the query \WebQuery{Samsung 50 inch led tv} can be answered using information from a table of television data. However, the users are not domain experts and quite often enter values that do not match precisely the underlying data. Samsung makes 46- or 55- inch led tvs, but not 50-inch ones. So a literal execution of the above mentioned query will return zero results. For optimal user experience, a search engine would prefer to return at least a minimum number of results as close to the original query as possible. Furthermore, due to typical fast retrieval speeds in web-search, a search engine query execution is time-bound. In this paper, we address these challenges by proposing algorithms that rewrite the user query in a principled manner, surfacing at least the required number of results while satisfying the low-latency constraint. We formalize these requirements and introduce a general formulation of the problem. We show that under a natural formulation, the problem is NP-Hard to solve optimally, and present approximation algorithms that produce good rewrites. We empirically validate our algorithms on large-scale data obtained from a commercial search engine's shopping vertical.
1108.2714
Approximate common divisors via lattices
math.NT cs.CR cs.IT math.IT
We analyze the multivariate generalization of Howgrave-Graham's algorithm for the approximate common divisor problem. In the m-variable case with modulus N and approximate common divisor of size N^beta, this improves the size of the error tolerated from N^(beta^2) to N^(beta^((m+1)/m)), under a commonly used heuristic assumption. This gives a more detailed analysis of the hardness assumption underlying the recent fully homomorphic cryptosystem of van Dijk, Gentry, Halevi, and Vaikuntanathan. While these results do not challenge the suggested parameters, a 2^(n^epsilon) approximation algorithm with epsilon<2/3 for lattice basis reduction in n dimensions could be used to break these parameters. We have implemented our algorithm, and it performs better in practice than the theoretical analysis suggests. Our results fit into a broader context of analogies between cryptanalysis and coding theory. The multivariate approximate common divisor problem is the number-theoretic analogue of multivariate polynomial reconstruction, and we develop a corresponding lattice-based algorithm for the latter problem. In particular, it specializes to a lattice-based list decoding algorithm for Parvaresh-Vardy and Guruswami-Rudra codes, which are multivariate extensions of Reed-Solomon codes. This yields a new proof of the list decoding radii for these codes.
1108.2728
Market Mechanisms with Non-Price-Taking Agents
math.OC cs.SY
The paper develops a decentralized resource allocation mechanism for allocating divisible goods with capacity constraints to non-price-taking agents with general concave utilities. The proposed mechanism is always budget balanced, individually rational, and it converges to an optimal solution of the corresponding centralized problem. Such a mechanism is very useful in a network with general topology and no auctioneer where the competitive agents/users want different type of services.
1108.2741
Compressed Encoding for Rank Modulation
cs.IT math.IT
Rank modulation has been recently proposed as a scheme for storing information in flash memories. While rank modulation has advantages in improving write speed and endurance, the current encoding approach is based on the "push to the top" operation that is not efficient in the general case. We propose a new encoding procedure where a cell level is raised to be higher than the minimal necessary subset - instead of all - of the other cell levels. This new procedure leads to a significantly more compressed (lower charge levels) encoding. We derive an upper bound for a family of codes that utilize the proposed encoding procedure, and consider code constructions that achieve that bound for several special cases.
1108.2754
Structured Learning of Two-Level Dynamic Rankings
cs.IR
For ambiguous queries, conventional retrieval systems are bound by two conflicting goals. On the one hand, they should diversify and strive to present results for as many query intents as possible. On the other hand, they should provide depth for each intent by displaying more than a single result. Since both diversity and depth cannot be achieved simultaneously in the conventional static retrieval model, we propose a new dynamic ranking approach. Dynamic ranking models allow users to adapt the ranking through interaction, thus overcoming the constraints of presenting a one-size-fits-all static ranking. In particular, we propose a new two-level dynamic ranking model for presenting search results to the user. In this model, a user's interactions with the first-level ranking are used to infer this user's intent, so that second-level rankings can be inserted to provide more results relevant for this intent. Unlike for previous dynamic ranking models, we provide an algorithm to efficiently compute dynamic rankings with provable approximation guarantees for a large family of performance measures. We also propose the first principled algorithm for learning dynamic ranking functions from training data. In addition to the theoretical results, we provide empirical evidence demonstrating the gains in retrieval quality that our method achieves over conventional approaches.
1108.2755
The Meaning of Structure in Interconnected Dynamic Systems
cs.SY cs.SI math.DS math.OC physics.soc-ph
Interconnected dynamic systems are a pervasive component of our modern infrastructures. The complexity of such systems can be staggering, which motivates simplified representations for their manipulation and analysis. This work introduces the complete computational structure of a system as a common baseline for comparing different simplified representations. Linear systems are then used as a vehicle for comparing and contrasting distinct partial structure representations. Such representations simplify the description of a system's complete computational structure at various levels of fidelity while retaining a full description of the system's input-output dynamic behavior. Relationships between these various partial structure representations are detailed, and the landscape of new realization, minimality, and model reduction problems introduced by these representations is briefly surveyed.
1108.2783
On the Minimum Attention and the Anytime Attention Control Problems for Linear Systems: A Linear Programming Approach
math.OC cs.SY
In this paper, we present two control laws that are tailored for control applications in which computational and/or communication resources are scarce. Namely, we consider minimum attention control, where the `attention' that a control task requires is minimised given certain performance requirements, and anytime attention control, where the performance under the `attention' given by a scheduler is maximised. Here, we interpret `attention' as the inverse of the time elapsed between two consecutive executions of a control task. By focussing on linear plants, by allowing for only a finite number of possible intervals between two subsequent executions of the control task, by making a novel extension to the notion of control Lyapunov functions and taking these novel extended control Lyapunov function to be infinity-norm-based, we can formulate the aforementioned control problems as online linear programs, which can be solved efficiently. Furthermore, we provide techniques to construct suitable infinity-norm-based extended control Lyapunov functions for our purposes. Finally, we illustrate the resulting control laws using numerical examples. In particular, we show that minimum attention control outperforms an alternative implementation-aware control law available in the literature.
1108.2805
Partition Decomposition for Roll Call Data
stat.AP cs.SI stat.ML
In this paper we bring to bear some new tools from statistical learning on the analysis of roll call data. We present a new data-driven model for roll call voting that is geometric in nature. We construct the model by adapting the "Partition Decoupling Method," an unsupervised learning technique originally developed for the analysis of families of time series, to produce a multiscale geometric description of a weighted network associated to a set of roll call votes. Central to this approach is the quantitative notion of a "motivation," a cluster-based and learned basis element that serves as a building block in the representation of roll call data. Motivations enable the formulation of a quantitative description of ideology and their data-dependent nature makes possible a quantitative analysis of the evolution of ideological factors. This approach is generally applicable to roll call data and we apply it in particular to the historical roll call voting of the U.S. House and Senate. This methodology provides a mechanism for estimating the dimension of the underlying action space. We determine that the dominant factors form a low- (one- or two-) dimensional representation with secondary factors adding higher-dimensional features. In this way our work supports and extends the findings of both Poole-Rosenthal and Heckman-Snyder concerning the dimensionality of the action space. We give a detailed analysis of several individual Senates and use the AdaBoost technique from statistical learning to determine those votes with the most powerful discriminatory value. When used as a predictive model, this geometric view significantly outperforms spatial models such as the Poole-Rosenthal DW-NOMINATE model and the Heckman-Snyder 6-factor model, both in raw accuracy as well as Aggregate Proportional Reduced Error (APRE).
1108.2815
The Information Flow and Capacity of Channels with Noisy Feedback
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we consider some long-standing problems in communication systems with access to noisy feedback. We introduce a new notion, the residual directed information, to capture the effective information flow (i.e. mutual information between the message and the channel outputs) in the forward channel. In light of this new concept, we investigate discrete memoryless channels (DMC) with noisy feedback and prove that the noisy feedback capacity is not achievable by using any typical closed-loop encoder (non-trivially taking feedback information to produce channel inputs). We then show that the residual directed information can be used to characterize the capacity of channels with noisy feedback. Finally, we provide computable bounds on the noisy feedback capacity, which are characterized by the causal conditional directed information.
1108.2816
Bounds on the Achievable Rate of Noisy feedback Gaussian Channels under Linear Feedback Coding Scheme
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we investigate the additive Gaussian noise channel with noisy feedback. We consider the setup of linear coding of the feedback information and Gaussian signaling of the message (i.e. Cover-Pombra Scheme). Then, we derive the upper and lower bounds on the largest achievable rate for this setup. We show that these two bounds can be obtained by solving two convex optimization problems. Finally, we present some simulations and discussion.
1108.2820
Ensemble Risk Modeling Method for Robust Learning on Scarce Data
cs.LG stat.ML
In medical risk modeling, typical data are "scarce": they have relatively small number of training instances (N), censoring, and high dimensionality (M). We show that the problem may be effectively simplified by reducing it to bipartite ranking, and introduce new bipartite ranking algorithm, Smooth Rank, for robust learning on scarce data. The algorithm is based on ensemble learning with unsupervised aggregation of predictors. The advantage of our approach is confirmed in comparison with two "gold standard" risk modeling methods on 10 real life survival analysis datasets, where the new approach has the best results on all but two datasets with the largest ratio N/M. For systematic study of the effects of data scarcity on modeling by all three methods, we conducted two types of computational experiments: on real life data with randomly drawn training sets of different sizes, and on artificial data with increasing number of features. Both experiments demonstrated that Smooth Rank has critical advantage over the popular methods on the scarce data; it does not suffer from overfitting where other methods do.
1108.2822
Weighted reciprocity in human communication networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
In this paper we define a metric for reciprocity---the degree of balance in a social relationship---appropriate for weighted social networks in order to investigate the distribution of this dyadic feature in a large-scale system built from trace-logs of over a billion cell-phone communication events across millions of actors. We find that dyadic relations in this network are characterized by much larger degrees of imbalance than we would expect if persons kept only those relationships that exhibited close to full reciprocity. We point to two structural features of human communication behavior and relationship formation---the division of contacts into strong and weak ties and the tendency to form relationships with similar others---that either help or hinder the ability of persons to obtain communicative balance in their relationships. We examine the extent to which deviations from reciprocity in the observed network are partially traceable to these characteristics.
1108.2829
Energy Minimization for the Half-Duplex Relay Channel with Decode-Forward Relaying
cs.IT math.IT
We analyze coding for energy efficiency in relay channels at a fixed source rate. We first propose a half-duplex decode-forward coding scheme for the Gaussian relay channel. We then derive three optimal sets of power allocation, which respectively minimize the network, the relay and the source energy consumption. These optimal power allocations are given in closed-form, which have so far remained implicit for maximum-rate schemes. Moreover, analysis shows that minimizing the network energy consumption at a given rate is not equivalent to maximizing the rate given energy, since it only covers part of all rates achievable by decode-forward. We thus combine the optimized schemes for network and relay energy consumptions into a generalized one, which then covers all achievable rates. This generalized scheme is not only energy-optimal for the desired source rate but also rate-optimal for the consumed energy. The results also give a detailed understanding of the power consumption regimes and allow a comprehensive description of the optimal message coding and resource allocation for each desired source rate and channel realization. Finally, we simulate the proposed schemes in a realistic environment, considering path-loss and shadowing as modelled in the 3GPP standard. Significant energy gain can be obtained over both direct and two-hop transmissions, particularly when the source is far from relay and destination.
1108.2840
Generalised elastic nets
q-bio.NC cs.LG stat.ML
The elastic net was introduced as a heuristic algorithm for combinatorial optimisation and has been applied, among other problems, to biological modelling. It has an energy function which trades off a fitness term against a tension term. In the original formulation of the algorithm the tension term was implicitly based on a first-order derivative. In this paper we generalise the elastic net model to an arbitrary quadratic tension term, e.g. derived from a discretised differential operator, and give an efficient learning algorithm. We refer to these as generalised elastic nets (GENs). We give a theoretical analysis of the tension term for 1D nets with periodic boundary conditions, and show that the model is sensitive to the choice of finite difference scheme that represents the discretised derivative. We illustrate some of these issues in the context of cortical map models, by relating the choice of tension term to a cortical interaction function. In particular, we prove that this interaction takes the form of a Mexican hat for the original elastic net, and of progressively more oscillatory Mexican hats for higher-order derivatives. The results apply not only to generalised elastic nets but also to other methods using discrete differential penalties, and are expected to be useful in other areas, such as data analysis, computer graphics and optimisation problems.
1108.2846
Capacity of Strong and Very Strong Gaussian Interference Relay-without-delay Channels
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we study the interference relay-without-delay channel which is an interference channel with a relay helping the communication. We assume the relay's transmit symbol depends not only on its past received symbols but also on its current received symbol, which is an appropriate model for studying amplify-and-forward type relaying when the overall delay spread is much smaller than the inverse of the bandwidth. For the discrete memoryless interference relay-without-delay channel, we show an outer bound using genie-aided outer bounding. For the Gaussian interference relay-without-delay channel, we define strong and very strong interference relay-without-delay channels and propose an achievable scheme based on instantaneous amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying. We also propose two outer bounds for the strong and very strong cases. Using the proposed achievable scheme and outer bounds, we show that our scheme can achieve the capacity exactly when the relay's transmit power is greater than a certain threshold. This is surprising since the conventional AF relaying is usually only asymptotically optimal, not exactly optimal. The proposed scheme can be useful in many practical scenarios due to its optimality as well as its simplicity.
1108.2858
Optimal Power Allocation for OFDM-Based Wire-Tap Channels with Arbitrarily Distributed Inputs
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we investigate power allocation that maximizes the secrecy rate of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems under arbitrarily distributed inputs. Considering commonly assumed Gaussian inputs are unrealistic, we focus on secrecy systems with more practical discrete distributed inputs, such as PSK, QAM, etc. While the secrecy rate achieved by Gaussian distributed inputs is concave with respect to the transmit power, we have found and rigorously proved that the secrecy rate is non-concave under any discrete inputs. Hence, traditional convex optimization methods are not applicable any more. To address this non-concave power allocation problem, we propose an efficient algorithm. Its gap from optimality vanishes asymptotically at the rate of $O(1/\sqrt{N})$, and its complexity grows in the order of O(N), where $N$ is the number of sub-carriers. Numerical results are provided to illustrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm.
1108.2861
Generalized Distributive Law for ML Decoding of Space-Time Block Codes
cs.IT math.IT
The problem of designing good Space-Time Block Codes (STBCs) with low maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding complexity has gathered much attention in the literature. All the known low ML decoding complexity techniques utilize the same approach of exploiting either the multigroup decodable or the fast-decodable (conditionally multigroup decodable) structure of a code. We refer to this well known technique of decoding STBCs as Conditional ML (CML) decoding. In this paper we introduce a new framework to construct ML decoders for STBCs based on the Generalized Distributive Law (GDL) and the Factor-graph based Sum-Product Algorithm. We say that an STBC is fast GDL decodable if the order of GDL decoding complexity of the code is strictly less than M^l, where l is the number of independent symbols in the STBC, and M is the constellation size. We give sufficient conditions for an STBC to admit fast GDL decoding, and show that both multigroup and conditionally multigroup decodable codes are fast GDL decodable. For any STBC, whether fast GDL decodable or not, we show that the GDL decoding complexity is strictly less than the CML decoding complexity. For instance, for any STBC obtained from Cyclic Division Algebras which is not multigroup or conditionally multigroup decodable, the GDL decoder provides about 12 times reduction in complexity compared to the CML decoder. Similarly, for the Golden code, which is conditionally multigroup decodable, the GDL decoder is only half as complex as the CML decoder.
1108.2865
Conscious Machines and Consciousness Oriented Programming
cs.AI
In this paper, we investigate the following question: how could you write such computer programs that can work like conscious beings? The motivation behind this question is that we want to create such applications that can see the future. The aim of this paper is to provide an overall conceptual framework for this new approach to machine consciousness. So we introduce a new programming paradigm called Consciousness Oriented Programming (COP).
1108.2874
Thermodynamic Semirings
math.QA cs.IT math.IT
The Witt construction describes a functor from the category of Rings to the category of characteristic 0 rings. It is uniquely determined by a few associativity constraints which do not depend on the types of the variables considered, in other words, by integer polynomials. This universality allowed Alain Connes and Caterina Consani to devise an analogue of the Witt ring for characteristic one, an attractive endeavour since we know very little about the arithmetic in this exotic characteristic and its corresponding field with one element. Interestingly, they found that in characteristic one, the Witt construction depends critically on the Shannon entropy. In the current work, we examine this surprising occurrence, defining a Witt operad for an arbitrary information measure and a corresponding algebra we call a thermodynamic semiring. This object exhibits algebraically many of the familiar properties of information measures, and we examine in particular the Tsallis and Renyi entropy functions and applications to nonextensive thermodynamics and multifractals. We find that the arithmetic of the thermodynamic semiring is exactly that of a certain guessing game played using the given information measure.
1108.2881
Structure Theorems for Real-Time Variable-Rate Coding With and Without Side Information
cs.IT math.IT
The output of a discrete Markov source is to be encoded instantaneously by a variable-rate encoder and decoded by a finite-state decoder. Our performance measure is a linear combination of the distortion and the instantaneous rate. Structure theorems, pertaining to the encoder and next-state functions are derived for every given finite-state decoder, which can have access to side information.
1108.2886
Homological Error Correcting Codes and Systolic Geometry
math.DG cs.CG cs.IT math.IT
In my masters thesis I prove a square root bound on the distance of homological codes that come from two dimensional surfaces, as a result of the systolic inequality. I also give a detailed version of M.H. Freedman's proof that due to systolic freedom, this bound does not hold in higher dimensions.
1108.2889
Additive habits with power utility: Estimates, asymptotics and equilibrium
q-fin.PM cs.SY math.OC
We consider a power utility maximization problem with additive habits in a framework of discrete-time markets and random endowments. For certain classes of incomplete markets, we establish estimates for the optimal consumption stream in terms of the aggregate state price density, investigate the asymptotic behaviour of the propensity to consume (ratio of the consumption to the wealth), as the initial endowment tends to infinity, and show that the limit is the corresponding quantity in an artificial market. For complete markets, we concentrate on proving the existence of an Arrow-Debreu equilibrium in an economy inhabited by heterogeneous individuals who differ with respect to their risk-aversion coefficient, impatience rate and endowments stream, but possess the same degree of habit-formation. Finally, in a representative agent equilibrium, we compute explicitly the price of a zero coupon bond and the Lucas tree equity, and study its dependence on the habit-formation parameter.
1108.2893
Reduced-Complexity Decoder of Long Reed-Solomon Codes Based on Composite Cyclotomic Fourier Transforms
cs.IT math.IT
Long Reed-Solomon (RS) codes are desirable for digital communication and storage systems due to their improved error performance, but the high computational complexity of their decoders is a key obstacle to their adoption in practice. As discrete Fourier transforms (DFTs) can evaluate a polynomial at multiple points, efficient DFT algorithms are promising in reducing the computational complexities of syndrome based decoders for long RS codes. In this paper, we first propose partial composite cyclotomic Fourier transforms (CCFTs) and then devise syndrome based decoders for long RS codes over large finite fields based on partial CCFTs. The new decoders based on partial CCFTs achieve a significant saving of computational complexities for long RS codes. Since partial CCFTs have modular and regular structures, the new decoders are suitable for hardware implementations. To further verify and demonstrate the advantages of partial CCFTs, we implement in hardware the syndrome computation block for a $(2720, 2550)$ shortened RS code over GF$(2^{12})$. In comparison to previous results based on Horner's rule, our hardware implementation not only has a smaller gate count, but also achieves much higher throughputs.
1108.2903
Kernel Methods for the Approximation of Nonlinear Systems
math.OC cs.SY math.DS stat.ML
We introduce a data-driven order reduction method for nonlinear control systems, drawing on recent progress in machine learning and statistical dimensionality reduction. The method rests on the assumption that the nonlinear system behaves linearly when lifted into a high (or infinite) dimensional feature space where balanced truncation may be carried out implicitly. This leads to a nonlinear reduction map which can be combined with a representation of the system belonging to a reproducing kernel Hilbert space to give a closed, reduced order dynamical system which captures the essential input-output characteristics of the original model. Empirical simulations illustrating the approach are also provided.
1108.2905
User Scheduling for Heterogeneous Multiuser MIMO Systems: A Subspace Viewpoint
cs.IT math.IT
In downlink multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems, users are practically heterogeneous in nature. However, most of the existing user scheduling algorithms are designed with an implicit assumption that the users are homogeneous. In this paper, we revisit the problem by exploring the characteristics of heterogeneous users from a subspace point of view. With an objective of minimizing interference non-orthogonality among users, three new angular-based user scheduling criteria that can be applied in various user scheduling algorithms are proposed. While the first criterion is heuristically determined by identifying the incapability of largest principal angle to characterize the subspace correlation and hence the interference non-orthogonality between users, the second and third ones are derived by using, respectively, the sum rate capacity bounds with block diagonalization and the change in capacity by adding a new user into an existing user subset. Aiming at capturing fairness among heterogeneous users while maintaining multiuser diversity gain, two new hybrid user scheduling algorithms are also proposed whose computational complexities are only linearly proportional to the number of users. We show by simulations that the effectiveness of our proposed user scheduling criteria and algorithms with respect to those commonly used in homogeneous environment.
1108.2960
Edge Transitive Ramanujan Graphs and Highly Symmetric LDPC Good Codes
cs.IT math.CO math.GR math.IT
We present a symmetric LDPC code with constant rate and constant distance (i.e. good LDPC code) that its constraint space is generated by the orbit of one constant weight constraint under a group action. Our construction provides the first symmetric LDPC good codes. This solves the main open problem raised by Kaufman and Wigderson in [4].
1108.2989
A theory of multiclass boosting
stat.ML cs.AI
Boosting combines weak classifiers to form highly accurate predictors. Although the case of binary classification is well understood, in the multiclass setting, the "correct" requirements on the weak classifier, or the notion of the most efficient boosting algorithms are missing. In this paper, we create a broad and general framework, within which we make precise and identify the optimal requirements on the weak-classifier, as well as design the most effective, in a certain sense, boosting algorithms that assume such requirements.
1108.2996
Symmetric Group Testing and Superimposed Codes
cs.IT math.IT
We describe a generalization of the group testing problem termed symmetric group testing. Unlike in classical binary group testing, the roles played by the input symbols zero and one are "symmetric" while the outputs are drawn from a ternary alphabet. Using an information-theoretic approach, we derive sufficient and necessary conditions for the number of tests required for noise-free and noisy reconstructions. Furthermore, we extend the notion of disjunct (zero-false-drop) and separable (uniquely decipherable) codes to the case of symmetric group testing. For the new family of codes, we derive bounds on their size based on probabilistic methods, and provide construction methods based on coding theoretic ideas.
1108.3019
A First Approach on Modelling Staff Proactiveness in Retail Simulation Models
cs.AI
There has been a noticeable shift in the relative composition of the industry in the developed countries in recent years; manufacturing is decreasing while the service sector is becoming more important. However, currently most simulation models for investigating service systems are still built in the same way as manufacturing simulation models, using a process-oriented world view, i.e. they model the flow of passive entities through a system. These kinds of models allow studying aspects of operational management but are not well suited for studying the dynamics that appear in service systems due to human behaviour. For these kinds of studies we require tools that allow modelling the system and entities using an object-oriented world view, where intelligent objects serve as abstract "actors" that are goal directed and can behave proactively. In our work we combine process-oriented discrete event simulation modelling and object-oriented agent based simulation modelling to investigate the impact of people management practices on retail productivity. In this paper, we reveal in a series of experiments what impact considering proactivity can have on the output accuracy of simulation models of human centric systems. The model and data we use for this investigation are based on a case study in a UK department store. We show that considering proactivity positively influences the validity of these kinds of models and therefore allows analysts to make better recommendations regarding strategies to apply people management practises.
1108.3025
Optimal control of a dengue epidemic model with vaccination
math.OC cs.SY q-bio.PE
We present a SIR+ASI epidemic model to describe the interaction between human and dengue fever mosquito populations. A control strategy in the form of vaccination, to decrease the number of infected individuals, is used. An optimal control approach is applied in order to find the best way to fight the disease.
1108.3061
Min-type Morse theory for configuration spaces of hard spheres
math.AT cs.RO math-ph math.MP
We study configuration spaces of hard spheres in a bounded region. We develop a general Morse-theoretic framework, and show that mechanically balanced configurations play the role of critical points. As an application, we find the precise threshold radius for a configuration space to be homotopy equivalent to the configuration space of points.
1108.3072
Training Logistic Regression and SVM on 200GB Data Using b-Bit Minwise Hashing and Comparisons with Vowpal Wabbit (VW)
cs.LG stat.ME stat.ML
We generated a dataset of 200 GB with 10^9 features, to test our recent b-bit minwise hashing algorithms for training very large-scale logistic regression and SVM. The results confirm our prior work that, compared with the VW hashing algorithm (which has the same variance as random projections), b-bit minwise hashing is substantially more accurate at the same storage. For example, with merely 30 hashed values per data point, b-bit minwise hashing can achieve similar accuracies as VW with 2^14 hashed values per data point. We demonstrate that the preprocessing cost of b-bit minwise hashing is roughly on the same order of magnitude as the data loading time. Furthermore, by using a GPU, the preprocessing cost can be reduced to a small fraction of the data loading time. Minwise hashing has been widely used in industry, at least in the context of search. One reason for its popularity is that one can efficiently simulate permutations by (e.g.,) universal hashing. In other words, there is no need to store the permutation matrix. In this paper, we empirically verify this practice, by demonstrating that even using the simplest 2-universal hashing does not degrade the learning performance.
1108.3074
Selectivity in Probabilistic Causality: Drawing Arrows from Inputs to Stochastic Outputs
cs.AI math.PR physics.data-an q-bio.QM
Given a set of several inputs into a system (e.g., independent variables characterizing stimuli) and a set of several stochastically non-independent outputs (e.g., random variables describing different aspects of responses), how can one determine, for each of the outputs, which of the inputs it is influenced by? The problem has applications ranging from modeling pairwise comparisons to reconstructing mental processing architectures to conjoint testing. A necessary and sufficient condition for a given pattern of selective influences is provided by the Joint Distribution Criterion, according to which the problem of "what influences what" is equivalent to that of the existence of a joint distribution for a certain set of random variables. For inputs and outputs with finite sets of values this criterion translates into a test of consistency of a certain system of linear equations and inequalities (Linear Feasibility Test) which can be performed by means of linear programming. The Joint Distribution Criterion also leads to a metatheoretical principle for generating a broad class of necessary conditions (tests) for diagrams of selective influences. Among them is the class of distance-type tests based on the observation that certain functionals on jointly distributed random variables satisfy triangle inequality.
1108.3097
Cooperative Packet Routing using Mutual Information Accumulation
cs.IT cs.NI math.IT
We consider the resource allocation problem in cooperative wireless networks wherein nodes perform mutual information accumulation. We consider a unicast setting and arbitrary arrival processes at the source node. Source arrivals can be broken down into numerous packets to better exploit the spatial and temporal diversity of the routes available in the network. We devise a linear-program-based algorithm which allocates network resource to meet a certain transmission objective. Given a network, a source with multiple arriving packets and a destination, our algorithm generates a policy that regulates which nodes should participate in transmitting which packets, when and with what resource. By routing different packets through different nodes the policy exploits spatial route diversity, and by sequencing packet transmissions along the same route it exploits temporal route diversity.
1108.3130
Localizations on Complex Networks
physics.soc-ph cs.SI physics.data-an
We study the structural characteristics of complex networks using the representative eigenvectors of the adjacent matrix. The probability distribution function of the components of the representative eigenvectors are proposed to describe the localization on networks where the Euclidean distance is invalid. Several quantities are used to describe the localization properties of the representative states, such as the participation ratio, the structural entropy, and the probability distribution function of the nearest neighbor level spacings for spectra of complex networks. Whole-cell networks in the real world and the Watts-Strogatz small-world and Barabasi-Albert scale-free networks are considered. The networks have nontrivial localization properties due to the nontrivial topological structures. It is found that the ascending-order-ranked series of the occurrence probabilities at the nodes behave generally multifractally. This characteristic can be used as a structural measure of complex networks.
1108.3149
Sampling based on timing: Time encoding machines on shift-invariant subspaces
cs.IT math.IT
Sampling information using timing is a new approach in sampling theory. The question is how to map amplitude information into the timing domain. One such encoder, called time encoding machine, was introduced by Lazar and Toth in [23] for the special case of band-limited functions. In this paper, we extend their result to the general framework of shift-invariant subspaces. We prove that time encoding machines may be considered as non-uniform sampling devices, where time locations are unknown a priori. Using this fact, we show that perfect representation and reconstruction of a signal with a time encoding machine is possible whenever this device satisfies some density property. We prove that this method is robust under timing quantization, and therefore can lead to the design of simple and energy efficient sampling devices.
1108.3153
Differential games of partial information forward-backward doubly stochastic differential equations and applications
math.OC cs.SY
This paper is concerned with a new type of differential game problems of forwardbackward stochastic systems. There are three distinguishing features: Firstly, our game systems are forward-backward doubly stochastic differential equations, which is a class of more general game systems than other forward-backward stochastic game systems without doubly stochastic terms; Secondly, forward equations are directly related to backward equations at initial time, not terminal time; Thirdly, the admissible control is required to be adapted to a sub-information of the full information generated by the underlying Brownian motions. We give a necessary and a sufficient conditions for both an equilibrium point of nonzero-sum games and a saddle point of zero-sum games. Finally, we work out an example of linear-quadratic nonzero-sum differential games to illustrate the theoretical applications. Applying some stochastic filtering techniques, we obtain the explicit expression of the equilibrium point.
1108.3154
Stability Conditions for Online Learnability
cs.LG stat.ML
Stability is a general notion that quantifies the sensitivity of a learning algorithm's output to small change in the training dataset (e.g. deletion or replacement of a single training sample). Such conditions have recently been shown to be more powerful to characterize learnability in the general learning setting under i.i.d. samples where uniform convergence is not necessary for learnability, but where stability is both sufficient and necessary for learnability. We here show that similar stability conditions are also sufficient for online learnability, i.e. whether there exists a learning algorithm such that under any sequence of examples (potentially chosen adversarially) produces a sequence of hypotheses that has no regret in the limit with respect to the best hypothesis in hindsight. We introduce online stability, a stability condition related to uniform-leave-one-out stability in the batch setting, that is sufficient for online learnability. In particular we show that popular classes of online learners, namely algorithms that fall in the category of Follow-the-(Regularized)-Leader, Mirror Descent, gradient-based methods and randomized algorithms like Weighted Majority and Hedge, are guaranteed to have no regret if they have such online stability property. We provide examples that suggest the existence of an algorithm with such stability condition might in fact be necessary for online learnability. For the more restricted binary classification setting, we establish that such stability condition is in fact both sufficient and necessary. We also show that for a large class of online learnable problems in the general learning setting, namely those with a notion of sub-exponential covering, no-regret online algorithms that have such stability condition exists.
1108.3198
On the average sensitivity of laced Boolean functions
cs.IT math.CO math.IT
In this paper we obtain the average sensitivity of the laced Boolean functions. This confirms a conjecture of Shparlinski. We also compute the weights of the laced Boolean functions and show that they are almost balanced.
1108.3206
Modeling and frequency domain analysis of nonlinear compliant joints for a passive dynamic swimmer
cs.RO
In this paper we present the study of the mathematical model of a real life joint used in an underwater robotic fish. Fluid-structure interaction is utterly simplified and the motion of the joint is approximated by D\"uffing's equation. We compare the quality of analytical harmonic solutions previously reported, with the input-output relation obtained via truncated Volterra series expansion. Comparisons show a trade-off between accuracy and flexibility of the methods. The methods are discussed in detail in order to facilitate reproduction of our results. The approach presented herein can be used to verify results in nonlinear resonance applications and in the design of bio-inspired compliant robots that exploit passive properties of their dynamics. We focus on the potential use of this type of joint for energy extraction from environmental sources, in this case a K\'arm\'an vortex street shed by an obstacle in a flow. Open challenges and questions are mentioned throughout the document.
1108.3221
An Optimal Control Approach for the Persistent Monitoring Problem
cs.SY cs.RO math.OC
We propose an optimal control framework for persistent monitoring problems where the objective is to control the movement of mobile agents to minimize an uncertainty metric in a given mission space. For a single agent in a one-dimensional space, we show that the optimal solution is obtained in terms of a sequence of switching locations, thus reducing it to a parametric optimization problem. Using Infinitesimal Perturbation Analysis (IPA) we obtain a complete solution through a gradient-based algorithm. We also discuss a receding horizon controller which is capable of obtaining a near-optimal solution on-the-fly. We illustrate our approach with numerical examples.
1108.3223
Randomized Optimal Consensus of Multi-agent Systems
cs.MA cs.CG cs.DC
In this paper, we formulate and solve a randomized optimal consensus problem for multi-agent systems with stochastically time-varying interconnection topology. The considered multi-agent system with a simple randomized iterating rule achieves an almost sure consensus meanwhile solving the optimization problem $\min_{z\in \mathds{R}^d}\ \sum_{i=1}^n f_i(z),$ in which the optimal solution set of objective function $f_i$ can only be observed by agent $i$ itself. At each time step, simply determined by a Bernoulli trial, each agent independently and randomly chooses either taking an average among its neighbor set, or projecting onto the optimal solution set of its own optimization component. Both directed and bidirectional communication graphs are studied. Connectivity conditions are proposed to guarantee an optimal consensus almost surely with proper convexity and intersection assumptions. The convergence analysis is carried out using convex analysis. We compare the randomized algorithm with the deterministic one via a numerical example. The results illustrate that a group of autonomous agents can reach an optimal opinion by each node simply making a randomized trade-off between following its neighbors or sticking to its own opinion at each time step.
1108.3226
Multi-agent Robust Consensus: Convergence Analysis and Application
cs.DC cs.MA
The paper investigates consensus problem for continuous-time multi-agent systems with time-varying communication graphs subject to process noises. Borrowing the ideas from input-to-state stability (ISS) and integral input-to-state stability (iISS), robust consensus and integral robust consensus are defined with respect to $L_\infty$ and $L_1$ norms of the disturbance functions, respectively. Sufficient and/or necessary connectivity conditions are obtained for the system to reach robust consensus or integral robust consensus, which answer the question: how much communication capacity is required for a multi-agent network to converge despite certain amount of disturbance. The $\epsilon$-convergence time is then obtained for the network as a special case of the robustness analysis. The results are based on quite general assumptions on switching graph, weights rule and noise regularity. In addition, as an illustration of the applicability of the results, distributed event-triggered coordination is studied.
1108.3235
Comparing System Dynamics and Agent-Based Simulation for Tumour Growth and its Interactions with Effector Cells
cs.CE cs.AI q-bio.CB
There is little research concerning comparisons and combination of System Dynamics Simulation (SDS) and Agent Based Simulation (ABS). ABS is a paradigm used in many levels of abstraction, including those levels covered by SDS. We believe that the establishment of frameworks for the choice between these two simulation approaches would contribute to the simulation research. Hence, our work aims for the establishment of directions for the choice between SDS and ABS approaches for immune system-related problems. Previously, we compared the use of ABS and SDS for modelling agents' behaviour in an environment with nomovement or interactions between these agents. We concluded that for these types of agents it is preferable to use SDS, as it takes up less computational resources and produces the same results as those obtained by the ABS model. In order to move this research forward, our next research question is: if we introduce interactions between these agents will SDS still be the most appropriate paradigm to be used? To answer this question for immune system simulation problems, we will use, as case studies, models involving interactions between tumour cells and immune effector cells. Experiments show that there are cases where SDS and ABS can not be used interchangeably, and therefore, their comparison is not straightforward.
1108.3240
Multi-robot Deployment From LTL Specifications with Reduced Communication
cs.RO cs.SY math.OC
In this paper, we develop a computational framework for fully automatic deployment of a team of unicycles from a global specification given as an LTL formula over some regions of interest. Our hierarchical approach consists of four steps: (i) the construction of finite abstractions for the motions of each robot, (ii) the parallel composition of the abstractions, (iii) the generation of a satisfying motion of the team; (iv) mapping this motion to individual robot control and communication strategies. The main result of the paper is an algorithm to reduce the amount of inter-robot communication during the fourth step of the procedure.
1108.3250
The Statistical methods of Pixel-Based Image Fusion Techniques
cs.CV
There are many image fusion methods that can be used to produce high-resolution mutlispectral images from a high-resolution panchromatic (PAN) image and low-resolution multispectral (MS) of remote sensed images. This paper attempts to undertake the study of image fusion techniques with different Statistical techniques for image fusion as Local Mean Matching (LMM), Local Mean and Variance Matching (LMVM), Regression variable substitution (RVS), Local Correlation Modeling (LCM) and they are compared with one another so as to choose the best technique, that can be applied on multi-resolution satellite images. This paper also devotes to concentrate on the analytical techniques for evaluating the quality of image fusion (F) by using various methods including Standard Deviation (SD), Entropy(En), Correlation Coefficient (CC), Signal-to Noise Ratio (SNR), Normalization Root Mean Square Error (NRMSE) and Deviation Index (DI) to estimate the quality and degree of information improvement of a fused image quantitatively.
1108.3251
Advanced phase retrieval: maximum likelihood technique with sparse regularization of phase and amplitude
cs.CV
Sparse modeling is one of the efficient techniques for imaging that allows recovering lost information. In this paper, we present a novel iterative phase-retrieval algorithm using a sparse representation of the object amplitude and phase. The algorithm is derived in terms of a constrained maximum likelihood, where the wave field reconstruction is performed using a number of noisy intensity-only observations with a zero-mean additive Gaussian noise. The developed algorithm enables the optimal solution for the object wave field reconstruction. Our goal is an improvement of the reconstruction quality with respect to the conventional algorithms. Sparse regularization results in advanced reconstruction accuracy, and numerical simulations demonstrate significant enhancement of imaging.
1108.3259
A review and comparison of strategies for multi-step ahead time series forecasting based on the NN5 forecasting competition
stat.ML cs.AI cs.LG stat.AP
Multi-step ahead forecasting is still an open challenge in time series forecasting. Several approaches that deal with this complex problem have been proposed in the literature but an extensive comparison on a large number of tasks is still missing. This paper aims to fill this gap by reviewing existing strategies for multi-step ahead forecasting and comparing them in theoretical and practical terms. To attain such an objective, we performed a large scale comparison of these different strategies using a large experimental benchmark (namely the 111 series from the NN5 forecasting competition). In addition, we considered the effects of deseasonalization, input variable selection, and forecast combination on these strategies and on multi-step ahead forecasting at large. The following three findings appear to be consistently supported by the experimental results: Multiple-Output strategies are the best performing approaches, deseasonalization leads to uniformly improved forecast accuracy, and input selection is more effective when performed in conjunction with deseasonalization.
1108.3260
Finding Similar/Diverse Solutions in Answer Set Programming
cs.AI cs.LO cs.PL
For some computational problems (e.g., product configuration, planning, diagnosis, query answering, phylogeny reconstruction) computing a set of similar/diverse solutions may be desirable for better decision-making. With this motivation, we studied several decision/optimization versions of this problem in the context of Answer Set Programming (ASP), analyzed their computational complexity, and introduced offline/online methods to compute similar/diverse solutions of such computational problems with respect to a given distance function. All these methods rely on the idea of computing solutions to a problem by means of finding the answer sets for an ASP program that describes the problem. The offline methods compute all solutions in advance using the ASP formulation of the problem with an ASP solver, like Clasp, and then identify similar/diverse solutions using clustering methods. The online methods compute similar/diverse solutions following one of the three approaches: by reformulating the ASP representation of the problem to compute similar/diverse solutions at once using an ASP solver; by computing similar/diverse solutions iteratively (one after other) using an ASP solver; by modifying the search algorithm of an ASP solver to compute similar/diverse solutions incrementally. We modified Clasp to implement the last online method and called it Clasp-NK. In the first two online methods, the given distance function is represented in ASP; in the last one it is implemented in C++. We showed the applicability and the effectiveness of these methods on reconstruction of similar/diverse phylogenies for Indo-European languages, and on several planning problems in Blocks World. We observed that in terms of computational efficiency the last online method outperforms the others; also it allows us to compute similar/diverse solutions when the distance function cannot be represented in ASP.
1108.3278
Reiter's Default Logic Is a Logic of Autoepistemic Reasoning And a Good One, Too
cs.AI
A fact apparently not observed earlier in the literature of nonmonotonic reasoning is that Reiter, in his default logic paper, did not directly formalize informal defaults. Instead, he translated a default into a certain natural language proposition and provided a formalization of the latter. A few years later, Moore noted that propositions like the one used by Reiter are fundamentally different than defaults and exhibit a certain autoepistemic nature. Thus, Reiter had developed his default logic as a formalization of autoepistemic propositions rather than of defaults. The first goal of this paper is to show that some problems of Reiter's default logic as a formal way to reason about informal defaults are directly attributable to the autoepistemic nature of default logic and to the mismatch between informal defaults and the Reiter's formal defaults, the latter being a formal expression of the autoepistemic propositions Reiter used as a representation of informal defaults. The second goal of our paper is to compare the work of Reiter and Moore. While each of them attempted to formalize autoepistemic propositions, the modes of reasoning in their respective logics were different. We revisit Moore's and Reiter's intuitions and present them from the perspective of autotheoremhood, where theories can include propositions referring to the theory's own theorems. We then discuss the formalization of this perspective in the logics of Moore and Reiter, respectively, using the unifying semantic framework for default and autoepistemic logics that we developed earlier. We argue that Reiter's default logic is a better formalization of Moore's intuitions about autoepistemic propositions than Moore's own autoepistemic logic.
1108.3279
Revisiting Epistemic Specifications
cs.AI
In 1991, Michael Gelfond introduced the language of epistemic specifications. The goal was to develop tools for modeling problems that require some form of meta-reasoning, that is, reasoning over multiple possible worlds. Despite their relevance to knowledge representation, epistemic specifications have received relatively little attention so far. In this paper, we revisit the formalism of epistemic specification. We offer a new definition of the formalism, propose several semantics (one of which, under syntactic restrictions we assume, turns out to be equivalent to the original semantics by Gelfond), derive some complexity results and, finally, show the effectiveness of the formalism for modeling problems requiring meta-reasoning considered recently by Faber and Woltran. All these results show that epistemic specifications deserve much more attention that has been afforded to them so far.
1108.3281
Origins of Answer-Set Programming - Some Background And Two Personal Accounts
cs.AI
We discuss the evolution of aspects of nonmonotonic reasoning towards the computational paradigm of answer-set programming (ASP). We give a general overview of the roots of ASP and follow up with the personal perspective on research developments that helped verbalize the main principles of ASP and differentiated it from the classical logic programming.
1108.3285
Simple Low-Rate Non-Binary LDPC Coding for Relay Channels
cs.IT math.IT
Binary LDPC coded relay systems have been well studied previously with the assumption of infinite codeword length. In this paper, we deal with non-binary LDPC codes which can outperform their binary counterpart especially for practical codeword length. We utilize non-binary LDPC codes and recently invented non-binary coding techniques known as multiplicative repetition to design the low-rate coding strategy for the decode-and-forward half-duplex relay channel. We claim that the proposed strategy is simple since the destination and the relay can decode with almost the same computational complexity by sharing the same structure of decoder. Numerical experiments are carried out to show that the performances obtained by non-binary LDPC coded relay systems surpass the capacity of direct transmission and also approach within less than 1.5 dB from the achievable rate of the relay channels.
1108.3286
A Lookahead algorithm to compute Betweenness Centrality
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
The Betweenness Centrality index is a very important centrality measure in the analysis of a large number of networks. Despite its significance in a lot of interdisciplinary applications, its computation is very expensive. The fastest known algorithm presently is by Brandes which takes O(|V || E|) time for computation. In real life scenarios, it happens very frequently that a single vertex or a set of vertices is sequentially removed from a network. The recomputation of Betweenness Centrality on removing a single vertex becomes expensive when the Brandes algorithm is repeated. It is to be understood that as the size of the network increases, Betweenness Centrality calculation becomes more and more expensive and even a decrease in running time by a small fraction results in a phenomenal decrease in the actual running time. The algorithm introduced in this paper achieves the same in a significantly lesser time than repetition of the Brandes algorithm. The algorithm can also be extended to a general case.
1108.3298
A Machine Learning Perspective on Predictive Coding with PAQ
cs.LG cs.AI cs.CV cs.IR stat.ML
PAQ8 is an open source lossless data compression algorithm that currently achieves the best compression rates on many benchmarks. This report presents a detailed description of PAQ8 from a statistical machine learning perspective. It shows that it is possible to understand some of the modules of PAQ8 and use this understanding to improve the method. However, intuitive statistical explanations of the behavior of other modules remain elusive. We hope the description in this report will be a starting point for discussions that will increase our understanding, lead to improvements to PAQ8, and facilitate a transfer of knowledge from PAQ8 to other machine learning methods, such a recurrent neural networks and stochastic memoizers. Finally, the report presents a broad range of new applications of PAQ to machine learning tasks including language modeling and adaptive text prediction, adaptive game playing, classification, and compression using features from the field of deep learning.
1108.3299
Bounding Procedures for Stochastic Dynamic Programs with Application to the Perimeter Patrol Problem
cs.SY math.OC
One often encounters the curse of dimensionality in the application of dynamic programming to determine optimal policies for controlled Markov chains. In this paper, we provide a method to construct sub-optimal policies along with a bound for the deviation of such a policy from the optimum via a linear programming approach. The state-space is partitioned and the optimal cost-to-go or value function is approximated by a constant over each partition. By minimizing a non-negative cost function defined on the partitions, one can construct an approximate value function which also happens to be an upper bound for the optimal value function of the original Markov Decision Process (MDP). As a key result, we show that this approximate value function is {\it independent} of the non-negative cost function (or state dependent weights as it is referred to in the literature) and moreover, this is the least upper bound that one can obtain once the partitions are specified. Furthermore, we show that the restricted system of linear inequalities also embeds a family of MDPs of lower dimension, one of which can be used to construct a lower bound on the optimal value function. The construction of the lower bound requires the solution to a combinatorial problem. We apply the linear programming approach to a perimeter surveillance stochastic optimal control problem and obtain numerical results that corroborate the efficacy of the proposed methodology.
1108.3350
Exact Reconstruction Conditions for Regularized Modified Basis Pursuit
cs.IT math.IT stat.ML
In this correspondence, we obtain exact recovery conditions for regularized modified basis pursuit (reg-mod-BP) and discuss when the obtained conditions are weaker than those for modified-CS or for basis pursuit (BP). The discussion is also supported by simulation comparisons. Reg-mod-BP provides a solution to the sparse recovery problem when both an erroneous estimate of the signal's support, denoted by $T$, and an erroneous estimate of the signal values on $T$ are available.
1108.3365
A General Achievable Rate Region for Multiple-Access Relay Channels and Some Certain Capacity Theorems
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we obtain a general achievable rate region and some certain capacity theorems for multiple-access relay channel (MARC), using decode and forward (DAF) strategy at the relay, superposition coding at the transmitters. Our general rate region (i) generalizes the achievability part of Slepian-Wolf multiple-access capacity theorem to the MARC, (ii) extends the Cover-El Gamal best achievable rate for the relay channel with DAF strategy to the MARC, (iii) gives the Kramer-Wijengaarden rate region for the MARC, (iv) meets max-flow min-cut upper bound and leads to the capacity regions of some important classes of the MARC.
1108.3372
Overlapping Mixtures of Gaussian Processes for the Data Association Problem
stat.ML cs.AI cs.LG
In this work we introduce a mixture of GPs to address the data association problem, i.e. to label a group of observations according to the sources that generated them. Unlike several previously proposed GP mixtures, the novel mixture has the distinct characteristic of using no gating function to determine the association of samples and mixture components. Instead, all the GPs in the mixture are global and samples are clustered following "trajectories" across input space. We use a non-standard variational Bayesian algorithm to efficiently recover sample labels and learn the hyperparameters. We show how multi-object tracking problems can be disambiguated and also explore the characteristics of the model in traditional regression settings.
1108.3387
Natural growth model of weighted complex networks
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
We propose a natural model of evolving weighted networks in which new links are not necessarily connected to new nodes. The model allows a newly added link to connect directly two nodes already present in the network. This is plausible in modeling many real-world networks. Such a link is called an inner link, while a link connected to a new node is called an outer link. In view of interrelations between inner and outer links, we investigate power-laws for the strength, degree and weight distributions of weighted complex networks. This model enables us to predict some features of weighted networks such as the worldwide airport network and the scientific collaboration network.
1108.3405
Hybrid 3-D Formation Control for Unmanned Helicopters
cs.SY cs.MA cs.RO math.OC
Teams of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) form typical networked cyber-physical systems that involve the interaction of discrete logic and continuous dynamics. This paper presents a hybrid supervisory control framework for the three-dimensional leader follower formation control of unmanned helicopters. The proposed hybrid control framework captures internal interactions between the decision making unit and the path planner continuous dynamics of the system, and hence improves the system's overall reliability. To design such a hybrid controller, a spherical abstraction of the state space is proposed as a new method of abstraction. Utilizing the properties of multi-affine functions over the partitioned space leads to a finite state Discrete Event System (DES) model, which is shown to be bisimilar to the original continuous-variable dynamical system. Then, in the discrete domain, a logic supervisor is modularly designed for the abstracted model. Due to the bisimilarity between the abstracted DES model and the original UAV dynamics, the designed logic supervisor can be implemented as a hybrid controller through an interface layer. This supervisor drives the UAV dynamics to satisfy the design requirements. In other words, the hybrid controller is able to bring the UAVs to the desired formation starting from any initial state inside the control horizon and then, maintain the formation. Moreover, a collision avoidance mechanism is embedded in the designed supervisor. Finally, the algorithm has been verified by a hardware-in-the-loop simulation platform, which is developed for unmanned helicopters. The presented results show the effectiveness of the algorithm.