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1110.3898
An Interpolation Procedure for List Decoding Reed--Solomon codes Based on Generalized Key Equations
cs.IT math.IT
The key step of syndrome-based decoding of Reed-Solomon codes up to half the minimum distance is to solve the so-called Key Equation. List decoding algorithms, capable of decoding beyond half the minimum distance, are based on interpolation and factorization of multivariate polynomials. This article provides a link between syndrome-based decoding approaches based on Key Equations and the interpolation-based list decoding algorithms of Guruswami and Sudan for Reed-Solomon codes. The original interpolation conditions of Guruswami and Sudan for Reed-Solomon codes are reformulated in terms of a set of Key Equations. These equations provide a structured homogeneous linear system of equations of Block-Hankel form, that can be solved by an adaption of the Fundamental Iterative Algorithm. For an $(n,k)$ Reed-Solomon code, a multiplicity $s$ and a list size $\listl$, our algorithm has time complexity \ON{\listl s^4n^2}.
1110.3907
AOSO-LogitBoost: Adaptive One-Vs-One LogitBoost for Multi-Class Problem
stat.ML cs.AI cs.CV
This paper presents an improvement to model learning when using multi-class LogitBoost for classification. Motivated by the statistical view, LogitBoost can be seen as additive tree regression. Two important factors in this setting are: 1) coupled classifier output due to a sum-to-zero constraint, and 2) the dense Hessian matrices that arise when computing tree node split gain and node value fittings. In general, this setting is too complicated for a tractable model learning algorithm. However, too aggressive simplification of the setting may lead to degraded performance. For example, the original LogitBoost is outperformed by ABC-LogitBoost due to the latter's more careful treatment of the above two factors. In this paper we propose techniques to address the two main difficulties of the LogitBoost setting: 1) we adopt a vector tree (i.e. each node value is vector) that enforces a sum-to-zero constraint, and 2) we use an adaptive block coordinate descent that exploits the dense Hessian when computing tree split gain and node values. Higher classification accuracy and faster convergence rates are observed for a range of public data sets when compared to both the original and the ABC-LogitBoost implementations.
1110.3917
How to Evaluate Dimensionality Reduction? - Improving the Co-ranking Matrix
cs.LG cs.IR
The growing number of dimensionality reduction methods available for data visualization has recently inspired the development of quality assessment measures, in order to evaluate the resulting low-dimensional representation independently from a methods' inherent criteria. Several (existing) quality measures can be (re)formulated based on the so-called co-ranking matrix, which subsumes all rank errors (i.e. differences between the ranking of distances from every point to all others, comparing the low-dimensional representation to the original data). The measures are often based on the partioning of the co-ranking matrix into 4 submatrices, divided at the K-th row and column, calculating a weighted combination of the sums of each submatrix. Hence, the evaluation process typically involves plotting a graph over several (or even all possible) settings of the parameter K. Considering simple artificial examples, we argue that this parameter controls two notions at once, that need not necessarily be combined, and that the rectangular shape of submatrices is disadvantageous for an intuitive interpretation of the parameter. We debate that quality measures, as general and flexible evaluation tools, should have parameters with a direct and intuitive interpretation as to which specific error types are tolerated or penalized. Therefore, we propose to replace K with two parameters to control these notions separately, and introduce a differently shaped weighting on the co-ranking matrix. The two new parameters can then directly be interpreted as a threshold up to which rank errors are tolerated, and a threshold up to which the rank-distances are significant for the evaluation. Moreover, we propose a color representation of local quality to visually support the evaluation process for a given mapping, where every point in the mapping is colored according to its local contribution to the overall quality.
1110.3961
A Dynamic Framework of Reputation Systems for an Agent Mediated e-market
cs.MA cs.AI cs.IT cs.SI math.IT
The success of an agent mediated e-market system lies in the underlying reputation management system to improve the quality of services in an information asymmetric e-market. Reputation provides an operatable metric for establishing trustworthiness between mutually unknown online entities. Reputation systems encourage honest behaviour and discourage malicious behaviour of participating agents in the e-market. A dynamic reputation model would provide virtually instantaneous knowledge about the changing e-market environment and would utilise Internets' capacity for continuous interactivity for reputation computation. This paper proposes a dynamic reputation framework using reinforcement learning and fuzzy set theory that ensures judicious use of information sharing for inter-agent cooperation. This framework is sensitive to the changing parameters of e-market like the value of transaction and the varying experience of agents with the purpose of improving inbuilt defense mechanism of the reputation system against various attacks so that e-market reaches an equilibrium state and dishonest agents are weeded out of the market.
1110.4015
The large-scale structure of journal citation networks
cs.SI cs.DL physics.soc-ph
We analyse the large-scale structure of the journal citation network built from information contained in the Thomson-Reuters Journal Citation Reports. To this end, we take advantage of the network science paraphernalia and explore network properties like density, percolation robustness, average and largest node distances, reciprocity, incoming and outgoing degree distributions, as well as assortative mixing by node degrees. We discover that the journal citation network is a dense, robust, small, and reciprocal world. Furthermore, in and out node degree distributions display long-tails, with few vital journals and many trivial ones, and they are strongly positively correlated.
1110.4050
Joint Scheduling and Resource Allocation in OFDMA Downlink Systems via ACK/NAK Feedback
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we consider the problem of joint scheduling and resource allocation in the OFDMA downlink, with the goal of maximizing an expected long-term goodput-based utility subject to an instantaneous sum-power constraint, and where the feedback to the base station consists only of ACK/NAKs from recently scheduled users. We first establish that the optimal solution is a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP), which is impractical to implement. In response, we propose a greedy approach to joint scheduling and resource allocation that maintains a posterior channel distribution for every user, and has only polynomial complexity. For frequency-selective channels with Markov time-variation, we then outline a recursive method to update the channel posteriors, based on the ACK/NAK feedback, that is made computationally efficient through the use of particle filtering. To gauge the performance of our greedy approach relative to that of the optimal POMDP, we derive a POMDP performance upper-bound. Numerical experiments show that, for slowly fading channels, the performance of our greedy scheme is relatively close to the upper bound, and much better than fixed-power random user scheduling (FP-RUS), despite its relatively low complexity.
1110.4069
Transmission of non-linear binary input functions over a CDMA System
cs.IT math.IT
We study the problem of transmission of binary input non-linear functions over a network of mobiles based on CDMA. Motivation for this study comes from the application of using cheap measurement devices installed on personal cell-phones to monitor environmental parameters such as air pollution, temperature and noise level. Our model resembles the MAC model of Nazer and Gastpar except that the encoders are restricted to be CDMA encoders. Unlike the work of Nazer and Gastpar whose main attention is transmission of linear functions, we deal with non-linear functions with binary inputs. A main contribution of this paper is a lower bound on the computational capacity for this problem. While in the traditional CDMA system the signature matrix of the CDMA system preferably has independent rows, in our setup the signature matrix of the CDMA system is viewed as the parity check matrix of a linear code, reflecting our treatment of the interference.
1110.4076
Learning in Real-Time Search: A Unifying Framework
cs.AI
Real-time search methods are suited for tasks in which the agent is interacting with an initially unknown environment in real time. In such simultaneous planning and learning problems, the agent has to select its actions in a limited amount of time, while sensing only a local part of the environment centered at the agents current location. Real-time heuristic search agents select actions using a limited lookahead search and evaluating the frontier states with a heuristic function. Over repeated experiences, they refine heuristic values of states to avoid infinite loops and to converge to better solutions. The wide spread of such settings in autonomous software and hardware agents has led to an explosion of real-time search algorithms over the last two decades. Not only is a potential user confronted with a hodgepodge of algorithms, but he also faces the choice of control parameters they use. In this paper we address both problems. The first contribution is an introduction of a simple three-parameter framework (named LRTS) which extracts the core ideas behind many existing algorithms. We then prove that LRTA*, epsilon-LRTA*, SLA*, and gamma-Trap algorithms are special cases of our framework. Thus, they are unified and extended with additional features. Second, we prove completeness and convergence of any algorithm covered by the LRTS framework. Third, we prove several upper-bounds relating the control parameters and solution quality. Finally, we analyze the influence of the three control parameters empirically in the realistic scalable domains of real-time navigation on initially unknown maps from a commercial role-playing game as well as routing in ad hoc sensor networks.
1110.4099
The Complexification of Engineering
nlin.AO cs.AI
This paper deals with the arrow of complexification of engineering. We claim that the complexification of engineering consists in (a) that shift throughout which engineering becomes a science; thus it ceases to be a (mere) praxis or profession; (b) becoming a science, engineering can be considered as one of the sciences of complexity. In reality, the complexification of engineering is the process by which engineering can be studied, achieved and understood in terms of knowledge, and not of goods and services any longer. Complex engineered systems and bio-inspired engineering are so far the two expressions of a complex engineering.
1110.4102
Using time-delayed mutual information to discover and interpret temporal correlation structure in complex populations
nlin.CD cs.IT math.DS math.IT stat.ME
This paper addresses how to calculate and interpret the time-delayed mutual information for a complex, diversely and sparsely measured, possibly non-stationary population of time-series of unknown composition and origin. The primary vehicle used for this analysis is a comparison between the time-delayed mutual information averaged over the population and the time-delayed mutual information of an aggregated population (here aggregation implies the population is conjoined before any statistical estimates are implemented). Through the use of information theoretic tools, a sequence of practically implementable calculations are detailed that allow for the average and aggregate time-delayed mutual information to be interpreted. Moreover, these calculations can be also be used to understand the degree of homo- or heterogeneity present in the population. To demonstrate that the proposed methods can be used in nearly any situation, the methods are applied and demonstrated on the time series of glucose measurements from two different subpopulations of individuals from the Columbia University Medical Center electronic health record repository, revealing a picture of the composition of the population as well as physiological features.
1110.4123
Positive words carry less information than negative words
cs.CL cs.IR physics.soc-ph
We show that the frequency of word use is not only determined by the word length \cite{Zipf1935} and the average information content \cite{Piantadosi2011}, but also by its emotional content. We have analyzed three established lexica of affective word usage in English, German, and Spanish, to verify that these lexica have a neutral, unbiased, emotional content. Taking into account the frequency of word usage, we find that words with a positive emotional content are more frequently used. This lends support to Pollyanna hypothesis \cite{Boucher1969} that there should be a positive bias in human expression. We also find that negative words contain more information than positive words, as the informativeness of a word increases uniformly with its valence decrease. Our findings support earlier conjectures about (i) the relation between word frequency and information content, and (ii) the impact of positive emotions on communication and social links.
1110.4126
Relay Selection and Performance Analysis in Multiple-User Networks
cs.IT math.IT
This paper investigates the relay selection (RS) problem in networks with multiple users and multiple common amplify-and-forward (AF) relays. Considering the overall quality-of-service of the network, we first specify our definition of optimal RS for multiple-user relay networks. Then an optimal RS (ORS) algorithm is provided, which is a straightforward extension of an RS scheme in the literature that maximizes the minimum end-to-end receive signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of all users. The complexity of the ORS is quadratic in both the number of users and the number of relays. Then a suboptimal RS (SRS) scheme is proposed, which has linear complexity in the number of relays and quadratic complexity in the number of users. Furthermore, diversity orders of both the ORS and the proposed SRS are theoretically derived and compared with those of a naive RS scheme and the single-user RS network. It is shown that the ORS achieves full diversity; while the diversity order of the SRS decreases with the the number of users. For two-user networks, the outage probabilities and array gains corresponding to the minimum SNR of the RS schemes are derived in closed forms. It is proved that the advantage of the SRS over the naive RS scheme increases as the number of relays in the network increases. Simulation results are provided to corroborate the analytical results.
1110.4174
Clipping Noise Cancellation for OFDM and OFDMA Systems Using Compressed Sensing
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we propose clipping noise cancellation scheme using compressed sensing (CS) for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. In the proposed scheme, only the data tones with high reliability are exploited in reconstructing the clipping noise instead of the whole data tones. For reconstructing the clipping noise using a fraction of the data tones at the receiver, the CS technique is applied. The proposed scheme is also applicable to interleaved orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems due to the decomposition of fast Fourier transform (FFT) structure. Numerical analysis shows that the proposed scheme performs well for clipping noise cancellation of both OFDM and OFDMA systems.
1110.4175
The Price of Anarchy (POA) of network coding and routing based on average pricing mechanism
cs.NI cs.GT cs.IT math.IT
The congestion pricing is an efficient allocation approach to mediate demand and supply of network resources. Different from the previous pricing using Affine Marginal Cost (AMC), we focus on studying the game between network coding and routing flows sharing a single link when users are price anticipating based on an Average Cost Sharing (ACS) pricing mechanism. We characterize the worst-case efficiency bounds of the game compared with the optimal, i.e., the price-of anarchy (POA), which can be low bound 50% with routing only. When both network coding and routing are applied, the POA can be as low as 4/9. Therefore, network coding cannot improve the POA significantly under the ACS. Moreover, for more efficient use of limited resources, it indicates the sharing users have a higher tendency to choose network coding.
1110.4181
Injecting External Solutions Into CMA-ES
cs.LG
This report considers how to inject external candidate solutions into the CMA-ES algorithm. The injected solutions might stem from a gradient or a Newton step, a surrogate model optimizer or any other oracle or search mechanism. They can also be the result of a repair mechanism, for example to render infeasible solutions feasible. Only small modifications to the CMA-ES are necessary to turn injection into a reliable and effective method: too long steps need to be tightly renormalized. The main objective of this report is to reveal this simple mechanism. Depending on the source of the injected solutions, interesting variants of CMA-ES arise. When the best-ever solution is always (re-)injected, an elitist variant of CMA-ES with weighted multi-recombination arises. When \emph{all} solutions are injected from an \emph{external} source, the resulting algorithm might be viewed as \emph{adaptive encoding} with step-size control. In first experiments, injected solutions of very good quality lead to a convergence speed twice as fast as on the (simple) sphere function without injection. This means that we observe an impressive speed-up on otherwise difficult to solve functions. Single bad injected solutions on the other hand do no significant harm.
1110.4198
A Reliable Effective Terascale Linear Learning System
cs.LG stat.ML
We present a system and a set of techniques for learning linear predictors with convex losses on terascale datasets, with trillions of features, {The number of features here refers to the number of non-zero entries in the data matrix.} billions of training examples and millions of parameters in an hour using a cluster of 1000 machines. Individually none of the component techniques are new, but the careful synthesis required to obtain an efficient implementation is. The result is, up to our knowledge, the most scalable and efficient linear learning system reported in the literature (as of 2011 when our experiments were conducted). We describe and thoroughly evaluate the components of the system, showing the importance of the various design choices.
1110.4248
Ideogram Based Chinese Sentiment Word Orientation Computation
cs.CL
This paper presents a novel algorithm to compute sentiment orientation of Chinese sentiment word. The algorithm uses ideograms which are a distinguishing feature of Chinese language. The proposed algorithm can be applied to any sentiment classification scheme. To compute a word's sentiment orientation using the proposed algorithm, only the word itself and a precomputed character ontology is required, rather than a corpus. The influence of three parameters over the algorithm performance is analyzed and verified by experiment. Experiment also shows that proposed algorithm achieves an F Measure of 85.02% outperforming existing ideogram based algorithm.
1110.4285
Topological Feature Based Classification
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
There has been a lot of interest in developing algorithms to extract clusters or communities from networks. This work proposes a method, based on blockmodelling, for leveraging communities and other topological features for use in a predictive classification task. Motivated by the issues faced by the field of community detection and inspired by recent advances in Bayesian topic modelling, the presented model automatically discovers topological features relevant to a given classification task. In this way, rather than attempting to identify some universal best set of clusters for an undefined goal, the aim is to find the best set of clusters for a particular purpose. Using this method, topological features can be validated and assessed within a given context by their predictive performance. The proposed model differs from other relational and semi-supervised learning models as it identifies topological features to explain the classification decision. In a demonstration on a number of real networks the predictive capability of the topological features are shown to rival the performance of content based relational learners. Additionally, the model is shown to outperform graph-based semi-supervised methods on directed and approximately bipartite networks.
1110.4322
An Optimal Algorithm for Linear Bandits
cs.LG stat.ML
We provide the first algorithm for online bandit linear optimization whose regret after T rounds is of order sqrt{Td ln N} on any finite class X of N actions in d dimensions, and of order d*sqrt{T} (up to log factors) when X is infinite. These bounds are not improvable in general. The basic idea utilizes tools from convex geometry to construct what is essentially an optimal exploration basis. We also present an application to a model of linear bandits with expert advice. Interestingly, these results show that bandit linear optimization with expert advice in d dimensions is no more difficult (in terms of the achievable regret) than the online d-armed bandit problem with expert advice (where EXP4 is optimal).
1110.4412
Aspiration Learning in Coordination Games
cs.GT cs.LG
We consider the problem of distributed convergence to efficient outcomes in coordination games through dynamics based on aspiration learning. Under aspiration learning, a player continues to play an action as long as the rewards received exceed a specified aspiration level. Here, the aspiration level is a fading memory average of past rewards, and these levels also are subject to occasional random perturbations. A player becomes dissatisfied whenever a received reward is less than the aspiration level, in which case the player experiments with a probability proportional to the degree of dissatisfaction. Our first contribution is the characterization of the asymptotic behavior of the induced Markov chain of the iterated process in terms of an equivalent finite-state Markov chain. We then characterize explicitly the behavior of the proposed aspiration learning in a generalized version of coordination games, examples of which include network formation and common-pool games. In particular, we show that in generic coordination games the frequency at which an efficient action profile is played can be made arbitrarily large. Although convergence to efficient outcomes is desirable, in several coordination games, such as common-pool games, attainability of fair outcomes, i.e., sequences of plays at which players experience highly rewarding returns with the same frequency, might also be of special interest. To this end, we demonstrate through analysis and simulations that aspiration learning also establishes fair outcomes in all symmetric coordination games, including common-pool games.
1110.4414
(1+eps)-approximate Sparse Recovery
cs.DS cs.IT math.IT
The problem central to sparse recovery and compressive sensing is that of stable sparse recovery: we want a distribution of matrices A in R^{m\times n} such that, for any x \in R^n and with probability at least 2/3 over A, there is an algorithm to recover x* from Ax with ||x* - x||_p <= C min_{k-sparse x'} ||x - x'||_p for some constant C > 1 and norm p. The measurement complexity of this problem is well understood for constant C > 1. However, in a variety of applications it is important to obtain C = 1 + eps for a small eps > 0, and this complexity is not well understood. We resolve the dependence on eps in the number of measurements required of a k-sparse recovery algorithm, up to polylogarithmic factors for the central cases of p = 1 and p = 2. Namely, we give new algorithms and lower bounds that show the number of measurements required is (1/eps^{p/2})k polylog(n). For p = 2, our bound of (1/eps) k log(n/k) is tight up to constant factors. We also give matching bounds when the output is required to be k-sparse, in which case we achieve (1/eps^p) k polylog(n). This shows the distinction between the complexity of sparse and non-sparse outputs is fundamental.
1110.4416
Data-dependent kernels in nearly-linear time
cs.LG
We propose a method to efficiently construct data-dependent kernels which can make use of large quantities of (unlabeled) data. Our construction makes an approximation in the standard construction of semi-supervised kernels in Sindhwani et al. 2005. In typical cases these kernels can be computed in nearly-linear time (in the amount of data), improving on the cubic time of the standard construction, enabling large scale semi-supervised learning in a variety of contexts. The methods are validated on semi-supervised and unsupervised problems on data sets containing upto 64,000 sample points.
1110.4441
Distributed Storage for Intermittent Energy Sources: Control Design and Performance Limits
cs.SY
One of the most important challenges in the integration of renewable energy sources into the power grid lies in their `intermittent' nature. The power output of sources like wind and solar varies with time and location due to factors that cannot be controlled by the provider. Two strategies have been proposed to hedge against this variability: 1) use energy storage systems to effectively average the produced power over time; 2) exploit distributed generation to effectively average production over location. We introduce a network model to study the optimal use of storage and transmission resources in the presence of random energy sources. We propose a Linear-Quadratic based methodology to design control strategies, and we show that these strategies are asymptotically optimal for some simple network topologies. For these topologies, the dependence of optimal performance on storage and transmission capacity is explicitly quantified.
1110.4474
Robustness of Social Networks: Comparative Results Based on Distance Distributions
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Given a social network, which of its nodes have a stronger impact in determining its structure? More formally: which node-removal order has the greatest impact on the network structure? We approach this well-known problem for the first time in a setting that combines both web graphs and social networks, using datasets that are orders of magnitude larger than those appearing in the previous literature, thanks to some recently developed algorithms and software tools that make it possible to approximate accurately the number of reachable pairs and the distribution of distances in a graph. Our experiments highlight deep differences in the structure of social networks and web graphs, show significant limitations of previous experimental results, and at the same time reveal clustering by label propagation as a new and very effective way of locating nodes that are important from a structural viewpoint.
1110.4481
Learning Hierarchical and Topographic Dictionaries with Structured Sparsity
cs.LG
Recent work in signal processing and statistics have focused on defining new regularization functions, which not only induce sparsity of the solution, but also take into account the structure of the problem. We present in this paper a class of convex penalties introduced in the machine learning community, which take the form of a sum of l_2 and l_infinity-norms over groups of variables. They extend the classical group-sparsity regularization in the sense that the groups possibly overlap, allowing more flexibility in the group design. We review efficient optimization methods to deal with the corresponding inverse problems, and their application to the problem of learning dictionaries of natural image patches: On the one hand, dictionary learning has indeed proven effective for various signal processing tasks. On the other hand, structured sparsity provides a natural framework for modeling dependencies between dictionary elements. We thus consider a structured sparse regularization to learn dictionaries embedded in a particular structure, for instance a tree or a two-dimensional grid. In the latter case, the results we obtain are similar to the dictionaries produced by topographic independent component analysis.
1110.4499
Category-Based Routing in Social Networks: Membership Dimension and the Small-World Phenomenon (Full)
cs.SI cs.DS physics.soc-ph
A classic experiment by Milgram shows that individuals can route messages along short paths in social networks, given only simple categorical information about recipients (such as "he is a prominent lawyer in Boston" or "she is a Freshman sociology major at Harvard"). That is, these networks have very short paths between pairs of nodes (the so-called small-world phenomenon); moreover, participants are able to route messages along these paths even though each person is only aware of a small part of the network topology. Some sociologists conjecture that participants in such scenarios use a greedy routing strategy in which they forward messages to acquaintances that have more categories in common with the recipient than they do, and similar strategies have recently been proposed for routing messages in dynamic ad-hoc networks of mobile devices. In this paper, we introduce a network property called membership dimension, which characterizes the cognitive load required to maintain relationships between participants and categories in a social network. We show that any connected network has a system of categories that will support greedy routing, but that these categories can be made to have small membership dimension if and only if the underlying network exhibits the small-world phenomenon.
1110.4544
Compression-based Similarity
cs.IT math.IT
First we consider pair-wise distances for literal objects consisting of finite binary files. These files are taken to contain all of their meaning, like genomes or books. The distances are based on compression of the objects concerned, normalized, and can be viewed as similarity distances. Second, we consider pair-wise distances between names of objects, like "red" or "christianity." In this case the distances are based on searches of the Internet. Such a search can be performed by any search engine that returns aggregate page counts. We can extract a code length from the numbers returned, use the same formula as before, and derive a similarity or relative semantics between names for objects. The theory is based on Kolmogorov complexity. We test both similarities extensively experimentally.
1110.4613
Wiretap Channels: Implications of the More Capable Condition and Cyclic Shift Symmetry
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT
Characterization of the rate-equivocation region of a general wiretap channel involves two auxiliary random variables: U, for rate splitting and V, for channel prefixing. Evaluation of regions involving auxiliary random variables is generally difficult. In this paper, we explore specific classes of wiretap channels for which the expression and evaluation of the rate-equivocation region are simpler. In particular, we show that when the main channel is more capable than the eavesdropping channel, V=X is optimal and the boundary of the rate-equivocation region can be achieved by varying U alone. Conversely, we show under a mild condition that if the main receiver is not more capable, then V=X is strictly suboptimal. Next, we focus on the class of cyclic shift symmetric wiretap channels. We explicitly determine the optimal selections of rate splitting U and channel prefixing V that achieve the boundary of the rate-equivocation region. We show that optimal U and V are determined via cyclic shifts of the solution of an auxiliary optimization problem that involves only one auxiliary random variable. In addition, we provide a sufficient condition for cyclic shift symmetric wiretap channels to have U=\phi as an optimal selection. Finally, we apply our results to the binary-input cyclic shift symmetric wiretap channels. We solve the corresponding constrained optimization problem by inspecting each point of the I(X;Y)-I(X;Z) function. We thoroughly characterize the rate-equivocation regions of the BSC-BEC and BEC-BSC wiretap channels. In particular, we find that U=\phi is optimal and the boundary of the rate-equivocation region is achieved by varying V alone for the BSC-BEC wiretap channel.
1110.4624
Aladdin: Augmenting Urban Environments with Local Area Linked Data-Casting
cs.SI cs.NI
Urban environments are brimming with information sources, yet these are typically disconnected from related information on the Web. Addressing this disconnect requires an infrastructure able to disseminate information to a specific micro-location, to be consumed by interested parties. This paper proposes Aladdin, an infrastructure for highly localised broadcast of Linked Data via radio waves. When combined with data retrieved from the Web, Aladdin can enable a new generation of micro-location-aware mobile applications and services.
1110.4657
A Version of Geiringer-like Theorem for Decision Making in the Environments with Randomness and Incomplete Information
cs.AI cs.DM
Purpose: In recent years Monte-Carlo sampling methods, such as Monte Carlo tree search, have achieved tremendous success in model free reinforcement learning. A combination of the so called upper confidence bounds policy to preserve the "exploration vs. exploitation" balance to select actions for sample evaluations together with massive computing power to store and to update dynamically a rather large pre-evaluated game tree lead to the development of software that has beaten the top human player in the game of Go on a 9 by 9 board. Much effort in the current research is devoted to widening the range of applicability of the Monte-Carlo sampling methodology to partially observable Markov decision processes with non-immediate payoffs. The main challenge introduced by randomness and incomplete information is to deal with the action evaluation at the chance nodes due to drastic differences in the possible payoffs the same action could lead to. The aim of this article is to establish a version of a theorem that originated from population genetics and has been later adopted in evolutionary computation theory that will lead to novel Monte-Carlo sampling algorithms that provably increase the AI potential. Due to space limitations the actual algorithms themselves will be presented in the sequel papers, however, the current paper provides a solid mathematical foundation for the development of such algorithms and explains why they are so promising.
1110.4703
Proactive Resource Allocation: Harnessing the Diversity and Multicast Gains
cs.IT cs.NI math.IT
This paper introduces the novel concept of proactive resource allocation through which the predictability of user behavior is exploited to balance the wireless traffic over time, and hence, significantly reduce the bandwidth required to achieve a given blocking/outage probability. We start with a simple model in which the smart wireless devices are assumed to predict the arrival of new requests and submit them to the network T time slots in advance. Using tools from large deviation theory, we quantify the resulting prediction diversity gain} to establish that the decay rate of the outage event probabilities increases with the prediction duration T. This model is then generalized to incorporate the effect of the randomness in the prediction look-ahead time T. Remarkably, we also show that, in the cognitive networking scenario, the appropriate use of proactive resource allocation by the primary users improves the diversity gain of the secondary network at no cost in the primary network diversity. We also shed lights on multicasting with predictable demands and show that the proactive multicast networks can achieve a significantly higher diversity gain that scales super-linearly with T. Finally, we conclude by a discussion of the new research questions posed under the umbrella of the proposed proactive (non-causal) wireless networking framework.
1110.4713
Kernel Topic Models
cs.LG stat.ML
Latent Dirichlet Allocation models discrete data as a mixture of discrete distributions, using Dirichlet beliefs over the mixture weights. We study a variation of this concept, in which the documents' mixture weight beliefs are replaced with squashed Gaussian distributions. This allows documents to be associated with elements of a Hilbert space, admitting kernel topic models (KTM), modelling temporal, spatial, hierarchical, social and other structure between documents. The main challenge is efficient approximate inference on the latent Gaussian. We present an approximate algorithm cast around a Laplace approximation in a transformed basis. The KTM can also be interpreted as a type of Gaussian process latent variable model, or as a topic model conditional on document features, uncovering links between earlier work in these areas.
1110.4719
A Generalized Arc-Consistency Algorithm for a Class of Counting Constraints: Revised Edition that Incorporates One Correction
cs.AI
This paper introduces the SEQ BIN meta-constraint with a polytime algorithm achieving general- ized arc-consistency according to some properties. SEQ BIN can be used for encoding counting con- straints such as CHANGE, SMOOTH or INCREAS- ING NVALUE. For some of these constraints and some of their variants GAC can be enforced with a time and space complexity linear in the sum of domain sizes, which improves or equals the best known results of the literature.
1110.4723
Influence Blocking Maximization in Social Networks under the Competitive Linear Threshold Model Technical Report
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
In many real-world situations, different and often opposite opinions, innovations, or products are competing with one another for their social influence in a networked society. In this paper, we study competitive influence propagation in social networks under the competitive linear threshold (CLT) model, an extension to the classic linear threshold model. Under the CLT model, we focus on the problem that one entity tries to block the influence propagation of its competing entity as much as possible by strategically selecting a number of seed nodes that could initiate its own influence propagation. We call this problem the influence blocking maximization (IBM) problem. We prove that the objective function of IBM in the CLT model is submodular, and thus a greedy algorithm could achieve 1-1/e approximation ratio. However, the greedy algorithm requires Monte-Carlo simulations of competitive influence propagation, which makes the algorithm not efficient. We design an efficient algorithm CLDAG, which utilizes the properties of the CLT model, to address this issue. We conduct extensive simulations of CLDAG, the greedy algorithm, and other baseline algorithms on real-world and synthetic datasets. Our results show that CLDAG is able to provide best accuracy in par with the greedy algorithm and often better than other algorithms, while it is two orders of magnitude faster than the greedy algorithm.
1110.4784
Web search queries can predict stock market volumes
q-fin.ST cs.LG physics.soc-ph
We live in a computerized and networked society where many of our actions leave a digital trace and affect other people's actions. This has lead to the emergence of a new data-driven research field: mathematical methods of computer science, statistical physics and sociometry provide insights on a wide range of disciplines ranging from social science to human mobility. A recent important discovery is that query volumes (i.e., the number of requests submitted by users to search engines on the www) can be used to track and, in some cases, to anticipate the dynamics of social phenomena. Successful exemples include unemployment levels, car and home sales, and epidemics spreading. Few recent works applied this approach to stock prices and market sentiment. However, it remains unclear if trends in financial markets can be anticipated by the collective wisdom of on-line users on the web. Here we show that trading volumes of stocks traded in NASDAQ-100 are correlated with the volumes of queries related to the same stocks. In particular, query volumes anticipate in many cases peaks of trading by one day or more. Our analysis is carried out on a unique dataset of queries, submitted to an important web search engine, which enable us to investigate also the user behavior. We show that the query volume dynamics emerges from the collective but seemingly uncoordinated activity of many users. These findings contribute to the debate on the identification of early warnings of financial systemic risk, based on the activity of users of the www.
1110.4844
Analyzing Answers in Threaded Discussions using a Role-Based Information Network
cs.SI cs.IR
Online discussion boards are an important medium for collaboration. The goal of our work is to understand how messages and individual discussants contribute to Q&A discussions. We present a novel network model for capturing in-formation roles of messages and discussants, and show how we identify useful answers to the initial question. We first classify information seeking or information providing roles of messages, such as question, answer or acknowledgement. We also identify user intent in the discussion as an information seeker or a provider. We capture such role information within a reply-to discussion network, and identify messages that answer seeker questions and how answeres are acknowledged. Message influences are analyzed using B-centrality measures. User influences across different threads are combined with message influences. We use the combined score in identifying the most useful answer in the thread. The resulting ranks correlate with human provided ranks with an MRR score of 0.67.
1110.4851
Leveraging User Diversity to Harvest Knowledge on the Social Web
cs.IR cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Social web users are a very diverse group with varying interests, levels of expertise, enthusiasm, and expressiveness. As a result, the quality of content and annotations they create to organize content is also highly variable. While several approaches have been proposed to mine social annotations, for example, to learn folksonomies that reflect how people relate narrower concepts to broader ones, these methods treat all users and the annotations they create uniformly. We propose a framework to automatically identify experts, i.e., knowledgeable users who create high quality annotations, and use their knowledge to guide folksonomy learning. We evaluate the approach on a large body of social annotations extracted from the photosharing site Flickr. We show that using expert knowledge leads to more detailed and accurate folksonomies. Moreover, we show that including annotations from non-expert, or novice, users leads to more comprehensive folksonomies than experts' knowledge alone.
1110.4925
The Similarity between Stochastic Kronecker and Chung-Lu Graph Models
cs.SI
The analysis of massive graphs is now becoming a very important part of science and industrial research. This has led to the construction of a large variety of graph models, each with their own advantages. The Stochastic Kronecker Graph (SKG) model has been chosen by the Graph500 steering committee to create supercomputer benchmarks for graph algorithms. The major reasons for this are its easy parallelization and ability to mirror real data. Although SKG is easy to implement, there is little understanding of the properties and behavior of this model. We show that the parallel variant of the edge-configuration model given by Chung and Lu (referred to as CL) is notably similar to the SKG model. The graph properties of an SKG are extremely close to those of a CL graph generated with the appropriate parameters. Indeed, the final probability matrix used by SKG is almost identical to that of a CL model. This implies that the graph distribution represented by SKG is almost the same as that given by a CL model. We also show that when it comes to fitting real data, CL performs as well as SKG based on empirical studies of graph properties. CL has the added benefit of a trivially simple fitting procedure and exactly matching the degree distribution. Our results suggest that users of the SKG model should consider the CL model because of its similar properties, simpler structure, and ability to fit a wider range of degree distributions. At the very least, CL is a good control model to compare against.
1110.4970
Studying Satellite Image Quality Based on the Fusion Techniques
cs.CV
Various and different methods can be used to produce high-resolution multispectral images from high-resolution panchromatic image (PAN) and low-resolution multispectral images (MS), mostly on the pixel level. However, the jury is still out on the benefits of a fused image compared to its original images. There is also a lack of measures for assessing the objective quality of the spatial resolution for the fusion methods. Therefore, an objective quality of the spatial resolution assessment for fusion images is required. So, this study attempts to develop a new qualitative assessment to evaluate the spatial quality of the pan sharpened images by many spatial quality metrics. Also, this paper deals with a comparison of various image fusion techniques based on pixel and feature fusion techniques.
1110.4999
Capacity of the Gaussian Relay Channel with Correlated Noises to Within a Constant Gap
cs.IT math.IT
This paper studies the relaying strategies and the approximate capacity of the classic three-node Gaussian relay channel, but where the noises at the relay and at the destination are correlated. It is shown that the capacity of such a relay channel can be achieved to within a constant gap of $\hf \log_2 3 =0.7925$ bits using a modified version of the noisy network coding strategy, where the quantization level at the relay is set in a correlation dependent way. As a corollary, this result establishes that the conventional compress-and-forward scheme also achieves to within a constant gap to the capacity. In contrast, the decode-and-forward and the single-tap amplify-and-forward relaying strategies can have an infinite gap to capacity in the regime where the noises at the relay and at the destination are highly correlated, and the gain of the relay-to-destination link goes to infinity.
1110.5000
On Noisy Network Coding for a Gaussian Relay Chain Network with Correlated Noises
cs.IT math.IT
Noisy network coding, which elegantly combines the conventional compress-and-forward relaying strategy and ideas from network coding, has recently drawn much attention for its simplicity and optimality in achieving to within constant gap of the capacity of the multisource multicast Gaussian network. The constant-gap result, however, applies only to Gaussian relay networks with independent noises. This paper investigates the application of noisy network coding to networks with correlated noises. By focusing on a four-node Gaussian relay chain network with a particular noise correlation structure, it is shown that noisy network coding can no longer achieve to within constant gap to capacity with the choice of Gaussian inputs and Gaussian quantization. The cut-set bound of the relay chain network in this particular case, however, can be achieved to within half a bit by a simple concatenation of a correlation-aware noisy network coding strategy and a decode-and-forward scheme.
1110.5015
Spectral descriptors for deformable shapes
cs.CV cs.CG cs.GR math.DG
Informative and discriminative feature descriptors play a fundamental role in deformable shape analysis. For example, they have been successfully employed in correspondence, registration, and retrieval tasks. In the recent years, significant attention has been devoted to descriptors obtained from the spectral decomposition of the Laplace-Beltrami operator associated with the shape. Notable examples in this family are the heat kernel signature (HKS) and the wave kernel signature (WKS). Laplacian-based descriptors achieve state-of-the-art performance in numerous shape analysis tasks; they are computationally efficient, isometry-invariant by construction, and can gracefully cope with a variety of transformations. In this paper, we formulate a generic family of parametric spectral descriptors. We argue that in order to be optimal for a specific task, the descriptor should take into account the statistics of the corpus of shapes to which it is applied (the "signal") and those of the class of transformations to which it is made insensitive (the "noise"). While such statistics are hard to model axiomatically, they can be learned from examples. Following the spirit of the Wiener filter in signal processing, we show a learning scheme for the construction of optimal spectral descriptors and relate it to Mahalanobis metric learning. The superiority of the proposed approach is demonstrated on the SHREC'10 benchmark.
1110.5045
Error Graphs and the Reconstruction of Elements in Groups
math.CO cs.IT math.GR math.IT
Packing and covering problems for metric spaces, and graphs in particular, are of essential interest in combinatorics and coding theory. They are formulated in terms of metric balls of vertices. We consider a new problem in graph theory which is also based on the consideration of metric balls of vertices, but which is distinct from the traditional packing and covering problems. This problem is motivated by applications in information transmission when redundancy of messages is not sufficient for their exact reconstruction, and applications in computational biology when one wishes to restore an evolutionary process. It can be defined as the reconstruction, or identification, of an unknown vertex in a given graph from a minimal number of vertices (erroneous or distorted patterns) in a metric ball of a given radius r around the unknown vertex. For this problem it is required to find minimum restrictions for such a reconstruction to be possible and also to find efficient reconstruction algorithms under such minimal restrictions. In this paper we define error graphs and investigate their basic properties. A particular class of error graphs occurs when the vertices of the graph are the elements of a group, and when the path metric is determined by a suitable set of group elements. These are the undirected Cayley graphs. Of particular interest is the transposition Cayley graph on the symmetric group which occurs in connection with the analysis of transpositional mutations in molecular biology. We obtain a complete solution of the above problems for the transposition Cayley graph on the symmetric group.
1110.5051
Wikipedia Edit Number Prediction based on Temporal Dynamics Only
cs.LG
In this paper, we describe our approach to the Wikipedia Participation Challenge which aims to predict the number of edits a Wikipedia editor will make in the next 5 months. The best submission from our team, "zeditor", achieved 41.7% improvement over WMF's baseline predictive model and the final rank of 3rd place among 96 teams. An interesting characteristic of our approach is that only temporal dynamics features (i.e., how the number of edits changes in recent periods, etc.) are used in a self-supervised learning framework, which makes it easy to be generalised to other application domains.
1110.5057
Patterns of Emotional Blogging and Emergence of Communities: Agent-Based Model on Bipartite Networks
cs.SI cs.HC physics.soc-ph
Background: We study mechanisms underlying the collective emotional behavior of Bloggers by using the agent-based modeling and the parameters inferred from the related empirical data. Methodology/Principal Findings: A bipartite network of emotional agents and posts evolves through the addition of agents and their actions on posts. The emotion state of an agent,quantified by the arousal and the valence, fluctuates in time due to events on the connected posts, and in the moments of agent's action it is transferred to a selected post. We claim that the indirect communication of the emotion in the model rules, combined with the action-delay time and the circadian rhythm extracted from the empirical data, can explain the genesis of emotional bursts by users on popular Blogs and similar Web portals. The model also identifies the parameters and how they influence the course of the dynamics. Conclusions: The collective behavior is here recognized by the emergence of communities on the network and the fractal time-series of their emotional comments, powered by the negative emotion (critique). The evolving agents communities leave characteristic patterns of the activity in the phase space of the arousal--valence variables, where each segment represents a common emotion described in psychology.
1110.5063
Recovering a Clipped Signal in Sparseland
cs.IT math.IT
In many data acquisition systems it is common to observe signals whose amplitudes have been clipped. We present two new algorithms for recovering a clipped signal by leveraging the model assumption that the underlying signal is sparse in the frequency domain. Both algorithms employ ideas commonly used in the field of Compressive Sensing; the first is a modified version of Reweighted $\ell_1$ minimization, and the second is a modification of a simple greedy algorithm known as Trivial Pursuit. An empirical investigation shows that both approaches can recover signals with significant levels of clipping
1110.5091
3D Protein Structure Predicted from Sequence
q-bio.BM cs.CE physics.bio-ph physics.data-an
The evolutionary trajectory of a protein through sequence space is constrained by function and three-dimensional (3D) structure. Residues in spatial proximity tend to co-evolve, yet attempts to invert the evolutionary record to identify these constraints and use them to computationally fold proteins have so far been unsuccessful. Here, we show that co-variation of residue pairs, observed in a large protein family, provides sufficient information to determine 3D protein structure. Using a data-constrained maximum entropy model of the multiple sequence alignment, we identify pairs of statistically coupled residue positions which are expected to be close in the protein fold, termed contacts inferred from evolutionary information (EICs). To assess the amount of information about the protein fold contained in these coupled pairs, we evaluate the accuracy of predicted 3D structures for proteins of 50-260 residues, from 15 diverse protein families, including a G-protein coupled receptor. These structure predictions are de novo, i.e., they do not use homology modeling or sequence-similar fragments from known structures. The resulting low C{\alpha}-RMSD error range of 2.7-5.1{\AA}, over at least 75% of the protein, indicates the potential for predicting essentially correct 3D structures for the thousands of protein families that have no known structure, provided they include a sufficiently large number of divergent sample sequences. With the current enormous growth in sequence information based on new sequencing technology, this opens the door to a comprehensive survey of protein 3D structures, including many not currently accessible to the experimental methods of structural genomics. This advance has potential applications in many biological contexts, such as synthetic biology, identification of functional sites in proteins and interpretation of the functional impact of genetic variants.
1110.5092
Geometry of the 3-user MIMO interference channel
cs.IT math.IT
This paper studies vector space interference alignment for the three-user MIMO interference channel with no time or frequency diversity. The main result is a characterization of the feasibility of interference alignment in the symmetric case where all transmitters have M antennas and all receivers have N antennas. If N >= M and all users desire d transmit dimensions, then alignment is feasible if and only if (2r+1)d <= max(rN,(r+1)M) for all nonnegative integers r. The analogous result holds with M and N switched if M >= N. It turns out that, just as for the 3-user parallel interference channel \cite{BT09}, the length of alignment paths captures the essence of the problem. In fact, for each feasible value of M and N the maximum alignment path length dictates both the converse and achievability arguments. One of the implications of our feasibility criterion is that simply counting equations and comparing to the number of variables does not predict feasibility. Instead, a more careful investigation of the geometry of the alignment problem is required. The necessary condition obtained by counting equations is implied by our new feasibility criterion.
1110.5097
Absolute Uniqueness of Phase Retrieval with Random Illumination
physics.optics cs.CV math-ph math.MP
Random illumination is proposed to enforce absolute uniqueness and resolve all types of ambiguity, trivial or nontrivial, from phase retrieval. Almost sure irreducibility is proved for any complex-valued object of a full rank support. While the new irreducibility result can be viewed as a probabilistic version of the classical result by Bruck, Sodin and Hayes, it provides a novel perspective and an effective method for phase retrieval. In particular, almost sure uniqueness, up to a global phase, is proved for complex-valued objects under general two-point conditions. Under a tight sector constraint absolute uniqueness is proved to hold with probability exponentially close to unity as the object sparsity increases. Under a magnitude constraint with random amplitude illumination, uniqueness modulo global phase is proved to hold with probability exponentially close to unity as object sparsity increases. For general complex-valued objects without any constraint, almost sure uniqueness up to global phase is established with two sets of Fourier magnitude data under two independent illuminations. Numerical experiments suggest that random illumination essentially alleviates most, if not all, numerical problems commonly associated with the standard phasing algorithms.
1110.5102
Towards Holistic Scene Understanding: Feedback Enabled Cascaded Classification Models
cs.CV cs.AI cs.RO
Scene understanding includes many related sub-tasks, such as scene categorization, depth estimation, object detection, etc. Each of these sub-tasks is often notoriously hard, and state-of-the-art classifiers already exist for many of them. These classifiers operate on the same raw image and provide correlated outputs. It is desirable to have an algorithm that can capture such correlation without requiring any changes to the inner workings of any classifier. We propose Feedback Enabled Cascaded Classification Models (FE-CCM), that jointly optimizes all the sub-tasks, while requiring only a `black-box' interface to the original classifier for each sub-task. We use a two-layer cascade of classifiers, which are repeated instantiations of the original ones, with the output of the first layer fed into the second layer as input. Our training method involves a feedback step that allows later classifiers to provide earlier classifiers information about which error modes to focus on. We show that our method significantly improves performance in all the sub-tasks in the domain of scene understanding, where we consider depth estimation, scene categorization, event categorization, object detection, geometric labeling and saliency detection. Our method also improves performance in two robotic applications: an object-grasping robot and an object-finding robot.
1110.5156
Smart Cane: Assistive Cane for Visually-impaired People
cs.SY
This paper reports on a study that helps visually-impaired people to walk more confidently. The study hypothesizes that a smart cane that alerts visually-impaired people over obstacles in front could help them in walking with less accident. The aim of the paper is to address the development work of a cane that could communicate with the users through voice alert and vibration, which is named Smart Cane. T he development work involves coding and physical installation. A series of tests have been carried out on the smart cane and the results are discussed. This study found that the Smart Cane functions well as intended, in alerting users about the obstacles in front
1110.5172
Quels formalismes temporels pour repr\'esenter des connaissances extraites de textes de recettes de cuisine ?
cs.AI
The Taaable projet goal is to create a case-based reasoning system for retrieval and adaptation of cooking recipes. Within this framework, we are discussing the temporal aspects of recipes and the means of representing those in order to adapt their text.
1110.5173
Ad Hoc Protocols Via Multi Agent Based Tools
cs.SI
The purpose of this paper is investigating behaviors of Ad Hoc protocols in Agent-based simulation environments. First we bring brief introduction about agents and Ad Hoc networks. We introduce some agent-based simulation tools like NS-2. Then we focus on two protocols, which are Ad Hoc On-demand Multipath Distance Vector (AODV) and Destination Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV). At the end, we bring simulation results and discuss about their reasons.
1110.5176
Demodulating Subsampled Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum Signals using Compressive Signal Processing
cs.IT cs.NI math.IT
We show that to lower the sampling rate in a spread spectrum communication system using Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS), compressive signal processing can be applied to demodulate the received signal. This may lead to a decrease in the power consumption or the manufacturing price of wireless receivers using spread spectrum technology. The main novelty of this paper is the discovery that in spread spectrum systems it is possible to apply compressive sensing with a much simpler hardware architecture than in other systems, making the implementation both simpler and more energy efficient. Our theoretical work is exemplified with a numerical experiment using the IEEE 802.15.4 standard's 2.4 GHz band specification. The numerical results support our theoretical findings and indicate that compressive sensing may be used successfully in spread spectrum communication systems. The results obtained here may also be applicable in other spread spectrum technologies, such as Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems.
1110.5181
Paraglide: Interactive Parameter Space Partitioning for Computer Simulations
cs.SY
In this paper we introduce paraglide, a visualization system designed for interactive exploration of parameter spaces of multi-variate simulation models. To get the right parameter configuration, model developers frequently have to go back and forth between setting parameters and qualitatively judging the outcomes of their model. During this process, they build up a grounded understanding of the parameter effects in order to pick the right setting. Current state-of-the-art tools and practices, however, fail to provide a systematic way of exploring these parameter spaces, making informed decisions about parameter settings a tedious and workload-intensive task. Paraglide endeavors to overcome this shortcoming by assisting the sampling of the parameter space and the discovery of qualitatively different model outcomes. This results in a decomposition of the model parameter space into regions of distinct behaviour. We developed paraglide in close collaboration with experts from three different domains, who all were involved in developing new models for their domain. We first analyzed current practices of six domain experts and derived a set of design requirements, then engaged in a longitudinal user-centered design process, and finally conducted three in-depth case studies underlining the usefulness of our approach.
1110.5183
Diffusion of Information in Robot Swarms
cs.RO
This work is devoted to communication approaches, which spread information in robot swarms. These mechanisms are useful for large-scale systems and also for such cases when a limited communication equipment does not allow routing of information packages. We focus on two approaches such as virtual fields and epidemic algorithms, discuss several aspects of hardware implementation and demonstrate experiments performed with microrobots "Jasmine".
1110.5186
Removing spurious interactions in complex networks
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Identifying and removing spurious links in complex networks is a meaningful problem for many real applications and is crucial for improving the reliability of network data, which in turn can lead to a better understanding of the highly interconnected nature of various social, biological and communication systems. In this work we study the features of different simple spurious link elimination methods, revealing that they may lead to the distortion of networks' structural and dynamical properties. Accordingly, we propose a hybrid method which combines similarity-based index and edge-betweenness centrality. We show that our method can effectively eliminate the spurious interactions while leaving the network connected and preserving the network's functionalities.
1110.5222
Continuous transition of social efficiencies in the stochastic strategy Minority Game
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI
We show that in a variant of the Minority Game problem, the agents can reach a state of maximum social efficiency, where the fluctuation between the two choices is minimum, by following a simple stochastic strategy. By imagining a social scenario where the agents can only guess about the number of excess people in the majority, we show that as long as the guess value is sufficiently close to the reality, the system can reach a state of full efficiency or minimum fluctuation. A continuous transition to less efficient condition is observed when the guess value becomes worse. Hence, people can optimize their guess value for excess population to optimize the period of being in the majority state. We also consider the situation where a finite fraction of agents always decide completely randomly (random trader) as opposed to the rest of the population that follow a certain strategy (chartist). For a single random trader the system becomes fully efficient with majority-minority crossover occurring every two-days interval on average. For just two random traders, all the agents have equal gain with arbitrarily small fluctuations.
1110.5265
On Programs and Genomes
q-bio.OT cs.CE q-bio.GN
We outline the global control architecture of genomes. A theory of genomic control information is presented. The concept of a developmental control network called a cene (for control gene) is introduced. We distinguish parts-genes from control genes or cenes. Cenes are interpreted and executed by the cell and, thereby, direct cell actions including communication, growth, division, differentiation and multi-cellular development. The cenome is the global developmental control network in the genome. The cenome is also a cene that consists of interlinked sub-cenes that guide the ontogeny of the organism. The complexity of organisms is linked to the complexity of the cenome. The relevance to ontogeny and evolution is mentioned. We introduce the concept of a universal cell and a universal genome.
1110.5280
Two-Population Dynamics in a Growing Network Model
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI
We introduce a growing network evolution model with nodal attributes. The model describes the interactions between potentially violent V and non-violent N agents who have different affinities in establishing connections within their own population versus between the populations. The model is able to generate all stable triads observed in real social systems. In the framework of rate equations theory, we employ the mean-field approximation to derive analytical expressions of the degree distribution and the local clustering coefficient for each type of nodes. Analytical derivations agree well with numerical simulation results. The assortativity of the potentially violent network qualitatively resembles the connectivity pattern in terrorist networks that was recently reported. The assortativity of the network driven by aggression shows clearly different behavior than the assortativity of the networks with connections of non-aggressive nature in agreement with recent empirical results of an online social system.
1110.5342
Dynamic Bit Allocation for Object Tracking in Bandwidth Limited Sensor Networks
stat.AP cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we study the target tracking problem in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) using quantized sensor measurements under limited bandwidth availability. At each time step of tracking, the available bandwidth $R$ needs to be distributed among the $N$ sensors in the WSN for the next time step. The optimal solution for the bandwidth allocation problem can be obtained by using a combinatorial search which may become computationally prohibitive for large $N$ and $R$. Therefore, we develop two new computationally efficient suboptimal bandwidth distribution algorithms which are based on convex relaxation and approximate dynamic programming (A-DP). We compare the mean squared error (MSE) and computational complexity performances of convex relaxation and A-DP with other existing suboptimal bandwidth distribution schemes based on generalized Breiman, Friedman, Olshen, and Stone (GBFOS) algorithm and greedy search. Simulation results show that, A-DP, convex optimization and GBFOS yield similar MSE performance, which is very close to that based on the optimal exhaustive search approach and they outperform greedy search and nearest neighbor based bandwidth allocation approaches significantly. Computationally, A-DP is more efficient than the bandwidth allocation schemes based on convex relaxation and GBFOS, especially for a large sensor network.
1110.5371
MyZone: A Next-Generation Online Social Network
cs.SI cs.CR cs.DC cs.NI physics.soc-ph
This technical report considers the design of a social network that would address the shortcomings of the current ones, and identifies user privacy, security, and service availability as strong motivations that push the architecture of the proposed design to be distributed. We describe our design in detail and identify the property of resiliency as a key objective for the overall design philosophy. We define the system goals, threat model, and trust model as part of the system model, and discuss the challenges in adapting such distributed frameworks to become highly available and highly resilient in potentially hostile environments. We propose a distributed solution to address these challenges based on a trust-based friendship model for replicating user profiles and disseminating messages, and examine how this approach builds upon prior work in distributed Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks.
1110.5383
Quilting Stochastic Kronecker Product Graphs to Generate Multiplicative Attribute Graphs
stat.ML cs.LG stat.CO
We describe the first sub-quadratic sampling algorithm for the Multiplicative Attribute Graph Model (MAGM) of Kim and Leskovec (2010). We exploit the close connection between MAGM and the Kronecker Product Graph Model (KPGM) of Leskovec et al. (2010), and show that to sample a graph from a MAGM it suffices to sample small number of KPGM graphs and \emph{quilt} them together. Under a restricted set of technical conditions our algorithm runs in $O((\log_2(n))^3 |E|)$ time, where $n$ is the number of nodes and $|E|$ is the number of edges in the sampled graph. We demonstrate the scalability of our algorithm via extensive empirical evaluation; we can sample a MAGM graph with 8 million nodes and 20 billion edges in under 6 hours.
1110.5396
Joint Channel-Network Coding Strategies for Networks with Low Complexity Relays
cs.IT math.IT
We investigate joint network and channel coding schemes for networks when relay nodes are not capable of performing channel coding operations. Rather, channel encoding is performed at the source node while channel decoding is done only at the destination nodes. We examine three different decoding strategies: independent network-then-channel decoding, serial network and channel decoding, and joint network and channel decoding. Furthermore, we describe how to implement such joint network and channel decoding using iteratively decodable error correction codes. Using simple networks as a model, we derive achievable rate regions and use simulations to demonstrate the effectiveness of the three decoders.
1110.5404
Face Recognition Based on SVM and 2DPCA
cs.CV
The paper will present a novel approach for solving face recognition problem. Our method combines 2D Principal Component Analysis (2DPCA), one of the prominent methods for extracting feature vectors, and Support Vector Machine (SVM), the most powerful discriminative method for classification. Experiments based on proposed method have been conducted on two public data sets FERET and AT&T; the results show that the proposed method could improve the classification rates.
1110.5447
Optimal discovery with probabilistic expert advice
math.OC cs.LG
We consider an original problem that arises from the issue of security analysis of a power system and that we name optimal discovery with probabilistic expert advice. We address it with an algorithm based on the optimistic paradigm and the Good-Turing missing mass estimator. We show that this strategy uniformly attains the optimal discovery rate in a macroscopic limit sense, under some assumptions on the probabilistic experts. We also provide numerical experiments suggesting that this optimal behavior may still hold under weaker assumptions.
1110.5450
Hand Tracking based on Hierarchical Clustering of Range Data
cs.CV
Fast and robust hand segmentation and tracking is an essential basis for gesture recognition and thus an important component for contact-less human-computer interaction (HCI). Hand gesture recognition based on 2D video data has been intensively investigated. However, in practical scenarios purely intensity based approaches suffer from uncontrollable environmental conditions like cluttered background colors. In this paper we present a real-time hand segmentation and tracking algorithm using Time-of-Flight (ToF) range cameras and intensity data. The intensity and range information is fused into one pixel value, representing its combined intensity-depth homogeneity. The scene is hierarchically clustered using a GPU based parallel merging algorithm, allowing a robust identification of both hands even for inhomogeneous backgrounds. After the detection, both hands are tracked on the CPU. Our tracking algorithm can cope with the situation that one hand is temporarily covered by the other hand.
1110.5609
Self-similar scaling of density in complex real-world networks
nlin.AO cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Despite their diverse origin, networks of large real-world systems reveal a number of common properties including small-world phenomena, scale-free degree distributions and modularity. Recently, network self-similarity as a natural outcome of the evolution of real-world systems has also attracted much attention within the physics literature. Here we investigate the scaling of density in complex networks under two classical box-covering renormalizations-network coarse-graining-and also different community-based renormalizations. The analysis on over 50 real-world networks reveals a power-law scaling of network density and size under adequate renormalization technique, yet irrespective of network type and origin. The results thus advance a recent discovery of a universal scaling of density among different real-world networks [Laurienti et al., Physica A 390 (20) (2011) 3608-3613.] and imply an existence of a scale-free density also within-among different self-similar scales of-complex real-world networks. The latter further improves the comprehension of self-similar structure in large real-world networks with several possible applications.
1110.5667
Inducing Probabilistic Programs by Bayesian Program Merging
cs.AI cs.LG
This report outlines an approach to learning generative models from data. We express models as probabilistic programs, which allows us to capture abstract patterns within the examples. By choosing our language for programs to be an extension of the algebraic data type of the examples, we can begin with a program that generates all and only the examples. We then introduce greater abstraction, and hence generalization, incrementally to the extent that it improves the posterior probability of the examples given the program. Motivated by previous approaches to model merging and program induction, we search for such explanatory abstractions using program transformations. We consider two types of transformation: Abstraction merges common subexpressions within a program into new functions (a form of anti-unification). Deargumentation simplifies functions by reducing the number of arguments. We demonstrate that this approach finds key patterns in the domain of nested lists, including parameterized sub-functions and stochastic recursion.
1110.5673
Heterogeneity shapes groups growth in social online communities
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Many complex systems are characterized by broad distributions capturing, for example, the size of firms, the population of cities or the degree distribution of complex networks. Typically this feature is explained by means of a preferential growth mechanism. Although heterogeneity is expected to play a role in the evolution it is usually not considered in the modeling probably due to a lack of empirical evidence on how it is distributed. We characterize the intrinsic heterogeneity of groups in an online community and then show that together with a simple linear growth and an inhomogeneous birth rate it explains the broad distribution of group members.
1110.5688
Discussion on "Techniques for Massive-Data Machine Learning in Astronomy" by A. Gray
astro-ph.IM astro-ph.CO cs.LG
Astronomy is increasingly encountering two fundamental truths: (1) The field is faced with the task of extracting useful information from extremely large, complex, and high dimensional datasets; (2) The techniques of astroinformatics and astrostatistics are the only way to make this tractable, and bring the required level of sophistication to the analysis. Thus, an approach which provides these tools in a way that scales to these datasets is not just desirable, it is vital. The expertise required spans not just astronomy, but also computer science, statistics, and informatics. As a computer scientist and expert in machine learning, Alex's contribution of expertise and a large number of fast algorithms designed to scale to large datasets, is extremely welcome. We focus in this discussion on the questions raised by the practical application of these algorithms to real astronomical datasets. That is, what is needed to maximally leverage their potential to improve the science return? This is not a trivial task. While computing and statistical expertise are required, so is astronomical expertise. Precedent has shown that, to-date, the collaborations most productive in producing astronomical science results (e.g, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey), have either involved astronomers expert in computer science and/or statistics, or astronomers involved in close, long-term collaborations with experts in those fields. This does not mean that the astronomers are giving the most important input, but simply that their input is crucial in guiding the effort in the most fruitful directions, and coping with the issues raised by real data. Thus, the tools must be useable and understandable by those whose primary expertise is not computing or statistics, even though they may have quite extensive knowledge of those fields.
1110.5710
Results on the Redundancy of Universal Compression for Finite-Length Sequences
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we investigate the redundancy of universal coding schemes on smooth parametric sources in the finite-length regime. We derive an upper bound on the probability of the event that a sequence of length $n$, chosen using Jeffreys' prior from the family of parametric sources with $d$ unknown parameters, is compressed with a redundancy smaller than $(1-\epsilon)\frac{d}{2}\log n$ for any $\epsilon>0$. Our results also confirm that for large enough $n$ and $d$, the average minimax redundancy provides a good estimate for the redundancy of most sources. Our result may be used to evaluate the performance of universal source coding schemes on finite-length sequences. Additionally, we precisely characterize the minimax redundancy for two--stage codes. We demonstrate that the two--stage assumption incurs a negligible redundancy especially when the number of source parameters is large. Finally, we show that the redundancy is significant in the compression of small sequences.
1110.5722
Annotation of Scientific Summaries for Information Retrieval
cs.IR
We present a methodology combining surface NLP and Machine Learning techniques for ranking asbtracts and generating summaries based on annotated corpora. The corpora were annotated with meta-semantic tags indicating the category of information a sentence is bearing (objective, findings, newthing, hypothesis, conclusion, future work, related work). The annotated corpus is fed into an automatic summarizer for query-oriented abstract ranking and multi- abstract summarization. To adapt the summarizer to these two tasks, two novel weighting functions were devised in order to take into account the distribution of the tags in the corpus. Results, although still preliminary, are encouraging us to pursue this line of work and find better ways of building IR systems that can take into account semantic annotations in a corpus.
1110.5741
Secure Capacity Region for Erasure Broadcast Channels with Feedback
cs.IT math.IT
We formulate and study a cryptographic problem relevant to wireless: a sender, Alice, wants to transmit private messages to two receivers, Bob and Calvin, using unreliable wireless broadcast transmissions and short public feedback from Bob and Calvin. We ask, at what rates can we broadcast the private messages if we also provide (information-theoretic) unconditional security guarantees that Bob and Calvin do not learn each-other's message? We characterize the largest transmission rates to the two receivers, for any protocol that provides unconditional security guarantees. We design a protocol that operates at any rate-pair within the above region, uses very simple interactions and operations, and is robust to misbehaving users.
1110.5746
Private and Quantum Capacities of More Capable and Less Noisy Quantum Channels
quant-ph cs.IT math.IT
Two new classes of quantum channels, which we call more capable and less noisy, are introduced. The more capable class consists of channels such that the quantum capacities of the complementary channels to the environments are zero. The less noisy class consists of channels such that the private capacities of the complementary channels to the environment are zero. For the more capable class, it is clarified that the private capacity and quantum capacity coincide. For the less noisy class, it is clarified that the private capacity and quantum capacity can be single letter characterized.
1110.5762
Swarmrobot.org - Open-hardware Microrobotic Project for Large-scale Artificial Swarms
cs.RO cs.MA
The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the open-hardware microrobotic project swarmrobot.org and the platform Jasmine for building large-scale artificial swarms. The project targets an open development of cost-effective hardware and software for a quick implementation of swarm behavior with real robots. Detailed instructions for making the robot, open-source simulator, software libraries and multiple publications about performed experiments are ready for download and intend to facilitate exploration of collective and emergent phenomena, guided self-organization and swarm robotics in experimental way.
1110.5765
Throughput-Distortion Computation Of Generic Matrix Multiplication: Toward A Computation Channel For Digital Signal Processing Systems
cs.MS cs.CE
The generic matrix multiply (GEMM) function is the core element of high-performance linear algebra libraries used in many computationally-demanding digital signal processing (DSP) systems. We propose an acceleration technique for GEMM based on dynamically adjusting the imprecision (distortion) of computation. Our technique employs adaptive scalar companding and rounding to input matrix blocks followed by two forms of packing in floating-point that allow for concurrent calculation of multiple results. Since the adaptive companding process controls the increase of concurrency (via packing), the increase in processing throughput (and the corresponding increase in distortion) depends on the input data statistics. To demonstrate this, we derive the optimal throughput-distortion control framework for GEMM for the broad class of zero-mean, independent identically distributed, input sources. Our approach converts matrix multiplication in programmable processors into a computation channel: when increasing the processing throughput, the output noise (error) increases due to (i) coarser quantization and (ii) computational errors caused by exceeding the machine-precision limitations. We show that, under certain distortion in the GEMM computation, the proposed framework can significantly surpass 100% of the peak performance of a given processor. The practical benefits of our proposal are shown in a face recognition system and a multi-layer perceptron system trained for metadata learning from a large music feature database.
1110.5813
Overlapping Community Detection in Networks: the State of the Art and Comparative Study
cs.SI cs.DS physics.soc-ph
This paper reviews the state of the art in overlapping community detection algorithms, quality measures, and benchmarks. A thorough comparison of different algorithms (a total of fourteen) is provided. In addition to community level evaluation, we propose a framework for evaluating algorithms' ability to detect overlapping nodes, which helps to assess over-detection and under-detection. After considering community level detection performance measured by Normalized Mutual Information, the Omega index, and node level detection performance measured by F-score, we reached the following conclusions. For low overlapping density networks, SLPA, OSLOM, Game and COPRA offer better performance than the other tested algorithms. For networks with high overlapping density and high overlapping diversity, both SLPA and Game provide relatively stable performance. However, test results also suggest that the detection in such networks is still not yet fully resolved. A common feature observed by various algorithms in real-world networks is the relatively small fraction of overlapping nodes (typically less than 30%), each of which belongs to only 2 or 3 communities.
1110.5863
A Wikipedia Literature Review
cs.DL cs.IR
This paper was originally designed as a literature review for a doctoral dissertation focusing on Wikipedia. This exposition gives the structure of Wikipedia and the latest trends in Wikipedia research.
1110.5865
Cancer Networks: A general theoretical and computational framework for understanding cancer
q-bio.MN cs.CE cs.MA q-bio.CB q-bio.GN
We present a general computational theory of cancer and its developmental dynamics. The theory is based on a theory of the architecture and function of developmental control networks which guide the formation of multicellular organisms. Cancer networks are special cases of developmental control networks. Cancer results from transformations of normal developmental networks. Our theory generates a natural classification of all possible cancers based on their network architecture. Each cancer network has a unique topology and semantics and developmental dynamics that result in distinct clinical tumor phenotypes. We apply this new theory with a series of proof of concept cases for all the basic cancer types. These cases have been computationally modeled, their behavior simulated and mathematically described using a multicellular systems biology approach. There are fascinating correspondences between the dynamic developmental phenotype of computationally modeled {\em in silico} cancers and natural {\em in vivo} cancers. The theory lays the foundation for a new research paradigm for understanding and investigating cancer. The theory of cancer networks implies that new diagnostic methods and new treatments to cure cancer will become possible.
1110.5870
Universal and efficient compressed sensing by spread spectrum and application to realistic Fourier imaging techniques
cs.IT math.IT
We advocate a compressed sensing strategy that consists of multiplying the signal of interest by a wide bandwidth modulation before projection onto randomly selected vectors of an orthonormal basis. Firstly, in a digital setting with random modulation, considering a whole class of sensing bases including the Fourier basis, we prove that the technique is universal in the sense that the required number of measurements for accurate recovery is optimal and independent of the sparsity basis. This universality stems from a drastic decrease of coherence between the sparsity and the sensing bases, which for a Fourier sensing basis relates to a spread of the original signal spectrum by the modulation (hence the name "spread spectrum"). The approach is also efficient as sensing matrices with fast matrix multiplication algorithms can be used, in particular in the case of Fourier measurements. Secondly, these results are confirmed by a numerical analysis of the phase transition of the l1- minimization problem. Finally, we show that the spread spectrum technique remains effective in an analog setting with chirp modulation for application to realistic Fourier imaging. We illustrate these findings in the context of radio interferometry and magnetic resonance imaging.
1110.5890
Location-aided Distributed Primary User Identification in a Cognitive Radio Scenario
cs.NI cs.IT math.IT
We address a cognitive radio scenario, where a number of secondary users performs identification of which primary user, if any, is transmitting, in a distributed way and using limited location information. We propose two fully distributed algorithms: the first is a direct identification scheme, and in the other a distributed sub-optimal detection based on a simplified Neyman-Pearson energy detector precedes the identification scheme. Both algorithms are studied analytically in a realistic transmission scenario, and the advantage obtained by detection pre-processing is also verified via simulation. Finally, we give details of their fully distributed implementation via consensus averaging algorithms.
1110.5892
Semi-optimal Practicable Algorithmic Cooling
quant-ph cs.ET cs.IT math.IT
Algorithmic Cooling (AC) of spins applies entropy manipulation algorithms in open spin-systems in order to cool spins far beyond Shannon's entropy bound. AC of nuclear spins was demonstrated experimentally, and may contribute to nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Several cooling algorithms were suggested in recent years, including practicable algorithmic cooling (PAC) and exhaustive AC. Practicable algorithms have simple implementations, yet their level of cooling is far from optimal; Exhaustive algorithms, on the other hand, cool much better, and some even reach (asymptotically) an optimal level of cooling, but they are not practicable. We introduce here semi-optimal practicable AC (SOPAC), wherein few cycles (typically 2-6) are performed at each recursive level. Two classes of SOPAC algorithms are proposed and analyzed. Both attain cooling levels significantly better than PAC, and are much more efficient than the exhaustive algorithms. The new algorithms are shown to bridge the gap between PAC and exhaustive AC. In addition, we calculated the number of spins required by SOPAC in order to purify qubits for quantum computation. As few as 12 and 7 spins are required (in an ideal scenario) to yield a mildly pure spin (60% polarized) from initial polarizations of 1% and 10%, respectively. In the latter case, about five more spins are sufficient to produce a highly pure spin (99.99% polarized), which could be relevant for fault-tolerant quantum computing.
1110.5944
Communication cost of classically simulating a quantum channel with subsequent rank-1 projective measurement
quant-ph cs.IT math-ph math.IT math.MP
A process of preparation, transmission and subsequent projective measurement of a qubit can be simulated by a classical model with only two bits of communication and some amount of shared randomness. However no model for n qubits with a finite amount of classical communication is known at present. A lower bound for the communication cost can provide useful hints for a generalization. It is known for example that the amount of communication must be greater than c 2^n, where c~0.01. The proof uses a quite elaborate theorem of communication complexity. Using a mathematical conjecture known as the "double cap conjecture", we strengthen this result by presenting a geometrical and extremely simple derivation of the lower bound 2^n-1. Only rank-1 projective measurements are involved in the derivation.
1110.5945
A New Similarity Measure for Non-Local Means Filtering of MRI Images
cs.CV
The acquisition of MRI images offers a trade-off in terms of acquisition time, spatial/temporal resolution and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Thus, for instance, increasing the time efficiency of MRI often comes at the expense of reduced SNR. This, in turn, necessitates the use of post-processing tools for noise rejection, which makes image de-noising an indispensable component of computer assistance diagnosis. In the field of MRI, a multitude of image de-noising methods have been proposed hitherto. In this paper, the application of a particular class of de-noising algorithms - known as non-local mean (NLM) filters - is investigated. Such filters have been recently applied for MRI data enhancement and they have been shown to provide more accurate results as compared to many alternative de-noising algorithms. Unfortunately, virtually all existing methods for NLM filtering have been derived under the assumption of additive white Gaussian (AWG) noise contamination. Since this assumption is known to fail at low values of SNR, an alternative formulation of NLM filtering is required, which would take into consideration the correct Rician statistics of MRI noise. Accordingly, the contribution of the present paper is two-fold. First, it points out some principal disadvantages of the earlier methods of NLM filtering of MRI images and suggests means to rectify them. Second, the paper introduces a new similarity measure for NLM filtering of MRI Images, which is derived under bona fide statistical assumptions and results in more accurate reconstruction of MR scans as compared to alternative NLM approaches. Finally, the utility and viability of the proposed method is demonstrated through a series of numerical experiments using both in silico and in vivo MRI data.
1110.5962
Tracking Traders' Understanding of the Market Using e-Communication Data
cs.SI physics.data-an physics.soc-ph
Tracking the volume of keywords in Internet searches, message boards, or Tweets has provided an alternative for following or predicting associations between popular interest or disease incidences. Here, we extend that research by examining the role of e-communications among day traders and their collective understanding of the market. Our study introduces a general method that focuses on bundles of words that behave differently from daily communication routines, and uses original data covering the content of instant messages among all day traders at a trading firm over a 40-month period. Analyses show that two word bundles convey traders' understanding of same day market events and potential next day market events. We find that when market volatility is high, traders' communications are dominated by same day events, and when volatility is low, communications are dominated by next day events. We show that the stronger the traders' attention to either same day or next day events, the higher their collective trading performance. We conclude that e-communication among traders is a product of mass collaboration over diverse viewpoints that embodies unique information about their weak or strong understanding of the market.
1110.5992
User preference extraction using dynamic query sliders in conjunction with UPS-EMO algorithm
cs.NE cs.NA
One drawback of evolutionary multiobjective optimization algorithms (EMOA) has traditionally been high computational cost to create an approximation of the Pareto front: number of required objective function evaluations usually grows high. On the other hand, for the decision maker (DM) it may be difficult to select one of the many produced solutions as the final one, especially in the case of more than two objectives. To overcome the above mentioned drawbacks number of EMOA's incorporating the decision makers preference information have been proposed. In this case, it is possible to save objective function evaluations by generating only the part of the front the DM is interested in, thus also narrowing down the pool of possible selections for the final solution. Unfortunately, most of the current EMO approaches utilizing preferences are not very intuitive to use, i.e. they may require tweaking of unintuitive parameters, and it is not always clear what kind of results one can get with given set of parameters. In this study we propose a new approach to visually inspect produced solutions, and to extract preference information from the DM to further guide the search. Our approach is based on intuitive use of dynamic query sliders, which serve as a means to extract preference information and are part of the graphical user interface implemented for the efficient UPS-EMO algorithm.
1110.6012
The automorphism group of a self-dual binary [72,36,16] code does not contain Z7, Z3xZ3, or D10
cs.IT math.IT
A computer calculation with Magma shows that there is no extremal self-dual binary code C of length 72 that has an automorphism group containing D10, Z3xZ3, or Z7. Combining this with the known results in the literature one obtains that Aut(C) is either Z5 or has order dividing 24.
1110.6027
Entropy of the Mixture of Sources and Entropy Dimension
cs.IT math.IT
We investigate the problem of the entropy of the mixture of sources. There is given an estimation of the entropy and entropy dimension of convex combination of measures. The proof is based on our alternative definition of the entropy based on measures instead of partitions.
1110.6061
A Matricial Algorithm for Polynomial Refinement
cs.IT math.IT
In order to have a multiresolution analysis, the scaling function must be refinable. That is, it must be the linear combination of 2-dilation, $\mathbb{Z}$-translates of itself. Refinable functions used in connection with wavelets are typically compactly supported. In 2002, David Larson posed the question in his REU site, "Are all polynomials (of a single variable) finitely refinable?" That summer the author proved that the answer indeed was true using basic linear algebra. The result was presented in a number of talks but had not been typed up until now. The purpose of this short note is to record that particular proof.
1110.6078
On the Mathematical Structure of Balanced Chemical Reaction Networks Governed by Mass Action Kinetics
math.OC cs.SY math.DS physics.chem-ph q-bio.QM
Motivated by recent progress on the interplay between graph theory, dynamics, and systems theory, we revisit the analysis of chemical reaction networks described by mass action kinetics. For reaction networks possessing a thermodynamic equilibrium we derive a compact formulation exhibiting at the same time the structure of the complex graph and the stoichiometry of the network, and which admits a direct thermodynamical interpretation. This formulation allows us to easily characterize the set of equilibria and their stability properties. Furthermore, we develop a framework for interconnection of chemical reaction networks. Finally we discuss how the established framework leads to a new approach for model reduction.
1110.6084
The multi-armed bandit problem with covariates
math.ST cs.LG stat.ML stat.TH
We consider a multi-armed bandit problem in a setting where each arm produces a noisy reward realization which depends on an observable random covariate. As opposed to the traditional static multi-armed bandit problem, this setting allows for dynamically changing rewards that better describe applications where side information is available. We adopt a nonparametric model where the expected rewards are smooth functions of the covariate and where the hardness of the problem is captured by a margin parameter. To maximize the expected cumulative reward, we introduce a policy called Adaptively Binned Successive Elimination (abse) that adaptively decomposes the global problem into suitably "localized" static bandit problems. This policy constructs an adaptive partition using a variant of the Successive Elimination (se) policy. Our results include sharper regret bounds for the se policy in a static bandit problem and minimax optimal regret bounds for the abse policy in the dynamic problem.
1110.6089
A Universal 4D Model for Double-Efficient Lossless Data Compressions
cs.IT math.CO math.IT
This article discusses the theory, model, implementation and performance of a combinatorial fuzzy-binary and-or (FBAR) algorithm for lossless data compression (LDC) and decompression (LDD) on 8-bit characters. A combinatorial pairwise flags is utilized as new zero/nonzero, impure/pure bit-pair operators, where their combination forms a 4D hypercube to compress a sequence of bytes. The compressed sequence is stored in a grid file of constant size. Decompression is by using a fixed size translation table (TT) to access the grid file during I/O data conversions. Compared to other LDC algorithms, double-efficient (DE) entropies denoting 50% compressions with reasonable bitrates were observed. Double-extending the usage of the TT component in code, exhibits a Universal Predictability via its negative growth of entropy for LDCs > 87.5% compression, quite significant for scaling databases and network communications. This algorithm is novel in encryption, binary, fuzzy and information-theoretic methods such as probability. Therefore, information theorists, computer scientists and engineers may find the algorithm useful for its logic and applications.
1110.6097
The Decentralized Structure of Collective Attention on the Web
cs.IR cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Background: The collective browsing behavior of users gives rise to a flow network transporting attention between websites. By analyzing the structure of this network we uncovered a nontrivial scaling regularity concerning the impact of websites. Methodology: We constructed three clickstreams networks, whose nodes were websites and edges were formed by the users switching between sites. We developed an indicator Ci as a measure of the impact of site i and investigated its correlation with the traffic of the site Ai both on the three networks and across the language communities within the networks. Conclusions: We found that the impact of websites increased slower than their traffic. Specifically, there existed a scaling relationship between Ci and Ai with an exponent gamma smaller than 1. We suggested that this scaling relationship characterized the decentralized structure of the clickstream circulation: the World Wide Web is a system that favors small sites in reassigning the collective attention of users.
1110.6127
Optimal Forwarding in Delay Tolerant Networks with Multiple Destinations
cs.NI cs.SY
We study the trade-off between delivery delay and energy consumption in a delay tolerant network in which a message (or a file) has to be delivered to each of several destinations by epidemic relaying. In addition to the destinations, there are several other nodes in the network that can assist in relaying the message. We first assume that, at every instant, all the nodes know the number of relays carrying the packet and the number of destinations that have received the packet. We formulate the problem as a controlled continuous time Markov chain and derive the optimal closed loop control (i.e., forwarding policy). However, in practice, the intermittent connectivity in the network implies that the nodes may not have the required perfect knowledge of the system state. To address this issue, we obtain an ODE (i.e., a deterministic fluid) approximation for the optimally controlled Markov chain. This fluid approximation also yields an asymptotically optimal open loop policy. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the deterministic policy over finite networks. Numerical results show that this policy performs close to the optimal closed loop policy.
1110.6128
Classical Hierarchical Correlation Quantification on Tripartite Qubit Mixed State Families
quant-ph cs.IT math.IT nlin.CD
There are at least a number of ways to formally define complexity. Most of them relate to some kind of minimal description of the studied object. Being this one in form of minimal resources of minimal effort needed to generate the object itself. This is usually achieved by detecting and taking advantage of regularities within the object. Regularities can commonly be described in an information-theoretic approach by quantifying the amount of correlation playing a role in the system, this being spatial, temporal or both. This is the approach closely related to the extent that the whole cannot be understood as only the sum of its parts, but also by their interactions. Feature considered to be most fundamental. Nevertheless, this irreducibility, even in the basic quantum informational setting of composite states, is also present due to the intrinsic structure of Hilbert spaces' tensor product. In this approach, this irreducibility is quantified based on statistics of von Neumann measurements forming mutually unbiased bases. Upon two different kinds of tripartite qubit mixed state families, which hold the two possible distinct entangled states on this space. Results show that this quantification is sensible to the different kind of entanglement present on those families.
1110.6161
Sum-Rate Optimal Power Policies for Energy Harvesting Transmitters in an Interference Channel
cs.IT math.IT
This paper considers a two-user Gaussian interference channel with energy harvesting transmitters. Different than conventional battery powered wireless nodes, energy harvesting transmitters have to adapt transmission to availability of energy at a particular instant. In this setting, the optimal power allocation problem to maximize the sum throughput with a given deadline is formulated. The convergence of the proposed iterative coordinate descent method for the problem is proved and the short-term throughput maximizing offline power allocation policy is found. Examples for interference regions with known sum capacities are given with directional water-filling interpretations. Next, stochastic data arrivals are addressed. Finally online and/or distributed near-optimal policies are proposed. Performance of the proposed algorithms are demonstrated through simulations.
1110.6188
Ranked Sparse Signal Support Detection
cs.IT math.IT
This paper considers the problem of detecting the support (sparsity pattern) of a sparse vector from random noisy measurements. Conditional power of a component of the sparse vector is defined as the energy conditioned on the component being nonzero. Analysis of a simplified version of orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) called sequential OMP (SequOMP) demonstrates the importance of knowledge of the rankings of conditional powers. When the simple SequOMP algorithm is applied to components in nonincreasing order of conditional power, the detrimental effect of dynamic range on thresholding performance is eliminated. Furthermore, under the most favorable conditional powers, the performance of SequOMP approaches maximum likelihood performance at high signal-to-noise ratio.
1110.6199
Enhancing Binary Images of Non-Binary LDPC Codes
cs.IT math.IT
We investigate the reasons behind the superior performance of belief propagation decoding of non-binary LDPC codes over their binary images when the transmission occurs over the binary erasure channel. We show that although decoding over the binary image has lower complexity, it has worse performance owing to its larger number of stopping sets relative to the original non-binary code. We propose a method to find redundant parity-checks of the binary image that eliminate these additional stopping sets, so that we achieve performance comparable to that of the original non-binary LDPC code with lower decoding complexity.
1110.6200
TopicViz: Semantic Navigation of Document Collections
cs.HC cs.AI cs.CL
When people explore and manage information, they think in terms of topics and themes. However, the software that supports information exploration sees text at only the surface level. In this paper we show how topic modeling -- a technique for identifying latent themes across large collections of documents -- can support semantic exploration. We present TopicViz, an interactive environment for information exploration. TopicViz combines traditional search and citation-graph functionality with a range of novel interactive visualizations, centered around a force-directed layout that links documents to the latent themes discovered by the topic model. We describe several use scenarios in which TopicViz supports rapid sensemaking on large document collections.