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1201.1216
Probabilistic Motion Estimation Based on Temporal Coherence
cs.CV cs.IT math.IT
We develop a theory for the temporal integration of visual motion motivated by psychophysical experiments. The theory proposes that input data are temporally grouped and used to predict and estimate the motion flows in the image sequence. This temporal grouping can be considered a generalization of the data association techniques used by engineers to study motion sequences. Our temporal-grouping theory is expressed in terms of the Bayesian generalization of standard Kalman filtering. To implement the theory we derive a parallel network which shares some properties of cortical networks. Computer simulations of this network demonstrate that our theory qualitatively accounts for psychophysical experiments on motion occlusion and motion outliers.
1201.1221
Information Distance: New Developments
cs.CV cs.IT math.IT physics.data-an
In pattern recognition, learning, and data mining one obtains information from information-carrying objects. This involves an objective definition of the information in a single object, the information to go from one object to another object in a pair of objects, the information to go from one object to any other object in a multiple of objects, and the shared information between objects. This is called "information distance." We survey a selection of new developments in information distance.
1201.1259
Network Analysis of the French Environmental Code
cs.SI cs.DL physics.soc-ph
We perform a detailed analysis of the network constituted by the citations in a legal code, we search for hidden structures and properties. The graph associated to the Environmental code has a small-world structure and it is partitioned in several hidden communities of articles that only partially coincide with the organization of the code as given by its table of content. Several articles are also connected with a low number of articles but are intermediate between large communities. The structure of the Environmental Code is contrasting with the reference network of all the French Legal Codes that presents a rich-club of ten codes very central to the whole French legal system, but no small-world property. This comparison shows that the structural properties of the reference network associated to a legal system strongly depends on the scale and granularity of the analysis, as is the case for many complex systems
1201.1262
A Network Approach to the French System of Legal codes - Part I: Analysis of a Dense Network
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
We explore one aspect of the structure of a codified legal system at the national level using a new type of representation to understand the strong or weak dependencies between the various fields of law. In Part I of this study, we analyze the graph associated with the network in which each French legal code is a vertex and an edge is produced between two vertices when a code cites another code at least one time. We show that this network distinguishes from many other real networks from a high density, giving it a particular structure that we call concentrated world and that differentiates a national legal system (as considered with a resolution at the code level) from small-world graphs identified in many social networks. Our analysis then shows that a few communities (groups of highly wired vertices) of codes covering large domains of regulation are structuring the whole system. Indeed we mainly find a central group of influent codes, a group of codes related to social issues and a group of codes dealing with territories and natural resources. The study of this codified legal system is also of interest in the field of the analysis of real networks. In particular we examine the impact of the high density on the structural characteristics of the graph and on the ways communities are searched for. Finally we provide an original visualization of this graph on an hemicyle-like plot, this representation being based on a statistical reduction of dissimilarity measures between vertices. In Part II (a following paper) we show how the consideration of the weights attributed to each edge in the network in proportion to the number of citations between two vertices (codes) allows deepening the analysis of the French legal system.
1201.1278
Novel Relations between the Ergodic Capacity and the Average Bit Error Rate
cs.IT math.IT math.PR math.ST stat.TH
Ergodic capacity and average bit error rate have been widely used to compare the performance of different wireless communication systems. As such recent scientific research and studies revealed strong impact of designing and implementing wireless technologies based on these two performance indicators. However and to the best of our knowledge, the direct links between these two performance indicators have not been explicitly proposed in the literature so far. In this paper, we propose novel relations between the ergodic capacity and the average bit error rate of an overall communication system using binary modulation schemes for signaling with a limited bandwidth and operating over generalized fading channels. More specifically, we show that these two performance measures can be represented in terms of each other, without the need to know the exact end-to-end statistical characterization of the communication channel. We validate the correctness and accuracy of our newly proposed relations and illustrated their usefulness by considering some classical examples.
1201.1340
A Tiled-Table Convention for Compressing FITS Binary Tables
astro-ph.IM cs.DB
This document describes a convention for compressing FITS binary tables that is modeled after the FITS tiled-image compression method (White et al. 2009) that has been in use for about a decade. The input table is first optionally subdivided into tiles, each containing an equal number of rows, then every column of data within each tile is compressed and stored as a variable-length array of bytes in the output FITS binary table. All the header keywords from the input table are copied to the header of the output table and remain uncompressed for efficient access. The output compressed table contains the same number and order of columns as in the input uncompressed binary table. There is one row in the output table corresponding to each tile of rows in the input table. In principle, each column of data can be compressed using a different algorithm that is optimized for the type of data within that column, however in the prototype implementation described here, the gzip algorithm is used to compress every column.
1201.1345
FITS Checksum Proposal
astro-ph.IM cs.DB
The checksum keywords described here provide an integrity check on the information contained in FITS HDUs. (Header and Data Units are the basic components of FITS files, consisting of header keyword records followed by optional associated data records). The CHECKSUM keyword is defined to have a value that forces the 32-bit 1's complement checksum accumulated over all the 2880-byte FITS logical records in the HDU to equal negative 0. (Note that 1's complement arithmetic has both positive and negative zero elements). Verifying that the accumulated checksum is still equal to -0 provides a fast and fairly reliable way to determine that the HDU has not been modified by subsequent data processing operations or corrupted while copying or storing the file on physical media.
1201.1384
A Thermodynamical Approach for Probability Estimation
cs.LG physics.data-an stat.ME
The issue of discrete probability estimation for samples of small size is addressed in this study. The maximum likelihood method often suffers over-fitting when insufficient data is available. Although the Bayesian approach can avoid over-fitting by using prior distributions, it still has problems with objective analysis. In response to these drawbacks, a new theoretical framework based on thermodynamics, where energy and temperature are introduced, was developed. Entropy and likelihood are placed at the center of this method. The key principle of inference for probability mass functions is the minimum free energy, which is shown to unify the two principles of maximum likelihood and maximum entropy. Our method can robustly estimate probability functions from small size data.
1201.1409
Interactive Character Posing by Sparse Coding
cs.GR cs.AI
Character posing is of interest in computer animation. It is difficult due to its dependence on inverse kinematics (IK) techniques and articulate property of human characters . To solve the IK problem, classical methods that rely on numerical solutions often suffer from the under-determination problem and can not guarantee naturalness. Existing data-driven methods address this problem by learning from motion capture data. When facing a large variety of poses however, these methods may not be able to capture the pose styles or be applicable in real-time environment. Inspired from the low-rank motion de-noising and completion model in \cite{lai2011motion}, we propose a novel model for character posing based on sparse coding. Unlike conventional approaches, our model directly captures the pose styles in Euclidean space to provide intuitive training error measurements and facilitate pose synthesis. A pose dictionary is learned in training stage and based on it natural poses are synthesized to satisfy users' constraints . We compare our model with existing models for tasks of pose de-noising and completion. Experiments show our model obtains lower de-noising and completion error. We also provide User Interface(UI) examples illustrating that our model is effective for interactive character posing.
1201.1417
Picture Collage with Genetic Algorithm and Stereo vision
cs.CV
In this paper, a salient region extraction method for creating picture collage based on stereo vision is proposed. Picture collage is a kind of visual image summary to arrange all input images on a given canvas, allowing overlay, to maximize visible visual information. The salient regions of each image are firstly extracted and represented as a depth map. The output picture collage shows as many visible salient regions (without being overlaid by others) from all images as possible. A very efficient Genetic algorithm is used here for the optimization. The experimental results showed the superior performance of the proposed method.
1201.1422
Minutiae Extraction from Fingerprint Images - a Review
cs.CV cs.CR
Fingerprints are the oldest and most widely used form of biometric identification. Everyone is known to have unique, immutable fingerprints. As most Automatic Fingerprint Recognition Systems are based on local ridge features known as minutiae, marking minutiae accurately and rejecting false ones is very important. However, fingerprint images get degraded and corrupted due to variations in skin and impression conditions. Thus, image enhancement techniques are employed prior to minutiae extraction. A critical step in automatic fingerprint matching is to reliably extract minutiae from the input fingerprint images. This paper presents a review of a large number of techniques present in the literature for extracting fingerprint minutiae. The techniques are broadly classified as those working on binarized images and those that work on gray scale images directly.
1201.1450
The Interaction of Entropy-Based Discretization and Sample Size: An Empirical Study
stat.ML cs.LG
An empirical investigation of the interaction of sample size and discretization - in this case the entropy-based method CAIM (Class-Attribute Interdependence Maximization) - was undertaken to evaluate the impact and potential bias introduced into data mining performance metrics due to variation in sample size as it impacts the discretization process. Of particular interest was the effect of discretizing within cross-validation folds averse to outside discretization folds. Previous publications have suggested that discretizing externally can bias performance results; however, a thorough review of the literature found no empirical evidence to support such an assertion. This investigation involved construction of over 117,000 models on seven distinct datasets from the UCI (University of California-Irvine) Machine Learning Library and multiple modeling methods across a variety of configurations of sample size and discretization, with each unique "setup" being independently replicated ten times. The analysis revealed a significant optimistic bias as sample sizes decreased and discretization was employed. The study also revealed that there may be a relationship between the interaction that produces such bias and the numbers and types of predictor attributes, extending the "curse of dimensionality" concept from feature selection into the discretization realm. Directions for further exploration are laid out, as well some general guidelines about the proper application of discretization in light of these results.
1201.1462
Symbol-Index-Feedback Polar Coding Schemes for Low-Complexity Devices
cs.IT math.IT
Recently, a new class of error-control codes, the polar codes, have attracted much attention. The polar codes are the first known class of capacity-achieving codes for many important communication channels. In addition, polar codes have low-complexity encoding algorithms. Therefore, these codes are favorable choices for low-complexity devices, for example, in ubiquitous computing and sensor networks. However, the polar codes fall short in terms of finite-length error probabilities, compared with the state-of-the-art codes, such as the low-density parity-check codes. In this paper, in order to improve the error probabilities of the polar codes, we propose novel interactive coding schemes using receiver feedbacks based on polar codes. The proposed coding schemes have very low computational complexities at the transmitter side. By experimental results, we show that the proposed coding schemes achieve significantly lower error probabilities.
1201.1507
Sampling properties of directed networks
physics.soc-ph cs.SI physics.data-an
For many real-world networks only a small "sampled" version of the original network may be investigated; those results are then used to draw conclusions about the actual system. Variants of breadth-first search (BFS) sampling, which are based on epidemic processes, are widely used. Although it is well established that BFS sampling fails, in most cases, to capture the IN-component(s) of directed networks, a description of the effects of BFS sampling on other topological properties are all but absent from the literature. To systematically study the effects of sampling biases on directed networks, we compare BFS sampling to random sampling on complete large-scale directed networks. We present new results and a thorough analysis of the topological properties of seven different complete directed networks (prior to sampling), including three versions of Wikipedia, three different sources of sampled World Wide Web data, and an Internet-based social network. We detail the differences that sampling method and coverage can make to the structural properties of sampled versions of these seven networks. Most notably, we find that sampling method and coverage affect both the bow-tie structure, as well as the number and structure of strongly connected components in sampled networks. In addition, at low sampling coverage (i.e. less than 40%), the values of average degree, variance of out-degree, degree auto-correlation, and link reciprocity are overestimated by 30% or more in BFS-sampled networks, and only attain values within 10% of the corresponding values in the complete networks when sampling coverage is in excess of 65%. These results may cause us to rethink what we know about the structure, function, and evolution of real-world directed networks.
1201.1512
Community detection and tracking on networks from a data fusion perspective
cs.SI math.PR physics.soc-ph
Community structure in networks has been investigated from many viewpoints, usually with the same end result: a community detection algorithm of some kind. Recent research offers methods for combining the results of such algorithms into timelines of community evolution. This paper investigates community detection and tracking from the data fusion perspective. We avoid the kind of hard calls made by traditional community detection algorithms in favor of retaining as much uncertainty information as possible. This results in a method for directly estimating the probabilities that pairs of nodes are in the same community. We demonstrate that this method is accurate using the LFR testbed, that it is fast on a number of standard network datasets, and that it is has a variety of uses that complement those of standard, hard-call methods. Retaining uncertainty information allows us to develop a Bayesian filter for tracking communities. We derive equations for the full filter, and marginalize it to produce a potentially practical version. Finally, we discuss closures for the marginalized filter and the work that remains to develop this into a principled, efficient method for tracking time-evolving communities on time-evolving networks.
1201.1547
Information Society: Modeling A Complex System With Scarce Data
physics.soc-ph cs.IT cs.SI math.IT nlin.AO
Considering electronic implications in the Information Society (IS) as a complex system, complexity science tools are used to describe the processes that are seen to be taking place. The sometimes troublesome relationship between the information and communication new technologies and e-society gives rise to different problems, some of them being unexpected. Probably, the Digital Divide (DD) and the Internet Governance (IG) are among the most conflictive ones of internationally based e-Affairs. Admitting that solutions should be found for these problems, certain international policies are required. In this context, data gathering and subsequent analysis, as well as the construction of adequate physical models are extremely important in order to imagine different future scenarios and suggest some subsequent control. In the main text, mathematical modelization helps for visualizing how policies could e.g. influence the individual and collective behavior in an empirical social agent system. In order to show how this purpose could be achieved, two approaches, (i) the Ising model and (ii) a generalized Lotka-Volterra model are used for DD and IG considerations respectively. It can be concluded that the social modelization of the e-Information Society as a complex system provides insights about how DD can be reduced and how the a large number of weak members of the IS could influence the outcomes of the IG.
1201.1571
A United Image Force for Deformable Models and Direct Transforming Geometric Active Contorus to Snakes by Level Sets
cs.CV
A uniform distribution of the image force field around the object fasts the convergence speed of the segmentation process. However, to achieve this aim, it causes the force constructed from the heat diffusion model unable to indicate the object boundaries accurately. The image force based on electrostatic field model can perform an exact shape recovery. First, this study introduces a fusion scheme of these two image forces, which is capable of extracting the object boundary with high precision and fast speed. Until now, there is no satisfied analysis about the relationship between Snakes and Geometric Active Contours (GAC). The second contribution of this study addresses that the GAC model can be deduced directly from Snakes model. It proves that each term in GAC and Snakes is correspondent and has similar function. However, the two models are expressed using different mathematics. Further, since losing the ability of rotating the contour, adoption of level sets can limits the usage of GAC in some circumstances.
1201.1572
A dynamical model for competing opinions
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
We propose an opinion model based on agents located at the vertices of a regular lattice. Each agent has an independent opinion (among an arbitrary, but fixed, number of choices) and its own degree of conviction. The latter changes every time it interacts with another agent who has a different opinion. The dynamics leads to size distributions of clusters (made up of agents which have the same opinion and are located at contiguous spatial positions) which follow a power law, as long as the range of the interaction between the agents is not too short, i.e. the system self-organizes into a critical state. Short range interactions lead to an exponential cut off in the size distribution and to spatial correlations which cause agents which have the same opinion to be closely grouped. When the diversity of opinions is restricted to two, non-consensus dynamic is observed, with unequal population fractions, whereas consensus is reached if the agents are also allowed to interact with those which are located far from them.
1201.1587
Feature Selection via Regularized Trees
cs.LG stat.ME stat.ML
We propose a tree regularization framework, which enables many tree models to perform feature selection efficiently. The key idea of the regularization framework is to penalize selecting a new feature for splitting when its gain (e.g. information gain) is similar to the features used in previous splits. The regularization framework is applied on random forest and boosted trees here, and can be easily applied to other tree models. Experimental studies show that the regularized trees can select high-quality feature subsets with regard to both strong and weak classifiers. Because tree models can naturally deal with categorical and numerical variables, missing values, different scales between variables, interactions and nonlinearities etc., the tree regularization framework provides an effective and efficient feature selection solution for many practical problems.
1201.1588
Upper Bound on the Capacity of Gaussian Channels with Noisy Feedback
cs.IT math.IT
We consider an additive Gaussian channel with additive Gaussian noise feedback. We derive an upper bound on the n-block capacity (defined by Cover [1]). It is shown that this upper bound can be obtained by solving a convex optimization problem. With stationarity assumptions on Gaussian noise processes, we characterize the limit of the n-block upper bound and prove that this limit is the upper bound of the noisy feedback (shannon) capacity.
1201.1589
The Weakness of Weak Ties in the Classroom
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Granovetter's "strength of weak ties" hypothesizes that isolated social ties offer limited access to external prospects, while heterogeneous social ties diversify one's opportunities. We analyze the most complete record of college student interactions to date (approximately 80,000 interactions by 290 students -- 16 times more interactions with almost 3 times more students than previous studies on educational networks) and compare the social interaction data with the academic scores of the students. Our first finding is that social diversity is negatively correlated with performance. This is explained by our second finding: highly performing students interact in groups of similarly performing peers. This effect is stronger the higher the student performance is. Indeed, low performance students tend to initiate many transient interactions independently of the performance of their target. In other words, low performing students act disassortatively with respect to their social network, whereas high scoring students act assortatively. Our data also reveals that highly performing students establish persistent interactions before mid and low performing ones and that they use more structured and longer cascades of information from which low performing students are excluded.
1201.1603
Committee Algorithm: An Easy Way to Construct Wavelet Filter Banks
math.NA cs.IT math.IT
Given a lowpass filter, finding a dual lowpass filter is an essential step in constructing non-redundant wavelet filter banks. Obtaining dual lowpass filters is not an easy task. In this paper, we introduce a new method called committee algorithm that builds a dual filter straightforwardly from two easily-constructible lowpass filters. It allows to design a wide range of new wavelet filter banks. An example based on the family of Burt-Adelson's 1-D Laplacian filters is given.
1201.1613
Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) and hybrid ARMA/ANN model to predict global radiation
cs.NE physics.data-an
We propose in this paper an original technique to predict global radiation using a hybrid ARMA/ANN model and data issued from a numerical weather prediction model (ALADIN). We particularly look at the Multi-Layer Perceptron. After optimizing our architecture with ALADIN and endogenous data previously made stationary and using an innovative pre-input layer selection method, we combined it to an ARMA model from a rule based on the analysis of hourly data series. This model has been used to forecast the hourly global radiation for five places in Mediterranean area. Our technique outperforms classical models for all the places. The nRMSE for our hybrid model ANN/ARMA is 14.9% compared to 26.2% for the na\"ive persistence predictor. Note that in the stand alone ANN case the nRMSE is 18.4%. Finally, in order to discuss the reliability of the forecaster outputs, a complementary study concerning the confidence interval of each prediction is proposed
1201.1623
MultiDendrograms: Variable-Group Agglomerative Hierarchical Clusterings
cs.IR math.ST physics.comp-ph physics.data-an q-fin.CP stat.CO stat.TH
MultiDendrograms is a Java-written application that computes agglomerative hierarchical clusterings of data. Starting from a distances (or weights) matrix, MultiDendrograms is able to calculate its dendrograms using the most common agglomerative hierarchical clustering methods. The application implements a variable-group algorithm that solves the non-uniqueness problem found in the standard pair-group algorithm. This problem arises when two or more minimum distances between different clusters are equal during the agglomerative process, because then different output clusterings are possible depending on the criterion used to break ties between distances. MultiDendrograms solves this problem implementing a variable-group algorithm that groups more than two clusters at the same time when ties occur.
1201.1633
On the minimality of Hamming compatible metrics
cs.IT math.IT
A Hamming compatible metric is an integer-valued metric on the words of a finite alphabet which agrees with the usual Hamming distance for words of equal length. We define a new Hamming compatible metric, compute the cardinality of a sphere with respect to this metric, and show this metric is minimal in the class of all "well-behaved" Hamming compatible metrics.
1201.1634
Per-antenna Constant Envelope Precoding for Large Multi-User MIMO Systems
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the multi-user MIMO broadcast channel with $M$ single-antenna users and $N$ transmit antennas under the constraint that each antenna emits signals having constant envelope (CE). The motivation for this is that CE signals facilitate the use of power-efficient RF power amplifiers. Analytical and numerical results show that, under certain mild conditions on the channel gains, for a fixed $M$, array gain is achievable even under the stringent per-antenna CE constraint (essentially, for a fixed $M$, at sufficiently large $N$ the total transmitted power can be reduced with increasing $N$ while maintaining a fixed information rate to each user). Simulations for the i.i.d. Rayleigh fading channel show that the total transmit power can be reduced linearly with increasing $N$ (i.e., an O(N) array gain). We also propose a precoding scheme which finds near-optimal CE signals to be transmitted, and has O(MN) complexity. Also, in terms of the total transmit power required to achieve a fixed desired information sum-rate, despite the stringent per-antenna CE constraint, the proposed CE precoding scheme performs close to the sum-capacity achieving scheme for an average-only total transmit power constrained channel.
1201.1652
Toward a Motor Theory of Sign Language Perception
cs.CL cs.HC
Researches on signed languages still strongly dissociate lin- guistic issues related on phonological and phonetic aspects, and gesture studies for recognition and synthesis purposes. This paper focuses on the imbrication of motion and meaning for the analysis, synthesis and evaluation of sign language gestures. We discuss the relevance and interest of a motor theory of perception in sign language communication. According to this theory, we consider that linguistic knowledge is mapped on sensory-motor processes, and propose a methodology based on the principle of a synthesis-by-analysis approach, guided by an evaluation process that aims to validate some hypothesis and concepts of this theory. Examples from existing studies illustrate the di erent concepts and provide avenues for future work.
1201.1656
A MacWilliams type identity for m-spotty generalized Lee weight enumerators over $\mathbb{Z}_q$ q
cs.IT math.IT
Burst errors are very common in practice. There have been many designs in order to control and correct such errors. Recently, a new class of byte error control codes called spotty byte error control codes has been specifically designed to fit the large capacity memory systems that use high-density random access memory (RAM) chips with input/output data of 8, 16, and 32 bits. The MacWilliams identity describes how the weight enumerator of a linear code and the weight enumerator of its dual code are related. Also, Lee metric which has attracted many researchers due to its applications. In this paper, we combine these two interesting topics and introduce the m-spotty generalized Lee weights and the m-spotty generalized Lee weight enumerators of a code over Z q and prove a MacWilliams type identity. This generalization includes both the case of the identity given in the paper [I. Siap, MacWilliams identity for m-spotty Lee weight enumerators, Appl. Math. Lett. 23 (1) (2010) 13-16] and the identity given in the paper [M. \"Ozen, V. \c{S}iap, The MacWilliams identity for m-spotty weight enumerators of linear codes over finite fields, Comput. Math. Appl. 61 (4) (2011) 1000-1004] over Z2 and Z3 as special cases.
1201.1657
A Split-Merge MCMC Algorithm for the Hierarchical Dirichlet Process
stat.ML cs.AI
The hierarchical Dirichlet process (HDP) has become an important Bayesian nonparametric model for grouped data, such as document collections. The HDP is used to construct a flexible mixed-membership model where the number of components is determined by the data. As for most Bayesian nonparametric models, exact posterior inference is intractable---practitioners use Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) or variational inference. Inspired by the split-merge MCMC algorithm for the Dirichlet process (DP) mixture model, we describe a novel split-merge MCMC sampling algorithm for posterior inference in the HDP. We study its properties on both synthetic data and text corpora. We find that split-merge MCMC for the HDP can provide significant improvements over traditional Gibbs sampling, and we give some understanding of the data properties that give rise to larger improvements.
1201.1662
Quickest Search over Brownian Channels
math.PR cs.IT math.IT math.OC
In this paper we resolve an open problem proposed by Lai, Poor, Xin, and Georgiadis (2011, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory). Consider a sequence of Brownian Motions with unknown drift equal to one or zero, which we may be observed one at a time. We give a procedure for finding, as quickly as possible, a process which is a Brownian Motion with nonzero drift. This original quickest search problem, in which the filtration itself is dependent on the observation strategy, is reduced to a single filtration impulse control and optimal stopping problem, which is in turn reduced to an optimal stopping problem for a reflected diffusion, which can be explicitly solved.
1201.1670
Customers Behavior Modeling by Semi-Supervised Learning in Customer Relationship Management
cs.LG
Leveraging the power of increasing amounts of data to analyze customer base for attracting and retaining the most valuable customers is a major problem facing companies in this information age. Data mining technologies extract hidden information and knowledge from large data stored in databases or data warehouses, thereby supporting the corporate decision making process. CRM uses data mining (one of the elements of CRM) techniques to interact with customers. This study investigates the use of a technique, semi-supervised learning, for the management and analysis of customer-related data warehouse and information. The idea of semi-supervised learning is to learn not only from the labeled training data, but to exploit also the structural information in additionally available unlabeled data. The proposed semi-supervised method is a model by means of a feed-forward neural network trained by a back propagation algorithm (multi-layer perceptron) in order to predict the category of an unknown customer (potential customers). In addition, this technique can be used with Rapid Miner tools for both labeled and unlabeled data.
1201.1671
Error-Correcting Codes for Reliable Communications in Microgravity Platforms
cs.IT cs.SY math.IT
The PAANDA experiment was conceived to characterize the acceleration ambient of a rocket launched microgravity platform, specially the microgravity phase. The recorded data was transmitted to ground stations, leading to loss of telemetry information sent during the reentry period. Traditionally, an error-correcting code for this channel consists of a block code with very large block size to protect against long periods of data loss. Instead, we propose the use of digital fountain codes along with conventional Reed-Solomon block codes to protect against long and short burst error periods, respectively. Aiming to use this approach for a second version of PAANDA to prevent data corruption, we propose a model for the communication channel based on information extracted from Cum\~a II's telemetry data, and simulate the performance of our proposed error-correcting code under this channel model. Simulation results show that nearly all telemetry data can be recovered, including data from the reentry period.
1201.1676
Sufficient Conditions for Formation of a Network Topology by Self-interested Agents
cs.GT cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Networks such as organizational network of a global company play an important role in a variety of knowledge management and information diffusion tasks. The nodes in these networks correspond to individuals who are self-interested. The topology of these networks often plays a crucial role in deciding the ease and speed with which certain tasks can be accomplished using these networks. Consequently, growing a stable network having a certain topology is of interest. Motivated by this, we study the following important problem: given a certain desired network topology, under what conditions would best response (link addition/deletion) strategies played by self-interested agents lead to formation of a pairwise stable network with only that topology. We study this interesting reverse engineering problem by proposing a natural model of recursive network formation. In this model, nodes enter the network sequentially and the utility of a node captures principal determinants of network formation, namely (1) benefits from immediate neighbors, (2) costs of maintaining links with immediate neighbors, (3) benefits from indirect neighbors, (4) bridging benefits, and (5) network entry fee. Based on this model, we analyze relevant network topologies such as star graph, complete graph, bipartite Turan graph, and multiple stars with interconnected centers, and derive a set of sufficient conditions under which these topologies emerge as pairwise stable networks. We also study the social welfare properties of the above topologies.
1201.1684
The Three-User Finite-Field Multi-Way Relay Channel with Correlated Sources
cs.IT math.IT
This paper studies the three-user finite-field multi-way relay channel, where the users exchange messages via a relay. The messages are arbitrarily correlated, and the finite-field channel is linear and is subject to additive noise of arbitrary distribution. The problem is to determine the minimum achievable source-channel rate, defined as channel uses per source symbol needed for reliable communication. We combine Slepian-Wolf source coding and functional-decode-forward channel coding to obtain the solution for two classes of source and channel combinations. Furthermore, for correlated sources that have their common information equal their mutual information, we propose a new coding scheme to achieve the minimum source-channel rate.
1201.1717
On the Hyperbolicity of Small-World and Tree-Like Random Graphs
cs.SI cs.DM physics.soc-ph
Hyperbolicity is a property of a graph that may be viewed as being a "soft" version of a tree, and recent empirical and theoretical work has suggested that many graphs arising in Internet and related data applications have hyperbolic properties. We consider Gromov's notion of \delta-hyperbolicity, and establish several results for small-world and tree-like random graph models. First, we study the hyperbolicity of Kleinberg small-world random graphs and show that the hyperbolicity of these random graphs is not significantly improved comparing to graph diameter even when it greatly improves decentralized navigation. Next we study a class of tree-like graphs called ringed trees that have constant hyperbolicity. We show that adding random links among the leaves similar to the small-world graph constructions may easily destroy the hyperbolicity of the graphs, except for a class of random edges added using an exponentially decaying probability function based on the ring distance among the leaves. Our study provides one of the first significant analytical results on the hyperbolicity of a rich class of random graphs, which shed light on the relationship between hyperbolicity and navigability of random graphs, as well as on the sensitivity of hyperbolic {\delta} to noises in random graphs.
1201.1728
Worst-case efficient dominating sets in digraphs
math.CO cs.IT math.IT
Let $1\le n\in\Z$. {\it Worst-case efficient dominating sets in digraphs} are conceived so that their presence in certain strong digraphs $\vec{ST}_n$ corresponds to that of efficient dominating sets in star graphs $ST_n$: The fact that the star graphs $ST_n$ form a so-called dense segmental neighborly E-chain is reflected in a corresponding fact for the digraphs $\vec{ST}_n$. Related chains of graphs and open problems are presented as well.
1201.1733
On Conditional Decomposability
cs.SY cs.FL
The requirement of a language to be conditionally decomposable is imposed on a specification language in the coordination supervisory control framework of discrete-event systems. In this paper, we present a polynomial-time algorithm for the verification whether a language is conditionally decomposable with respect to given alphabets. Moreover, we also present a polynomial-time algorithm to extend the common alphabet so that the language becomes conditionally decomposable. A relationship of conditional decomposability to nonblockingness of modular discrete-event systems is also discussed in this paper in the general settings. It is shown that conditional decomposability is a weaker condition than nonblockingness.
1201.1754
A Note on Undecidability of Observation Consistency for Non-Regular Languages
cs.SY cs.FL
One of the most interesting questions concerning hierarchical control of discrete-event systems with partial observations is a condition under which the language observability is preserved between the original and the abstracted plant. Recently, we have characterized two such sufficient conditions---observation consistency and local observation consistency. In this paper, we prove that the condition of observation consistency is undecidable for non-regular (linear, deterministic context-free) languages. The question whether the condition is decidable for regular languages is open.
1201.1755
Unraveling Spurious Properties of Interaction Networks with Tailored Random Networks
physics.data-an cs.SI physics.comp-ph physics.soc-ph
We investigate interaction networks that we derive from multivariate time series with methods frequently employed in diverse scientific fields such as biology, quantitative finance, physics, earth and climate sciences, and the neurosciences. Mimicking experimental situations, we generate time series with finite length and varying frequency content but from independent stochastic processes. Using the correlation coefficient and the maximum cross-correlation, we estimate interdependencies between these time series. With clustering coefficient and average shortest path length, we observe unweighted interaction networks, derived via thresholding the values of interdependence, to possess non-trivial topologies as compared to Erd\H{o}s-R\'{e}nyi networks, which would indicate small-world characteristics. These topologies reflect the mostly unavoidable finiteness of the data, which limits the reliability of typically used estimators of signal interdependence. We propose random networks that are tailored to the way interaction networks are derived from empirical data. Through an exemplary investigation of multichannel electroencephalographic recordings of epileptic seizures - known for their complex spatial and temporal dynamics - we show that such random networks help to distinguish network properties of interdependence structures related to seizure dynamics from those spuriously induced by the applied methods of analysis.
1201.1798
Tight p-fusion frames
math.NA cs.IT math.IT
Fusion frames enable signal decompositions into weighted linear subspace components. For positive integers p, we introduce p-fusion frames, a sharpening of the notion of fusion frames. Tight p-fusion frames are closely related to the classical notions of designs and cubature formulas in Grassmann spaces and are analyzed with methods from harmonic analysis in the Grassmannians. We define the p-fusion frame potential, derive bounds for its value, and discuss the connections to tight p-fusion frames.
1201.1812
On Polynomial Remainder Codes
cs.IT math.IT math.RA
Polynomial remainder codes are a large class of codes derived from the Chinese remainder theorem that includes Reed-Solomon codes as a special case. In this paper, we revisit these codes and study them more carefully than in previous work. We explicitly allow the code symbols to be polynomials of different degrees, which leads to two different notions of weight and distance. Algebraic decoding is studied in detail. If the moduli are not irreducible, the notion of an error locator polynomial is replaced by an error factor polynomial. We then obtain a collection of gcd-based decoding algorithms, some of which are not quite standard even when specialized to Reed-Solomon codes.
1201.1829
FITS Foreign File Encapsulation Convention
astro-ph.IM cs.DB
This document describes a FITS convention developed by the IRAF Group (D. Tody, R. Seaman, and N. Zarate) at the National Optical Astronomical Observatory (NOAO). This convention is implemented by the fgread/fgwrite tasks in the IRAF fitsutil package. It was first used in May 1999 to encapsulate preview PNG-format graphics files into FITS files in the NOAO High Performance Pipeline System. A FITS extension of type 'FOREIGN' provides a mechanism for storing an arbitrary file or tree of files in FITS, allowing it to be restored to disk at a later time.
1201.1835
Graph-Based Random Access for the Collision Channel without Feedback: Capacity Bound
cs.IT math.IT
A random access scheme for the collision channel without feedback is proposed. The scheme is based on erasure correcting codes for the recovery of packet segments that are lost in collisions, and on successive interference cancellation for resolving collisions. The proposed protocol achieves reliable communication in the asymptotic setting and attains capacities close to 1 [packets/slot]. A capacity bound as a function of the overall rate of the scheme is derived, and code distributions tightly approaching the bound developed.
1201.1861
Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks: Performance Evaluation and Optimization
cs.IT math.IT math.PR
This paper studies cooperative spectrum sensing in cognitive radio networks where secondary users collect local energy statistics and report their findings to a secondary base station, i.e., a fusion center. First, the average error probability is quantitively analyzed to capture the dynamic nature of both observation and fusion channels, assuming fixed amplifier gains for relaying local statistics to the fusion center. Second, the system level overhead of cooperative spectrum sensing is addressed by considering both the local processing cost and the transmission cost. Local processing cost incorporates the overhead of sample collection and energy calculation that must be conducted by each secondary user; the transmission cost accounts for the overhead of forwarding the energy statistic computed at each secondary user to the fusion center. Results show that when jointly designing the number of collected energy samples and transmission amplifier gains, only one secondary user needs to be actively engaged in spectrum sensing. Furthermore, when number of energy samples or amplifier gains are fixed, closed form expressions for optimal solutions are derived and a generalized water-filling algorithm is provided.
1201.1900
Evolution of public cooperation on interdependent networks: The impact of biased utility functions
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI q-bio.PE
We study the evolution of public cooperation on two interdependent networks that are connected by means of a utility function, which determines to what extent payoffs in one network influence the success of players in the other network. We find that the stronger the bias in the utility function, the higher the level of public cooperation. Yet the benefits of enhanced public cooperation on the two networks are just as biased as the utility functions themselves. While cooperation may thrive on one network, the other may still be plagued by defectors. Nevertheless, the aggregate level of cooperation on both networks is higher than the one attainable on an isolated network. This positive effect of biased utility functions is due to the suppressed feedback of individual success, which leads to a spontaneous separation of characteristic time scales of the evolutionary process on the two interdependent networks. As a result, cooperation is promoted because the aggressive invasion of defectors is more sensitive to the slowing down than the build-up of collective efforts in sizable groups.
1201.1935
Secure Symmetrical Multilevel Diversity Coding
cs.IT math.IT
Symmetrical Multilevel Diversity Coding (SMDC) is a network compression problem introduced by Roche (1992) and Yeung (1995). In this setting, a simple separate coding strategy known as superposition coding was shown to be optimal in terms of achieving the minimum sum rate (Roche, Yeung, and Hau, 1997) and the entire admissible rate region (Yeung and Zhang, 1999) of the problem. This paper considers a natural generalization of SMDC to the secure communication setting with an additional eavesdropper. It is required that all sources need to be kept perfectly secret from the eavesdropper as long as the number of encoder outputs available at the eavesdropper is no more than a given threshold. First, the problem of encoding individual sources is studied. A precise characterization of the entire admissible rate region is established via a connection to the problem of secure coding over a three-layer wiretap network and utilizing some basic polyhedral structure of the admissible rate region. Building on this result, it is then shown that superposition coding remains optimal in terms of achieving the minimum sum rate for the general secure SMDC problem.
1201.1941
Relaying for Multiuser Networks in the Absence of Codebook Information
cs.IT math.IT
This work considers relay assisted transmission for multiuser networks when the relay has no access to the codebooks used by the transmitters. The relay is called oblivious for this reason. Of particular interest is the generalized compress-and-forward (GCF) strategy, where the destinations jointly decode the compression indices and the transmitted messages, and their optimality in this setting. The relay-to-destination links are assumed to be out-of-band with finite capacity. Two models are investigated: the multiple access relay channel (MARC) and the interference relay channel (IFRC). For the MARC with an oblivious relay, a new outerbound is derived and it is shown to be tight by means of achievability of the capacity region using GCF scheme. For the IFRC with an oblivious relay, a new strong interference condition is established, under which the capacity region is found by deriving a new outerbound and showing that it is achievable using GCF scheme. The result is further extended to establish the capacity region of M-user MARC with an oblivious relay, and multicast networks containing M sources and K destinations with an oblivious relay.
1201.1990
Criteria of stabilizability for switching-control systems with solvable linear approximations
cs.SY math.CA math.OC
We study the stability and stabilizability of a continuous-time switched control system that consists of the time-invariant $n$-dimensional subsystems \dot{x}=A_ix+B_i(x)u\quad (x\in\mathbb{R}^n, t\in\mathbb{R}_+ \textrm{and} u\in\mathbb{R}^{m_i}),\qquad \textrm{where} i\in{1,...,N} and a switching signal $\sigma(\bcdot)\colon\mathbb{R}_+\rightarrow{1,...,N}$ which orchestrates switching between these subsystems above, where $A_i\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times n}, n\ge1, N\ge2, m_i\ge1$, and where $B_i(\bcdot)\colon\mathbb{R}^n\rightarrow\mathbb{R}^{n\times m_i}$ satisfies the condition $\|B_i(x)\|\le\bbbeta\|x\|\;\forall x\in\mathbb{R}^n$. We show that, if ${A_1,...,A_N}$ generates a solvable Lie algebra over the field $\mathbbm{C}$ of complex numbers and there exists an element $\bbA$ in the convex hull $\mathrm{co}{A_1,...,A_N}$ in $\mathbb{R}^{n\times n}$ such that the affine system $\dot{x}=\bbA x$ is exponentially stable, then there is a constant $\bbdelta>0$ for which one can design "sufficiently many" piecewise-constant switching signals $\sigma(t)$ so that the switching-control systems \dot{x}(t)=A_{\sigma(t)}x(t)+B_{\sigma(t)}(x(t))u(t),\quad x(0)\in\mathbb{R}^n\textrm{and} t\in\mathbb{R}_+ are globally exponentially stable, for any measurable external inputs $u(t)\in\mathbb{R}^{m_{\sigma(t)}}$ with $|u(t)|\le\bbdelta$.
1201.1997
An Enhanced DMT-optimality Criterion for STBC-schemes for Asymmetric MIMO Systems
cs.IT math.IT
For any $n_t$ transmit, $n_r$ receive antenna ($n_t\times n_r$) MIMO system in a quasi-static Rayleigh fading environment, it was shown by Elia et al. that linear space-time block code-schemes (LSTBC-schemes) which have the non-vanishing determinant (NVD) property are diversity-multiplexing gain tradeoff (DMT)-optimal for arbitrary values of $n_r$ if they have a code-rate of $n_t$ complex dimensions per channel use. However, for asymmetric MIMO systems (where $n_r < n_t$), with the exception of a few LSTBC-schemes, it is unknown whether general LSTBC-schemes with NVD and a code-rate of $n_r$ complex dimensions per channel use are DMT-optimal. In this paper, an enhanced sufficient criterion for any STBC-scheme to be DMT-optimal is obtained, and using this criterion, it is established that any LSTBC-scheme with NVD and a code-rate of $\min\{n_t,n_r\}$ complex dimensions per channel use is DMT-optimal. This result settles the DMT-optimality of several well-known, low-ML-decoding-complexity LSTBC-schemes for certain asymmetric MIMO systems.
1201.2004
Optimal Fuzzy Model Construction with Statistical Information using Genetic Algorithm
cs.AI
Fuzzy rule based models have a capability to approximate any continuous function to any degree of accuracy on a compact domain. The majority of FLC design process relies on heuristic knowledge of experience operators. In order to make the design process automatic we present a genetic approach to learn fuzzy rules as well as membership function parameters. Moreover, several statistical information criteria such as the Akaike information criterion (AIC), the Bhansali-Downham information criterion (BDIC), and the Schwarz-Rissanen information criterion (SRIC) are used to construct optimal fuzzy models by reducing fuzzy rules. A genetic scheme is used to design Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK) model for identification of the antecedent rule parameters and the identification of the consequent parameters. Computer simulations are presented confirming the performance of the constructed fuzzy logic controller.
1201.2010
Recognizing Bangla Grammar using Predictive Parser
cs.CL
We describe a Context Free Grammar (CFG) for Bangla language and hence we propose a Bangla parser based on the grammar. Our approach is very much general to apply in Bangla Sentences and the method is well accepted for parsing a language of a grammar. The proposed parser is a predictive parser and we construct the parse table for recognizing Bangla grammar. Using the parse table we recognize syntactical mistakes of Bangla sentences when there is no entry for a terminal in the parse table. If a natural language can be successfully parsed then grammar checking from this language becomes possible. The proposed scheme is based on Top down parsing method and we have avoided the left recursion of the CFG using the idea of left factoring.
1201.2035
On the Characterization of the Duhem Hysteresis Operator with Clockwise Input-Output Dynamics
math.OC cs.SY
In this paper we investigate the dissipativity property of a certain class of Duhem hysteresis operator, which has clockwise (CW) input-output (I/O) behavior. In particular, we provide sufficient conditions on the Duhem operator such that it is CW and propose an explicit construction of the corresponding storage function satisfying dissipation inequality of CW systems. The result is used to analyze the stability of a second order system with hysteretic friction which is described by a Dahl model.
1201.2036
Hierarchical multiresolution method to overcome the resolution limit in complex networks
physics.data-an cs.SI physics.comp-ph physics.soc-ph
The analysis of the modular structure of networks is a major challenge in complex networks theory. The validity of the modular structure obtained is essential to confront the problem of the topology-functionality relationship. Recently, several authors have worked on the limit of resolution that different community detection algorithms have, making impossible the detection of natural modules when very different topological scales coexist in the network. Existing multiresolution methods are not the panacea for solving the problem in extreme situations, and also fail. Here, we present a new hierarchical multiresolution scheme that works even when the network decomposition is very close to the resolution limit. The idea is to split the multiresolution method for optimal subgraphs of the network, focusing the analysis on each part independently. We also propose a new algorithm to speed up the computational cost of screening the mesoscale looking for the resolution parameter that best splits every subgraph. The hierarchical algorithm is able to solve a difficult benchmark proposed in [Lancichinetti & Fortunato, 2011], encouraging the further analysis of hierarchical methods based on the modularity quality function.
1201.2046
Evaluating the performance of geographical locations in scientific networks with an aggregation - randomization - re-sampling approach (ARR)
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Knowledge creation and dissemination in science and technology systems is perceived as a prerequisite for socio-economic development. The efficiency of creating new knowledge is considered to have a geographical component, i.e. some regions are more capable in scientific knowledge production than others. This article shows a method to use a network representation of scientific interaction to assess the relative efficiency of regions with diverse boundaries in channeling knowledge through a science system. In a first step, a weighted aggregate of the betweenness centrality is produced from empirical data (aggregation). The subsequent randomization of this empirical network produces the necessary Null-model for significance testing and normalization (randomization). This step is repeated to yield higher confidence about the results (re-sampling). The results are robust estimates for the relative regional efficiency to broker knowledge, which is discussed along with cross-sectional and longitudinal empirical examples. The network representation acts as a straight-forward metaphor of conceptual ideas from economic geography and neighboring disciplines. However, the procedure is not limited to centrality measures, nor is it limited to spatial aggregates. Therefore, it offers a wide range of application for scientometrics and beyond.
1201.2050
Adaptive Noise Reduction Scheme for Salt and Pepper
cs.CV
In this paper, a new adaptive noise reduction scheme for images corrupted by impulse noise is presented. The proposed scheme efficiently identifies and reduces salt and pepper noise. MAG (Mean Absolute Gradient) is used to identify pixels which are most likely corrupted by salt and pepper noise that are candidates for further median based noise reduction processing. Directional filtering is then applied after noise reduction to achieve a good tradeoff between detail preservation and noise removal. The proposed scheme can remove salt and pepper noise with noise density as high as 90% and produce better result in terms of qualitative and quantitative measures of images.
1201.2056
Adaptive Context Tree Weighting
cs.IT cs.LG math.IT
We describe an adaptive context tree weighting (ACTW) algorithm, as an extension to the standard context tree weighting (CTW) algorithm. Unlike the standard CTW algorithm, which weights all observations equally regardless of the depth, ACTW gives increasing weight to more recent observations, aiming to improve performance in cases where the input sequence is from a non-stationary distribution. Data compression results show ACTW variants improving over CTW on merged files from standard compression benchmark tests while never being significantly worse on any individual file.
1201.2073
Pbm: A new dataset for blog mining
cs.AI cs.CL cs.IR
Text mining is becoming vital as Web 2.0 offers collaborative content creation and sharing. Now Researchers have growing interest in text mining methods for discovering knowledge. Text mining researchers come from variety of areas like: Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistic, Machine Learning, and Statistics. A typical text mining application involves preprocessing of text, stemming and lemmatization, tagging and annotation, deriving knowledge patterns, evaluating and interpreting the results. There are numerous approaches for performing text mining tasks, like: clustering, categorization, sentimental analysis, and summarization. There is a growing need to standardize the evaluation of these tasks. One major component of establishing standardization is to provide standard datasets for these tasks. Although there are various standard datasets available for traditional text mining tasks, but there are very few and expensive datasets for blog-mining task. Blogs, a new genre in web 2.0 is a digital diary of web user, which has chronological entries and contains a lot of useful knowledge, thus offers a lot of challenges and opportunities for text mining. In this paper, we report a new indigenous dataset for Pakistani Political Blogosphere. The paper describes the process of data collection, organization, and standardization. We have used this dataset for carrying out various text mining tasks for blogosphere, like: blog-search, political sentiments analysis and tracking, identification of influential blogger, and clustering of the blog-posts. We wish to offer this dataset free for others who aspire to pursue further in this domain.
1201.2084
Sentence based semantic similarity measure for blog-posts
cs.AI cs.IR
Blogs-Online digital diary like application on web 2.0 has opened new and easy way to voice opinion, thoughts, and like-dislike of every Internet user to the World. Blogosphere has no doubt the largest user-generated content repository full of knowledge. The potential of this knowledge is still to be explored. Knowledge discovery from this new genre is quite difficult and challenging as it is totally different from other popular genre of web-applications like World Wide Web (WWW). Blog-posts unlike web documents are small in size, thus lack in context and contain relaxed grammatical structures. Hence, standard text similarity measure fails to provide good results. In this paper, specialized requirements for comparing a pair of blog-posts is thoroughly investigated. Based on this we proposed a novel algorithm for sentence oriented semantic similarity measure of a pair of blog-posts. We applied this algorithm on a subset of political blogosphere of Pakistan, to cluster the blogs on different issues of political realm and to identify the influential bloggers.
1201.2100
Biologically inspired design framework for Robot in Dynamic Environments using Framsticks
cs.NE
Robot design complexity is increasing day by day especially in automated industries. In this paper we propose biologically inspired design framework for robots in dynamic world on the basis of Co-Evolution, Virtual Ecology, Life time learning which are derived from biological creatures. We have created a virtual khepera robot in Framsticks and tested its operational credibility in terms hardware and software components by applying the above suggested techniques. Monitoring complex and non complex behaviors in different environments and obtaining the parameters that influence software and hardware design of the robot that influence anticipated and unanticipated failures, control programs of robot generation are the major concerns of our techniques.
1201.2173
Automatic Detection of Diabetes Diagnosis using Feature Weighted Support Vector Machines based on Mutual Information and Modified Cuckoo Search
cs.LG
Diabetes is a major health problem in both developing and developed countries and its incidence is rising dramatically. In this study, we investigate a novel automatic approach to diagnose Diabetes disease based on Feature Weighted Support Vector Machines (FW-SVMs) and Modified Cuckoo Search (MCS). The proposed model consists of three stages: Firstly, PCA is applied to select an optimal subset of features out of set of all the features. Secondly, Mutual Information is employed to construct the FWSVM by weighting different features based on their degree of importance. Finally, since parameter selection plays a vital role in classification accuracy of SVMs, MCS is applied to select the best parameter values. The proposed MI-MCS-FWSVM method obtains 93.58% accuracy on UCI dataset. The experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms the previous methods by not only giving more accurate results but also significantly speeding up the classification procedure.
1201.2199
Memory-Assisted Universal Source Coding
cs.IT math.IT
The problem of the universal compression of a sequence from a library of several small to moderate length sequences from similar context arises in many practical scenarios, such as the compression of the storage data and the Internet traffic. In such scenarios, it is often required to compress and decompress every sequence individually. However, the universal compression of the individual sequences suffers from significant redundancy overhead. In this paper, we aim at answering whether or not having a memory unit in the middle can result in a fundamental gain in the universal compression. We present the problem setup in the most basic scenario consisting of a server node $S$, a relay node $R$ (i.e., the memory unit), and a client node $C$. We assume that server $S$ wishes to send the sequence $x^n$ to the client $C$ who has never had any prior communication with the server, and hence, is not capable of memorization of the source context. However, $R$ has previously communicated with $S$ to forward previous sequences from $S$ to the clients other than $C$, and thus, $R$ has memorized a context $y^m$ shared with $S$. Note that if the relay node was absent the source could possibly apply universal compression to $x^n$ and transmit to $C$ whereas the presence of memorized context at $R$ can possibly reduce the communication overhead in $S$-$R$ link. In this paper, we investigate the fundamental gain of the context memorization in the memory-assisted universal compression of the sequence $x^n$ over conventional universal source coding by providing a lower bound on the gain of memory-assisted source coding.
1201.2201
A Performance Metric for Discrete-Time Chaos-Based Truly Random Number Generators
cs.IT math.DS math.IT
In this paper, we develop an information entropy based metric that represents the statistical quality of the generated binary sequence in Truly Random Number Generators (TRNG). The metric can be used for the design and optimization of the TRNG circuits as well as the development of efficient post-processing units for recovering the degraded statistical characteristics of the signal due to process variations.
1201.2205
A Cryptographic Treatment of the Wiretap Channel
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT
The wiretap channel is a setting where one aims to provide information-theoretic privacy of communicated data based solely on the assumption that the channel from sender to adversary is "noisier" than the channel from sender to receiver. It has been the subject of decades of work in the information and coding (I&C) community. This paper bridges the gap between this body of work and modern cryptography with contributions along two fronts, namely metrics (definitions) of security, and schemes. We explain that the metric currently in use is weak and insufficient to guarantee security of applications and propose two replacements. One, that we call mis-security, is a mutual-information based metric in the I&C style. The other, semantic security, adapts to this setting a cryptographic metric that, in the cryptography community, has been vetted by decades of evaluation and endorsed as the target for standards and implementations. We show that they are equivalent (any scheme secure under one is secure under the other), thereby connecting two fundamentally different ways of defining security and providing a strong, unified and well-founded target for designs. Moving on to schemes, results from the wiretap community are mostly non-constructive, proving the existence of schemes without necessarily yielding ones that are explicit, let alone efficient, and only meeting their weak notion of security. We apply cryptographic methods based on extractors to produce explicit, polynomial-time and even practical encryption schemes that meet our new and stronger security target.
1201.2207
Multi-sensor Information Processing using Prediction Market-based Belief Aggregation
cs.MA
We consider the problem of information fusion from multiple sensors of different types with the objective of improving the confidence of inference tasks, such as object classification, performed from the data collected by the sensors. We propose a novel technique based on distributed belief aggregation using a multi-agent prediction market to solve this information fusion problem. To monitor the improvement in the confidence of the object classification as well as to dis-incentivize agents from misreporting information, we have introduced a market maker that rewards the agents instantaneously as well as at the end of the inference task, based on the quality of the submitted reports. We have implemented the market maker's reward calculation in the form of a scoring rule and have shown analytically that it incentivizes truthful revelation or accurate reporting by each agent. We have experimentally verified our technique for multi-sensor information fusion for an automated landmine detection scenario. Our experimental results show that, for identical data distributions and settings, using our information aggregation technique increases the accuracy of object classification favorably as compared to two other commonly used techniques for information fusion for landmine detection.
1201.2231
Reduced Functional Dependence Graph and Its Applications
cs.IT math.IT
Functional dependence graph (FDG) is an important class of directed graph that captures the dominance relationship among a set of variables. FDG is frequently used in calculating network coding capacity bounds. However, the order of FDG is usually much larger than the original network and the computational complexity of many bounds grows exponentially with the order of FDG. In this paper, we introduce the concept of reduced FDG, which is obtained from the original FDG by keeping only those "essential" edges. It is proved that the reduced FDG gives the same capacity region/bounds with the original FDG, but requiring much less computation. The applications of reduced FDG in the algebraic formulation of scalar linear network coding is also discussed.
1201.2240
Bengali text summarization by sentence extraction
cs.IR cs.CL
Text summarization is a process to produce an abstract or a summary by selecting significant portion of the information from one or more texts. In an automatic text summarization process, a text is given to the computer and the computer returns a shorter less redundant extract or abstract of the original text(s). Many techniques have been developed for summarizing English text(s). But, a very few attempts have been made for Bengali text summarization. This paper presents a method for Bengali text summarization which extracts important sentences from a Bengali document to produce a summary.
1201.2241
Distance-Based Bias in Model-Directed Optimization of Additively Decomposable Problems
cs.NE cs.AI
For many optimization problems it is possible to define a distance metric between problem variables that correlates with the likelihood and strength of interactions between the variables. For example, one may define a metric so that the dependencies between variables that are closer to each other with respect to the metric are expected to be stronger than the dependencies between variables that are further apart. The purpose of this paper is to describe a method that combines such a problem-specific distance metric with information mined from probabilistic models obtained in previous runs of estimation of distribution algorithms with the goal of solving future problem instances of similar type with increased speed, accuracy and reliability. While the focus of the paper is on additively decomposable problems and the hierarchical Bayesian optimization algorithm, it should be straightforward to generalize the approach to other model-directed optimization techniques and other problem classes. Compared to other techniques for learning from experience put forward in the past, the proposed technique is both more practical and more broadly applicable.
1201.2261
Relationships in Large-Scale Graph Computing
cs.DS cs.IR
In 2009 Grzegorz Czajkowski from Google's system infrastructure team has published an article which didn't get much attention in the SEO community at the time. It was titled "Large-scale graph computing at Google" and gave an excellent insight into the future of Google's search. This article highlights some of the little known facts which lead to transformation of Google's algorithm in the last two years.
1201.2277
A Time Decoupling Approach for Studying Forum Dynamics
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Online forums are rich sources of information about user communication activity over time. Finding temporal patterns in online forum communication threads can advance our understanding of the dynamics of conversations. The main challenge of temporal analysis in this context is the complexity of forum data. There can be thousands of interacting users, who can be numerically described in many different ways. Moreover, user characteristics can evolve over time. We propose an approach that decouples temporal information about users into sequences of user events and inter-event times. We develop a new feature space to represent the event sequences as paths, and we model the distribution of the inter-event times. We study over 30,000 users across four Internet forums, and discover novel patterns in user communication. We find that users tend to exhibit consistency over time. Furthermore, in our feature space, we observe regions that represent unlikely user behaviors. Finally, we show how to derive a numerical representation for each forum, and we then use this representation to derive a novel clustering of multiple forums.
1201.2291
Statistical Complexity and Fisher-Shannon Information. Applications
nlin.CD cs.IT math.IT physics.atom-ph
In this chapter, a statistical measure of complexity and the Fisher-Shannon information product are introduced and their properties are discussed. These measures are based on the interplay between the Shannon information, or a function of it, and the separation of the set of accessible states to a system from the equiprobability distribution, i.e. the disequilibrium or the Fisher information, respectively. Different applications in discrete and continuous systems are shown. Some of them are concerned with quantum systems, from prototypical systems such as the H-atom, the harmonic oscillator and the square well to other ones such as He-like ions, Hooke's atoms or just the periodic table. In all of them, these statistical indicators show an interesting behavior able to discern and highlight some conformational properties of those systems.
1201.2304
Query sensitive comparative summarization of search results using concept based segmentation
cs.IR
Query sensitive summarization aims at providing the users with the summary of the contents of single or multiple web pages based on the search query. This paper proposes a novel idea of generating a comparative summary from a set of URLs from the search result. User selects a set of web page links from the search result produced by search engine. Comparative summary of these selected web sites is generated. This method makes use of HTML DOM tree structure of these web pages. HTML documents are segmented into set of concept blocks. Sentence score of each concept block is computed with respect to the query and feature keywords. The important sentences from the concept blocks of different web pages are extracted to compose the comparative summary on the fly. This system reduces the time and effort required for the user to browse various web sites to compare the information. The comparative summary of the contents would help the users in quick decision making.
1201.2315
Secure Transmission of Sources over Noisy Channels with Side Information at the Receivers
cs.IT math.IT
This paper investigates the problem of source-channel coding for secure transmission with arbitrarily correlated side informations at both receivers. This scenario consists of an encoder (referred to as Alice) that wishes to compress a source and send it through a noisy channel to a legitimate receiver (referred to as Bob). In this context, Alice must simultaneously satisfy the desired requirements on the distortion level at Bob, and the equivocation rate at the eavesdropper (referred to as Eve). This setting can be seen as a generalization of the problems of secure source coding with (uncoded) side information at the decoders, and the wiretap channel. A general outer bound on the rate-distortion-equivocation region, as well as an inner bound based on a pure digital scheme, is derived for arbitrary channels and side informations. In some special cases of interest, it is proved that this digital scheme is optimal and that separation holds. However, it is also shown through a simple counterexample with a binary source that a pure analog scheme can outperform the digital one while being optimal. According to these observations and assuming matched bandwidth, a novel hybrid digital/analog scheme that aims to gather the advantages of both digital and analog ones is then presented. In the quadratic Gaussian setup when side information is only present at the eavesdropper, this strategy is proved to be optimal. Furthermore, it outperforms both digital and analog schemes, and cannot be achieved via time-sharing. By means of an appropriate coding, the presence of any statistical difference among the side informations, the channel noises, and the distortion at Bob can be fully exploited in terms of secrecy.
1201.2334
Universal Estimation of Directed Information
cs.IT math.IT
Four estimators of the directed information rate between a pair of jointly stationary ergodic finite-alphabet processes are proposed, based on universal probability assignments. The first one is a Shannon--McMillan--Breiman type estimator, similar to those used by Verd\'u (2005) and Cai, Kulkarni, and Verd\'u (2006) for estimation of other information measures. We show the almost sure and $L_1$ convergence properties of the estimator for any underlying universal probability assignment. The other three estimators map universal probability assignments to different functionals, each exhibiting relative merits such as smoothness, nonnegativity, and boundedness. We establish the consistency of these estimators in almost sure and $L_1$ senses, and derive near-optimal rates of convergence in the minimax sense under mild conditions. These estimators carry over directly to estimating other information measures of stationary ergodic finite-alphabet processes, such as entropy rate and mutual information rate, with near-optimal performance and provide alternatives to classical approaches in the existing literature. Guided by these theoretical results, the proposed estimators are implemented using the context-tree weighting algorithm as the universal probability assignment. Experiments on synthetic and real data are presented, demonstrating the potential of the proposed schemes in practice and the utility of directed information estimation in detecting and measuring causal influence and delay.
1201.2383
Impact of Dynamic Interactions on Multi-Scale Analysis of Community Structure in Networks
cs.SI physics.comp-ph physics.data-an physics.soc-ph
To find interesting structure in networks, community detection algorithms have to take into account not only the network topology, but also dynamics of interactions between nodes. We investigate this claim using the paradigm of synchronization in a network of coupled oscillators. As the network evolves to a global steady state, nodes belonging to the same community synchronize faster than nodes belonging to different communities. Traditionally, nodes in network synchronization models are coupled via one-to-one, or conservative interactions. However, social interactions are often one-to-many, as for example, in social media, where users broadcast messages to all their followers. We formulate a novel model of synchronization in a network of coupled oscillators in which the oscillators are coupled via one-to-many, or non-conservative interactions. We study the dynamics of different interaction models and contrast their spectral properties. To find multi-scale community structure in a network of interacting nodes, we define a similarity function that measures the degree to which nodes are synchronized and use it to hierarchically cluster nodes. We study real-world social networks, including networks of two social media providers. To evaluate the quality of the discovered communities in a social media network we propose a community quality metric based on user activity. We find that conservative and non-conservative interaction models lead to dramatically different views of community structure even within the same network. Our work offers a novel mathematical framework for exploring the relationship between network structure, topology and dynamics.
1201.2386
Bounds on the Minimum Distance of Punctured Quasi-Cyclic LDPC Codes
cs.IT math.IT
Recent work by Divsalar et al. has shown that properly designed protograph-based low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes typically have minimum (Hamming) distance linearly increasing with block length. This fact rests on ensemble arguments over all possible expansions of the base protograph. However, when implementation complexity is considered, the expansions are frequently selected from a smaller class of structured expansions. For example, protograph expansion by cyclically shifting connections generates a quasi-cyclic (QC) code. Other recent work by Smarandache and Vontobel has provided upper bounds on the minimum distance of QC codes. In this paper, we generalize these bounds to punctured QC codes and then show how to tighten these for certain classes of codes. We then evaluate these upper bounds for the family of protograph codes known as AR4JA codes that have been recommended for use in deep space communications in a standard established by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS). At block lengths larger than 4400 bits, these upper bounds fall well below the ensemble lower bounds.
1201.2395
Polynomial Regression on Riemannian Manifolds
math.ST cs.CV math.DG stat.TH
In this paper we develop the theory of parametric polynomial regression in Riemannian manifolds and Lie groups. We show application of Riemannian polynomial regression to shape analysis in Kendall shape space. Results are presented, showing the power of polynomial regression on the classic rat skull growth data of Bookstein as well as the analysis of the shape changes associated with aging of the corpus callosum from the OASIS Alzheimer's study.
1201.2416
Stochastic Low-Rank Kernel Learning for Regression
cs.LG
We present a novel approach to learn a kernel-based regression function. It is based on the useof conical combinations of data-based parameterized kernels and on a new stochastic convex optimization procedure of which we establish convergence guarantees. The overall learning procedure has the nice properties that a) the learned conical combination is automatically designed to perform the regression task at hand and b) the updates implicated by the optimization procedure are quite inexpensive. In order to shed light on the appositeness of our learning strategy, we present empirical results from experiments conducted on various benchmark datasets.
1201.2430
A Well-typed Lightweight Situation Calculus
cs.PL cs.AI
Situation calculus has been widely applied in Artificial Intelligence related fields. This formalism is considered as a dialect of logic programming language and mostly used in dynamic domain modeling. However, type systems are hardly deployed in situation calculus in the literature. To achieve a correct and sound typed program written in situation calculus, adding typing elements into the current situation calculus will be quite helpful. In this paper, we propose to add more typing mechanisms to the current version of situation calculus, especially for three basic elements in situation calculus: situations, actions and objects, and then perform rigid type checking for existing situation calculus programs to find out the well-typed and ill-typed ones. In this way, type correctness and soundness in situation calculus programs can be guaranteed by type checking based on our type system. This modified version of a lightweight situation calculus is proved to be a robust and well-typed system.
1201.2462
The minimax risk of truncated series estimators for symmetric convex polytopes
math.ST cs.IT math.IT math.PR stat.TH
We study the optimality of the minimax risk of truncated series estimators for symmetric convex polytopes. We show that the optimal truncated series estimator is within $O(\log m)$ factor of the optimal if the polytope is defined by $m$ hyperplanes. This represents the first such bounds towards general convex bodies. In proving our result, we first define a geometric quantity, called the \emph{approximation radius}, for lower bounding the minimax risk. We then derive our bounds by establishing a connection between the approximation radius and the Kolmogorov width, the quantity that provides upper bounds for the truncated series estimator. Besides, our proof contains several ingredients which might be of independent interest: 1. The notion of approximation radius depends on the volume of the body. It is an intuitive notion and is flexible to yield strong minimax lower bounds; 2. The connection between the approximation radius and the Kolmogorov width is a consequence of a novel duality relationship on the Kolmogorov width, developed by utilizing some deep results from convex geometry.
1201.2471
Eigen-Direction Alignment Based Physical-Layer Network Coding for MIMO Two-Way Relay Channels
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we propose a novel communication strategy which incorporates physical-layer network coding (PNC) into multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) two-way relay channels (TWRCs). At the heart of the proposed scheme lies a new key technique referred to as eigen-direction alignment (EDA) precoding. The EDA precoding efficiently aligns the two-user's eigen-modes into the same directions. Based on that, we carry out multi-stream PNC over the aligned eigen-modes. We derive an achievable rate of the proposed EDA-PNC scheme, based on nested lattice codes, over a MIMO TWRC. Asymptotic analysis shows that the proposed EDA-PNC scheme approaches the capacity upper bound as the number of user antennas increases towards infinity. For a finite number of user antennas, we formulate the design criterion of the optimal EDA precoder and present solutions. Numerical results show that there is only a marginal gap between the achievable rate of the proposed EDA-PNC scheme and the capacity upper bound of the MIMO TWRC, in the median-to-large SNR region. We also show that the proposed EDA-PNC scheme significantly outperforms existing amplify-and-forward and decode-and-forward based schemes for MIMO TWRCs.
1201.2478
Global stabilization of nonlinear systems based on vector control lyapunov functions
math.OC cs.SY
This paper studies the use of vector Lyapunov functions for the design of globally stabilizing feedback laws for nonlinear systems. Recent results on vector Lyapunov functions are utilized. The main result of the paper shows that the existence of a vector control Lyapunov function is a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a smooth globally stabilizing feedback. Applications to nonlinear systems are provided: simple and easily checkable sufficient conditions are proposed to guarantee the existence of a smooth globally stabilizing feedback law. The obtained results are applied to the problem of the stabilization of an equilibrium point of a reaction network taking place in a continuous stirred tank reactor.
1201.2483
Duality of Channel Encoding and Decoding - Part I: Rate-1 Binary Convolutional Codes
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we revisit the forward, backward and bidirectional Bahl-Cocke-Jelinek-Raviv (BCJR) soft-input soft-output (SISO) maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) decoding process of rate-1 binary convolutional codes. From this we establish some interesting explicit relationships between encoding and decoding of rate-1 convolutional codes. We observe that the forward and backward BCJR SISO MAP decoders can be simply represented by their dual SISO channel encoders using shift registers in the complex number field. Similarly, the bidirectional MAP decoding can be implemented by linearly combining the shift register contents of the dual SISO encoders of the respective forward and backward decoders. The dual encoder structures for various recursive and non-recursive rate-1 convolutional codes are derived.
1201.2513
On Geometric Upper Bounds for Positioning Algorithms in Wireless Sensor Networks
cs.IT math.IT
This paper studies the possibility of upper bounding the position error of an estimate for range based positioning algorithms in wireless sensor networks. In this study, we argue that in certain situations when the measured distances between sensor nodes are positively biased, e.g., in non-line-of-sight conditions, the target node is confined to a closed bounded convex set (a feasible set) which can be derived from the measurements. Then, we formulate two classes of geometric upper bounds with respect to the feasible set. If an estimate is available, either feasible or infeasible, the worst-case position error can be defined as the maximum distance between the estimate and any point in the feasible set (the first bound). Alternatively, if an estimate given by a positioning algorithm is always feasible, we propose to get the maximum length of the feasible set as the worst-case position error (the second bound). These bounds are formulated as nonconvex optimization problems. To progress, we relax the nonconvex problems and obtain convex problems, which can be efficiently solved. Simulation results indicate that the proposed bounds are reasonably tight in many situations.
1201.2515
Integrating Interactive Visualizations in the Search Process of Digital Libraries and IR Systems
cs.DL cs.IR
Interactive visualizations for exploring and retrieval have not yet become an integral part of digital libraries and information retrieval systems. We have integrated a set of interactive graphics in a real world social science digital library. These visualizations support the exploration of search queries, results and authors, can filter search results, show trends in the database and can support the creation of new search queries. The use of weighted brushing supports the identification of related metadata for search facets. We discuss some use cases of the combination of IR systems and interactive graphics. In a user study we verify that users can gain insights from statistical graphics intuitively and can adopt interaction techniques.
1201.2523
At Low SNR Asymmetric Quantizers Are Better
cs.IT math.IT
We study the capacity of the discrete-time Gaussian channel when its output is quantized with a one-bit quantizer. We focus on the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime, where communication at very low spectral efficiencies takes place. In this regime a symmetric threshold quantizer is known to reduce channel capacity by a factor of 2/pi, i.e., to cause an asymptotic power loss of approximately two decibels. Here it is shown that this power loss can be avoided by using asymmetric threshold quantizers and asymmetric signaling constellations. To avoid this power loss, flash-signaling input distributions are essential. Consequently, one-bit output quantization of the Gaussian channel reduces spectral efficiency. Threshold quantizers are not only asymptotically optimal: at every fixed SNR a threshold quantizer maximizes capacity among all one-bit output quantizers. The picture changes on the Rayleigh-fading channel. In the noncoherent case a one-bit output quantizer causes an unavoidable low-SNR asymptotic power loss. In the coherent case, however, this power loss is avoidable provided that we allow the quantizer to depend on the fading level.
1201.2542
An efficient FPGA implementation of MRI image filtering and tumor characterization using Xilinx system generator
cs.AR cs.CV
This paper presents an efficient architecture for various image filtering algorithms and tumor characterization using Xilinx System Generator (XSG). This architecture offers an alternative through a graphical user interface that combines MATLAB, Simulink and XSG and explores important aspects concerned to hardware implementation. Performance of this architecture implemented in SPARTAN-3E Starter kit (XC3S500E-FG320) exceeds those of similar or greater resources architectures. The proposed architecture reduces the resources available on target device by 50%.
1201.2555
Sparse Reward Processes
cs.LG stat.ML
We introduce a class of learning problems where the agent is presented with a series of tasks. Intuitively, if there is relation among those tasks, then the information gained during execution of one task has value for the execution of another task. Consequently, the agent is intrinsically motivated to explore its environment beyond the degree necessary to solve the current task it has at hand. We develop a decision theoretic setting that generalises standard reinforcement learning tasks and captures this intuition. More precisely, we consider a multi-stage stochastic game between a learning agent and an opponent. We posit that the setting is a good model for the problem of life-long learning in uncertain environments, where while resources must be spent learning about currently important tasks, there is also the need to allocate effort towards learning about aspects of the world which are not relevant at the moment. This is due to the fact that unpredictable future events may lead to a change of priorities for the decision maker. Thus, in some sense, the model "explains" the necessity of curiosity. Apart from introducing the general formalism, the paper provides algorithms. These are evaluated experimentally in some exemplary domains. In addition, performance bounds are proven for some cases of this problem.
1201.2564
Query-Subquery Nets
cs.DB cs.LO
We formulate query-subquery nets and use them to create the first framework for developing algorithms for evaluating queries to Horn knowledge bases with the properties that: the approach is goal-directed; each subquery is processed only once and each supplement tuple, if desired, is transferred only once; operations are done set-at-a-time; and any control strategy can be used. Our intention is to increase efficiency of query processing by eliminating redundant computation, increasing flexibility and reducing the number of accesses to the secondary storage. The framework forms a generic evaluation method called QSQN. To deal with function symbols, we use a term-depth bound for atoms and substitutions occurring in the computation and propose to use iterative deepening search which iteratively increases the term-depth bound. We prove soundness and completeness of our generic evaluation method and show that, when the term-depth bound is fixed, the method has PTIME data complexity. We also present how tail recursion elimination can be incorporated into our framework and propose two exemplary control strategies, one is to reduce the number of accesses to the secondary storage, while the other is depth-first search.
1201.2575
Joint Approximation of Information and Distributed Link-Scheduling Decisions in Wireless Networks
cs.LG cs.NI
For a large multi-hop wireless network, nodes are preferable to make distributed and localized link-scheduling decisions with only interactions among a small number of neighbors. However, for a slowly decaying channel and densely populated interferers, a small size neighborhood often results in nontrivial link outages and is thus insufficient for making optimal scheduling decisions. A question arises how to deal with the information outside a neighborhood in distributed link-scheduling. In this work, we develop joint approximation of information and distributed link scheduling. We first apply machine learning approaches to model distributed link-scheduling with complete information. We then characterize the information outside a neighborhood in form of residual interference as a random loss variable. The loss variable is further characterized by either a Mean Field approximation or a normal distribution based on the Lyapunov central limit theorem. The approximated information outside a neighborhood is incorporated in a factor graph. This results in joint approximation and distributed link-scheduling in an iterative fashion. Link-scheduling decisions are first made at each individual node based on the approximated loss variables. Loss variables are then updated and used for next link-scheduling decisions. The algorithm repeats between these two phases until convergence. Interactive iterations among these variables are implemented with a message-passing algorithm over a factor graph. Simulation results show that using learned information outside a neighborhood jointly with distributed link-scheduling reduces the outage probability close to zero even for a small neighborhood.
1201.2592
Interpolatory Weighted-H2 Model Reduction
math.NA cs.SY math.DS math.OC
This paper introduces an interpolation framework for the weighted-H2 model reduction problem. We obtain a new representation of the weighted-H2 norm of SISO systems that provides new interpolatory first order necessary conditions for an optimal reduced-order model. The H2 norm representation also provides an error expression that motivates a new weighted-H2 model reduction algorithm. Several numerical examples illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
1201.2605
Autonomous Cleaning of Corrupted Scanned Documents - A Generative Modeling Approach
cs.CV cs.LG
We study the task of cleaning scanned text documents that are strongly corrupted by dirt such as manual line strokes, spilled ink etc. We aim at autonomously removing dirt from a single letter-size page based only on the information the page contains. Our approach, therefore, has to learn character representations without supervision and requires a mechanism to distinguish learned representations from irregular patterns. To learn character representations, we use a probabilistic generative model parameterizing pattern features, feature variances, the features' planar arrangements, and pattern frequencies. The latent variables of the model describe pattern class, pattern position, and the presence or absence of individual pattern features. The model parameters are optimized using a novel variational EM approximation. After learning, the parameters represent, independently of their absolute position, planar feature arrangements and their variances. A quality measure defined based on the learned representation then allows for an autonomous discrimination between regular character patterns and the irregular patterns making up the dirt. The irregular patterns can thus be removed to clean the document. For a full Latin alphabet we found that a single page does not contain sufficiently many character examples. However, even if heavily corrupted by dirt, we show that a page containing a lower number of character types can efficiently and autonomously be cleaned solely based on the structural regularity of the characters it contains. In different examples using characters from different alphabets, we demonstrate generality of the approach and discuss its implications for future developments.
1201.2630
Hybrid GPS-GSM Localization of Automobile Tracking System
cs.SY cs.AI
An integrated GPS-GSM system is proposed to track vehicles using Google Earth application. The remote module has a GPS mounted on the moving vehicle to identify its current position, and to be transferred by GSM with other parameters acquired by the automobile's data port as an SMS to a recipient station. The received GPS coordinates are filtered using a Kalman filter to enhance the accuracy of measured position. After data processing, Google Earth application is used to view the current location and status of each vehicle. This goal of this system is to manage fleet, police automobiles distribution and car theft cautions.
1201.2698
Optimal Allocation of Interconnecting Links in Cyber-Physical Systems: Interdependence, Cascading Failures and Robustness
physics.data-an cs.SI physics.soc-ph
We consider a cyber-physical system consisting of two interacting networks, i.e., a cyber-network overlaying a physical-network. It is envisioned that these systems are more vulnerable to attacks since node failures in one network may result in (due to the interdependence) failures in the other network, causing a cascade of failures that would potentially lead to the collapse of the entire infrastructure. The robustness of interdependent systems against this sort of catastrophic failure hinges heavily on the allocation of the (interconnecting) links that connect nodes in one network to nodes in the other network. In this paper, we characterize the optimum inter-link allocation strategy against random attacks in the case where the topology of each individual network is unknown. In particular, we analyze the "regular" allocation strategy that allots exactly the same number of bi-directional inter-network links to all nodes in the system. We show, both analytically and experimentally, that this strategy yields better performance (from a network resilience perspective) compared to all possible strategies, including strategies using random allocation, unidirectional inter-links, etc.
1201.2703
Faster Approximate Distance Queries and Compact Routing in Sparse Graphs
cs.DS cs.DC cs.NI cs.SI
A distance oracle is a compact representation of the shortest distance matrix of a graph. It can be queried to approximate shortest paths between any pair of vertices. Any distance oracle that returns paths of worst-case stretch (2k-1) must require space $\Omega(n^{1 + 1/k})$ for graphs of n nodes. The hard cases that enforce this lower bound are, however, rather dense graphs with average degree \Omega(n^{1/k}). We present distance oracles that, for sparse graphs, substantially break the lower bound barrier at the expense of higher query time. For any 1 \leq \alpha \leq n, our distance oracles can return stretch 2 paths using O(m + n^2/\alpha) space and stretch 3 paths using O(m + n^2/\alpha^2) space, at the expense of O(\alpha m/n) query time. By setting appropriate values of \alpha, we get the first distance oracles that have size linear in the size of the graph, and return constant stretch paths in non-trivial query time. The query time can be further reduced to O(\alpha), by using an additional O(m \alpha) space for all our distance oracles, or at the cost of a small constant additive stretch. We use our stretch 2 distance oracle to present the first compact routing scheme with worst-case stretch 2. Any compact routing scheme with stretch less than 2 must require linear memory at some nodes even for sparse graphs; our scheme, hence, achieves the optimal stretch with non-trivial memory requirements. Moreover, supported by large-scale simulations on graphs including the AS-level Internet graph, we argue that our stretch-2 scheme would be simple and efficient to implement as a distributed compact routing protocol.
1201.2706
Evolution of Ideas: A Novel Memetic Algorithm Based on Semantic Networks
cs.NE nlin.AO
This paper presents a new type of evolutionary algorithm (EA) based on the concept of "meme", where the individuals forming the population are represented by semantic networks and the fitness measure is defined as a function of the represented knowledge. Our work can be classified as a novel memetic algorithm (MA), given that (1) it is the units of culture, or information, that are undergoing variation, transmission, and selection, very close to the original sense of memetics as it was introduced by Dawkins; and (2) this is different from existing MA, where the idea of memetics has been utilized as a means of local refinement by individual learning after classical global sampling of EA. The individual pieces of information are represented as simple semantic networks that are directed graphs of concepts and binary relations, going through variation by memetic versions of operators such as crossover and mutation, which utilize knowledge from commonsense knowledge bases. In evaluating this introductory work, as an interesting fitness measure, we focus on using the structure mapping theory of analogical reasoning from psychology to evolve pieces of information that are analogous to a given base information. Considering other possible fitness measures, the proposed representation and algorithm can serve as a computational tool for modeling memetic theories of knowledge, such as evolutionary epistemology and cultural selection theory.
1201.2711
Ultrametric Model of Mind, I: Review
cs.AI
We mathematically model Ignacio Matte Blanco's principles of symmetric and asymmetric being through use of an ultrametric topology. We use for this the highly regarded 1975 book of this Chilean psychiatrist and pyschoanalyst (born 1908, died 1995). Such an ultrametric model corresponds to hierarchical clustering in the empirical data, e.g. text. We show how an ultrametric topology can be used as a mathematical model for the structure of the logic that reflects or expresses Matte Blanco's symmetric being, and hence of the reasoning and thought processes involved in conscious reasoning or in reasoning that is lacking, perhaps entirely, in consciousness or awareness of itself. In a companion paper we study how symmetric (in the sense of Matte Blanco's) reasoning can be demarcated in a context of symmetric and asymmetric reasoning provided by narrative text.
1201.2719
Ultrametric Model of Mind, II: Application to Text Content Analysis
cs.AI cs.CL
In a companion paper, Murtagh (2012), we discussed how Matte Blanco's work linked the unrepressed unconscious (in the human) to symmetric logic and thought processes. We showed how ultrametric topology provides a most useful representational and computational framework for this. Now we look at the extent to which we can find ultrametricity in text. We use coherent and meaningful collections of nearly 1000 texts to show how we can measure inherent ultrametricity. On the basis of our findings we hypothesize that inherent ultrametricty is a basis for further exploring unconscious thought processes.
1201.2733
A remark on the Restricted Isometry Property in Orthogonal Matching Pursuit
cs.IT math.IT
This paper demonstrates that if the restricted isometry constant $\delta_{K+1}$ of the measurement matrix $A$ satisfies $$ \delta_{K+1} < \frac{1}{\sqrt{K}+1}, $$ then a greedy algorithm called Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP) can recover every $K$--sparse signal $\mathbf{x}$ in $K$ iterations from $A\x$. By contrast, a matrix is also constructed with the restricted isometry constant $$ \delta_{K+1} = \frac{1}{\sqrt{K}} $$ such that OMP can not recover some $K$-sparse signal $\mathbf{x}$ in $K$ iterations. This result positively verifies the conjecture given by Dai and Milenkovic in 2009.
1201.2766
ART : Sub-Logarithmic Decentralized Range Query Processing with Probabilistic Guarantees
cs.DB
We focus on range query processing on large-scale, typically distributed infrastructures, such as clouds of thousands of nodes of shared-datacenters, of p2p distributed overlays, etc. In such distributed environments, efficient range query processing is the key for managing the distributed data sets per se, and for monitoring the infrastructure's resources. We wish to develop an architecture that can support range queries in such large-scale decentralized environments and can scale in terms of the number of nodes as well as in terms of the data items stored. Of course, in the last few years there have been a number of solutions (mostly from researchers in the p2p domain) for designing such large-scale systems. However, these are inadequate for our purposes, since at the envisaged scales the classic logarithmic complexity (for point queries) is still too expensive while for range queries it is even more disappointing. In this paper we go one step further and achieve a sub-logarithmic complexity. We contribute the ART, which outperforms the most popular decentralized structures, including Chord (and some of its successors), BATON (and its successor) and Skip-Graphs. We contribute theoretical analysis, backed up by detailed experimental results, showing that the communication cost of query and update operations is $O(\log_{b}^2 \log N)$ hops, where the base $b$ is a double-exponentially power of two and $N$ is the total number of nodes. Moreover, ART is a fully dynamic and fault-tolerant structure, which supports the join/leave node operations in $O(\log \log N)$ expected w.h.p number of hops. Our experimental performance studies include a detailed performance comparison which showcases the improved performance, scalability, and robustness of ART.
1201.2788
Inferring global network properties from egocentric data with applications to epidemics
cs.SI math.PR physics.soc-ph
Social networks are rarely observed in full detail. In many situations properties are known for only a sample of the individuals in the network and it is desirable to induce global properties of the full social network from this "egocentric" network data. In the current paper we study a few different types of egocentric data, and show what global network properties are consistent with those egocentric data. Two global network properties are considered: the size of the largest connected component in the network (the giant), and secondly, the possible size of an epidemic outbreak taking place on the network, in which transmission occurs only between network neighbours, and with probability $p$. The main conclusion is that in most cases, egocentric data allow for a large range of possible sizes of the giant and the outbreak. However, there is an upper bound for the latter. For the case that the network is selected uniformly among networks with prescribed egocentric data (satisfying some conditions), the asymptotic size of the giant and the outbreak is characterised.